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marknesop.wordpress.com
PARIS (Reuters) - The total cost to France of reimbursing Russia for cancelling two warship contracts will be less than 1.2 billion euros ($1.31 billion), French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Thursday.
1. France says 'several' nations interested in Mistral warships AFP
2. Hollande, Putin reach agreement on cancelled warship deal AFP
3. Russia agrees compensation deal with France over Mistral warships AFP
4. 'Extremely difficult' for France to sell Mistral warships: experts AFP
5. France, Russia reach Mistral compensation deal: RIA ReutersLe Drian said on radio RTL the initial price for the two Mistral helicopter carrier warships had been 1.2 billion euros, but France will have to pay less than that because the ships were not been finished and the contract was suspended.
"Talks between President Putin and President Francois Hollande have concluded yesterday. There is no further dispute on the matter," he said.
He added that the discussions had been held in an amiable way and that there were no further penalties to pay over the contract, which was canceled because of Russia's role in the Ukraine conflict.
"Russia will be reimbursed euro for euro for the financial commitments taken for these ships," he said, adding that the ships are now fully owned by the French state.
In exchange for the reimbursements, France will have full freedom to do whatever it wants with the two undelivered vessels, which contain some Russian technology, according to statements from Hollande's office and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.
Le Drian said that France, whose navy already has three Mistral warships, would look for other buyers for the two ships.
"I am convinced there will be other buyers. Already a number of countries have expressed an interest for these two ships," he said.
Canada and Singapore have been mentioned as potential buyers. So has Egypt, which has just bought French fighter jets and naval frigates.
The ships' builder, state-backed DCNS, said last month it was spending at least 1 million euros ($1.1 million) a month to hold on to them.
DCNS is 35 percent owned by defense group Thales and 64 percent by the French state.
France last year suspended the Mistral contract, dating from 2011, after coming under pressure from its Western allies over Russia's role in the Ukraine crisis.
The long-discussed French sale was Moscow's first major Western arms purchase in the two decades since the fall of the Soviet Union. Nicolas Sarkozy, who was France's president when the order was struck, had hailed the signing of the contract as evidence the Cold War was over.
(Reporting by Geert De Clercq, editing by Larry King)
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marknesop.wordpress.com
yalensis, August 4, 2015 at 2:04 pm
Russia found good way to get even with Netherlands:
Starting 10 August, Russia will start limiting import of cut flowers from Netherlands.
The pretext is that all cut flowers from Netherlands must go through phyto-sanitary inspection before being admitted into the country.In Russia, a whopping 90% of all cut flowers are imported. Of this, Europe supplies 40.5%; Netherlands by itself 38.5%. Hence, the new rule is sure to hit the Dutch in their pocketbooks.
The surprising thing is, as the article points out, of the flowers which Netherlands exports, not all of them are even produced locally (in Holland). A surprising number of the flowers come from third countries, such as Ecuador, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Kenya.
Recently Russia started forming direct ties with those countries and importing the flowers directly, bypassing Netherlands. This process is expected to continue.
Already, Ecuador is pushing out Netherlands in the Russian market for flowers.
Even China is getting in on the game, starting to supply some of the voracious Russian appetite for cut flowers. Given all these sources of the flowers, Russian consumers are not likely to suffer a deficit of flowers, the article concludes.
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Jul 03, 2015 | The Guardian
omewhere in a Greek jail, the former defence minister, Akis Tsochatzopoulos, watches the financial crisis unfold. I wonder how partly responsible he feels? In 2013, Akis (as he is popularly known) went down for 20 years, finally succumbing to the waves of financial scandal to which his name had long been associated. For alongside the lavish spending, the houses and the dodgy tax returns, there was bribery, and it was the €8m appreciation he received from the German arms dealer, Ferrostaal, for the Greek government's purchase of Type 214 submarines, that sent him to prison.
There is this idea that the Greeks got themselves into this current mess because they paid themselves too much for doing too little. Well, maybe. But it's not the complete picture. For the Greeks also got themselves into debt for the oldest reason in the book – one might even argue, for the very reason that public debt itself was first invented – to raise and support an army. The state's need for quick money to raise an army is how industrial-scale money lending comes into business (in the face of the church's historic opposition to usury). Indeed, in the west, one might even stretch to say that large-scale public debt began as a way to finance military intervention in the Middle East – ie the crusades. And just as rescuing Jerusalem from the Turks was the justification for massive military spending in the middle ages, so the fear of Turkey has been the reason given for recent Greek spending. Along with German subs, the Greeks have bought French frigates, US F16s and German Leopard 2 tanks. In the 1980s, for example, the Greeks spent an average of 6.2% of their GDP on defence compared with a European average of 2.9%. In the years following their EU entry, the Greeks were the world's fourth-highest spenders on conventional weaponry.
So, to recap: corrupt German companies bribed corrupt Greek politicians to buy German weapons. And then a German chancellor presses for austerity on the Greek people to pay back the loans they took out (with Germans banks) at massive interest, for the weapons they bought off them in the first place. Is this an unfair characterisation? A bit. It wasn't just Germany. And there were many other factors at play in the escalation of Greek debt. But the postwar difference between the Germans and the Greeks is not the tired stereotype that the former are hardworking and the latter are lazy, but rather that, among other things, the Germans have, for obvious reasons, been restricted in their military spending. And they have benefited massively from that.
Debt and war are constant partners. "The global financial crisis was due, at least in part, to the war," wrote Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, calculating the cost of the US intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq, pre-financial crash, to have been $3tn. Indeed, it was only this year, back in March, that the UK taxpayer finally paid off the money we borrowed to fight the first world war. "This is a moment for Britain to be proud of," said George Osborne, as he paid the final instalment of £1.9bn. Really?
The phrase "military-industrial complex" is one of those cliches of 70s leftwing radicalism, but it was Dwight D Eisenhower, a five-star general no less, who warned against its creeping power in his final speech as president. "This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the federal government … we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society." Ike was right.
This week, Church House, C of E HQ, hosted a conference sponsored by the arms dealers Lockheed Martin and MBDA Missile Systems. We preach about turning swords into ploughs yet help normalise an industry that turns them back again. The archbishop of Canterbury has been pretty solid on Wonga and trying to put legal loan sharks out of business. Now the church needs to take this up a level. For the debts that cripple entire countries come mostly from spending on war, not on pensions. And we don't say this nearly enough.
marsCubed, 3 Jul 2015 12:21
@giles_fraserSyriza's position has been stated in this Huffington Post article.
Speaking to reporters in Washington on Tuesday, Yiannis Bournous, the head of international affairs for Greece's ruling Syriza party, heartily endorsed defense cuts as a way to meet the fiscal targets of Greece's international creditors.
"We already proposed a 200 million euro cut in the defense budget," Bournous said at an event hosted by the Center for Economic Policy and Research and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, referring to cuts in Syriza's most recent proposal to its creditors. "We are willing to make it even bigger -- it is a pleasure for us."
If the report is correct, ideology is playing just as much of a role as arithmetic in preventing a resolution. The IMF's refusal to consider a plan that would lessen pension cuts is consistent with itshistorically neoliberal political philosophy.
Giftedbutlazee 3 Jul 2015 11:52we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex.
Still as relevant now, 54 years after Eisenhower said it.
BritCol 3 Jul 2015 11:39And the reason the USA dominated the world after WW2 was they had stayed out of both wars for the first 2 years and made fortunes lending and selling arms to Britain (and some to the Axis). It was the Jewish moneylenders of the Middle Ages who financed the various internal European wars, created the first banks, and along with a Scot formed the Bank of England.
