Nato

Gordon M Hahn February 14, 2023 We are entering the most dangerous phase of the NATO-Russian Ukraine war up till now. The West is undertaking a major escalation in the war by increasing the lethality of weapons it is supplying Ukraine to include tanks and the largest tranche of military equipment supplied to Kiev so far. Meanwhile, Russia is on the verge of an offensive on the background of slow but steady gains in the east, taking Soledar, moving into Vugledar (Ugledar) and the outskirts of Bakhmut (Atemevsk), threatening Ukrainian forces with operational encirclements in several areas. Russia now has available in and around Ukraine 5-600,000 regular troops, almost none of which have been used so far, with Moscow having been relying on the DPR and LNR forces, the Wagner troops, Chechens, and massive attacks from the air by artillery, rockets, drones and such in previous phases of the war....

Cover of Seymour Hersh’s article on Substack Jan Oberg February 12, 2023 The Chinese news agency, Xinhua, asked me to comment – in text and video form – on Seymour Hersh’s analysis of how the Nordstream pipelines were destroyed. You’ll find this analysis on Substack, which means that no American mainstream media has been willing to publish it. After five days, this bombshell report goes virtually unmentioned in the Western mainstream press. Imagine if he had documented that Russia did it… Pulitzer Prize awarded Hersh has a series of now classical investigations behind him. He is seen by many as the finest living investigative reporter. Read about this man who every decent media should be proud of publishing. Seymour Hersh’s fine analysis tells how the destruction was planned and done, but the conclusion is unsurprising if you apply an interest analysis: The US, with very important Norwegian assistance, committed the...

The Danish foreign, defence and the prime minister is greeted by President Zelensky (right) Jan Oberg February 2, 2023 In Danish here The West/NATO has always lacked a long-term strategy. After all, it was militarily, economically and politically superior and could impose its will. Didn’t have to think. Hoping Ukraine would join NATO without fuss was hubris-ridden wishful thinking, and stupid to boot, in that it’s been convincingly documented that Russia’s leaders, from Gorbachev to Putin for the past 30 years, have said that NATO expansion was: a) a clear violation of the promises made by all important Western leaders to Gorbachev – and it’s true; b) a humiliation and counterproductive if you want common security; and c) that if it could be no other way, then Ukraine would be Russia’s definitive red line. No one listened. Because, as former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen so aptly put it:...

Branko Marcetic January 28, 2023 Editor’s note This is probably the most detailed and solid documentation of the historical fact that NATO leaders knew perfectly well that Russia was deeply concerned and against NATO’s expansion and stated those concern for more than 20 years. In other words, that NATO decided deliberately not to listen and not to respect those concerns. It also shows that Russia’s thickest red line was – yes, Ukraine. It was originally published by the very important and respected American Committee for US-Russia Accord here. Jan Oberg Nearly a year in, the war in Ukraine has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and brought the world to the brink of, in President Joe Biden’s own words, “Armageddon.” Alongside the literal battlefield has been a similarly bitter intellectual battle over the war’s causes.  Commentators have rushed to declare the long-criticized policy of NATO expansion as irrelevant to the...

Give yourself 38 min, and you’ll understand how extremely self-destructive the NATO/EU world’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been and why all the assumption it made was wrong. Professor Emeritus of Economics (University of Massachusetts) and founder of Democracy at Work, Richard Wolff, talks with brilliant clarity about the economic impact of the Ukraine war. He assesses the impact of Western sanctions on Russia as well as how the war has affected the West economically. And very importantly, he analyses just how destructive arms spending is for the rest of society and the working people. Here are the main themes: 0:00 Introduction 0:32 “Economic War” with Russia? 12:01 Moral significance of Western sanctions 14:20 Economic impact on the United States 21:07 Economic impact of military spending 32:21 Economic impact on Ukraine I cannot recommend this – and the acTVism Munich and The Source Channel – enough. Please share...

This article was published on January 5, 2023, by the very important Chinese “Global Times” under the headline, Two reasons that Europe would be forced to decouple from the US. Please read it directly there and, when you are anyhow there, browse a bit, see various menus and articles – and ask yourself why Global Times is consistently called a “tabloid” by Western mainstream people and media.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attending a meeting in Yerevan, Armenia, November 23, 2022. /CFP Glenn Diesen January 3, 2022 The 29th Ministerial Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) took place from December 1-2 in Poland. Established in 1994 to develop a common peace in an inclusive Europe, the OSCE has become the largest regional security organization in the world, which includes the U.S. on its western edge and Russia on its eastern. Therefore it could have played a key role in restoring peace amid the Ukraine conflict. However, the peace initiative was abandoned in favour of a hegemonic project facilitated by NATO expansionism. The war in Ukraine and the decline of the OSCE are both symptoms of the collapsing pan-European security order. Originally published at CGTN, December 1, 2022 A common Europe versus continued bloc politics In 1989, then Soviet Union leader Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev...

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...

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin welcoming Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to a meeting at the Pentagon, Aug. 31, 2021. (DoD, Jack Sanders) In addition to advancing longstanding U.S. geo-strategic aims, it seems the proxy war in Ukraine is also being used to sharpen the imperial war machine’s claws for a looming hot war with China and/or Russia. Caitlin Johnstone December 5, 2022 Listen to a reading of this article. A surprisingly frank article in The New York Times, “Western Allies Look to Ukraine as a Testing Ground for Weapons” describes how the imperial war machine is capitalising on the U.S. proxy war to test its weapons for future use. “Ukraine has become a testing ground for state-of-the-art weapons and information systems, and new ways to use them, that Western political officials and military commanders predict could shape warfare for generations to come,” writes Lara Jakes. Jakes says “new advances in technology and...

Three experts on warfare, weapons and underlying conflicts – and even some views on peace-making – after NATO foreign ministers’ summit in Bucharest. Today I participated in CrossTalk, edited and performed by Peter Lavelle on RT, formerly Russia Today. It was a delightful preparation process that made clear what it would be about, length, participants etc – and treated the invited persons with respect and asked also – professionally – how we wanted to be presented. My praise goes to Aleksandra Danilova, RT, in this regard. You may think that is only natural, but not everybody does it the professional way, I can tell. Please see this half an hour below. You may also enjoy Peter Lavelle’s and my “pushbacks” at each other when I talked about the MIMAC – Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex and militarism. But it ends very nicely. The video – and all of RT’s programs – are on...

Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta, February 1945. Photo: US Army. Richard Falk – TFF Associate November 23, 2022 Disdaining Diplomacy, Seeking Victory 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 Russian 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 great quantities to the Ukrainians to resist the Russian attack and even mount counterattacks. The U.S. did all it could at the UN and elsewhere to build a punitive coalition hostile to Russia but coupled this with a variety of sanctions and the demonization of Putin as a notorious...

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...