October 2024

“War Collage – La Paix Quand?” © Jan Oberg 2024 Jan Øberg October 31, 2024 Throughout modern world history, great powers, empires and civilisations have succeeded each other. No one has stayed on top indefinitely – there is a birth, the new thing grows creatively and materially until it reaches a peak and perhaps begins to relax, and then sooner or later it goes downhill – in relation to new powers that emerge – only to lose the leadership role completely and become one among many in a new world order. This is the natural law of global society – of humanity – and it is quite inexorable. The downturn can have many (combinations) of causes, here are some of the classic ones in macro-history: weakening innovation and economic growth; over-militarisation and lost wars; wanting to rule the whole world but lacking the necessary leadership capacity; declining legitimacy in the...

Citizens dancing on a Friday afternoon at the Grand Bazaar Square in Urumqi, Xinjiang, China – Photo Jan Oberg 2024 This is just a brief reflection on my second visit to China. Still tired from the long journey, I’m slowly adjusting to our time zone and trying to focus on the tasks waiting for me. But a flood of impressions keeps swirling in my mind, making it impossible to rest—especially after realizing how much Western propaganda had shaped my expectations. I thought I was heading to a brutal and backward corner of China, only to find myself utterly enchanted by what I encountered. What intrigued me the most was the fact that I was about to visit what is often portrayed as China’s “most notorious” region. This is the province at the centre of ongoing accusations against China—claims of massive human rights abuses and even genocide, particularly targeting the Uyghur...

October 27, 2024 BILJANA VANKOVSKA is a full professor of international relations and peace studies at the Institute for Security, Defense, and Peace, Faculty of Philosophy, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Macedonia. Since the mid-1990s, she has been a pioneer in peace and conflict studies in the country. Her research interests span international […]

Swanson is the founding director of World Beyond War and a TFF Associate. Fredrik Heffermehl (1938-2023) established the prize, which Lay Down Your Arms awards. This is the public announcement about the November 10, 2024, ceremony in Oslo. You are hereby cordially invited! LAY DOWN YOUR ARMSThe Real Nobel Peace Prize for 2024IS AWARDED THE FOUNDING DIRECTOR OF “WORLD BEYOND WAR”David Swanson WHO WILL RECEIVE THE PRIZE IN A PUBLIC CEREMONY ATLITTERATURHUSET IN OSLO, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2024.Participating Jannik Bonnevie (poetry), Xiangtian Liu (grand piano), Marie Flognfeldt Jones (song), Jakob Rekdal Jones (guitar). After lunch, David Swanson will introduce a roundtable on “How can we stop today’s militarization?” with among others Glenn Diesen, Ingeborg Breines, Jan Oberg, Thore Vestby, Mariell Leraand, Ola Friholt, Tomas Magnusson and Ola TunanderFree entry The Real Nobel Peace Prize is established by Fredrik Heffermehl (see below). Art work “Gaza” by Mai-Bente Bonnevie More about David...

Making sense of China by snapshot is impossible without watching the film Gordon Dumoulin October 17, 2024 This is a chapter in a TFF anthology in the making – “If You Want To Understand China.” Foreword, Introduction, Authors and Table of Content here. Peter PeverelliEnemy or Mirror Image? ‘Scholars once thought secularisation is an irreversible trend in the age of modernity,’ a note by Chinese sociologist Zhao Dingxin (赵鼎新), Professor in Sociology at Zheijiang University (Hangzhou) and the University of Chicago when explaining the Daoist perspective that history does not progress toward some teleological terminus that can “lay claim to universal or eternal truths … because the significance and function of any causal forces invariably change with different contexts.” The Daoist perspective stands in stark contrast with the essay “The End of History” written by American political scientist Francis Yoshihiro Fukuyama in 1989. Fukuyama mentioned that the triumph of the...