The moral? War makes money for profiteers, and puts those of us not killed or displaced in debt for generations. Yet we morons keep waving flags every time a prime minister wants to send us into another conflict.
barry1947brewster 3 Jul 2015 11:3928 May 2014 The Royal United Services Institute estimated that since the Berlin Wall fell the UK has spent £35 billion on wars. Now it is suggested that we bomb IS in Syria. Instead of printing "Paid for by the Taxpayer" on medicines provided by the NHS we should have a daily costing of our expenditure on bombs etc used in anger.
real tic 3 Jul 2015 11:23Finally someone at Graun looks at this obvious contradiction present in the Greek governments opposition to cut in defense spending (when they apparently accept cuts to pensions, healthcare and other social services)! Well done Giles, but what's wrong with your colleagues in CIF, or even in the glass bubbled editorial offices? Why has it taken so long to examine this aspect of Greek debt?
Defense expenditure is also one reason some actors in creditor nations are content to keep Greece in debt, even as far as to see its debts deepen, as long as it keeps on buying. while within Greece, nationalism within the military has long been a way of containing far right tendencies.
It is notable but unsurprising that the current Minister of Defense in Greece is a far right politician, allied to Tsipiras in the Syriza coalition.
Pollik 3 Jul 2015 11:03"Throughout history, debt and war have been constant partners"
...and someone always makes a profit.
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zerohedge.comSubmitted by Dan Sanchez via AntiWar.com,
To understand today's crises in Iraq, Syria, Iran, and elsewhere, one must grasp their shared Lebanese connection. This assertion may seem odd. After all, what is the big deal about Lebanon? That little country hasn't had top headlines since Israel deigned to bomb and invade it in 2006. Yet, to a large extent, the roots of the bloody tangle now enmeshing the Middle East lie in Lebanon: or to be more precise, in the Lebanon policy of Israel.
Rewind to the era before the War on Terror. In 1995, Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's "dovish" Prime Minister, was assassinated by a right-wing zealot. This precipitated an early election in which Rabin's Labor Party was defeated by the ultra-hawkish Likud, lifting hardliner Benjamin Netanyahu to his first Premiership in 1996.
That year, an elite study group produced a policy document for the incipient administration titled, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm." The membership of the Clean Break study group is highly significant, as it included American neoconservatives who would later hold high offices in the Bush Administration and play driving roles in its Middle East policy.
"A Clean Break" advised that the new Likud administration adopt a "shake it off" attitude toward the policy of the old Labor administration which, as the authors claimed, assumed national "exhaustion" and allowed national "retreat." This was the "clean break" from the past that "A Clean Break" envisioned. Regarding Israel's international policy, this meant:
"…a clean break from the slogan, 'comprehensive peace' to a traditional concept of strategy based on balance of power."
Pursuit of comprehensive peace with all of Israel's neighbors was to be abandoned for selective peace with some neighbors (namely Jordan and Turkey) and implacable antagonism toward others (namely Iraq, Syria, and Iran). The weight of its strategic allies would tip the balance of power in favor of Israel, which could then use that leverage to topple the regimes of its strategic adversaries by using covertly managed "proxy forces" and "the principle of preemption." Through such a "redrawing of the map of the Middle East," Israel will "shape the regional environment," and thus, "Israel will not only contain its foes; it will transcend them."
"A Clean Break" was to Israel (and ultimately to the US) what Otto von Bismarck's "Blood and Iron" speech was to Germany. As he set the German Empire on a warpath that would ultimately set Europe ablaze, Bismarck said:
"Not through speeches and majority decisions will the great questions of the day be decided?-?that was the great mistake of 1848 and 1849?-?but by iron and blood."
Before setting Israel and the US on a warpath that would ultimately set the Middle East ablaze, the Clean Break authors were basically saying: Not through peace accords will the great questions of the day be decided?-?that was the great mistake of 1978 (at Camp David) and 1993 (at Oslo)?-?but by "divide and conquer" and regime change. By wars both aggressive ("preemptive") and "dirty" (covert and proxy).
"A Clean Break" slated Saddam Hussein's Iraq as first up for regime change. This is highly significant, especially since several members of the Clean Break study group played decisive roles in steering and deceiving the United States into invading Iraq and overthrowing Saddam seven years later.
The Clean Break study group's leader, Richard Perle, led the call for Iraqi regime change beginning in the 90s from his perch at the Project for a New American Century and other neocon think tanks. And while serving as chairman of a high level Pentagon advisory committee, Perle helped coordinate the neoconservative takeover of foreign policy in the Bush administration and the final push for war in Iraq.
Another Clean Breaker, Douglas Feith, was a Perle protege and a key player in that neocon coup. After 9/11, as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Feith created two secret Pentagon offices tasked with cherry-picking, distorting, and repackaging CIA and Pentagon intelligence to help make the case for war.
Feith's "Office of Special Plans" manipulated intelligence to promote the falsehood that Saddam had a secret weapons of mass destruction program that posed an imminent chemical, biological, and even nuclear threat. This lie was the main justification used by the Bush administration for the Iraq War.
Feith's "Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group" trawled through the CIA's intelligence trash to stitch together far-fetched conspiracy theories linking Saddam Hussein's Iraq with Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda, among other bizarre pairings. Perle put the Group into contact with Ahmed Chalabi, a dodgy anti-Saddam Iraqi exile who would spin even more yarn of this sort.
Much of the Group's grunt work was performed by David Wurmser, another Perle protege and the primary author of "A Clean Break." Wurmser would go on to serve as an advisor to two key Iraq War proponents in the Bush administration: John Bolton at the State Department and Vice President Dick Cheney.
The foregone conclusions generated by these Clean Breaker-led projects faced angry but ineffectual resistance from the Intelligence Community, and are now widely considered scandalously discredited. But they succeeded in helping, perhaps decisively, to overcome both bureaucratic and public resistance to the march to war.
The Iraq War that followed put the Clean Break into action by grafting it onto America. The War accomplished the Clean Break objective of regime change in Iraq, thus beginning the "redrawing of the map of the Middle East." And the attendant "Bush Doctrine" of preemptive war accomplished the Clean Break objective of "reestablishing the principle of preemption"
But why did the Netanyahu/Bush Clean Breakers want to regime change Iraq in the first place? While reference is often made to "A Clean Break" as a prologue to the Iraq War, it is often forgotten that the document proposed regime change in Iraq primarily as a "means" of "weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria." Overthrowing Saddam in Iraq was merely a stepping stone to "foiling" and ultimately overthrowing Bashar al-Assad in neighboring Syria. As Pat Buchanan put it:
"In the Perle-Feith-Wurmser strategy, Israel's enemy remains Syria, but the road to Damascus runs through Baghdad."
Exactly how this was to work is baffling. As the document admitted, although both were Baathist regimes, Assad and Saddam were far more enemies than allies. "A Clean Break" floated a convoluted pipe dream involving a restored Hashemite monarchy in Iraq (the same US-backed, pro-Israel dynasty that rules Jordan) using its sway over an Iraqi cleric to turn his co-religionists in Syria against Assad. Instead, the neocons ended up settling for a different pipe(line) dream, sold to them by that con-man Chalabi, involving a pro-Israel, Chalabi-dominated Iraq building a pipeline from Mosul to Haifa. One only wonders why he didn't sweeten the deal by including the Brooklyn Bridge in the sale.
As incoherent as it may have been, getting at Syria through Iraq is what the neocons wanted. And this is also highly significant for us today, because the US has now fully embraced the objective of regime change in Syria, even with Barack Obama inhabiting the White House instead of George W. Bush.
