Oscar van Heerden
Africa-Press – South-Africa. Oscar van Heerden asks whether there is more than meets the eye when US under secretary of state for political affairs, Victoria Nuland, visits South Africa next month.
Stratagems are plans or schemes, especially ones used to outwit an opponent or achieve an end.
“A series of devious stratagems” is the name of an artwork, but is this what infamous warmonger, US under secretary of state for political affairs, Victoria Nuland, has in mind when she visits our beloved country next month?
After all, she is well-known as the person who prefers diplomatic tactics that are less about talking and more about overthrowing.
This allegedly was the case in the 2014 when there was a ‘popular uprising’ of the Ukrainian people against their democratically elected president, resulting in him having to flee the country. Rumours abound that Nuland, who was then assistant secretary of state for European affairs, helped orchestrate the uprising.
Nuland was a part of the administration of President Bill Clinton when his government invaded Somalia. She was there with the Bush administration when they invaded Iraq and killed Saddam Hussein, and again she was there when President Barack Obama invaded Libya and killed its leader. This is clearly her forte. So, forgive me if I surmise that her well-timed visit, just months away from our next general elections, is hardly coincidental.
Wooing the opposition
It is rather apparent to me that the United States’ government has been wooing the official opposition party, the DA in recent months. Take, for example, Western Cape Premier Alan Winde’s visit to the US, in which he pretended to speak on behalf of the country without any such mandate. He made remarks way above his pay grade with regards to wanting to arrest President Putin should he set foot in South Africa.
The leader of the DA undertook an official visit to Ukraine and made all sorts of statements when he and his party are fully aware that matters of the state and foreign policy remain the purview of the executive branch of government. No doubt, these visits to the US also come with a rather generous payload in terms of funding for the DA in preparation for the next general elections.
Let us hope that the moonshot pact is not being hoodwinked into being a part of such stratagems. Nothing wrong with healthy opposition politics, but not when it is supported by foreign governments, with the aim of instilling their will and not the will of the people of South Africa – that would be treasonous.
There are various regime change stratagems. The most popular one is a military coup. This is highly unlikely in SA, though. The next is revolution, as we have seen in Egypt in recent years. This is always a possibility given the inequality and poverty levels our citizens have to contend with on a daily basis.
The rarest form of regime change, though, is one where a democratic government is changed to something else, another form of governance perhaps. It could be a more authoritarian regime.
There are already rumours swirling that, if we have a repeat of the 2021 July protest action, where massive amounts of people loot, burn and destroy, this would be the ideal circumstance for a regime change stratagem.
Personally, I think the SA populace is not that naìˆve nor that gullible. If apartheid taught us anything, it’s politics, and most of us can see it a mile away.
The assassination of Chris Hani, which was intended to derail the negotiations and infuriate our people to a point where they were supposed to cause chaos and halt such negotiations, did not work because of the maturity of South Africans.
The ‘lure’ of a basic income grant for years on the part of the DA was also intended to fool our people into believing that, if they vote DA, their lot would forever improve – and yet the majority continue to vote for the ANC because, yet again, their maturity in understanding politics is what makes them not to fall for such cheap tricks.
Cheque book diplomacy
I suspect that, if the Nuland stratagem is based on inciting our people into revolting against the government, this strategy would have to be reviewed. A better approach would be to come to SA with cheque book diplomacy.
According to Foreign Policy magazine, the aim of her visit is to come and exert pressure on SA to re-evaluate its relations with Russia. In keeping with this sort of pressure, in June, a group of American senators urged Biden’s administration to reconsider holding the AGOA trade summit in SA, citing that it could be seen as an endorsement of SA’s stance on the Russia-Ukraine war. This highlights the growing apprehensions among some US policymakers regarding SA’s perceived alignment with Russia.
One cannot but wonder whether there’s more to this than meets the eye. After all, SA being part of the BRICS alliance and hosting its next summit here in Mzansi does not sit well with many Western countries.
BRICS will, among other matters, discuss in earnest both the controversial issues of a common currency among themselves and the possible expansion of BRICS membership. Both these issues present a clear and present danger to the ongoing hegemony of the US and its Western Allies.
What remains a non-negotiable for the SA government, based on principle rather than historical romanticism, is its principles of sovereignty and non-interference, while simultaneously engaging with various global powers. To navigate these relations with major powers, like the US, Russia and China, requires skillsets and careful mastery of diplomacy and, indeed, serving one’s national interests.
The current crop of neo-cons in the white house best be thinking very carefully about the next steps it wants to take going forward.
Whichever side of the Russia-Ukraine conflict you stand, this war continues to be devastating for the people of Ukraine and it must simply stop. The proxy war has backfired for the collective West, and to continue making enemies is a foolhardy venture. What you need are friends and allies, so change your stratagem, Nuland.
Classic US tactic
I hear some of you ask, what do I premise all this analysis on? Well, according to Brian Berletic, a geo-political analyst and former US marine soldier, this stratagem is classic US, and I completely agree with him.
Every time before the US embarks on some form of confrontation with a country, they first start this offensive with so-called diplomatic engagements. They do this so that they can argue, see, we tried to reason with them, but alas. This then somewhat justifies their subsequent actions against such countries.
You only have to look at the US over the years. If you check Libya, several diplomatic missions took place months before the final regime change. Similarly, in Iraq, the US sent many officials to Baghdad prior to the eventual war in that country.
Now, we see a number of US high-ranking officials visiting China, including Secretary of State Blinken, Janet Yellen, the Treasury Secretary, and more recently a 100-year-old Henry Kissinger, all under the guise of diplomatic missions.
The war with China is coming, and this is a fact, it’s just a matter of when exactly.
US Ambassador Brigety set the tone with baseless accusations, then the threat of the withdrawal from the AGOA trade agreement, the possible sanctions threat if we allowed Russia’s President Putin to attend the BRICS summit and not arrest him, and now the notorious warmonger Nuland is coming to cement the final threats to SA. Failure to comply will result in the necessary actions to be taken to ensure the national security and national interests of the USA is protected at all costs.
Nuland will return to the Biden Administration with a very clear message: South Africans think they can determine their own sovereign foreign policy objectives and, as such, must be taught a very real lesson.
Less we are fooling ourselves to any other outcome, we best prepare for the pain that will be brought to bear on South Africa in the coming months and years.
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