Russia international relations

Jan Oberg December 13, 2023 One of the enigmatic aspects of international politics is that big and militarily superior countries have systematically lost wars in smaller countries – the last 50 years, from Vietnam to Ukraine. ’Losing’ here means military defeat, being forced out, losing the struggle for the hearts and minds of the people, and facing fiasco when it comes to achieving the presumed noble motives like introducing human rights, democracy, freedom or liberating women. And given the tremendous human costs, particularly in the Middle East, the US’s Global War On Terror since September 11, 2001, is also an intellectual and moral disaster. The United States – the world’s by far largest military spender, interventionist, warrior, occupier, global base-builder with the most militarised foreign policy – is in a class of its own. In losing wars too. It is now rapidly losing legitimacy, relevance and credibility in the eyes...

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...

This is one of the most elucidating – and thanks also to the author’s special background, convincing – analyses I have seen of why there is war in Ukraine and how it could all have been avoided had the US/NATO not, over the last 19 years, been cynically manipulating Ukraine, conducted two reckless government changes and armed the country – not to help it but to use it to weaken Russia. Incidentally, it connects very well with another recent article published by TFF that shows that the Ukrainian people does not trust NATO and the EU. If there is one short article that can advance the intellectual and moral struggle to reveal the cynicism of the US/Western orchestrated media campaign and systematic lying in the service of rampant militarism, it is this. I ask you to share it widely. I have italicised a few paragraphs to enhance your reading. Jan...

Joint demonstration of the trade unions on May Day in Berlin under the slogan Unbroken Solidarity. Photography K.M.Krause via Reuters Anatol Lieven & George Beebe August 23, 2023 Demonizing Russian culture and people only makes peace in Ukraine harder to achieve and plays into Putin’s propaganda A deeply sinister and dangerous tendency has made its appearance in Western writing about the war in Ukraine. This is the extension of hatred for the Putin regime and its crimes to the entire Russian people, the Russian national tradition, and Russian culture. This tendency is of course bitterly familiar from the history of hostile propaganda, but precisely for that reason we should have learned to shun it. The banning of Russian cultural events and calls for the “decolonization” of Russian literature and Russian studies recall the propaganda of all sides during the First World War, which did so much to embitter that war and make its peaceful resolution...

J. Natasha Gooneratne* August 10, 2023 This article explores the discourse of the Ukraine crisis from the perspective of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), recalling some of the movement’s focal pillars that find their roots in the cultural and historical makeup of its member states. It looks at recent efforts of NAM members within the context of peace talks and bilateral relations and further presents a reflection on why NAM members are better equipped to create progressive conditions within that space. Lastly, it explores why such efforts are often misconstrued by Western governments and media. A few weeks ago, 7 African leaders (heads of state of South Africa, Senegal, Zambia, Comoros and Egypt, alongside top officials from the Republic of Congo and Uganda) travelled to Russia and Ukraine, in what can thus far be described as the largest collective push toward brokering even a semblance of peace talks in over 16...

The choice of St. Petersburg to host the Russia-Africa Summit 2023 was no accident. It was a symbolic move. Dmitry Trenin is a research professor at the Higher School of Economics and a lead research fellow at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations. He is also a member of the Russian International Affairs Council. Intro This piece was published on July 31, 2023, by RT – formerly Russia Today, blocked by most Western countries – and we bring it here because we believe it is essential to know how Russia’s leading intellectuals look upon things and because we believe it is deeply wrong of the West to practise censorship while preaching freedom of expression and having signed human rights declarations to the effect that every human being has a right to freely seek information and shape her og his opinion about the world. Also, RT upholds at least as...

From Kaliningrad to Vladivostok, and farther afield, all eyes were on what looked like a march to Moscow. Was it a one-off or an ominous portent? Christina Sizova for RT June 27, 2023 Editor’s introduction Normally, we do not publish articles from dailies about current events. However, we make an exception because this particular event is significant in and of itself and also for an understanding of the NATO-Russia conflict that plays out so tragically in Ukraine. Furthermore, unless people in the West use a proxy server/VPN, they cannot access RT (formerly Russia Today)and see for themselves how this Russian flagship media covers the war and international affairs. The purpose, of course, is part of the media war – that NATO citizens are told not what Russia actually says but how so-called experts in the NATO countries interpret things – carefully selected anti-Russian and pro-NATO. Thus, they are grossly deceived...

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...

Andrey Kortunov June 5, 2023 A Quad summit meeting in Sydney scheduled for May 24 was abruptly cancelled. The US president had to pull out of his long-anticipated trip to Australia and Papua New Guinea. Instead, the heads of the four Quad member states got together on the margins of the G7 Summit in Hiroshima on May 20.  The main reason for the change of plans was the continuous struggle between the White House and Republicans on the Hill over the national debt ceiling. [This issue has now been solved by raising once again the debt ceiling – The editor]. This rather awkward last-minute cancellation of the Quad summit reflects a fundamental US problem – a growing imbalance between the US geopolitical ambitions and the fragility of the national financial foundation to serve these ambitions.  This article was originally published by Gobal Times on May 25, 2023 The Biden administration appears...

Source: World Atlas. Maps of Russia Ivan Timofeev May 9, 2023 Long before relations between Russia and the West spiralled into a comprehensive political crisis, officials and experts here were enthusiastically voicing ideas about developing ties with the rest of the world. At the administrative level, such a course began to take shape as early as the 1990s, starting from the views of former Foreign Minister Evgeny Primakov. Subsequently, it also received practical development within the framework of a multi-vector foreign policy. Originally published by RT on May 4, 2023 The gradual growth of contradictions with the West accelerated the formation of ‘pivot to the East’ ideas, although their implementation was slow. It was limited by objective infrastructural and economic conditions, as well as the absence of a direct and painful incentive for such a ‘turn’. However, the current crisis in relations between Russia and the West, for all its...

Gordon Hahn April 17, 2023 I have written several pieces on the causes of the NATO-Russian Ukrainian War. In them, I focused on the long-term as well as the immediate causes in the run-up to Putin’s decision to invade. However, all this needs to be put together with new revelations in order to understand the mood in the Kremlin in late January-early February (most likely mid-February) when Putin decided to pull the trigger. We have the background causes: • decades of NATO expansion; • NATO’s attack on Serbia, • Western recognition of Kosovo’s independence from Serbia despite a UN resolution it sponsored stipulating Serbia’s territorial inviolability; • ‘democracy promotion’ colour revolutionism in Ukraine and other states neighbouring Russia; • Western financial and moral support for a colour revolution in Russia; • the Western-backed February 2014 Maidan color revolution; • the cover-up of the Maidan ultranationalist, neofascist wing’s snipers’ flag terrorist...