Washington is pursuing that objective by partnering with Turkey, Jordan, and the Gulf States in supporting the anti-Assad insurgency in Syria's bloody civil war, and thereby majorly abetting the bin Ladenites (Syrian Al Qaeda and ISIS) leading that insurgency. Obama has virtually become an honorary Clean Breaker by pursuing a Clean Break objective ("rolling back Syria") using Clean Break strategy ("balance of power" alliances with select Muslim states) and Clean Break tactics (a covert and proxy "dirty war"). Of course the neocons are the loudest voices calling for the continuance and escalation of this policy. And Israel is even directly involving itself by providing medical assistance to Syrian insurgents, including Al Qaeda fighters.
Another target identified by "A Clean Break" was Iran. This is highly significant, since while the neocons were still riding high in the Bush administration's saddle, they came within an inch of launching a US war on Iran over yet another manufactured and phony WMD crisis. While the Obama administration seems on the verge of finalizing a nuclear/peace deal with the Iranian government in Tehran, the neocons and Netanyahu himself (now Prime Minister once again) have pulled out all the stops to scupper it and put the US and Iran back on a collision course.
The neocons are also championing ongoing American support for Saudi Arabia's brutal war in Yemen to restore that country's US-backed former dictator. Simply because the "Houthi" rebels that overthrew him and took the capital city of Sanaa are Shiites, they are assumed to be a proxy of the Shiite Iranians, and so this is seen by neocons and Saudi theocons alike as a war against Iranian expansion.
Baghdad is a pit stop on the road to Damascus, and Sanaa is a pit stop on the road to Tehran. But, according to the Clean Breakers, Damascus and Tehran are themselves merely pit stops on the road to Beirut.
According to "A Clean Break," Israel's main beef with Assad is that:
"Syria challenges Israel on Lebanese soil."
And its great grief with the Ayatollah is that Iran, like Syria, is one of the:
"…principal agents of aggression in Lebanon…"
All regime change roads lead to Lebanon, it would seem. So this brings us back to our original question. What is the big deal about Lebanon?
The answer to this question goes back to Israel's very beginnings. Its Zionist founding fathers established the bulk of Israel's territory by dispossessing and ethnically cleansing three-quarters of a million Palestinian Arabs in 1948. Hundreds of thousands of these were driven (sometimes literally in trucks, sometimes force marched with gunshots fired over their heads) into Lebanon, where they were gathered in miserable refugee camps.
In Lebanon the Palestinians who had fled suffered an apartheid state almost as rigid as the one Israel imposed on those who stayed behind, because the dominant Maronite Christians there were so protective of their political and economic privileges in Lebanon's confessional system.
In a 1967 war of aggression, Israel conquered the rest of formerly-British Palestine, annexing the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and placing the Palestinians there (many of whom fled there seeking refuge after their homes were taken by the Israelis in 1948) under a brutal, permanent military occupation characterized by continuing dispossession and punctuated by paroxysms of mass murder.
This compounding of their tragedy drove the Palestinians to despair and radicalization, and they subsequently lifted Yasser Arafat and his fedayeen (guerrilla) movement to the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), then headquartered in Jordan.
When the king of Jordan massacred and drove out the PLO, Arafat and the remaining members relocated to Lebanon. There they waged cross-border guerrilla warfare to try to drive Israel out of the occupied territories. The PLO drew heavily from the refugee camps in Lebanon for recruits.
This drew Israel deeply into Lebanese affairs. In 1976, Israel started militarily supporting the Maronite Christians, helping to fuel a sectarian civil war that had recently begun and would rage until 1990. That same year, Syrian forces entered Lebanon, partook in the war, and began a military occupation of the country.
In 1978, Israel invaded Lebanon to drive the PLO back and to recruit a proxy army called the "South Lebanon Army" (SLA).
In 1982 Israel launched a full scale war in Lebanon, fighting both Syria and the PLO. Osama bin Laden later claimed that it was seeing the wreckage of tall buildings in Beirut toppled by Israel's "total war" tactics that inspired him to destroy American buildings like the Twin Towers.
In this war, Israel tried to install a group of Christian Fascists called the Phalange in power over Lebanon. This failed when the new Phalangist ruler was assassinated. As a reprisal, the Phalange perpetrated, with Israeli connivance, the massacre of hundreds (perhaps thousands) of Palestinian refugees and Lebanese Shiites. (See Murray Rothbard's moving contemporary coverage of the atrocity.)
Israel's 1982 war succeeded in driving the PLO out of Lebanon, although not in destroying it. And of course hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees still linger in Lebanon's camps, yearning for their right of return: a fact that cannot have escaped Israel's notice.
The Lebanese Shiites were either ambivalent or welcoming toward being rid of the PLO. But Israel rapidly squandered whatever patience the Shiites had for it by brutally occupying southern Lebanon for years. This led to the creation of Hezbollah, a Shiite militia not particularly concerned with the plight of the Sunni Palestinian refugees, but staunchly dedicated to driving Israel and its proxies (the SLA) completely out of Lebanon.
Aided by Syria and Iran, though not nearly to the extent Israel would have us believe, Hezbollah became the chief defensive force directly frustrating Israel's efforts to dominate and exploit its northern neighbor. In 1993 and again in 1996 (the year of "A Clean Break"), Israel launched still more major military operations in Lebanon, chiefly against Hezbollah, but also bombing Lebanon's general population and infrastructure, trying to use terrorism to motivate the people and the central government to crack down on Hezbollah.
This is the context of "A Clean Break": Israel's obsession with crushing Hezbollah and dominating Lebanon, even if it means turning most of the Middle East upside down (regime changing Syria, Iran, and Iraq) to do it.
9/11 paved the way for realizing the Clean Break, using the United States as a gigantic proxy, thanks to the Israel Lobby's massive influence in Congress and the neocons' newly won dominance in the Bush Administration.
Much to their chagrin, however, its first phase (the Iraq War) did not turn out so well for the Clean Breakers. The blundering American grunts ended up installing the most vehemently pro-Iran Shiite faction in power in Baghdad, and now Iranian troops are even stationed and fighting inside Iraq. Oops. And as it turns out, Chalabi may have been an Iranian agent all along. (But don't worry, Mr. Perle, I'm sure he'll eventually come through with that pipeline.)
This disastrous outcome has given both Israel and Saudi Arabia nightmares about an emerging "Shia Crescent" arcing from Iran through Iraq into Syria. And now the new Shiite "star" in Yemen completes this menacing "Star and Crescent" picture. The fears of the Sunni Saudis are partially based on sectarianism. But what Israel sees in this picture is a huge potential regional support network for its nemesis Hezbollah.
Israel would have none of it. In 2006, it launched its second full scale war in Lebanon, only to be driven back once again by that damned Hezbollah. It was time to start thinking big and regional again. As mentioned above, the Bush war on Iran didn't pan out. (This was largely because the CIA got its revenge on the neocons by releasing a report stating plainly that Iran was not anything close to a nuclear threat.) So instead the neocons and the Saudis drew the US into what Seymour Hersh called "the Redirection" in 2007, which involved clandestine "dirty war" support for Sunni jihadists to counter Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah.
When the 2011 Arab Spring wave of popular uprisings spread to Syria, the Redirection was put into overdrive. The subsequent US-led dirty war discussed above had the added bonus of drawing Hezbollah into the bloody quagmire to try to save Assad, whose regime now finally seems on the verge of collapse.
The Clean Break is back, baby! Assad is going, Saddam is gone, and who knows: the Ayatollah may never get his nuclear deal anyway. But most importantly for "securing the realm," Hezbollah is on the ropes.
And so what if the Clean Break was rather messy and broke so many bodies and buildings along the way? Maybe it's like what Lenin said about omelets and eggs: you just can't make a Clean Break without breaking a few million Arabs and a few thousand Americans. And what about all those fanatics now running rampant throughout large swaths of the world thanks to the Clean Break wars, mass-executing Muslim "apostates" and Christian "infidels" and carrying out terrorist attacks on westerners? Again, the Clean Breakers must remind themselves, keep your eye on the omelet and forget the eggs.
