Nato

Fuyuko Matsui, Japan, “Becoming Friends with All the Children of the World,” 2004. Vijay Prashad August 4, 2022 The fragility of Europe’s energy supply has once again been on display in recent months. Gas shipments through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which runs from Russia to Germany, were reduced to 40 per cent of capacity in June, a cut that Moscow said was due to delays in the servicing of a turbine by the German firm Siemens. Shortly thereafter, on July 11, the pipeline was taken offline for 10 days for annual routine maintenance. Despite receiving assurances from Moscow that the supply would resume as scheduled, European leaders expressed fear that the shutdown would continue indefinitely in retaliation for sanctions imposed on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine. Originally published at Consortium News on July 29, 2022 On July 21, the flow of Russian gas into Europe resumed. Klaus Müller, the...

Let’s look at NATO’s reaction to Russia’s ill-considered and international law-violating military action in Ukraine. From a conflict-analytical point of view, it is reasonable to say that Russia is responsible for the war but that NATO, with it reckless expansion against all promises given to Russia and a series of expert warnings, is responsible for the underlying conflict. It can safely be concluded that the Western/NATO response has moved beyond the proportionality principle, beyond rationality and a realistic image of the world and its own role in it: NATO country leaders express limitless hatred of everything Russia; historically hard and time-unlimited economic sanctions have been imposed – using the illegal method of collective punishment of a whole people; weapons for an estimated US$ 60-100 billion will be pumped into Ukraine to defeat Russia there. NATO has added US$ 350 billion in military expenditures since the US-instigated regime change in Kiyev...

Arms Control Today June 30, 2022 On June 26, 1997, a group of 50 prominent foreign policy experts that included former senators, retired military officers, diplomats and academicians, sent an open letter to President Clinton outlining their opposition to NATO expansion. Stanley Resor, chairman of the Board of Directors of the Arms Control Association, spoke at the press conference announcing the letter, focusing on the arms control implications of expansion. Resor’s remarks and the group’s letter are printed below. Remarks by Stan Resor: A key, if not the key, U.S. interest in Russia is a rapid and substantial reduction in the tens of thousands of Russian strategic and tactical nuclear weapons and the hundreds of tons of nuclear material which are still deployed or stored throughout that nation some six years after the end of the Cold War. Progress towards these goals will require comprehensive and sustained cooperation between the...

President Joe Biden speaks at the NATO summit at the group’s headquarters in Brussels on June 14, 2021. Photo: Francisco Seco/Pool/AFP via Getty Images Jon Schwarz June 30, 2022 NATO’s summit showed how the “North Atlantic” Treaty Organization has decided it has an extremely expansive global mission. IN A STOP last week on his way to Belgium for Monday’s NATO summit, President Joe Biden visited a Royal Air Force base in eastern England. “In Brussels,” he told the assembled crowd, “I will make it clear that the United States’s commitment to our NATO alliance and Article 5 is rock solid. It’s a sacred obligation that we have under Article 5.” These lines were aimed at a tiny number of human beings. Certainly almost no Americans have any idea what “Article 5” is part of or what it says. Originally published at The Intercept on June 15, 2022 But Biden’s words were genuinely significant. Article 5...

My answers were submitted to Xinhua in Stockholm on June 27, 2022 – but the editors changed their minds and chose to do this series of comments instead. 1. What do you see are the potential consequences (geopolitical, military) as NATO incorporates Finland and Sweden in its latest military expansion in the Nordics? Does this make the Baltic Sea region and Europe safer or the opposite? All alliances by definition build on a we-and-them conceptualization, or worldview. The NATO 1949 Treaty is defensive in the sense that it is basically a copy of the UN Charter with Article 5 added, i.e. that all NATO members shall assist in defending another member that has been attacked. Most people are not aware of that text’s real content – and therefore do not see how very far NATO is from its own Charter. Secondly, given the Cold War or adversary structure in Europe,...

Jan Oberg May 31, 2022 This is a deeply moving documentary produced by CGTN, China Global Television Network. You may of course avoid seeing it in the belief that China media are full of propaganda, deception and outright lies – and that Western mainstream media is all you need because they tell you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. What it illustrates is the societally deep-rooted, systematic and ongoing character of US militarism since the Vietnam war fifty years ago – and how you were lied to constantly. In all fairness, it also shows how the best among the American people are honest and tells you the truth about their own country’s barbarity. The West in general and the US/NATO countries, in particular, seem to suffer from a complex systemic disease composed of: 1) obsession with the military, weapons and warfare – or militarism that infects...

