Conflict – violence and war

May others avoid that fate… The first Cold War played out between the East and the Western Occident and the East lost with the demise of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. Both built – more or less faithfully – on Western mechanical thinking, one on Marx and other socialist/communist philosophers, the other on twisting moral philosopher Adam Smith into a God’s hand individualist utility market prophet and pair him with various types of liberal, parliamentary democracy thinking. The Soviet and East European system had come to the end of its history, but what about the twin Occidental brother, the US-EU system? The latter had not only survived or ”won;” it had also forced the Soviet Union to spend an unsustainable proportion of its resources on the military. And now the Second West is destined to follow suit. The point I shall make is that the West – US-EU-based...

Amit Sengupta December 29, 2022 Editor’s note This is a rare piece of public education. It offers you a wider – in time and space – analysis of the background of what so tragically is going on in Ukraine now. Spend those intensive 16 minutes and you’ll see how much you are not told by Western mainstream media. How much FOSI they give you – Fake + Omission + Source Ignorance. Their main role continues to be to present a narrative that is in total support of the West – the US/NATO policies. In the case of the German press, you’ll see a mind-boggling analysis elsewhere on The Transnational. You should, however, also be aware that Amit Sengupta does not at all mention a number of other relevant facts – such as Russia being a dwarf compared with NATO in terms of military expenditures, the latter spending 12 times more...

Edward Curtin December 6, 2022 My title comes from a song sung by soldiers as they marched to hell in the trenches of World War I and the same song my sisters and I sang in the car as our parents drove us to our summer vacation in paradise at Edgewater Farm. I think of this as we march to WWIII. The soldiers, who would be slaughtered by the millions as pawns in the great game, sardonically sung it to the tune of Old Lang Syne to express their bewilderment at why they were fighting in the so-called “War to End All Wars” or “the Great War.” We children sang it because we had heard the words but had no idea where they came from, yet they seemed playful and weird and easy to remember and we were celebrating our good fortune in leaving the city and arriving at the farm for a week’s...

Jan Oberg November 18, 2022 This was published as an Op-Ed in today’s China Daily with the title “NATO shouldn’t be a bloc on road to peace.” While most organisations are evaluated and reformed as time goes by, NATO isn’t. It has become sacrosanct and criticism of its operations silenced. In Western media, it is always called the ”defensive” alliance. It does not see itself as party to the conflict with Russia – but rather as an innocent property owner who protects himself against a burglar. This frees it from co-responsibility for the present, fateful situation. The NATO-Russia conflict that plays out in Ukraine is grossly a-symmetric: NATO is 30 members with at least 12 times higher military expenditures than Russia. The former NATO Secretary-General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, recently boasted that ”Putin knows that NATO spends 10 times more than Russia and NATO can beat him into a pulp.” Quite...

Ukraine War Evolves: Disdaining Diplomacy, Seeking Victory Richard Falk October 27, 2022 Prefatory Note This is the third iteration of an essay on the evolution of the Ukraine War, the earlier two versions published online in Transcend Media Service (TMS) and CounterPunch. The essential argument remains: war-mongering geopolitics in the nuclear age imperils species survival and suppresses the necessity for emergency action to restore sustainable forms of ecological habitability to planet earth. Ever since the Ukraine War started on February 24, 2022, the NATO response, mainly articulated and materially implemented by the U.S., has been to pour vast quantities of oil on the flames of conflict, taunting Russia and its leader, increasing the scale of violence, the magnitude of human suffering, and dangerously increasing the risk of a disastrous outcome. Not only did Washington mobilize the world to denounce Russia’s ‘aggression’, but supplied a steady stream of advanced weaponry in...

Jan Oberg September 29, 2022 People from the Danish Defence Academy, other military experts – e.g. those of the Danish Broadcasting Corporation – most major Danish media and – of course – the Ukrainian President’s advisor uniformly point – to Russia as the saboteur of the Nordstream gas pipelines near Bornholm, the Danish island south of Sweden. The Danish Prime Minister Frederiksen and Defence Minister Bødskov, however, are a little lower than usual on Russia, pointing out how important – and difficult – it is to get clarity on this kind of thing so far down on the ocean bed. Read Denmark Radio’s always politically correct public service “take”: “Ukraine on the gas leak in Baltic Sea: Russian terrorist attack. Russia wants to create panic before winter, says advisor to Ukraine’s president” and here on the prime time news, TV-Avisen, Defence Minister Bødskov explains that we may never get clarity...