Well, dear reader, you and I are the eggs. And if we don't want to see our world broken any further by the imperial clique of murderers in Washington for the sake of the petty regional ambitions of a tiny clique of murderers in Tel Aviv, we must insist on American politics making a clean break from the neocons, and US foreign policy making a clean break from Israel.
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www.unz.com
Fern , June 29, 2015 at 3:21 amIt would take a heart of stone not to laugh. What's the word I'm looking for? Ah yes, schadenfreude:-"In 2015, the German economy is estimated to lose up to 290,000 jobs and receive $10 billion less than it could due to restrictive measure imposed on Moscow, the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations told Contra Magazine. German exports to Russia last year fell by $7.2 billion.
"The current developments exceed our worst fears," committee chairman Eckhard Cordes said.
This nasty short-term implication of an unreasonable Western policy towards Russia is affecting many European countries, not only the largest economy in the EU. In total, the European Union could potentially lose as much as $110 billion and up to 2 million jobs from the anti-Russian sanctions, according to the committee's estimates.But the long-term consequences are far more profound and damaging. German businesses now fear that their reliable and long-time Russian partners have pivoted to Asia, specifically China.
German businesses are concerned that this shift could be permanent. By the time restrictive measures are lifted, former ties and partnerships could be long gone."
http://sputniknews.com/business/20150629/1023973728.html
"Former ties and partnerships could be gone". You bet. What's it gonna take before Europe's so called leaders wake up to the fact that US sanctions aren't just about trying to destroy Russia's economy, but also about doing serious, possibly terminal damage to the European one?
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Deeper down the rabbit hole of US-backed color revolutions.
by Tony CartalucciBelieve it or not, the US State Department's mission statement actually says the following:
"Advance freedom for the benefit of the American people and the international community by helping to build and sustain a more democratic, secure, and prosperous world composed of well-governed states that respond to the needs of their people, reduce widespread poverty, and act responsibly within the international system."
A far and treasonous cry from the original purpose of the State Department - which was to maintain communications and formal relations with foreign countries - and a radical departure from historical norms that have defined foreign ministries throughout the world, it could just as well now be called the "Department of Imperial Expansion." Because indeed, that is its primary purpose now, the expansion of Anglo-American corporate hegemony worldwide under the guise of "democracy" and "human rights."
That a US government department should state its goal as to build a world of "well-governed states" within the "international system" betrays not only America's sovereignty but the sovereignty of all nations entangled by this offensive mission statement and its execution.
Image: While the US State Department's mission statement sounds benign or even progressive, when the term "international system" or "world order" is used, it is referring to a concept commonly referred to by the actual policy makers that hand politicians their talking points, that involves modern day empire. Kagan's quote came from a 1997 policy paper describing a policy to contain China with.
....
The illegitimacy of the current US State Department fits in well with the overall Constitution-circumventing empire that the American Republic has degenerated into. The current Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, gives a daily affirmation of this illegitimacy every time she bellies up to the podium to make a statement.Recently she issued a dangerously irresponsible "warning" to Venezuela and Bolivia regarding their stately relations with Iran. While America has the right to mediate its own associations with foreign nations, one is confounded trying to understand what gives America the right to dictate such associations to other sovereign nations. Of course, the self-declared imperial mandate the US State Department bestowed upon itself brings such "warnings" into perspective with the realization that the globalists view no nation as sovereign and all nations beholden to their unipolar "international system."
It's hard to deny the US State Department is not behind the
If only the US State Department's meddling was confined to hubris-filled statements given behind podiums attempting to fulfill outlandish mission statements, we could all rest easier. However, the US State Department actively bolsters its meddling rhetoric with very real measures. The centerpiece of this meddling is the vast and ever-expanding network being built to recruit, train, and support various "color revolutions" worldwide. While the corporate owned media attempts to portray the various revolutions consuming Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, and now Northern Africa and the Middle East as indigenous, spontaneous, and organic, the reality is that these protesters represent what may be considered a "fifth-branch" of US power projection.
"color revolutions" sweeping the world when the Secretary of
State herself phones in during the youth movement confabs
her department sponsors on a yearly basis.
CANVAS: Freedom House, IRI, Soros funded Serbian color revolution
college behind the Orange, Rose, Tunisian, Burmese, and Egyptian protests
and has trained protesters from 50 other countries.
As with the army and CIA that fulfilled this role before, the US State Department's "fifth-branch" runs a recruiting and coordinating center known as the Alliance of Youth Movements (AYM). Hardly a secretive operation, its website, Movements.org proudly lists the details of its annual summits which began in 2008 and featured astro-turf cannon fodder from Venezuela to Iran, and even the April 6 Youth Movement from Egypt. The summits, activities, and coordination AYM provides is but a nexus. Other training arms include the US created and funded CANVAS of Serbia, which in turn trained color-coup leaders from the Ukraine and Georgia, to Tunisia and Egypt, including the previously mentioned April 6 Movement. There is also the Albert Einstein Institute which produced the very curriculum and techniques employed by CANVAS.2008 New York City Summit (included Egypt's April 6 Youth Movement)
2009 Mexico City Summit
2010 London SummitAs previously noted, these organizations are now retroactively trying to obfuscate their connections to the State Department and the Fortune 500 corporations that use them to achieve their goals of expansion overseas. CANVAS has renamed and moved their list of supporters and partners while AYM has oafishly changed their "partnerships" to "past partnerships."
Before & After: Oafish attempts to downplay US State Department's extra-legal
meddling and subterfuge in foreign affairs. Other attempts are covered here.Funding all of this is the tax payers' money funneled through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute (NDI), and Freedom House. George Soros' Open Society foundation also promotes various NGOs which in turn support the revolutionary rabble on the ground. In Egypt, after the State Department's youth brigades played their role, Soros and NED funded NGOs began work on drafting Egypt's new constitution.
It should be noted that while George Soros is portrayed as being "left," and the overall function of these pro-democracy, pro-human rights organizations appears to be "left-leaning," a vast number of notorious "Neo-Cons" also constitute the commanding ranks and determine the overall agenda of this color revolution army.
Then there are legislative acts of Congress that overtly fund the subversive objectives of the US State Department. In support of regime change in Iran, the Iran Freedom and Support Act was passed in 2006. More recently in 2011, to see the US-staged color revolution in Egypt through to the end, money was appropriated to "support" favored Egyptian opposition groups ahead of national elections.
Then of course there is the State Department's propaganda machines. While organizations like NED and Freedom House produce volumes of talking points in support for their various on-going operations, the specific outlets currently used by the State Department fall under the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). They include Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, Alhurra, and Radio Sawa. Interestingly enough, the current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sits on the board of governors herself, along side a shameful collection of representatives from the Fortune 500, the corporate owned media, and various agencies within the US government.
Hillary Clinton: color revolutionary field marshal & propagandist,
two current roles that defy her duties as Secretary of State in any
rational sense or interpretation.
Judging from Radio Free Europe's latest headlines, such as "Lieberman: The West's Policy Toward Belarus Has 'Failed Miserably' " and "Azerbaijani Youth Activist 'Jailed For One Month,'" it appears that hope is still pinned on inciting color revolutions in Belarus and Azerbaijan to continue on with NATO's creep and the encirclement of Russia. Belarus in particular was recently one of the subjects covered at the Globsec 2011 conference, where it was considered a threat to both the EU and NATO, having turned down NATO in favor of closer ties with Moscow.Getting back to Hillary Clinton's illegitimate threat regarding Venezuela's associations with Iran, no one should be surprised to find out an extensive effort to foment a color revolution to oust Hugo Chavez has been long underway by AYM, Freedom House, NED, and the rest of this "fifth-branch" of globalist power projection. In fact, Hugo Chavez had already weathered an attempted military coup overtly orchestrated by the United States under Bush in 2002.
