Nato

A collection of relevant articles brought to you by The Transnational Foundation. When will the investigative reports come, if not after one year? Jan Oberg September 26, 2023 The destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines had neither a photogenic character nor a death toll comparable with 9/11, 2001. It also did not provoke a German or Russian response in the vicinity of the totally out-of-proportion US Global War on Terror that has cost millions of innocent lives. That said, one could hypothesise that, as a destructive event and over time, this gigantic infrastructure destruction will have consequences for the international order as comprehensive as 9/11. Be this as it may, we’ve all noticed how this unique destruction disappeared very quickly from the media and has also not been mentioned in, say, statements from NATO, G7, G 20 or the EU. The world has also not heard anything from any formal...

“You must remember that Russia could stop this war right now.” 35 seconds is enough to realise that Jan Oberg 22 September, 2023 This article in Danish on my online home and blog. On 6 September, Denmark’ TV2 Channel ran a 35-second clip with the Prime Minister under the headline “Mette Frederiksen: You don’t win a war with words, you win it with weapons.” Watch and listen to it here. Her brief presentation of her views on Ukraine’s situation testifies to an ignorance – conscious, unconscious or opportunistic – that is not easily reconciled with state leadership in general and war participation in particular. I believe that a doctor of the same intellectual level of medical knowledge would be put out of commission. (1) War versus conflict Mette Frederiksen believes that it is impossible to win a war with words, especially when you are “up against Russia.” By focusing on...

US lawmakers say the alliance’s movement into Asia is “inevitable.” It’s actually a completely avoidable, completely bad idea. Branko Marcetic September 15, 2023 A little over a century ago, rising inter-imperial tensions coupled with a complicated, evidence board–like set of alliances pulled Europe into the most disastrous, pointless war the world had ever seen up to then, World War I. Today, a ’roided-up version of that scenario is looming, as US-China relations deteriorate and the NATO alliance begins to dip several toes in Asia, nearly six thousand miles away from its headquarters in Brussels. Originally published at Jacobin on July 29, 2023 This isn’t an exaggeration. Asked recently at a joint appearance on Meet the Press whether NATO’s expansion into Asia was “inevitable,” Senators Tammy Duckworth (an Illinois Democrat) and Dan Sullivan (an Alaska Republican) answered yes. “Oh, I think it is,” said Sullivan. “I agree with my friend,” said Duckworth. They had good...

Jan Oberg August 21, 2023 For Danish/Nordic readers, there is a Danish-language version here. The unity is as uncompromising as it is dangerous in its consequences. No Danish politician, diplomat, researcher or journalist dares to take on the role of the little boy in Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes. Not even to get a debate going. About Denmark’s Ukraine/Russia/NATO policy. The government, parliamentary parties and media suffer from extreme groupthink – a well-known social psychological concept. Groupthink rejects any alternative expertise, information and interpretation, and gradually convinces decision-makers that they are on the only possible right course – and that everyone else is uninformed, stupid or – in this case – “Putinists.” Over time, groupthink leads to overconfident and catastrophic decisions because reality has been kept outside the group’s walls of infallibility, moral superiority and we-know-it-all for far too long. There is only one narrative here:...

Just a little public relations for ourselves – Perspectives like these are now completely cancelled by Western mainstream media – MSM – US NATO mouthpieces. But we reach millions outside the West, and that is what matters for the future. Jan Oberg July 14, 2023 🔻 RT “CrossTalk” with Peter Lavelle, July 13, 2023NATO’s Epic Fall with Jan Oberg, Misty Winston, and Mike Jones. 🔻 Global Times, Beijing, July 13, 2023US-Nordic Summit sees NATO expansion, confusion and repetition 🔻 China’s Xinhua News Agency in English, July 12, 2023Three articles using quotes:Interview: NATO’s policies are gross violation of its own charter, int’l law, says Swedish expert.Roundup: NATO fails to give timetable for Ukraine membership at summit.NATO summit sparks global security concern, internal rifts remain 🔻 China’s national television, CCTV, July 12, 2023Jan Oberg: Three comments related to NATO’s Vilnius Summit新闻直播间]瑞典智库学者表示 北约自诩防御联盟 却持续扩张引发冲突Shared also by 163.com, CZTV.com, Jxnews.com.cn, Huanqui.com. 🔻 China Daily,...

) Article 19.2 here. Why not support TFF – one of a handful of peace think tanks left that is truly independent and exclusively financed by all-volunteer workand concerned citizens like you?Go here – Thanks!

