The First Months of U.S. Relations with the New Russia, 1992

The First Months of U.S. Relations with the New Russia, 1992

President Bush and Russian President Yeltsin announce the end of the cold war during a press conference at Camp David, February 1, 1992. Source: Bush Library on Twitter @Bush41Library. Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton February 7, 2023 Russian President Proposed Far-Reaching Nuclear Reductions, Bush Not So Sure U.S. ambassador on Yeltsin: Russians “want a tsar […]

Jan Oberg: The EU and NATO lie – Gorbachev was promised that NATO would not expand “one inch”

Jan Oberg: The EU and NATO lie – Gorbachev was promised that NATO would not expand “one inch”

Jan Oberg October 19, 2022 You should ask yourself, ask friends, others and decision-makers in the West why the type of important news and conversations like the one I have here – including on nuclear abolition – is possible on Russia’s RT (and explicitly appreciated, watch the end) but not possible in the Western mainstream […]

David Swanson: To Send Weapons and Troops to Ukraine You’d Have to Be a Stupid Son of a Biden

David Swanson: To Send Weapons and Troops to Ukraine You’d Have to Be a Stupid Son of a Biden

David SwansonTFF Associate January 27, 2021 Have yall learned absolutely nothing? The U.S. government’s internal memos said that the only way to get Iraq to use its weapons if it even had any would be to attack it. The U.S. government’s public statements were that Iraq certainly had weapons and therefore must be attacked. The […]

Leading not by force but by example – really, Tony Blinken?

Leading not by force but by example – really, Tony Blinken?

Edward Lozansky April 8th, 2021 Apology and humanitarian help are a better start In his recent speech outlining the new U.S. foreign policy vision Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken made a really sensational statement: “We will not promote democracy through costly military interventions or by attempting to overthrow authoritarian regimes by force. We have […]

The lessons of Russia’s Syrian intervention for Washington and Brussels

The lessons of Russia’s Syrian intervention for Washington and Brussels

Photo – Eastern Aleppo, December 2016 – © Jan Oberg By Gordon M. Hahn January 17, 2020 If Western leaders are able to put aside the now worn-out cliches such as Russian Vladimir Putin ‘punching above his weight,’ ‘Trump handing Putin a victory on a silver plate’, not to mention ‘Trump as Putin agent’, there […]

Time to end the West’s break with Russia

Time to end the West’s break with Russia

By Jonathan Power October 25, 2019 It’s time overdue for the West to make up with Russia. The contretemps over Ukraine, now played out over five years, is too long. As the world goes it doesn’t deserve so much attention. Ukraine in landmass may be a big country but it’s population is only 44 million […]

Liberalism as a source of trouble

Liberalism as a source of trouble

Crop of Book Cover for The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities. Photo: Counterpunch.org By Michael Welton August 10, 2019 I first discovered John Mearsheimer’s work in 2014 when he published a courageous article in Foreign Affairs on why the Ukraine crisis was the West’s fault. The blame could not be laid at Putin’s doorstep. […]

NATO expansion’s open door policy and war or peace in the Donbass

NATO expansion’s open door policy and war or peace in the Donbass

By Gordon M. Hahn July 25, 2019 NATO expansion has contributed to the causal matrix of two wars: the 2008 Georgian-South Ossetiyan/Russian Five-Day War and the ongoing Donbass civil war. The West’s April 2008 promise that both Georgia and Ukraine will become NATO members encouraged Georgian nationalism and Saakashvili’s war in South Ossetiya and consequently […]

Through the Looking Glass Falsely: A World Without Facts

Through the Looking Glass Falsely: A World Without Facts

  By Gordon M. Hahn August 31, 2018 As the West has turned more and more to Soviet/Russian methods of the ‘big lie’ in order to advance democracy and its interests, the Russia-West propaganda war had produced a post-fact world in which disinformation comes to be believed by its purveyors. Both sides, forgetting the previous […]

The big American mistakes with Russia

The big American mistakes with Russia

  By Jonathan Power August 14, 2018 Two mistakes, committed on President Barack Obama’s watch, were the triggers for the end of the long post-Cold War period of good relations with Russia. They were the attack on Libya by the US, France and the UK and the subsequent killing of its long-time dictator, Muammar Gadhafi. […]