Upon digging into the characters behind Chavez' ousting in 2002, it
appears that this documentary sorely understates US involvement.The same forces of corporatism, privatization, and free-trade that led the 2002 coup against Chavez are trying to gain ground once again. Under the leadership of Harvard trained globalist minion Leopoldo Lopez, witless youth are taking the place of 2002's generals and tank columns in an attempt to match globalist minion Mohamed ElBaradei's success in Egypt.
Unsurprisingly, the US State Department's AYM is pro-Venezuelan opposition, and describes in great detail their campaign to "educate" the youth and get them politically active. Dismayed by Chavez' moves to consolidate his power and strangely repulsed by his "rule by decree," -something that Washington itself has set the standard for- AYM laments over the difficulties their meddling "civil society" faces.
Chavez' government recognized the US State Department's meddling recently in regards to a student hunger strike and the US's insistence that the Inter-American Human Rights Commission be allowed to "inspect" alleged violations under the Chavez government. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro even went as far as saying, "It looks like they (U.S.) want to start a virtual Egypt."
The "Fifth-Branch" Invasion: Click for larger image.
Understanding this "fifth-branch" invasion of astro-turf cannon fodder and the role it is playing in overturning foreign governments and despoiling nation sovereignty on a global scale is an essential step in ceasing the Anglo-American imperial machine. And of course, as always, boycotting and replacing the corporations behind the creation and expansion of these color-revolutions hinders not only the spread of their empire overseas, but releases the stranglehold of dominion they possess at home in the United States. Perhaps then the US State Department can once again go back to representing the American Republic and its people to the rest of the world as a responsible nation that respects real human rights and sovereignty both at home and abroad.Editor's Note: This article has been edited and updated October 26, 2012.
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Jun 28, 2015 | Zero Hedge
With intra-Europe relations hitting a new all-time low; and, having already been busted spying on Merkel, Obama got caught with his hand in Hollande's cookie jar this week, the following exultation from one of Germany's top politicians will hardly help Washington-Brussells relations. As Russia Insider notes, Oskar Lafontaine is a major force in German politics so it caught people's attention when he excoriated Ash Carter and Victoria Nuland on his Facebook page yesterday... "Nuland says 'F*ck the EU'. We need need an EU foreign policy that stops warmongering US imperialism... F*ck US imperialism!"
Here is the Facebook post (in German):
Lafontaine has been an outsized figure in German politics since the mid-70s. He was chairman of the SPD (one of Germany's two main parties) for four years, the SPD's candidate for chancellor in 1990, minister of finance for two years, and then chairman of the Left party in the 2000s. He is married to Sarah Wagenknecht, political heavyweight, who is currently co-chairman of Left party.
Lafontaine's outburst came a day after his wife, Sarah Wagenknecht, blasted Merkel's Russia policy in an interview on RT.
Here is the full translation of the post:
"The US 'Defense' secretary, i.e., war minister is in Berlin. He called on Europe to counter Russian 'aggression'. But in fact, it is US aggression which Europeans should be opposing.
"The Grandmaster of US diplomacy, George Kennan described the eastward expansion of NATO as the biggest US foreign policy mistake since WW2, because it will lead to a new cold war.
"The US diplomat Victoria Nuland said we have spent $5 billion to destabilize the Ukraine. They stoke the flames ever higher, and Europe pays for it with lower trade and lost jobs.
"Nuland says 'F*ck the EU'. We need need an EU foreign policy that stops warmongering US imperialism.
"F*ck US imperialism!"
* * *
When he comes out swinging this way, you know something is changing.
* * *
America - making friends and influencing people for 238 years...
remain calm
BlowsAgainstthe...I see the CIA creating a little muslim terrorism in Europe to teach them the meaning of respect.
Latina Lover"But in fact, it is US aggression which Europeans should be opposing."
So good, it should be required reading . . .
"Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West's Fault
The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin"
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2014-08-18/why-ukrain...
Not Too ImportantTo date, the USSA adventurism in the Ukraine has hurt Germany financially and politically, with more losses to follow.
Instead of integrating more closely with Russia, and becoming a key part of the New Silk Road, Germany is blocked by the USSA, against her better interests. The USSA is creating a new berlin style wall of lies and propaganda between Russia and Germany claiming that Russia plans to invade the baltics, poland, moldova, blah, blah, blah.
Fortunately, most Germans are not anti intellectuals, and see through the lies, unlike the average american shlub (30% of whom cannot name the current VP but know all of the names of the Kardashians). Eventually, Merkel will get the boot, and be replaced by a more businesslike leader.
30% is pretty generous, don't you think? More like 3%.
Even an aborigine in the middle of Africa with a cell phone knows more about the world than 97% of Americans.
Tall Tom
Fuck American Imperialism?
Actually it is GERMAN Imperialism over the nation states of Europe, using the European Union as a subterfuge, is that which needs be quashed.
Fuck GERMAN Imperialism and the European Union as it serves as a tool for the advancement of Germany's Imperialistic ambitions..
saveandsound
daturaOscar Lafontaine is member of the party "The Left". He used to be member of the "Social Democratic Party of Germany".
Both parties are of rather marginal significance, since Merkel's CDU rules them all. ;-)
Anyway, "the Left" has been opposing US Imperialism ever since, so there is not much new to see here.
that won't help and no more false flags will help either. The latest poll showed that only 19% of Germans would fight Russians in case Russia attacked any NATO country. I repeat: if Russia attacked first. You can wonder, what would be the percentage of them willing to fight Russia just for the sake of Ukraine. Close to zero, I think. The USA overstepped all boundaries, when it began pushing EU countries into a military conflict with Russia. Continental Europeans are not Anglo-Saxons, they think differently. They will bow down to any USA pressure, except for a military conflict with Russia! Thats a big no no. Many of them still remember (especially Germans), what it was like to fight wild-spirited Russians, who never surrender no matter what. These constant talks about "Russian agression" by the USA politicians make Germans feel like a cornered animal with nothing to loose. Such animal cannot be subdued anymore, when your existence and life is so directly threatened, you bite. Or another example: try to force your slave to step on a rattlesnake. He may be forced to do many things, but this time he will turn against you. I already said it before: no war against Russia and Europe is possible, because even if the USA somehow forces us to any such war, huge amounts of people will be so angry that they will flee to the side of Russia. We are already discussing this openly. This is already happening in Ukraine. Already 10 000 Ukranian soldiers defected to the other side (to fight Kiev), plus one Ukrainian general, some members of the Ukranian intelligence service and about one and half million Ukrainians fled to Russia to avoid draft. I saw a video where three entire units of soldiers sent from Kiev to Donetsk (with tanks) changed side, threw out Ukrainian flags and put on Russian flags on their tanks under loud cheers from the brave people of Donbass. There are certain very natural limits to what you can force people to do, which bankers do not seem to understand. Yes, you can send many people to war, but they simply will not fight, unless you give them something to fight for. For example Hitler gave people something to fight for. But all bankers give us is chaos, no strong leader, no ideology strong enough....I think they hoped that Putin would invade Ukraine and that would be the reason for war (they provoked Hitler in a similar way). However, Putin is no Hitler, he is way too intelligent to play these silly games. And it is impossible to repeat exactly what was once so successful, because times change, people are different....you cant win with using old outdated strategies over and over. That is why all empires fall in the end. They get stuck in using the same tricks over and over, until they stop working. Even the old color revolutions are not as efficient now as they were in the past and the same goes for those silly false flags.
cherry picker
He is absolutely correct. US is surrounded by two oceans and the North and South neighbor have no intentions of invading the USA, so can anyone explain this war time nuclear, wmd, too many carriers and so forth military and paranoia.
