Conflict and war

Foreign Policy Studies, University of Malmö, Sweden Thanks for wanting a summary of key points in “Galtung Peace Studies”. I was just honored with a “Lifetime Award” by world sociology, 60+ years; in short, time for summary with an author’s caveat: no substitute for reading books. [1] 1951: Peace studies=peace theory+peace practice; applied science, with an explicit value–peace–with practice-indicative theories and theory-testing practice; like health studies, unlike social sciences. Model: peace to violence as health to illness; Diagnosis-Prognosis-Therapy produced health by weakening pathogens-strengthening sanogens; try the same for peace by weakening bellogens-strengthening paxogens. Mantra: through interdisciplinary, international, interlevel research. [2] Like in illness violence=suffering of body-mind-spirit, also of the bereaved; unlike in illness, an intended act of commission, a perpetrator-victim relation, a crime, epitomized by aggressive war. Body wounds may be healed but stigma, shame, humiliation, hopelessness, hatred, fear, revenge may settle in mind and spirit as trauma. To judicial...

Av Jan Öberg Lund , Sverige – 23 maj 2014 Tiden för rationell politik, om begreppet någonsin funnits, är över . ”Realpolitik” har blivit en blandning av marknadsförda ord, propaganda och ledare som gör uttalanden som gränsar till absurd teater. Tunnare och tunnare länkar till Realiteten. Detta är vad som händer när man förnekar nedgången. Alla imperier går ner. Det amerikanska imperiet är på nedgång. Makrohistoriker (se t.ex. British Arnold Toynbee’s 12–volymarbete 1934-1961) berättar att det finns många skäl till att imperier faller: • militarism med konstant krigföring; • överutvidgning – försöka kontrollera mer än vad du kan hantera; • förlust av legitimitet i andras ögon; • strukturella ekonomiska kriser; • moraliskt förfall; • förlust av intellektuell och teknisk innovation; • andra maktstrukturer ökar i styrka över tid och göra saker på nya, kreativa sätt . Efter 1945 ansågs USA vara starkt på en rad olika maktdimensioner: militär, ekonomi, politik,...

Av Jan Öberg Dr.hc., direktör för TFF 4 maj 2014 Eliten i Sverige är mer lojal mot Nato, USA och EU än mot sitt folk • Under de senaste 25-30 åren har Sveriges militära, säkerhets- och utrikespolitiska elit vridit Sveriges politik 180 grader. • Dessa grundläggande förändringar inleddes av den socialdemokratiska regeringen under Göran Persson och utrikesminister Anna Lindh och har genomförts praktiskt taget utan offentlig debatt. • Omsvängningen till interventionism, militarism och USA/Nato på alla områden har planerats gradvis, i smyg och ohederligt – kort sagt på ett sätt som är ovärdigt en demokrati. • Denna elit är mer lojal mot Bryssel och Washington än mot svenskarna. • Om din bild av Sverige är att det är ett progressivt, förnyande och fredsfrämjande land med global inställning som försvarar folkrätten så är den – tråkigt nog – föråldrad. Hur Sverige har förändrats Sverige är inte längre neutralt och det är...

Sweden’s elite more loyal with NATO, the US and EU than with its people /10/janoberg.jpg”> May 2, 2014 • Over the last 25-30 years Sweden’s military, security and foreign policy elite has changed Sweden’s policy 180 degrees. • These fundamental changes were initiated by the Social Democratic government under Goran Persson and foreign minister Anna Lindh and have been carried through virtually without public debate. • The rapproachment with interventionism, militarism and US/NATO in all fields has been planned, incremental, furtive and dishonest; in short, unworthy of a democracy. • This elite is more loyal with Brussels and Washington than with the Swedes. • If your image of Sweden is that it is a progressive, innovative and peace-promoting country with a global mind-set and advocate of international law, it is – sad to say – outdated. How Sweden has changed Sweden is no longer neutral

In this short essay, my attempt will be to articulate a conception of a world order premised on nonviolent geopolitics, as well as to consider some obstacles to its realization. By focusing on the interplay of “law” and “geopolitics” the intention is to consider the role played both by normative traditions of law and morality and the “geopolitical” orientation that continue to guide dominant political actors on the global stage. Such an approach challenges the major premise of realism that security, leadership, stability, and influence in the 21st century continue to rest primarily on military power, or what is sometimes described as “hard power” capabilities. [1] From such a perspective international law plays a marginal role, useful for challenging the behavior of adversaries, but not to be relied upon in calculating the national interest of one’s own country. As such, the principal contribution of international law, aside from its utility...

