Russia, GMO and the Geopolitics of OrganicUlson Gunnar The article would also state that products in Russia containing more than 0.9% genetically modified ingredients must be labeled, as opposed to US laws where no labeling is required for genetically modified products despite steadily growing public opposition to the practice. Russias stance against GMO is mirrored elsewhere, including in France where just recently Monsantos GM corn was banned and in China where the importing of US GM corn has been outlawed. The backlash against GMO has widespread appeal due to well-placed health and environmental concerns among increasingly informed populations. But the drive to push back against GMO in nations like Russia and China also has a geopolitical dimension. An Army Marches on Its Stomach The biotechnology from which genetically modified organisms are derived, is currently monopolized by a handful of very powerful multinational corporations centered in the West. This monopoly forms (in part) the foundation of Western hegemonic power. As seen in Afghanistan, big-ag monopolies like Monsanto played a pivotal role in the attempted corporate colonization of the South Asian nation. Corporate interests and technology, coupled with Western aid organizations, backed by NATOs military force, helped transform Afghanistans agricultural landscape through the systematic poisoning of traditional crops and their replacement with genetically modified soybeans (a crop previously alien to Afghan agriculture and cuisine). It is clear then that nations like Russia, China, and others are not only responding to growing concern from among their populations regarding the safety and environmental impact of GMO products, but the threat this monopolized technology poses toward each respective nations food supply and consequently, their sovereignty. Recent sanctions aimed at Russia in the Wests bid to cement regime change in neighboring Ukraine illustrates perfectly just how potentially damaging absolute dependence on Western big-ag corporations can be. Had Russian agriculture been more dependent on Western GMOs, and had the Wests sanctions been across a wider or full spectrum as they are against nations like Iran, the potential survival of Russias population could have been put at risk and foreign-backed political instability able to threaten Moscow easily achieved. Each Nation a Castle Sanctions against Iran have forced the nation to become self-sufficient across a wide spectrum of socioeconomic activity including food production, technological research and development, and weapons development. While the sanctions the West aims at Iran are designed to act as a modern form of siege warfare practiced at a national level, weakening the nation and ultimately contributing to its collapse, they have instead made Iran more resilient. Iran has become a proverbial castle, weathering the siege by breaking it in some places, and undermining it with self-sufficient economic activity within its borders in other places. Nations like Russia and China, directly confronted by a West openly attempting to encircle both with specified alliances and strategies (NATO and the pivot toward Asia respectively), must likewise ensure independence and self-sufficiency across a wide range of socioeconomic activity, with fundamental necessities like food security taking priority. Organic farming augmented by modern technology, as suggested by Prime Minister Medvedev has the power to ensure food security for Russia now and well into the future. With growing global demand for healthier, GMO-free food, a national policy leaning toward organic could eventually become an economic advantage beyond Russias borders. Other nations, communities, and indeed individuals around the world should look at this basic first step, securing ones food supply, and understand how it is the key to national, local, and individual sovereignty, as well as a means toward enhancing economic prospects. The Wests mega agricultural monopolies seek to infiltrate and overrun national food supplies worldwide, while it aims crippling sanctions at nations it seeks to influence or control geopolitically. A nation made dependent on the Wests mega agricultural monopolies, if ever targeted by sanctions or other means to undermine and overthrow its existing political order, will be particularly vulnerable. Thus, going organic is not just a means to keep a nations population healthy and therefore more productive, but also a fundamental means to protect national sovereignty. The shortsighted benefits in terms of payoffs from mega agricultural monopolies governments around the world may be tempted by today, might be the leverage used by the West tomorrow to uproot them when their utility is perceived by the West to be exhausted, and new leadership is desired. For nations that believe in the merits of GMO, their people should demand that such technology be developed, implemented, regulated, and monitored indigenously, preempting the multitude of dangers the foreign domination of their food supply poses. Ulson Gunnar is a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine New Eastern Outlook where this first appeared. 