Can't uncle Sam keep his huge nose out of everyone's business?
Can't America just enjoy what is theirs and leave others alone?
Who needs a CIA except for Nazi types.
Fuck Nuland is a good start.
Albertarocks
BI2And the neighbors to the north and south are non-too-pleased with the USA either. We know WTF the USA is doing, although more and more are waking up to the fact that the USA is only being used as the war branch of the banking mafia. Because of this we hold nothing against American people.
In fact, up north we now probably feel more kinship with "the people" of the USA more than ever before. Because we are learning how all this works. It is the global banking monsters and the fascist corporations, the military industrial complex that is in bed with the fucking bankers. It is those assholes who are causing every damned war in the world... not "the USA" as such. Putin is a saint by comparison... not to mention the only sane leader of a superpower left on earth. He is admirable, even from this side of the pond.
Mexicans might present a problem, I don't know. Mexicans never bother Canadians so we just don't seem to have an opinion. Canadians are pretty calm, but fuck when we get mad there can be one hell of a bar fight. I don't know how all this works out but it isn't going in the right direction. I think 98% of Canadians would agree with Mr. Lafontaine. US Imperialism has got to come to an end. Or the world will. And by "US", I mean "banker".
If only our politicians could understand what that man is really saying. It is for our own good.
https://biblicisminstitute.wordpress.com/2015/06/25/warmongering-vs-econ...
Dodgy Geezer
The Delicate GeniusWe need need an EU foreign policy that stops warmongering US imperialism... F*ck US imperialism!"
You know what the problem is?
It's not particularly the US, though they are the biggest players at the moment. It's the result of the end of the Cold War.
Ever since WW2 the power blocs both had a big military and supporting intelligence service. When the Berlin Wall came down, the Russians collapsed theirs. The West did not. And ever since then it has been looking for a job. That's the reason we have had so much disruption. When your major arm of government is a multi-trillion dollar armed forces, every problem looks like an excuse for a war.
PrayingMantisIt is not US imperialism
http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/2014/09/anglozionist-short-primer-for-...
It is the imperialism of the Anglo-Zionist cabal which has hijacked the American treasury and military.
Neocons, Interventionist "realists" and other assorted militarist scum.
Their control of the MSM is sound {they even acquired VICE News as that got too popular, and Orwellized it, beginning with the Zionist sent to fake stories out of Ukraine}...
but not the internet. As younger people grow up, post comments and articles, this cleft between the pre-internet and internet informed grows more and more obvious.
I'm sure I'm not the only one that expects aggressive moves against intent content.
We've seen some attacks on free speech already in the Fast Track bill - but it will take time to really see how bad the TPP itself is in practice.
But it does seem clear that .gov is hoping to make an end run around various Constitutional niceties by "treaty."
and no - treaties do not and can not over-ride the Constitution. Only amendment, not treaty, can change the constitution.
... US imperialism plus US exceptionalism is analogous to this >>> http://rt.com/usa/270268-falcon-launch-space-fail/
... and while the US forces the other NATO members to apply more sanctions to Russia, US hypocrisy rears its ugly head by 'allowing' products from sanctioned Russia that would benefit them ... check this out
HTZMRGotta love a guy who knows how to define a problem.
Fuck Noodleberg.
As someone who actually lives in Germany i can tell you that Lafontaine is an absolute has-been and he plays no role in German politics, nor has he for years. His influence came to an end when Schroeder kicked him out of his government over 15 years ago. To claim he is a heavyweight is simply dead wrong.
Wagenknecht does play a certain role, but the Left is a pure protest party full of fundamentalist hardline social democrats and former East German communists. The Left has no say on federal government matters such as foreign policy. This post is pure alarmism.
Wild E Coyote
Actually US and Soviet Union both went bankrupt by Cold War.
Soviet Union accepted their fate.
USA still refuse to accept theirs.
Renfield
Upvoted, but I think technically it was Vietnam that bankrupted the US.
Then again, you could argue that it was the First World War, or the 1929 market crash -- although its bankruptcy wasn't admitted until 1933.
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Jun 15, 2015 | Zero Hedge
Submitted by Justin Raimondo via AntiWar.com,The War Party is a veritable propaganda machine, churning out product 24/7. Armed with nearly unlimited resources, both from government(s) and the private sector, they carpet-bomb the public with an endless stream of lies in order to soften them up when it's time to roll. In the past, their job has been relatively easy: simply order up a few atrocity stories – Germans bayoneting babies, Iraqis dumping over babies in incubators – and we've got ourselves another glorious war. These days, however, over a decade of constant warfare – and a long string of War Party fabrications – has left the public leery.
And that's cause for optimism. People are waking up. The War Party's propaganda machine has to work overtime in order to overcome rising skepticism, and it shows signs of overheating – and, in some instances, even breaking down.
One encouraging sign is that the Ukrainian neo-Nazis have lost their US government funding …
In a blow to the "let's arm Ukraine" movement that seemed to be picking up steam in Congress, a resolution introduced by Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan) and Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Florida) banning aid to Ukraine's Azov Battalion, and forbidding shipments of MANPAD anti-aircraft missiles to the region, passed the House unanimously.
This is significant because, up until this point, there has been no recognition in Washington that the supposedly "pro-democracy" regime in Kiev contains a dangerously influential neo-Nazi element.
As I reported early on, Ukraine's ultra-nationalists – who openly utilize wartime Nazi symbols and regalia, and valorize Stepan Bandera, the anti-Soviet guerrilla leader who collaborated with the Third Reich – were the muscle behind the movement that pushed democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovich out of power. With the rebellion in the east, the paramilitary militias of the far right have been officially incorporated into the Ukrainian army: Dmytro Yorash, the leader of Right Sector and a member of parliament, is an aide to Viktor Muzhenko, the supreme commander of the Ukrainian military, and Right Sector – an openly neo-Nazi organization – has been officially integrated into the armed forces.
The Conyers-Yoho amendment won't stop Ukraine's neo-Nazis from feeding at the US-provided trough, but, hey, it's the thought that counts. They'll just abandon their independent existence and blend into the official military, effectively going underground, just as they did in the last Ukrainian elections, where fascists like Yarosh won a seat in the parliament with the tacit support of the "mainstream" parties, which withdrew their candidates in his district: Adriy Biletsky, commander of the Azov Battalion, enjoyed a similar advantage. Open fascists hold prominent positions in the Ukrainian government, the military, and the police.
Vadim Troyan, the deputy leader of the Azov Battalion, is now the regional chief of the Kiev district police, and fascists have the run of the city. The perpetrators of an arson fire at a Kiev theater that sponsored a gay film festival were charged with "disturbing the peace" and let off with a light sentence – and the theater was held responsible for not providing enough security! "I think the government prosecutor and those who are prosecuted are playing for the same team," says one activist, and this is quite true: the fascists permeate the Kiev regime from top to bottom. When gay activists announced a Gay Pride march, the Mayor of Kiev said he couldn't – or wouldn't – guarantee their safety and asked them to cancel it. What was an open invitation to violent thugs was accepted when dozens of Right Sector stormtroopers attacked the procession, which ended the event after thirty bloody minutes.