I have been struck by the unhelpfulness of ideology to my own efforts to think through the complexities of recommended or preferred policy in relation to Syria, and more recently, the Ukraine. There is no obvious posture to be struck by referencing a ‘left’ or ‘right’ identity. A convincing policy proposal depends on sensitivity to context and the particulars of the conflict. To insist that the left/right distinction obscures more than it reveals is not the end of the story. To contend that ideology is unhelpful as a guide for action is not the same as saying that it is irrelevant to the public debate. In the American context, to be on the left generally implies an anti-interventionist stance, while being on the right is usually associated with being pro-interventionist. Yet, these first approximations can be misleading, even ideologically. Liberals, who are deliberately and consigned to the left by the...

History matters, not only law; like how Crimea and Abkhazia-South Ossetia–basically Russian-Orthodox–became Ukrainian-Georgian. Two Soviet dictators, Khrushchev and Stalin, attached to Ukraine and Georgia, so decided, by dictate. The local people were not asked, nor were Hawaiians when the USA annexed their Kingdom in 1898–by dictate. The first referendum in Crimea was held last Sunday, 16 March 2014: an overwhelming No to Ukraine and Yes to the Russian federation. Khrushchev’s 1954 transfer of Crimea was within the Soviet Union, and under Red Army control. But the Soviet Union collapsed and the Red Army became the Russian army; the conditions were no longer valid. George W. Bush wanted Ukraine and Georgia to become NATO members, moving the Russian minorities two steps away from Russia. Nothing similar applies to the other Russian minorities in the former Soviet republics. They are people living on somebody else’s land, not people living on their own...

/10/janoberg.jpg”> Lund, Sweden March 16, 2014 Of course it is illegal and of course it will be rigged, that referendum in Crimea today. And of course it is a ploy and comes only in the wake of Russia’s (read Putin’s) unprovoked aggression, used as a pretext to build a new Greater Russia. That is, if you browse the mainstream Western media the last week and on this Sunday morning. Referendum means referring an issue back to the people. It is – or should be – an important instrument in democracies. And it’s a much better instrument than war and other violence to settle complex conflicts. Generally, citizens-decided conflict-resolution is likely to last longer and help healing wounds of the past than any type of solution imposed by outside actors. In Switzerland citizens go and vote on all kinds of issues on many a Sunday throughout the year. Sweden has used...

Islamabad, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Your Excellencies, The basic point is that Pakistan will not get that commodity called “peace” in Kashmir, Afghanistan and Central Asia by pursuing the ends and means of Washington and some local elites only. For peace to blossom the goals of other parties also have to be considered; and they are many. The logic of the political games pursued today presupposes some kind of victory or domination of “our side”: neither feasible nor desirable for peace. Hence, the need for some visions for peace politics is Kashmir, Afghanistan and Central Asia for tomorrow or the day after, with the hope that they can be useful when you have come to the end of the road with current policies. Nothing of this is easy; and without visions even impossible. The fairly detailed, non-dogmatic vision appended (below) was my acceptance speech of the 2011 Abdul Ghaffar Khan...

Introduction Sinbad is in his mid-20s and he took up studies in Europe before his native Syria began falling apart in senseless violence. He used to live in Damascus, his father being an officer in the Syrian Army but retired well before hell broke loose. Sinbad is one of his country’s many young intellectuals, extremely knowledgeable about international, regional and national politics and also a man who, from a distance, has done what he possibly could to maintain links with his society – which is not just Syria but civil society. Among other things he established a website on which everybody could dialogue freely under one condition: that they advocate political and other civil strategies and tools and no violence or expressions of hatred. It turned out to be very difficult to maintain such a website. Today he is disillusioned. He did not have the slightest hunch that the Arab...

Having visited Belfast the last few days during some negotiations about unresolved problems between Unionist and Republican (or Nationalist) political parties, I was struck by the absolute dependence for any kind of credibility of this process upon the unblemished perceived neutrality of the mediating third party. It would have been so totally unacceptable to rely on Ireland or Britain to play such a role, and the mere suggestion of such a partisan intermediary would have occasioned ridicule by the opposing, and confirmed suspicions that its intention must have been to scuttle the proposed negotiations. In the background of such a reflection is the constructive role played by the United States more than a decade ago when it actively encouraged a process of reconciliation through a historic abandonment of violence by the antagonists. That peace process was based on the justly celebrated Good Friday Agreement that brought the people of Northern...

By Chaiwat Satha-Anand TFF Associate Chaiwat Satha-Anand writes warning words to the protesters’ leader about the use and misuse of non-violence in this situation. For your information, here a link to Suthep Thaugsuban, former deputy PM of Thailand, who is the recipient of professor Anand’s open letter – Jan Oberg