EU security and defence

Jan Oberg November 18, 2022 This article was written in October for the distinguished China Investment – a magazine sponsored by China’s National Development and Reform Commission. It was published in November here in both Chinese and English. Due to the reactions to my articles there, it looks like I shall become a regular contributor to China Investment like I am to the China Daily. The European Commission has just decided on new sanctions against Russia – in fact, the eighth round of such sanctions. This time the reason is that Russia has held referenda in the Donbas region of Ukraine. I sense we’re witnessing a new disease – Sanctionitis. It seems related to a larger, fatal disease with few treatment options, namely the SHMSI Syndrome:Sanctionitis + Hubris + Masochism + Self-Destructive Impulses. The patient has foggy ideas about reality and his own strength and exaggerates ad absurdum the positive...

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...

But there’s already a solution. Anatol Lieven January 19, 2022 Amid the public storm in America over the fall of Kabul, it is important not to lose sight of other looming crises around the world – some of them potentially much more dangerous than Afghanistan. For if the US political elites were so surprised by the speed of the Afghan state’s collapse, that was largely because the US media stopped paying attention to developments on the ground in Afghanistan once most US forces withdrew and Americans stopped dying there in large numbers. Originally published at The Nation in November 2021 Of these potential crises, one of the most menacing is the armed standoff between the Ukrainian military and Russian-supported separatist forces in eastern Ukraine. Limited numbers of Russian troops (lightly disguised as “volunteers”) are stationed in the Donbas region, and Russia has deployed large forces in southern Russia to defend...

Jan Oberg October 21, 2021 This article is based on observations sent to me by an academic friend of mine who wants to be anonymous, given the views it expresses in this situation. The reason we publish it here with a few comments and links is that it is obviously a very serious situation in and of itself but also an example of how democracy can quickly be undermined and how nonviolent demonstrations are squeezed out, framed as neo-Fascists and de-legitimated – as is the entire peace discourse in Western democracies (if we can still call them that). Please note that we update this page and, by October 23, have added a lot of videos at the end of it. And more have been added on November 15. Press Release GREEN PASS – Cunial, Barillari: Request for asylum at the Swedish Embassy (Rome), Italians are political refugees Rome, 16 October...

Artwork by Shubham Dhage Jim Lobe October 4, 2021 But there’s a prevailing view that the EU is more aligned with Washington’s military competition with China and Russia. Even as President Joe Biden insisted at the United Nations this week that he seeks cooperation with potential foreign rivals, most Europeans believe that the United States is already engaged in a new “cold war” with China and Russia, they feel their own nations are not involved, according to a new survey of respondents in 12 EU countries released Tuesday by the European Council on Foreign Relations. Originally published at Responsible Statecraft on September 23, 3021 However, they see their own European institutions, notably the European Union, as somewhat more invested in aligning the continent with Washington’s perceived interest in such a conflict, according to the report which warned that there appears to be a growing gap between the EU’s national publics and the EU leadership,...

. On December 12, 2012, on the day, 4 years earlier, Western countries and allies – perversely calling themselves ‘Friends of Syria’ – carried through a regime change by statement and set up a Syrian National Council of people never elected by anyone in Syria and told the world that it was, from now on, the only ‘legitimate representative of the Syrian people!’ During the 4 years, Western, Saudi, Turkish and the Gulf States supported innumerable illegal, destructive and mainly foreign terrorist groups with the goal to undermine the legitimate Syrian government and destabilise the country – as had been recommended by US ambassador William Roebuck (1) in Damascus as far back as in 2006 (WikiLeaks documentation here). December 12, 2016, marked a fundamental turning point. Aleppo did not “fall to the dictator/butcher/mass murderer” aka President Bashar al-Assad – no, it was liberated and the occupation by terrorist groups such...

Here is the background – Germany’s, France’s and the UK’s letter to the UN Security Council accusing Iran of violating the 2015 nuclear deal. Iran’s PressTV asked me to comment on this issue in the larger framework of global nuclear policies.

By Scott Ritter November 4, 2019 At a time when the credibility of the United States as either an unbiased actor or reliable ally lies in tatters, Russia has emerged as the one major power whose loyalty to its allies is unquestioned, and whose ability to serve as an honest broker between seemingly intractable opponents is unmatched. Originally posted on Truthdig.com on October 30, 2019 here If there is to be peace in Syria, it will be largely due to the patient efforts of Moscow employing deft negotiation, backed up as needed by military force, to shape conditions conducive for a political solution to a violent problem. If ever there was a primer for the art of diplomacy, the experience of Russia in Syria from 2011 to the present is it. Like the rest of the world, Russia was caught off guard by the so-called Arab Spring that swept through the Middle...

By Pressenza New York September 18, 2019 Originally posted on Pressenza New York’s website on September 09, 2019 here On this show we speak with Alice Slater about the historical process of nuclear weapon treaties and the relationship between the US and Russia. Alice is the UN NGO Representative of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, sits on the boards of World Beyond War, Nuclear Ban US, and the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, and is a member of the Global Council of Abolition 2000. She is on the NYC Working Group for the Nobel Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) ‘s campaign to promote the newly passed treaty to ban the bomb. Alice is a member of the NYC Bar Association and has written numerous articles and op-eds for Pressenza. Political actions you can take to ban the bomb and cut down the war...

  By Farhang Jahanpour, TFF Board Professor Farhang Jahanpour, part-time tutor on Middle Eastern affairs in the Department of Continuing Education, University of Oxford, and a member of Kellogg College says that the main reason for the idea of forming a joint European army “has been President Trump’s unilateral and ultra-nationalist approach that puts America first and, by implication, ignores the interests of other countries and tries to impose his views on them.” Former Senior Research Scholar at Harvard adds that “He seems to have no concept of a multipolar world and he wishes to rule other countries like a global hegemon, in the same way, that he is trying to establish an imperial presidency at home.” Following is the full text of the interview: Q: The idea of forming a joint European army is not a new idea, but in recent days, with the comments of French President Emmanuel...

  Reacting to the radio interview by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, to mark Armistice Day, in which he was reported as saying, “We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America… We need a true European army”, President Donald Trump blew a fuse. He tweeted: “President Macron of France has just suggested that Europe build its own military in order to protect itself from the U.S., China and Russia. Very insulting.” In fact Trump’s reaction was based on reading a false report of what Macron said. In that part of the interview he was talking about cyber attacks. Nevertheless, Macron was indeed angrily critical of Trump: “When I see President Trump announcing that he’s quitting a major disarmament treaty which was formed after the 1980s Euro-missile crisis that hit Europe, who is the main victim? Europe and its security”. The treaty...

Oberg comments directly after the EU Summit on a series of issues, among them also defence and security. Here is the document from the European Council and nobody seem to contemplate the link between EU/NATO armament (arms exports), military intervention and NATO/EU countries ravaging one country after the other and the refugee flows. So, there is no end in sight unless the EU/NATO fundamentally changes interventionist and war policies which they are not likely to do (see the document) – and that may spell the end of the EU itself. Like terrorism, Europe’s refugee “problem” will be a perpetuum mobile until somebody has the moral and intellectual courage to stop and think and ask: What are the basic reasons we face these problems? That is why the discussion is now about borders, border control and reception centres far away – and not about refugees, asylum seekers (but ‘migration’ which is...