February 2024

A theory serves comprehension, prediction and identification of conditions for change. Seven such historical-cultural pointers will be indicated for China; using the West in general, and the USA in particular, for comparisons. The presentation draws on countless dialogues in China over 40 years, since 1973. Published by Counterpunch in 2015 China: in time, as dynasties; West: in space as empires. Look at a histomap combining world history and geography, time and space: China shows up through 4,000 years as relatively coherent dynasties with complex transitions – and the West as empires–birth-growth-peaking-decline-fall, like the Roman, UK and now the US empire – duration vs bubbles that burst; as China-centric vs Western hegemonic. Chinese space: Barbarian; US time: to create, past irrelevant. China marginalized space peopled by South-West-North-East barbarians – outside the “Chinese pocket” between Himalayas-Gobi desert-Tundra-Sea–except for Silk roads and Silk lane East China-East Africa, destroyed by Portugal and England from...

Photo by Nijwam Swargiary on Unsplash Western media’s reporting of the war in Gaza makes little pretence of impartiality. In French newsrooms and radio studios, unconditional support for Israel is the norm and part of a wider lurch to the right. Serge Halimi & Pierre RimbertLe Monde Diplomatique February 28, 2024 “A period of media frenzy has revealed, and accelerated, a political shift: in the weeks since the Hamas massacres on 7 October, France’s government and mainstream media have managed a double feat. They have expelled from the ‘republican arc’ (the spectrum of the politically acceptable) the leftwing La France Insoumise (LFI) and simultaneously admitted the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) to the fold. The RN, founded in 1972 by Jean-Marie Le Pen as the Front National, was once deemed unworthy of being in government by the ruling classes, who frequently called for a united front against it; now suddenly rehabilitated...

Jeffrey D. Sachs has recently written a short and highly informative article about the decades-long, disgustingly destructive activities of the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, in every corner of the world. Below, we bring you here the first part of that and then direct your attention to a very well-researched article by investigative reporters of the New York Times that documents how the CIA has been playing its dirty games in Ukraine the last ten years since the US-orchestrated and -financed regime change – which is when the present NATO-Russia conflict and the war in Ukraine can be said to have started (although it can also be seen as having much older roots. There are facts that, generally speaking, most people have probably heard very little of. One must appreciate that both authors below are Americans. That this type of activity can continue virtually without attention from the ‘free’ Western media...

February 24, 2024, marks the second anniversary of the tragic Russia-Ukraine war – with its underlying conflict between NATO and its reckless expansion on the one hand and Russia on the other. In this video produced by The China Academy in Shanghai, I talk about the four basic chapters of that drama and why, as it seems, none of the parties has learned any lessons yet. See this 8.02-minute video, which the important Global Times has re-posted on its YouTube Channel. And take a look at the comments, too. I have also been asked to comment, in 100 words, on this anniversary by the Chinese national news agency, Xinhua. Here is what I wrote: “Both the EU and NATO keep denying that the conflict was caused by NATO’s unnecessary expansion; they focus conveniently on the Ukraine war that Rusland caused. That serves only the Military-Industrial-Media Complex, MIMAC. The US/European ill-considered response to Russia was...

The China Academy has produced some new videos with me – and those we made last year are still to be posted here. They have been seen by an estimated hundreds of millions around the world in about three months! In this one, I address various aspects of the – predictable – fact that the US is now receiving a series of blowbacks, or boomerangs, because of its reckless policies beginning with the attack on Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 – as the thoroughly wrong-headed response to what happened in New York and Washington on September 11 that developed into the Global War On Terror, perhaps the most foolish war project in modern time. The China Academy posts them on China’s Bili-Bili platform (some call it China’s YouTube) and on YouTube at its “Thinkers Forum” Channel. See this 5:35-minute video on Thinkers Forum here – “Yankees go home,” Middle Eastern...

Cole Keister on Unsplash IntroJohan Galtung published a comprehensive peace plan for the Middle East as early as 1971 – in the Journal of Peace Research (JPR). However, today SAGE Publications seems not ashamed to charge you £ 29 to download single articles. So here is a 2015 short summary of Johan’s insights and thoughts on the issue. While everybody is focused on disappointing Israeli election results and the liberals and progressives of this world are justifiably fearful of a future pregnant with “more of the same – or worse”, it may be useful to take a look at the solution-indicative policy proposal below, to muster an idea of what measures may eventually usher in a more desirable future. Whatever the current situation may yield; releasing the peoples of the region from the grips of structurally oppressive, culturally alienating and directly destructive violence for good remains the priority. First: Washington...