Abolish NATOOr Convert ItTo ServePeace 30 Arguments & 100s of Inspirations This report can be reproduced or quoted freely,but only when referring clearly to TFF, the author and the link Read and download as PDF at the end of the catalogue • Read as Flipbook Media & other inquiries to tff@transnational.live or +46 738 52 52 00 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This Catalogue contains 30 arguments for the abolition of NATO. Each argument is based on rational peace research analysis, in contrast to the fact-resistant propaganda that NATO and mainstream politics and media promote about the ’defensive’ peace alliance. The Catalogue is based on the democratic assumption that diverse perceptions and concepts can exist – for instance, about what peace is – and that this hugely influential Western organisation is not sacrosanct and shall, therefore, not be exempt from critical analysis. While set up in 1949, NATO passed its ”best before” date long ago. The alliance of...

Richard Falk July 21, 2022 The U.S. Government at the highest level criticized Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, because she went to China on a mission to develop opportunities for cooperation with respect to the protection of human rights. I found that criticism appalling at the time. The mission had been carefully prepared several weeks earlier by UN staff that had visited China and negotiated the itinerary of the visit, which occurred in May of this year. The whole experience seemed a win/win breakthrough as a major country opened itself up to a high degree of independent international scrutiny with respect to its human rights record, an exposure the U.S. itself has resisted and opposed. High officials in Washington let it be known in advance that they considered the trip ‘a mistake,’ and expressed consternation that its hyped allegations of ‘genocide’ associated with the treatment of...

Jan Oberg July 8, 2022 There have been lots of reports about how G7 leaders snubbed dinner, photo-op, handshake, concerts, etc. since Russia’s foreign minister Lavrov would also be present during the G20 meeting in Bali, Indonesia. Here is Lavrov’s comment to Tass: “This is how they understand protocol, politeness and code of conduct.” Here is another report. This is of course neither professional, good diplomacy nor statesmanship – but, worse, it is an indicator of how little knowledge these people have about how to make peace – an indicator of peace illiteracy – and without wanting to offend children: How childish international politics has become. Diplomatic skills are decreasing as military skills and rhetorics take top priority à la ‘We have overwhelming military power and we do not need to think about the future or show good manners.’ A kind of diplomatic decadence. I do not believe for a...

All wars are different from other wars and, thus, it is impossible to use the experiences of one war to predict the course, end, and consequences of the next. Yet, some wars and peace conferences are more important than others because they fundamentally change history. The war in Ukraine is a proxy war between Russia and NATO/USA, in which the USA openly says that the aim is to exhaust Russia. This raises several questions: If that is the purpose of the USA/NATO, then what will be the reaction of an existentially threatened and nuclear-armed Russia? One may further ask whether, in the light of nuclear war, there is something untouched ‘outside’ that will not be affected by the consequences of a nuclear war: a first destruction, after which the survivors will face global nuclear winter, with famine and mass death. If there is no ‘outside’ in a nuclear war, it...

Photo by Jiyeon Park on Unsplash Edward Curtin May 19, 2022 Isn’t it always? With the start of World War III by the United States “declaring” war against Russia by its actions in Ukraine, we have entered a time when the end of time has become very possible. I am speaking of nuclear annihilation. I look down at my great-uncle’s gold Elgin pocket watch from the 19th century. His name was John Patrick Whalen, an Irish immigrant to the US who fled England’s colonialist created famine in Ireland. It tells me it is 5:15 PM on April 21, 2022, a date, coincidentally, with a history.  Originally published at Off-Guardian No doubt John looked at his watch on this date in 1898 when the United States, after the USS Maine exploded from within in Havana harbour (a possible false flag attack), declared war on Spain in order to confiscate Spanish territories – Cuba, Puerto Rico,...

Jan Oberg May 19, 2022 This short article aims to merely illustrate – not prove – the difference between security political intellectualism and ignorance. It does not focus on peace – theories, ideas, concept or policies – simply because none of the personalities appearing below are in the business of peace. By means of some videos, I aim to illustrate the differences between security political intellectualism and the kind of populist rhetorics that has become so widespread. Weapons have been around for decades but mostly managed by elites who operated within some kind of intellectual framework – agreeing or not agreeing with its characteristics is not the point here. Most people who conducted security politics decades ago were well-educated and experienced compared with most of today’s security political decision-makers. This overall intellectual disarmament coupled to ever-higher levels of military armament and the recent talk about the use of nuclear weapons...