Claus KoldPhD, co-founder of TurningPoints and TFF Associate October 15, 2024 Even if you are not familiar with the philosophical logic of Aristotle, you probably would agree with him that ‘up’ cannot mean ‘down’, that ‘left’ cannot mean ‘right’, and that ‘white’ cannot mean ‘black’. This means also that ‘war’ cannot mean ‘peace’. In 2000, I carried out a field study of the Danish Armed Forces in Kosovo, Mitrovica, being part of the UN KFOR operation based on the UN Security Council’s Resolution 1244. So, this was a Peace Operation. I started my field observations already during the battalions’ preparation, and so I was also present during their final exercise before deployment. The major who started the exercise started it with these words: “So, now the war has started!” This was the end of 2000, and so, it was after the NATO bombing campaign had ended. There was no fighting...

Congratulations are in order for Nihon Hidankyo, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations. The Nobel Peace Prize has for the first time in at least six years gone to a group of people who work to reduce warmaking, people who in fact seek to abolish nuclear weapons. Nihon Hidankyo has relentlessly done the work of educating the world, thanklessly, for many years. This prize should be celebrated far and wide. Congratulations are also in order to the Nobel Committee for somehow maintaining the prestige of the Nobel Peace Prize despite how the committee has mistreated it time and time again and for — this time — getting it right. May this mark a new principled commitment! This article was first published on WorldBeyondWar.org And congratulations may also be deserved by the Nobel Peace Prize Watch, which has worked for many years to influence the Nobel Committee to...

In 2021 the administration said it would pursue ‘relentless diplomacy.’ They call it something else today in Ukraine. Ted Snider October 9, 2024 It is said that Henry Kissinger asserted that little can be won at the negotiating table that isn’t earned on the battlefield. In several wars in recent weeks, U.S. officials have echoed that approach. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller recently said that the U.S. “supports[s] a ceasefire” in Lebanon while simultaneously recognizing that “military pressure can at times enable diplomacy.” Meanwhile, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has expressed the doctrine as doing “all that we can to strengthen Ukraine’s position on the battlefield so it has the strongest possible position at the negotiating table.” This article was published first by Responsible Statecraft on October 8, 2024 here But during the Biden administration, the iteration of Kissinger’s doctrine has gone well beyond the generals supporting the diplomats. The...

Professor Glenn Diesen, University of South-Eastern Norway, joined TFF as an Associate in October 2024. Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway (USN)
Phone +47 9732660Email: glenn.diesen@usn.no Associate Editor at Russia in Global Affairs in Moscow. Board member at International Institute for Peace (IPP) in Vienna. 
Board member at Center for Nationalism Studies (CNS) in Sarajevo.
 Editorial Board member […]

Veteran Singapore envoy on what the West gets wrong about China, Asean as a bellwether region and why the US should prepare for No. 2 status Dewey Sim of the South China Morning Post talks with Kishore Mahbubani on October 7, 2024 Seasoned former diplomat Kishore Mahbubani is a distinguished fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Asia Research Institute and author of nine books, including “Has China Won?” This interview first appeared in SCMP Plus. For other interviews in the Open Questions series, click here. You’ve predicted that the geopolitical contest between the US and China is set to intensify and stretch beyond the next decade. However, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan just visited China and a call between Presidents Xi Jinping and Joe Biden is expected soon. Are these exchanges a signal that things are looking up? I would say the best compliment that I can pay...

Richard FalkPrinceton professor emeritus and TFF Associate since 1986. October 7, 2024 Israel has long been renowned for its ability to shape public discourse pertaining to its behaviour toward the Palestinians, particularly in the West. Its greatest triumph is undoubtedly the manner in which it managed the media treatment of its response to October 7 (2023) in North America and Europe. Israel’s response was depicted as purely a matter of defensive security against Palestinian terrorists who staged an unprovoked and barbaric surprise attack by Hamas. This public distortion of the event gave the Western governments the political space needed to justify their closed eyes military, diplomatic, and intelligence support of Israel while genocide unfolded daily in Gaza. This article is drawn from two articles published on October 7, 2024, on the author’s blog. This political manipulation of this incident in the long struggle between Israel and Palestine has several different...