NATO now holds its largest military exercise for decades, Steadfast Defender, involving 90 000 troops from all 31 NATO members and Sweden Over the last 70 years, we have heard here in Europe that ”the Russians are coming.” During the old Cold War ending in 1991, they did come to Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968) – and Afghanistan (1979). But they came neither to any of the neutral countries – Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Yugoslavia or Austria – nor to any NATO member. NATO’s militarist predictions and enemy images have proven consistently wrong over seven decades. During the First Cold War, the Moscow-dominated Warsaw Pact’s military expenditures were about 65-80% of NATO, and its technology and efficiency was way behind that of its Western brother. But to be sure, the OSCE – the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (set up in the early 1970s with 57 members) constructively developed a...

Johan Galtung – over 50 years my dear friend, collaborator and one of my two peace research mentors – died this morning. He was 93. He was, beyond any doubt, one of the greatest and most innovative social scientists of our time and one of the early pioneers of the academic field of peace and conflict research. He was a controversial intellectual to some extent – the envy, of course, by others – but kept true to his Gandhian-inspired nonviolent values where many succumbed to ‘security’ with weapons. He was also a TFF Associate since 1986 and we remained in contact – last, just a few days ago. You’ll find hundreds of articles by his hand on TFF’s present and earlier archive sites. I smile when I think of the countless hours we spent together exploring the world and coming up with new ideas. I owe him more than words...

Photo: Ash Hayes on Unsplash Tending the fronts of conflict On Wednesday, October 25, 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated, “Our war against Hamas is a test for all of humanity. It is a fight between the Iran-Hezbollah-Hamas axis of evil and the forces of freedom and progress. . . We are the people of the light, they are the people of darkness. Light will triumph over darkness.”[1] Now where have we heard those lines before? The axis of evil, the forces of light and freedom, the forces of darkness: these prejudiced phrases are so stale they’ve grown moldy. The war in Ukraine, we’re to believe, is against dark, evil Russia. Biden’s National Security Strategy 2022 speaks of the “darker vision” of US adversaries. The Cold War was against the “Evil Empire.” In every single US war for the past two and a half centuries, Americans have been expected to believe...

H. Peter Langille February 14, 2024 Now more than ever, we need a more effective United Nations; one with an appropriate instrument for preventing armed conflict and advancing sustainable common security. Despite having primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, the UN still lacks a dedicated capacity to respond rapidly and reliably to prevent armed conflict and protect people. As a result, the world has witnessed humanitarian crises in Rwanda, Srebrenica, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sir Lanka, Darfur, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Myanmar, Tigray, the Ukraine, Sudan and Israel/Palestine/Gaza. Despite the promise of “never again”, mass atrocities occur again and again. Even before the war on Gaza, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned, “the world is now facing the highest number of violent conflicts since 1945. He identified the crux of the problem, “we have no instruments to deal with crisis…we live in a dangerous...

, I had the great pleasure of being Ania K’s guest on her YouTube Channel. Here is a link to it – and I want you to use the link to access it on YouTube and not here. The amusing thing is that it’s been viewed by 11,000 people in a few days, and less than a week later, there are 160 comments, 99,99 % positive about the whole thing. I note a frequent comment from Ania’s viewers: Where have you been hiding, Jan? How come I did not hear about him before and that sort of “we never heard about him…” comments. This is striking after having been the co-founder and director of the Transnational Foundation since 1986 – and quite active in doing research, on-the-ground conflict mitigation work and having written thousands of articles, book chapters and comments. But I’ve heard it before and here are some reasons: One,...

Saudis Contradict Blinken: Want Actual Palestinian State now, not a Vague ‘Peace Process’ TFF Associate On Tuesday afternoon (6 February 2024), U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken took part in a joint press conference with Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Doha. The press conference was mainly about the war in Gaza and the possibility of a new pause in the fighting and exchange of hostages and prisoners. However, Blinken was also asked about his recent meeting with the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the possibility of normalisation of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Blinken said (as quoted by the US Department of State): “But with regard specifically to normalization, the crown prince reiterated Saudi Arabia’s strong interest in pursuing that. But he also made clear what he had said to me before, which is that in order to...