Nato

It’s the most repeated maxim in all the reportage on the war in Afghanistan: “The Americans have the watches, we, the Taliban, have the time.” “Play it again, Sam” was said in “Casablanca”. It should be played, said and listened to in Kabul and Washington today. This is America’s longest war ever – 18 years and counting. It has cost over one trillion dollars and taken 2,500 American lives. President Barack Obama, blind-sided by the generals, he confided later, pumped up the numbers of troops to 100,000. Before very long, Obama came to realize that even if he did a Lyndon Johnson and sent in half a million troops it would end up as it did in Vietnam with a stalemate (still unanswered is why, after 18 years, the Afghan army isn’t trained to do the job themselves). Obama then rolled back the numbers. Three years ago President Donald Trump,...

“What idiocy”, exclaims Jack Matlock on Facebook. Matlock is one of my “Facebook Friends” because I judge his knowledge of Russia as second to none, having been under President Ronald Reagan the White House’s senior advisor on the Soviet Union and, later, his ambassador to Moscow. The object of his ire is based on a Newsday article earlier this month. (The Russian, nation-wide, NTV channel carried the same story in a broadcast yesterday.) It concerns Russia’s anger following the US military’s claim that it could take down the air defences of the Kaliningrad region. They are the highly sophisticated S-300 and S-400 anti-missile systems. Moreover, it has practiced doing so earlier this year. (Kaliningrad is an internationally recognised enclave of Russia that is sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania.) General Jeff Harrigan, the commander of US Air Forces in Europe, told reporters, “If we have to go in there to take down...

Pool photo by Alexey Druzhinin By Gordon M. Hahn September 4, 2019 From former spooks to libertarian-conservative talk show hosts to leftists and liberals various theories have been put forward as to why and how Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to ‘destroy Americans’ confidence in democracy’ and ‘sew chaos across American and the world.’ In short, Putin ultimately seeks to destroy faith in democracy and sew chaos in the United States and thereby weaken America and its ability to promote democracy abroad. The US will no longer be ‘that shining city on a hill’, as US late President Ronald Reagan eloquently put it. Originally published on Gordon M. Hahn’s official website August 30, 2019 here The same is said about Russia’s supposed support for ultra-nationalist groups, even though that ‘support’ is nothing more than a limited overlap of interests and views. Never mind that Russia has good relations with numerous...

Illustration by Craig Stephens, South China Morning Post By Christopher Black July 26th 2019 On June 4th the Chinese government issued a travel alert for Chinese tourists thinking of visiting the United States, a day after it issued a similar advisory to Chinese students thinking of studying in the US over concerns for their safety and security. Chinese in the US are reporting harassment and interrogations by US immigration authorities and many now have the impression they are not welcome in the US. Originally posted on Global Research on June 10, 2019 here The Global Times, speaking on behalf of the government stated, “The Chinese people find it difficult to accept the fact that they are being taken as thieves. The US boasts too much superiority and has been indulged by the world. Due to its short history, it lacks understanding of and respect for the rules of countries and laws...

By Gordon M. Hahn July 25, 2019 NATO expansion has contributed to the causal matrix of two wars: the 2008 Georgian-South Ossetiyan/Russian Five-Day War and the ongoing Donbass civil war. The West’s April 2008 promise that both Georgia and Ukraine will become NATO members encouraged Georgian nationalism and Saakashvili’s war in South Ossetiya and consequently led to Georgia’s de facto loss of its South Ossetiyan as well as Abkhaziyan territories. Originally published on Gordon M. Hahn homepage – while Poroshenko was still president. Similarly, NATO expansion encouraged the rise of ultranationalism in Ukraine, especially western Ukraine, and the ultra-nationalist-led February 2014 Maidan revolt, leading to Ukraine’s loss of Crimea and civil war in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. NATO expansion now is poised to help re-start the Donbass civil war or spark a larger Ukrainian civil war (and/or similar conflicts involving Moldova and its breakaway republic of...

When I was in Moscow three weeks ago, I was briefing myself for an interview with the Soviet Union’s last president, Mikhail Gorbachev. As it happened he had to cancel it as he went into hospital for tests. One of the American academics I always read is Gordon Hahn, an ex fellow of the highly regarded Centre for Strategic and International  Studies. He wrote that American policy towards Russia is a runaway train without rails, driven by a troubling confluence of hubristic ideological influences and bureaucratized sectorial interests. I would add to that Republican members of the Senate who have allowed President Donald Trump small room to manoeuvre on Russian issues, even though there are some indications that he’d like to make peace with Russia.  I also re-read what President Bill Clinton’s secretary of defence, William Perry, has said on a number of occasions: “The US is as much to...

