February 2022

Jan Oberg February 25, 2022 ”An eye for an eye will one day make the whole world blind.”M K Gandhi A day or two before the Russian assault on Ukraine, I wrote that Russia would NOT invade Ukraine. The news on the morning of February 24 admittedly shocked me and made me very sad: With this move and the NATO countries’ tit-for-tat response that will have devastating economic consequences for Europe’s citizens, there will not be peace in Europe in my lifetime. And I was not the only one who must have been surprised even in Russia. Here are the words by professor Sergey Karaganov, honorary chairman of Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defence Policy from February 8: ”Russian troops near the border of Ukraine are not going to move into the country. To do so would be simply senseless. Grabbing land already devastated by its anti-national and corrupt ruling...

Jan Oberg February 24, 2022 NoteThis manuscript was finalised on February 23, about 15 hours before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. If just a little of what I describe below had been tried during the last 30 years, what we witnessed in the last months and in these hours would never have been possible. Thanks to the rampant security intellectual disarmament since 9/11, the US/NATO world seems to think that it is not itself a party to any conflict but merely a witness to criminals doing evil things – Russia, China, Iran, Syria, North Korea, etc. And criminals must be judged and punished. However, if there is only one troublemaker, this US/NATO world isn’t obliged to take ”the others” into account, look into the problems that stand between itself and them. Neither do they have even to try to use mediation and negotiations to find solutions that all parties can live...

Edward Curtin February 21, 2022 Two of the greatest speeches ever delivered by an American president bookend this extraordinary documentary film. It opens with President John F. Kennedy giving the commencement speech at American University on June 10, 1963 and it closes with his civil rights speech to the American people the following day. It is a deft artistic touch that suggests the brevity of JFK’s heroic efforts for world peace and domestic racial equality and justice before he was assassinated in a public execution in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. Originally published at Off-Guardian.org on January 23, 2022 In the former anti-war speech, he called for the end to the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the halt to the arms race, and the abolishment of war and its weapons, especially nuclear. He said: What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana...

Cartoon printed by The Japan Times Alex Lo February 18, 2022 Endless negative news stories and opinion pieces about how bad China is in almost every way are bound to shape public perception. Almost nine in 10 Americans (89 per cent) consider China a competitor or enemy, rather than a partner, according to the authoritative Pew Research. Commenting, Winston Lord, a US ambassador to China in the 1980s, said Beijing only had itself to blame. “The shift is caused by China’s actions under Xi [Jinping], the repression at home, the more aggressive approach abroad and intrusions in societies, including our own,” Lord said. “It has turned off not only Americans, but also Europeans and Australians.” Originally posted on “Pearls & Irritations – John Menadue’s Public Policy Journal” on February 9, 2022 Lord was once one of Henry Kissinger’s bright young proteges. There is no dispute that he understands China-US relations...

February 16, 2022 In this in-depth interview, Jack Matlock, the outspoken retired career diplomat who served as the United States last Ambassador to the Soviet Union (1987–91) reflects critically on NATO expansion, Ukraine’s internal struggles, and most importantly the lack of western empathy toward European security needs. To think of Russia as different from Europe is a mistake, he holds, and reminds us that the Cold War ended because it was in both parties interest to bring it to an end. Although the current situation in 2022 might on the outside look like a “new cold war” it has nothing in common with the underlying reasons for the original Cold War says the former US diplomat who knew the struggle inside out. Ambassador Matlock served, among other postings, as US Ambassador to Czechoslovakia from 1981–83, and, most importantly, as the United State’s last Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987–91...

Alfred De Zayas February 11, 2022 The current tensions between the United States and Russia with regard to Ukraine goes back to a series of NATO actions and omissions following the demise of the Soviet Union in 1989/91.  On the Russian side, there is a widespread perception of having been misled by the US and NATO, a pervasive malaise about a breach of trust, a violation of a “gentleman’s agreement” on fundamental issues of national security. While the US protests that it never gave assurances to Gorbachev that NATO would not expand eastwards, declassified documents prove otherwise.  But even in the absence of declassified documents and contemporary statements by political leaders in 1989/91 including Secretary of State James Baker and German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher (which can be consulted in YouTube), it is all-too-obvious that there is a festering wound caused by NATO’s eastward expansion over the past 30 years,...