As the Kiev regime shows its true colors, its most fervent backers are forced to acknowledge its shortcomings. Yes, even our UN Ambassador, Samantha "responsibility to protect" Power …
In a recent speech delivered in Kiev, Ambassador Power made oblique reference to the embarrassing slip ups on the part of our sock puppets in Kiev, gently scolding them to be more … discreet. Citing Abraham Lincoln, she urged Ukrainians to listen to "the better angels of our nature," and averred that "Ukraine is stronger" when it does so:
"It means that Ukraine should zealously protect freedom of the press, including for its most outspoken and biased critics – indeed, especially for its most outspoken and biased critics – even as the so-called separatists expel journalists from the territory they control, and even as Russia shutters Tatar media outlets in occupied Crimea. It means that politicians and police across the country should recognize how crucial it is that people be able to march to demand respect for LGBT rights and the rights of other vulnerable groups without fear of being attacked."
Citing Lincoln while calling for press freedom is a bit problematic – Abe shut down "treasonous" newspapers and jailed his more vociferous critics, but, hey, Power probably figured the Ukrainians aren't up on the details of Civil War history, so what the heck. As the US continues to pump money – and weaponry – into the country, they'll listen politely to Power's lectures, and laugh all the way to the bank.
Amid all the publicity given to ISIS and the rise of its "caliphate," the volatile condition of the Balkans has remained in the shadows. Yet the US, while sending only a few hundred "advisors" to Iraq, is sending a huge shipment of tanks and other heavy weaponry to nearly every country in Eastern Europe – enough to equip 5,000 American troops.
Ostensibly proposed in response to a nonexistent Russian "threat" to invade its Baltic neighbors, and/or Ukraine, this represents a significant escalation of the new cold war. And if the tanks are already on the ground, you can bet the troops won't be long in coming. As NATO James Stavridis put it: "It provides a reasonable level of reassurance to jittery allies, although nothing is as good as troops stationed full-time on the ground, of course."
And we aren't just talking about troops here: the Pentagon is also considering stationing nuclear missiles alongside them.
The US is playing a dangerous game of nuclear brinkmanship. Robert Scher, undersecretary of defense, has even floated the idea of a nuclear first strike against Russia. Claiming that Russia has violated the INF Treaty by testing a banned ground-launched cruise missile, Scher laid out possible options in testimony before Congress:
"Robert Scher, assistant secretary of defence for strategy, plans and capabilities, told politicians in April that one option could be to beef up defenses of potential targets of the Russian cruise missile.
"A second option could 'look at how we could go about and actually attack that missile where it is in Russia,' Scher said.
"And a third option would be 'to look at what things we can hold at risk within Russia itself,' Scher said.
"His comments appeared to signal employing forces to strike at other Russian military targets - apart from the missiles that allegedly violate the INF accord.
"Brian McKeon, deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, told politicians in December that the United States could consider putting ground-launched cruise missiles in Europe. Such weapons are banned under the INF treaty."
Yes, that's how crazy the warlords of Washington are: in their demented calculus, nuclear war is just another "option."
And if that isn't the definitive argument for regime-change in Washington, then I don't know what is.
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June 26, 2015 | Information Clearing House
"The United States has intervened in too many countries without paying a high enough price."
"Information Clearing House" - "BAR" - This columnist recently said that "Russia Wins" in its handling of America's attempt to eviscerate its influence and its economy. At the time those words were written Secretary of State John Kerry met with Vladimir Putin in Sochi, Russia. The meeting appeared to be an admission that the imperial power grab was not working out as Washington hoped. Among other things, Kerry was concerned that the Ukrainian tail was starting to wag the American dog.
In a public statement he warned Ukrainian president Poroshenko, who threatened to retake Crimea and the Donbass. "We would strongly urge him to think twice not to engage in that kind of activity, that that would put Minsk [accords] in serious jeopardy. And we would be very, very concerned about what the consequences of that kind of action at this time may be." Barack Obama promptly tossed Kerry under the bus upon his return home.Kerry's subordinate Victoria Nuland and the United Nations ambassador Samantha Power repeated the very words that Kerry warned against and contradicted everything he said. Power went to Kiev to sing the praises of the Ukrainians in person. She didn't have to mention Kerry by name, her presence alone said that he and any talk of diplomacy were on the outs. Of course the meeting between Kerry and Putin had to have been approved by president Obama, but just one month later it appears to have been a figment of the world's imagination.
"Russia has every right to arm its own territory."
In the battle to stay on top of the world and remain in control of it, Washington inevitably lurches back and forth in its policy decision making. Now they and their scribes in corporate media have settled back into comfortable territory, simultaneously vilifying the Russian government and endlessly repeating anti-Russian propaganda.
A recent New York Times editorial with the grandiose title, "The Fantasy Mr. Putin is Selling," claimed that president Putin has a "willingness to brandish nuclear weapons." There was no mention of America's unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty in 2002. Not content to tell one lie the Times then criticized Putin for "aggressive behavior, including pouring troops and weapons into Kaliningrad, a Russian city located between NATO members Lithuania and Poland." Of course, Russia has every right to arm its own territory. The Times also neglected to mention that the American military are positioning weapons and holding training exercises in Ukraine, Poland, Romania and the Baltic states that border Russia. It seems that those provocations are not deemed worthy of mention.
The New York Times and its counterparts always play this role. They cozy up to president Obama as they have with all his predecessors and support any and all of their mischief. Far from being a voice of information for the public, they do the bidding of the powerful and are accessories to their crimes.
"Antagonizing Russia is riskier than paying jihadists to take over Libya."
The Obama administration is in the process of killing the Minsk accords which were shepherded by France and Germany. This is the only process which can defang the beast, and that is why it is being sabotaged. The United States has intervened in too many countries without paying a high enough price. It is like a serial criminal who remains at large and thus thinks of himself as invincible. This county is responsible for carnage in Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti, Somalia, Yemen, and Syria and that is the list of victims only since 2001.
One has to ask where and when the straw will break the camel's back. American military power has allowed it to run rough shod over humanity, but antagonizing Russia is riskier than paying jihadists to take over Libya.
Not only does the United States have the most and the biggest guns but it has the corporate media at its disposal, parroting every word as if they were gospel truth. Americans who think of themselves as well informed will be in for a shock if Moldova turns out to be the flash point for open warfare that was instigated by their government.
"Russia will never be beholden to America."
Everyone knows that an assassination in Sarajevo in 1914 pushed the world into war. In 2015 the signs are ominous that something terrible may happen because of an incident in Transnistria or Donetsk or some other locale Americans know nothing about.
The process of marginalizing Russia began as soon as the Soviet Union collapsed. While the Warsaw Pact disbanded, NATO grew at Russia's expense. But Russia will never be beholden to America. There is no puppet they can place in the Kremlin. These fantasies have put the world on the brink.
Obama and his friends in NATO may not want to start a war but they may get one all the same. Of course the president is concerned about his legacy. He ought to be. If he continues as he has done since 2009, his legacy may be that he was head inmate in the asylum when the last war began.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com .
Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com
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nationalinterest.org
Moscow Exile, June 22, 2015 at 10:36 amHasn't even registered on European economies.Moscow Exile, June 22, 2015 at 10:44 amKönnen Sie Deutsch?
Sanktionen kosten Europa bis zu 100 Milliarden Euro, Freitag, 19.06.2015, 10:09
Russlands Wirtschaftskrise hat verheerende Folgen für Europa. Zu diesem Ergebnis kommt eine Studie aus Österreich. Besonders betroffen ist Deutschland. Die Krise könnte das Land mittelfristig eine halbe Million Arbeitsplätze und Milliarden Euro an Wertschöpfung kosten.