Trump’s statement amounts to a de facto declaration of war on Iran. Objectively speaking, it is a lie that Iran threatens the US. It is a lie that the US sends aircraft carriers to the region in self-defence. It’s lies as blatant as the one about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. You may think that this is just psychological warfare and positioning. It is not. Because: Over time, this type of statements develop its own dynamics and the US will not be able to back down from what it threatens to do without loosing face. President Trump’s statement is a blatant violation of international law, the UN Charter’s Article 2.4 which states:“All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.” In...

Remissvar om Lars-Erik Lundins utredning avgivet av Fredsrörelsen på Orust 24:e april 2019 Inledning Under läsningen av utredningens 215 sidor framtonar några grundläggande drag i den världsbild och den begreppsapparat som utredaren utgår ifrån och använder. Ingen öppen redovisning eller definition görs av dessa grundläggande drag i utredningen och dess slutsatser. Här följer ett representativt urval av begrepp som de kan förstås i utredningen. (Video med Lars-Erik Lundins presentation av utredningen). Säkerhet ett ord för trygghet i världen och frånvaro av osäkerhet för Sverige. (sid 69) Säkerhetspolitik utgörs av militära rustningar och samarbete med militäralliansen Nato och dess kärnvapenparaply (sid 24) Samarbete innebär verksamhet, avtal och militär utveckling tillsammans med Nato. (sid 69 och 153 Exempel: ”Rysslands ökade aggressivitet understryker vikten av samarbete”.) Försvar utgörs av militär styrka (överallt där ordet används) Avskräckning är målet för säkerhets- och försvarspolitik riktad mot Ryssland. Trovärdigt hot om användning av kärnvapen ingår. (sid...

By us-russia.org April 18, 2019 The Sunday, February 24 edition of Russian state television’s flagship program News of the Week with Dmitry Kiselyov provided a detailed description of the “mirror like” response that Russia will take to any US installations of land based cruise missiles directed against Moscow following termination of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) Treaty. Originally published at us-russia.org The scenario focused on the new hypersonic Zircon missile system which can be launched from existing Russian submarines carrying the “normal” Tomahawk-like cruise missiles called Kalibr and which were used successfully in the recent operations against ISIL in Syria. We were told that the Russians are prepared to station such submarines holding 40 Zircons each just outside the territorial waters of the US economic zone, at perhaps 250 miles from the American East and West coasts. That would give them a 5 minute flight time to precision attack all...

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO, celebrated its 70th Anniversary on April 4, 2019. Some of us don’t see anything worth celebrating about an incredibly expensive, dangerous and harmful alliance which should have been closed down exactly 30 years ago. Why 30 years ago? Because in 1989, the First Cold War in the Western sphere – Europe – between the Warsaw Pact and NATO came to an end thanks to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. When that happened and the Berlin Wall came down, NATO too should have been dissolved. Its raison d’etre until then had always and unambiguously been the very existence of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact (which, by the way, was established 6 years after NATO, in May 1955) and its socialist/communist ideology. But NATO instead continued to expand – today 29 countries of which 10 former Warsaw Pact members...

Not so Germany, China and Russia Like the above diagram, it looks dark. For the US. Perhaps that’s the reason you have not seen it on the front pages of the Western mainstream press? Not only does this remarkable Gallup survey – made in the US – tell that Germany’s leadership, i.e. Chancellor Merkel, is the most highly approved by others in terms of leadership. Congratulations to the Chancellor, so well deserved! It also tells that the approval rates turn steadily upward for the two countries which the U.S. – bizarre as it is since they would both make great partners – constantly perceives as enemies: China and Russia. You can find a lot of very interesting and precise poll results for the period 2007-2018 pertaining to all the world’s regions in the report, “American First?” Rating World Leaders: 2019. Above you see the summary ratings for the world, based...

President Donald Trump has been exonerated of collusion with Russia. As I wrote a while back I expected this conclusion from the investigation carried out by Robert Mueller. The big clue lay in Trump’s anti-Russian posture. Trump has continued the expansion of NATO which Russia, more than understandably, sees as a provocative, unfriendly and dangerous move. Then there is the unwillingness to step forward to negotiate an end to the Ukrainian situation. The US, under the presidency of Barack Obama, refused to countenance President Vladimir Putin’s suggestion that UN peace-keeping troops be deployed in southern and eastern Ukraine, and Trump has continued that policy. Then there’s the seeming refusal to extend the treaty (New START ) that dramatically lowers the number of intercontinental nuclear missiles on each side. Trump has also thrown money at the Defence Department while cutting social budgets, vowing to beef up America’s nuclear forces. Recently he...