United States – Empire and domestic

A friendly quarrel while we agree that the US sanctions are a weapon of mass destruction and kill more people than wars do. And that we must talk much more about sanctions than we have so far. Jan Oberg, TFF director March 16, 2026 John Mearsheimer recently stated that U.S. sanctions murdered around 38 million people between 1971 and 2021 – see the video below. It is a dramatic figure, and it has spread quickly because it captures, in one sentence, the enormous human cost of modern sanctions. I share his concern about the destructive effects of economic coercion. But the specific number he cites — and the way he attributes it — deserves a friendly academic clarification. The figure comes from a 2023 Lancet Global Health article estimating the mortality effects of unilateral U.S. and EU sanctions over the past half‑century. This is the first point where Mearsheimer’s shorthand diverges from the text: the study...

PART 2 — Diplomacy, Law and Nonviolent Power By Jan ObergTFF co-founder and director January 26, 2026 This is the second of four TFF-created idea portfolios designed to curb the global reach of the United States and, in both the short and long term, help catalyse a worldwide nonviolent resistance to what many observers describe as the Trump administration’s uniquely confrontational, destructive and world-threatening policies. These portfolios outline what governments and citizens across the world can do through dynamic diplomacy, creative initiatives, and strictly nonviolent means. They are typical TFF works in that we do not only tell what the problem is and how bad it will go – as 90+% of all commentators, experts and scholars do – we tell what we think can be done, inviting you to think of what you think you can do. It seems painfully clear to me that the current political dynamics in Washington increasingly resemble the most dangerous...

PART 1 — Media, Culture and Information Sovereignty By Jan ObergTFF co-founder and director January 20, 2026 This is the first of four TFF-created idea portfolios designed to curb the global reach of the United States and, in both the short and long term, help catalyse a worldwide nonviolent resistance to what many observers describe as the Trump administration’s uniquely confrontational, destructive and world-threatening policies. These portfolios outline what governments and citizens across the world can do through dynamic diplomacy, creative initiatives, and strictly nonviolent means. They are typical TFF works in that we do not only tell what the problem is and how bad it will go – as 90+% of all commentators, experts and scholars do – we tell what we think can be done, inviting you to think of what you think you can do. It seems painfully clear to me that the current political dynamics in Washington increasingly resemble the most...

Introduction to TFF’s forthcoming four Idea Portfolios of Diplomatic and Nonviolent Resistance By TFF’s Board & FoundersPascal Lottaz, Biljana Vankovska, Annette Schiffmann, Christina Spannar & Jan Oberg January 19, 2026 “America, you are too arrogant.” — Martin Luther King Jr. Over the course of Trump’s first term and now a year into his second, the world has witnessed a consistent pattern of actions that challenge the basic long-standing norms of international cooperation, weaken multilateral institutions, and ignore the global norms and legal frameworks established by the UN Charter. During these years, we have witnessed military operations in Iran, Syria and Ukraine without UN authorisation; the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani; repeated strikes across the Middle East; and the launch of tariff wars against allies and competitors alike. We have seen a renewed emphasis on nuclearism and zero interest in arms control and disarmament negotiations. Pentagon is now The Department...

America’s Strategic Assault on Art, Academia, and the Imagination That Sustains Peace The United States once stood as a beacon of cultural audacity—a place where dissent could be beautiful, and beauty and innovation could challenge the present order of things. Its museums, universities, and artists helped inspire a worldwide imagination rooted in creative freedom and innovation. But today, under the Trump regime’s second term, those dynamic qualities are being systematically dismantled. Just read this. As Trump goes after the arts, many museums remain silent | CNN As CNN reports, the administration has launched an aggressive campaign to “eradicate improper ideology” from federally funded museums. Exhibitions involving race, gender, and identity are being censored or cancelled. Amy Sherald’s reimagining of the Statue of Liberty as a Black, trans woman was pulled from the Smithsonian after curators objected to its symbolism. Sherald warned that “history shows us what happens when governments demand loyalty...