Jack F. Matlock, Jr. May 27, 2022 An avoidable crisis that was predictable, actually predicted, willfully precipitated, but easily resolved by the application of common sense, writes Jack Matlock, the last U.S. ambassador to the U.S.S.R. We are being told each day that war may be imminent in Ukraine. Russian troops, we are told, are massing at Ukraine’s borders and could attack at any time. American citizens are being advised to leave Ukraine and dependents of the American Embassy staff are being evacuated. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian president has advised against panic and made clear that he does not consider a Russian invasion imminent. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has denied that he has any intention of invading Ukraine. His demand is that the process of adding new members to NATO cease and that in particular, Russia has assurance that Ukraine and Georgia will never be members. President Joe Biden has...

Ben Norton May 18, 2022 NATO sees Ukrainians as mere cannon fodder in its imperial proxy war on Russia The US-led NATO military alliance has made it clear that it is willing to fight to the last Ukrainian in order to bleed Russia and advance Western geopolitical interests. In a shockingly blunt admission, The Washington Post acknowledged that some NATO member states want “Ukrainians to keep fighting, and dying” in order to prevent Russia from making political gains. Originally published at Globalresearch In an April 5 report on peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, the major US newspaper disclosed that NATO is afraid that Kyiv may give in to some of Moscow’s demands. The Washington Post wrote explicitly: “For some in NATO, it’s better for the Ukrainians to keep fighting, and dying than to achieve a peace that comes too early or at too high a cost to Kyiv and the rest of Europe.” Anonymous...

A 30 mins panel discussion led by Ms Liu Xin, a very important TV personality known to CGTN’s 150 million viewers because of her program “The Point”. CGTN stands for China Global Television Network – more about it here. And here is its YouTube Channel. The participants in this edition of “The Point” are: Yury Tavrovsky, chairman of Experts Commission of Russian-Chinese Committee for Friendship, Peace and Development Ulrich Brückner, professor, Stanford University in Berlin Michael E. O’Hanlon, senior fellow and director of research in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution Brian Berletic, Geopolitical Analyst, Bangkok And here it is on YouTube. Enjoy the debate! Is this type of reasoning, based on decades of free research and knowledge-building, of merit in a democracy and for the discussion about NATO?If you think so, TFF would be grateful for your support. Thanks!

Richard E. Rubenstein May 17, 2022 Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, it was fair to call the ensuing conflict “Putin’s war.” True, the U.S. and Europe could probably have avoided the invasion by calling a halt to NATO expansion and negotiating seriously with the Russians about key security issues. True, U.S. arms had been pouring into Ukraine since the overthrow of the pro-Russian government there in 2014, and Ukraine was using them to kill pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass region. But Putin was still responsible for crossing the line into organized violence. It does matter who shoots first, and he shot first. Originally published at Transcend.org Even so, that is not the end of the discussion. Far from it. At first one could rightfully have called this Putin’s war, but it has now become Joe Biden’s war as well. Consider what has happened so far. The advance...

Jan Oberg 14 maj, 2022 Engelska versionen av denna finns här Detta är vad västvärlden intellektuellt sett – mitt i sin gränslöst självrättfärdiga, militaristiska sinnesstämning – inte förmår att se: Natos expansionspolitik skapade – och är ansvarig för – konflikten. Ryssland skapade – och är ansvarigt för – kriget. Det finns inget våld som inte har sin grund i underliggande konflikter. Konflikt- och fredskunniga människor talar därför om båda. Och om de vill ha fred ökar de inte symptomen – kriget – utan de tar itu med den verkliga orsaken, konflikten, och ber de stridande parterna att berätta vad de fruktar och vad de vill och tar sig sedan steg för steg vidare mot en hållbar lösning. Men varken mainstream media eller politiker har civilkurage nog att ta itu med konflikten. Det handlar bara om kriget och bara om Ryssland/Putin som måste straffas, oavsett vilket pris kommande generationer ska betala....

Diplomatic Security Service conducts a training at the National Cathedral in Washington in 2020. (U.S. State Department) Sam Husseini May 2, 2022 The late U.S. secretary of state’s association with Biden and the Clintons can be seen as a war-making, mutually absolving clique, writes Sam Husseini. It’s fitting that U.S. President Joe Biden and Bill and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should eulogize Madeleine Albright at the mammoth Episcopalian institution calling itself the “National Cathedral.” After all, just last year, Albright eulogized fellow war maker, “trailblazer” and fellow Episcopalian Colin Powell there for his “honesty, dignity, loyalty and an unshakable commitment to his calling and word.”  Albright, Biden and the Clintons covered for each other’s criminal war making — and ultimately, they all enabled and covered for Republican criminality as well. All showed they were capable of murderous deceits.  Originally published at Consortiumnews.com It sparked some measure of attention during the 2020 election,...