World order

We are living amid contradictions whether we like it or not, driving expectations about the future toward opposite extremes. Increasingly plausible are fears that the ‘sixth extinction’ will encompass the human species, or at least, throw human society back to a technology of sticks and stones, with a habitat limited to caves and forests. This dark vision is countered by gene-editing designer promises of virtual immortality and super-wise beings programming super-intelligent machines, enabling a life of leisure, luxury, and security for all. Whether the reality of such a scientistic future would be also dark is a matter of conjecture, but from a survival perspective, it offers an optimistic scenario. On political levels, a similar set of polar scenarios are gaining ground in the moral imagination, producing national leaders who seem comfortable embracing an apocalyptic telos without a second thought. The peoples of the world, entrapped in a predatory phase of...

By Biljana Vankovska Text of report by Macedonian newspaper Nova Makedonija on 12 June Commentary by Biljana Vankovska: “Russia ante portas!” The UK The Guardian recently issued a bombastic report based on certain intelligence leaks, apparently resembling WikiLeaks, that revealed the big and terrifying secret of the Russian bad boys working on Macedonia’s distancing from the West for nearly 10 years through the use of old-fashioned methods (strange and mysterious spies and conspirators) and sophisticated means of influence via public diplomacy and “soft power”. This crown “evidence” has fitted in perfectly with the subtle campaign that a number of national media has been leading for a while now, promoting the “intimidating notion” of the Macedonians regarding Russia as a friendly country. An opinion poll on our foreign political orientations has indicated that as many as 17 per cent of the respondents have a positive view on Russia. Imagine, these impertinent...

By Richard Falk* and David Krieger** TFF PressInfo # 420 Prefatory NoteThis jointly authored essay was initially published in The Hill on May 30, 2017 under the title, “Averting the Ticking Time Bomb of Nukes in North Korea.” We did not choose such a title that is doubly misleading: our contention is not that North Korea is the core of the problem, but rather the retention of nuclear weapons by all of the states pose both crises in the context of counter-proliferation geopolitics and with respect to the possession, deployment, and development of the weaponry itself; a second objection is with the title given the piece by editors at The Hill. While acknowledging the practice of media outlets to decide on titles without seeking prior approval from authors, this title is particularly objectionable. The term ‘nukes’ gives an almost friendly shorthand to these most horrific of weapons, and strikes a...

Frederick the Great of Prussia was a friend of Voltaire and enjoyed ribald evenings with the philosopher discussing the intricacies of life’s dos and don’ts. Before becoming king he was persuaded by Voltaire to become a pacifist. Copyright: Jonathan Power.

It is amazing. The United Nations have decades, years, weeks and days, dedicated to more values, goals and concerns than most of us are aware of. Compare it to nation-states usually with only one day, their day, their national day, celebrating nobody but themselves. Maybe the UN overdoes it, that one decade flows into the next without leaving more than some verbal traces? But that is not the UN’s fault. The accusing finger points at all of us; what did you do when the world’s conscience called on you? Let us start with the Decades: 1960s: First UN Development Decade 1970s: Second UN Development Decade International Decade of Ocean Exploration Disarmament Decade Into the 1980s: Decade to Combat Racism and Discrimination United Nations Decade for Women Transport and Communication Decade in Africa 1980s: Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade Second Disarmament Decade Third UN Development Decade Into the 1990s: UN...

Last night “The Debate” on PressTV was devoted to the future of European-US relations in the wake of the NATO Summit, President Trump’s words and omissions and the – historic – words, in particular, of Chancellor Angela Merkel immediately after. Undoubtedly, we are at a turning point in these relations in general and for the NATO alliance in particular. To discuss these issues – past, present and future perspectives – were Jim Walsh, senior research associate at MIT’s Security Studies Program, Masschusetts, and Jan Oberg, director of TFF, Lund. Thanks to PressTV’s excellently structured program and interviewer we touched upon a series of aspects and dimensions around which we found both agreements and slight disagreements – all in a sober tone fit for public education and personal reflection. We hope this debate will stimulate your own thoughts about the future of war, security and peace. We’d be grateful for your...

Part A here The role – again – of marketing companies in selling wars Few wars have been so thoroughly media-managed and marketing-loaded as that on Syria. No wonder arms deals are too – otherwise citizens around the world would protest loudly that their tax money is spent on destruction and more destruction and all the promises of the past that this – or that – arms deal will increase security and peace in the world have turned out to be fake information – disinformation – and an integral part of what can only be termed “fearology” by governments against their own people. One must therefore welcome Russia Today’s excellent research by Alexey Yaroshevsky also on this dimension. This report is high-speed but listen carefully to it as it points out two US companies associated with this deal and US-Saudi relations with questionable image – a report that also highlight to some extent the...

The Secretary-General also said this new home’s “potential is enormous”. President Trump arrived on his first trip abroad to Saudi Arabia on May 19, 2017 and big things are supposed to happen, including Saudi Arabia presenting itself as a innovative, visionary leader of the region. His visit must be seen in the light of a number of events and trends, and in what follows we do like the military when it scans the horizon for enemies: we look for patterns – not the least Saudi Arabia’s “surprising new military goals” as Forbes’ Ellen Wald appropriately calls them. Or, as they say – we connect some dots that, invariable, Western mainstream media have no capacity and probably also no interest in connecting. This pattern consists of at least these events and long-term trends: 1. The broadening of NATO cooperation with Gulf countries – one may even see a Middle Eastern NATO branch emerge. 2. Saudi Arabia’s evident leadership...

A key slogan during the student revolt in Paris May 1968, soon 50 years ago, was Imagination au pouvoir! Bring imagination to power! We were there, walking with thousands from Champs-Élysées to Place Etoile where a stentorian voice commanded us to sit in small groups in the circles under the Arch to “discuss the situation”. So we did. France is now suffering from more imagination deficit than ever. To call Le Pen-Front National “extreme right” when the issue is for or against the EU is not helpful. Left-right was 20th century politics. Why not think bigger, beyond EU: for or against EURASIA, Russia-China are ready? Trade fills trains London-Beijing; a West-East axis, not the old colonial obsession with North-South (neo)colonialism. And how about both, EURASIAFRICA? They hang together geographically. Another word for imagination is creativity.

  Weltinnenpolitik, was the brilliant formula minted in 1963 by Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker; nuclear physicist with a dubious career in the Nazi period, philosopher, peace activist, and believing Christian. The world seen as one polity, one political unit. Not in terms of two levels, the world and the states–canonized as members of the UN – with domestic policies, and “foreign” policies. “World domestic politics” calls for a world with neither states nor regions but the world as the polity. With LAs, local authorities, but basically with 7 billion+ humans, endowed with human rights and democracy. A single shiny word, making many think and speak differently. Akin to all formulas giving rise to a number of problematic questions; one more proof of how fruitful this formula was and is. Thus, how can that one world polity organize political, cultural, military and economic power? Brief, preliminary answers: Political power: by the...

or 10/7, a date no one remembers like 9/11. And Afghanistan had nothing to do with the terrible attack on September 11, but had to be punished anyhow. Out of proportion, no proportionality. Now there are discussions about increasing the troop level again. What if someone reasonable intellectual asked the questions: What is it we are doing wrong? So, I ask for heuristic – provocative – purpose: What would be left of US foreign policy if that country did not have weapons? And I offer a short answer.

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