Robin Edward Poulton February 11, 2022 1 Feb 2022 – Secretary of State Blinken’s statement on January 26th was a disaster: a statement pleading for peace in Ukraine that was laden with aggression against Russia. The statement suffered from the lack of imagination we associate with U.S. imperialism, and a wanton refusal to understand how and why Russia feels threatened by NATO and the USA. Originally published at Transcend Media Service (TMS) Ukraine is a buffer state between Russia and Germany/Europe/NATO. And we need buffer states. Buffer States are often necessary for stable peace. No less a person than the Secrétaire Permanente de l’Académie Française – Madame Hélène Carrère d’Encausse – commented recently that Helmut Kohl and James Baker had promised Mikael Gorbachev that NATO would not expand eastwards…. which it then did, now expanded to 30 member states. Madame Hélène Carrère d’Encausse was born in Russia. Her magisterial book L’Empire Eclaté described the break-up of the Soviet...

Edward Curtin February 11, 2022 Despite its pedigree as a fundamental element in civilization’s greatest stories, nostalgia has come to be associated with treacly sentimentality, defeatism, and spurious spiritual inclinations.  Homer, Vergil, Dante, the Biblical writers, and their ilk would demur, of course, but they have been dead for a few years, so progress’s mantra urges us to get on with it.  This is now. Originally posted on Transcend Media Service on February 11, 2022 But now is always, and like its twin – exile – nostalgia is perpetual.  The aching for “home” – from Greek algos, pain + nostos, homecoming – is not simply a desire for the past, whether in reality or imagination, time or place, but a passionate yearning for the best from the past to be brought into the future. Nostalgia may be more a long ache of old people, but it is also a feeling that follows...

Photo: Michael Rubin, Dreamstime Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies February 11, 2022 While the Biden administration is sending more troops and weapons to inflame the Ukraine conflict and Congress is pouring more fuel on the fire, the American people are on a totally different track. A December 2021 poll found that a plurality of Americans in both political parties prefer to resolve differences over Ukraine through diplomacy. Another December poll found that a plurality of Americans (48 per cent) would oppose going to war with Russia should it invade Ukraine, with only 27 per cent favouring U.S. military involvement. The conservative Koch Institute, which commissioned that poll, concluded that “the United States has no vital interests at stake in Ukraine and continuing to take actions that increase the risk of a confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia is therefore not necessary for our security. After more than two decades of...

This documentary by John Pilger hardly needs any introduction. It is eminently useful for public education about the history and the events in and around China that has fuelled containment for decades – elements of an understanding of the present Cold War on China that the US or NATO mainstream media will never convey to you. February 8, 2022 John Pilger – one of the most important journalists in international affairs – does not seem to have changed the settings for this documentary on Vimeo to permit embedding it, so go here to see it on Vimeo. Much more interesting materials on John Pilger’s homepage here.

Sergey Vinograd, Unsplash Richard Falk TFF Associate February 7, 2022 The post below is my stimulus essay for a Forum sponsored by Great Transition Initiative, a project of the Tellus Institute, dedicated to the exploration of humane and ecologically resonant adjustments to the challenges and threats posed by the onset of the Anthropocentric Age. The text of the full Forum can be found by clicking here. It contains many wise and illuminating responses to my reflections, including by leading thinkers of our time. The Forum closes with my effort to respond to the responses, but due to space limitations, in a very truncated manner. Also, the Forum format conveys some information about the underlying philosophy that guides this ambitious undertaking. Global Solidarity: Toward a Politics of Impossibility  A Captive Imagination As the COVID-19 pandemic slowly subsides, it is not clear what lessons will be drawn by political leaders and publics around...

Thomas De Waal February 3, 2022 Many people are trying to rewrite the history of the 2008 Georgia-Russia War in the light of the Ukraine crisis. The EU’s report on the war is still a useful baseline and a reminder of how different the two conflicts are. Originally published at Carnegiemoscow Six years ago, on September 30, 2009, the European Union made a bold and mostly successful attempt to deal with recent history. The report on the Georgia-Russia war of 2008—known informally as the “Tagliavini Report” after its team-leader, Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini—came out little more than a year after the events themselves. The idea of the “Report of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia,” was to separate truth from fiction in the information war which both sides had waged and in particular to explain how the conflict started. It would be wrong to simplify the...