Wang Yuewei（王玥玮） March 24, 2025 This is a chapter in a TFF anthology in the making “If You Want To Understand China.” Foreword, Introduction, Authors and Table of Content here. How to treat others is a core issue in a nation’s foreign policy and a direct reflection of its moral tradition. Throughout history, the performance of Western civilizations and Chinese civilization has been different. When it comes to dealing with others, China insists on pacifism and coexistence, whereas the West adopts expansionism and interventionism. Pacifism and expansionism are neither inherently good nor bad; each has its own achievements and losses. Pacifist China did not launch bloody colonial conquests despite its strength, but its conservative stance caused it to miss the Industrial Revolution. The expansionist West, through both violence and peace, spread modern technology and systems globally, but this often resulted in slaughter, plunder, and sometimes genocide in the colonies. National...

This is a chapter in a TFF anthology in the making “If You Want To Understand China.” Foreword, Introduction, Authors and Table of Content here. Cultural bias Before looking at concrete patterns of manipulation, it is necessary to point at the cultural bias that is partly driving the manipulation. Not only the regulations and protocols of most international organizations like the UN, WTO, NATO, etc., are culturally biased, the very idea of a ‘rules-based world’ as the ultimate goal of humanity is rooted in Western cultural values that are not supported by most non-Western nations. In fact, the basic idea behind TFF’s Smokescreen Report cannot be fully understood without taking the cultural bias into account. Dimensions of culture This section uses the 7-Dimension (7-D) model of national culture developed by Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner. These two management consultants identified the seven dimensions of culture, and the model was published...

But does the West want to understand China? This is a chapter in a TFF anthology in the making “If You Want To Understand China.” Foreword, Introduction, Authors and Table of Content here. We learn about other cultures than our own mostly through our media – however, in many cases, also through books, films, travels and personal encounters. All news are micro glimpses in time and space – something happens there and then, something else happens the next minute. In addition, the world is seen through negative lenses: dramatic and ’bad’ stuff makes the news. Bad news makes good news. We look for causes behind news and events in the immediate past or present, like B did this because A recently did that. It’s all micro in time and space, and very seldom do we get the macro – the larger/broader or deeper space and time – call them macro-history,...

This is a chapter in a TFF anthology in the making “If You Want To Understand China.” Foreword, Introduction, Authors and Table of Content here. China has had an unprecedented development in the last 4 decades. It cannot be disputed. The progress list is long and covers absolutely everything, literally all walks of life, from on pavements to in space, from schools to research, from microchips to quantum computing, from one child to many and on and on. In several fields, though, China remains stable: the culture, the hard work and the commitment to The Project, the project for a shared future for humankind. It is a fact that the West is in decline, and China is on the rise. Relatively speaking, it is logical because that is how it is in zero-sum games. But is it really a zero-sum game? I do not think so; the cake can be...

“No Extermination without Representation,” Digital, Midjourney / Clip2Comic, 2024 TFF Associate & former Board member On November 5, the American people go to the polls in one of the most consequential elections for the United States and the world. Normally, outsiders should not interfere in other countries’ elections, although the United States has a habit of interfering in other countries’ elections, often overtly and sometimes with the use of coups, plots, subversion, etc. However, as the Americans chanted “no taxation without representation” when they were fighting for their independence and tried to shake off the yoke of a foreign power over their lives, it is now appropriate for the people of the world to say “no extermination without representation.” If the rest of the world cannot have representation in US elections, at least we are entitled to express a view about it, especially when it affects the well-being or even...

John Menadue March 6, 2024 Pearls and Irritations has posted an outstanding series of articles by Percy Allan on the so-called ‘China Threat‘. He highlighted that America is deeply divided and that promoting the China threat helps unite Americans; that unlike the UK and the US, China has no imperial legacy; that unlike the Soviet Union, China is not exporting ideology; that China is concerned about managing its large ethnic and religious minorities; and that surrounded by scores of US bases, China’s military is defensive. Most important of all, Percy Allan emphasises that China’s focus is economic. Initially published by Pearls and Irritations. John Menadue’s Public Policy Journal here Western media, including in Australia, has become quite unhinged about the China threat. Our political ‘leadership’ slavishly follows Washington propaganda conducted mainly through the help of security agencies and the Five Eyes. The China threat agencies are unwilling to stand back...

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...