Jan Oberg: Why Europe won’t decouple from the United States – unless two things happen

Jan Oberg TFF director October 28, 2026 Exactly one month has now passed since I published my criticism of the introduction to the special issue on Johan Galtung published by the Journal of Global Security Studies, JoGSS, and of Tor Egil Førland’s chapter about Galtung which serves as a preview to his forthcoming biography of Galtung to be published by PRIO. See the original on The Transnational here and the same article on TFF Substack with many general and critical comments and, in particular, the people who decided to withdraw from the biography project in protest. The special issue itself was extraordinary. It was devoted to the intellectual legacy of one of the founders of peace research and contained a number of strong assessments of his personality, scholarship, intellectual trajectory, and public role. Such assessments are, of course, entirely legitimate. No scholar is beyond criticism, and neither was Johan Galtung....

An aspect of Iran’s culture and civilisation you’ve probably never heard about. Don’t be surprised if the US and Israel also try to bomb them. Jan ObergTFF director October 26, 2026 Today – under the “USraeli” threat of new “annihilating” bombings – opens the 7th International Conference on Peace and Conflict Resolution at Tehran’s University. As far as I can tell, this is the only permanent, advanced peace research institution in West Asia/the Middle East. Perhaps more countries in that region could be inspired? I mean, how many military “security” institutes and military academies do they have? Many peace research institutes and university departments have been established since the 1950s in the West. They are now all under attack; some have closed down, some have gone mainstream, yet others kept the name but do nothing to research peace and disseminate results or advice; instead, they cooperate with militarism’s platforms such...

Let’s discuss using AI to create peace – in contrast to boring geopolitics devoid of creative healing and visions. Jan Oberg TFF director October 15, 2026 I asked VEED to create a short video exemplifying how peace is preferable to war, then chose the lady as a template. Simple as that. In less than a minute, it produced this video, which any peace-loving person would appreciate. The only problem is that human intelligence (HI), at least the one that exists among Western decision-makers, isn’t half as moral or smart as AI. I have used AI to dialogue about peace and peace plans, creative conflict resolution and visions of a better future for humankind. It so happens that I am having more stimulating, intelligent, creative and moral discussions with AI than I could possibly have with any EU or NATO leader today. Yes, AI has very problematic and dangerous aspects; used...

Below are TFF-related media mentions, comments, videos and social media posts published elsewhere but not on this homepage. We happen to catch and list only a fraction. Regarding video comments and debates, we recommend that you go to the TFF Video Channel on Substack where many of them are reproduced. Jan Oberg is a contributor to China Daily – 52 million daily clicks – and Global Times, CGTN and CCTV (the national television), China Investment, Xinhua News Agency and several others. Articles and videos on these media very often multiply into countless Chinese (and Western media) that re-post them from these main media. Thanks to The China Academy, his analyses, interviews and comments are frequently posted on YouTube channels such as Thinkers Forum and Wave Media. These videos are often re-posted on Bilibili (China’s YouTube), the China Content Center on TikTok, and on the Chinese edition of TikTok, Douyin.com. This means reaching hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide over a year. While there are too many to catch on all these...

Jan Oberg TFF director October 13, 2026 According to Alfred Nobel’s will, the Nobel Peace Prize shall be awarded: ”to the person who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses.” Further down, he also expresses how the prize for the “champions of peace” shall be decided: “that for champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be selected by the Norwegian Storting. Alfred Nobel’s will is remarkably short and clear. But few seem to have read it. Nobel did not say that the committee itself should consist of members of parliament. He entrusted the Storting with appointing five persons. In principle, it could have selected diplomats, mediators, peace researchers, conflict-resolution specialists, or other individuals with recognised expertise in matters of peace from around the world. Instead, the Storting gradually...

The Quest for Humane Survival Richard Falk Professor emeritus, Princeton UniversityTFF Associate since 1986October 12, 2026 After decades of teaching and writing about international law in academic frameworks that were not institutionally situated within law school environments—at Princeton and the University of California, Santa Barbara—I found myself most receptive to the TWAIL outlook. It has been especially illuminating in clarifying the extent to which international law evolved as a dialogical critique of Europe’s efforts to legitimize its colonial undertakings. In particular, TWAIL has exposed how international law has functioned to legalize the subjugation of Third World peoples, securing conditions for exploitative investment and trade relations, the coercive enforcement of public debts, and an ideology of cultural superiority. TWAIL’s exposure of these economic legacies of colonialism has influenced my understanding of the history and development of international law, broadly conceived, as an ideological project of the Western sub-system of the world...