Jan Oberg July 13, 2023 After the NATO Summit in Vilnius, a US-Nordic Summit took place in Helsinki on July 13, 2023. Here is, first, what I would suggest the US, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland take up: • How to back out of NATO’s conflict with Russia, stop the war in Russia and move – with the use of UN peace-keeping and -mediation – towards a viable, sustainable solution to Ukraine’s security problem that all parties can live with – although perhaps not be happy with. • How to re-create the Arctic as a de-militarised, low-tension region and cooperate to the benefit of all parties and the fragile environment. • How to secure that none of the Nordic countries shall have any US bases (except the one in Thule, Greenland, which by the way was not invited) – so to not provoke Russia unnecessarily.Given the Nordic countries’ historically comparatively...

• 1 NATO is not going to let Ukraine in as a full member. Probably never. All the statements about getting it in and its rightful place in NATO is sugar-coating. NATO cannot say that but knows now that its ill-considered promise in 2008 to make Ukraine a member is as dead as the promises made to Gorbachev that the alliance would not expand one inch. All the NATO words about military packages, G7 security assistance, reform path to be drawn up but no timetable, the new NATO-Ukraine Council with so-called ’equals,’ long-term commitments, etc. – all were words of cruel diplomacy serving to soothe a very disappointed Zelensky. • 2 The Ukrainian president will also have understood by now that the US has achieved what it wants: Economic deals with Ukraine about its resources, huge debts and a very high price to be paid by Ukraine and European NATO...

Jin Ding – China Daily Jan Oberg July 10, 2023 NATO’s next summit will take place in Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 11-12. Almost on the day 26 years ago – July 8-9, 1997 – NATO held a summit in Madrid which confirmed ”The Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security Between NATO and the Russian Federation” – in other words, a permanent NATO-Russia Forum – that had been signed by Yeltsin and Clinton in Paris on May 27. M. E. Sarotte’s brilliant 550-page analysis ”Not One Inch. America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate” can be read as one long illustration of how the US – and thereby NATO – in reality, has operated on a big-brother, condescending and manipulative attitude to Russia. Russia was never meant to become an equal partner, and whatever Russian concerns were taken into account, decisions were made to promote US/NATO interests...

The US/Western media of various kinds increasingly raise critical questions about the NATO expansion and the NATO/EU countries’ response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Although it is “too little and years too late,” one must appreciate this trend – if for no other reason than that it may eventually contribute to stopping the militarist madness. Jan Oberg, editor Benjamin Schwarz & Christopher Layne Harper’s Magazine, June 2023 Issue June 5, 2023 From Murmansk in the Arctic to Varna on the Black Sea, the armed camps of NATO and the Russian Federation menace each other across a new Iron Curtain. Unlike the long twilight struggle that characterized the Cold War, the current confrontation is running decidedly hot. As former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and former secretary of defense Robert Gates acknowledge approvingly, the United States is fighting a proxy war with Russia. Thanks to Washington’s efforts to arm and...

By Lily Lynch May 29, 2023 The anti-war movement has fallen for a progressive circus In January 2018, Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg held an unprecedented press conference with Angelina Jolie. While InStyle reported that Jolie “was dressed in a black off-the-shoulder sheath dress, a matching capelet and classic pumps (also black)”, there was a deeper purpose to this meeting: sexual violence in war. The pair had just co-authored a piece for the Guardian entitled “Why NATO must defend women’s rights”. The timing was significant. At the height of the #MeToo movement, the most powerful military alliance in the world had become a feminist ally. “Ending gender-based violence is a vital issue of peace and security as well as of social justice,” they wrote. “NATO can be a leader in this effort.” Originally published at UnHerd on May 16, 2023 This was a new and progressive face for NATO, the same one it has...

A proxy war in Ukraine is not enough for Jens Stoltenberg, who clearly thinks his mandate extends to containing China in its own backyard Alex Lo May 8, 2023 Jens Stoltenberg is wasted on being merely the Nato chief. Over Russia, China and much else, he almost always sounds more extreme than your average Pentagon general and the US defence secretary, who appear rational and restrained by comparison. The Norwegian career politician and former prime minister beats the drums of war louder than many Washington hawks. He would make a perfect US secretary of defence, if not the president. Too bad the United States constitution bars non-natives from being the commander-in-chief, but nothing stops him from being the war secretary; just make him a citizen. The man is more patriotic than most Americans and reads off Washington’s warmongering scripts more faithfully than any European leader, while adding more propaganda niceties...