Die Wirtschaftskrise in Russland hat weitaus schlimmere Konsequenzen für die Länder der Europäischen Union (EU) und die Schweiz als bislang erwartet. Nach einer Berechnung des Österreichischen Instituts für Wirtschaftsforschung (Wifo), die der europäischen Zeitungsallianz "Lena" exklusiv vorliegt, sind europaweit weit mehr als zwei Millionen Arbeitsplätze und rund 100 Milliarden Euro an Wertschöpfung in Gefahr.The Boomerang Effect: Sanctions on Russia Hit German Economy Hard – Der Spiegel, July 21, 2014Moscow Exile, June 22, 2015 at 11:32 amNo, it's not what I maintain, it's what these people report is happening:German businesses suffer fallout as Russia sanctions bite (Financial Times)
http://im.ft-static.com/content/images/9a620f0c-73fc-11e4-82a6-00144feabdc0.img
German Businesses Urge Halt on Sanctions Against Russia – Wall Street Journal
In most countries, it would be highly unusual for corporate executives to inject themselves into geopolitics and matters of national security with the forcefulness that a number of German business leaders have. But many of Germany's largest companies have substantial Russian operations, built in some cases over decades, and worry that tough economic sanctions would rob them of a key growth market when their home market-Europe-is stagnant.
Germany's economy hit by trade sanctions on Russia – FT
The sanctions being placed on Russia by Europe are having a negative impact on the bloc, experts have said.
European countries have implemented a series of trade embargoes as a punishment for Russia's moves to annex Crimea and for its ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
Rowan Dartington Signature's Guy Stephens said the eurozone had been "rife" with weak economic data and one of the biggest concerns was Germany because of its relationship with Russia.
"Sanctions against key trading partner Russia, coupled with declining demand from China, have begun to take their toll on Europe's largest economy," he said.
"Business confidence is also waning and GDP growth for next year has been downgraded to just 0.8 per cent, well below the government's forecast of 1.3 per cent. All in all, the decline of Europe's powerhouse could just turn out to be the ammunition that European Central Bank president Mario Draghi needs to begin a prolonged quantitative-easing campaign."
Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said Europe's share of global profits had "collapsed".
"And complicating the immediate path of liquidity and corporate earnings in Europe is the ongoing collapse in the Russian rouble," he said.
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Jun 22, 2015 | The National Interest
Historically, great powers-including the United States, as a cursory look at its history demonstrates-have resisted their rivals' attempts to extend influence into areas deemed vital for national security and standing. But this observation cuts no ice with those who regard Moscow's behavior as nothing more than an amalgam of mendacity and Machtpolitik.
They dismiss the proposition that Russia might have been unsettled by the prospect of a Ukraine integrated into the EU. The EU, they point out, is an economic entity, not an alliance, and the Kremlin knows this full well. Hence, its supposed apprehension about the strategic consequences of Kyiv's alignment with the EU is bogus-another instance of Putinist propaganda-and those who give it credence are either misinformed or dupes. Besides, they say, Ukraine has no chance of joining the EU anytime soon.
That the EU, by virtue of its Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP), has a military element-no matter how inchoate-seems to have gone unnoticed by this group. The same goes for the near-total overlap in membership between the EU and NATO.
Those who believe that Russia alone bears the blame for the Ukraine crisis insist that NATO had no plans to bring Ukraine into its ranks in the run-up to the 2014 crisis and that Moscow's apprehensions on this score amount to little more than propaganda.
But back in the early 1990s, the chances that Romania, Bulgaria and the Baltic trio would join both coalitions seemed remote, and Ukraine's membership in NATO was in fact under discussion during the tenure of President Leonid Kuchma. These, it seems, are inconvenient facts to be forgotten because only lies emanate from the Kremlin.
Russia certainly sought, in multiple ways, to shape Ukraine's internal and external policies-and well before Putin came on the scene, by the way. Yet it did not attempt to annex Crimea or to sponsor secessionist statelets in Ukraine's east prior to 2014. On February 21 of that year, the Kremlin teamed up with the EU to help forge a February 21, 2014 political settlement between Yanukovych and the opposition that called for forming a national unity government, pruning the powers of the presidency (by reverting to the 2004 constitution) and holding early (not later than December) presidential elections.
To be fair, there are, on the other side of the Ukraine debate, those who have also succumbed to hyperbolic simplemindedness. For example, the insistence that the conflagration in Ukraine stems from NATO's expansion pure and simple represents a classic example of the single-factor fallacy. The contention that Ukraine's own politics are fascist in a fashion or that anti-Semitism represents a rising trend in Ukrainian society is no less inaccurate, and anyone who has spent time recently in various parts of Ukraine and met its officials (in Kyiv and the outlying areas), leaders of civic organizations, journalists and academics can attest that it is baseless. As all countries do, Ukraine has its extremists, but they are scarcely the prime movers of its politics and remain a fringe element. While there are sound reasons not to flood Ukraine with American weaponry, the supposed extremism of Ukrainian politics is not among them.
As a sop to those who have pushed for arming Ukraine, the Obama administration has begun training Ukraine's National Guard-regrouped private militias that, at least in an administrative, if not substantive, sense are overseen by the defense and interior ministries. (Canada and Britain are also providing training.) The White House has also allocated some $118 million for "nonlethal" equipment to bolster Ukraine's defenses.
Meanwhile, the creaky Minsk II ceasefire could well collapse. Shelling across the line of control remains routine. Moreover, the Kyiv leadership and the Donbas separatists both have reason to torpedo Minsk II-the former to force Obama's hand, the latter to prevent Putin from abandoning them for a deal with the West that lifts economic sanctions on Russia.
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Northern Star, June 22, 2015 at 3:12 pmhttp://www.valuewalk.com/2015/06/u-s-to-stop-russia-from-recreating-soviet-era-control/"The United States does not want to make Russia an enemy. It is not seeking to have another Cold War or a hot battle with the Russian government. However, the United States will not allow Moscow to re-create a Soviet-era control in Europe, according to Defense Secretary Ash Carter.
During his speech in Berlin on Monday, Carter said, "We do not seek a cold, let alone a hot war with Russia. We do not seek to make Russia an enemy. But make no mistake; we will defend our allies, the rules-based international order, and the positive future it affords us."
Carter added, "We will stand up against Russia's actions and their attempts to re-establish as Soviet Era sphere of influence."
(From Wiki):
"Carter was a supporter of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as well as an advocate of preventive wars against North Korea and Iran.[40][41][42] Carter is considering deploying ground-launched cruise missiles in Europe that could pre-emptively destroy the Russian weapons" ( Virtually guaranteeing a full scale nuke exchange).
Another psychopath at the helm of the American ship of state…!!!!!
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Jun 19, 2015 | The Future of Freedom Foundation
... Ever since 9/11, the American people have operated under the quaint notion that all the violence that the Pentagon and the CIA have been inflicting on people in foreign nations has an adverse effect only over there. The idea has been that as long as all the death, torture, assassinations, bombings, shootings, and mayhem were in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and elsewhere, Americans could go pleasantly on with their lives, going to work, church, and fun sporting events where everyone could praise and pray for the troops for "defending our freedoms" and "keeping us safe."
Through it all, the national-security state, with the cooperation of the mainstream media, has done its best to immunize Americans from all the violence, death, and mayhem that they've been wreaking on people over there.
- Don't show the American people photographs of wedding parties in which brides and grooms and flower girls have been blown to bits by a U.S. bomb or missile.
- Hide those torture records at Abu Ghraib. Lock them away in a secret vault forever.
- Destroy those torture videos and redact that torture report.
- And above all, don't even think of keeping count of the dead in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Anything and everything to keep the American people from having to confront, assimilate, and process the ongoing culture of violence that the national-security state has brought to people in other parts of the world.
Why should Americans have their pretty little heads bothered with such unpleasantries? Just leave "national security" to us, U.S. officials say, and we'll do whatever is necessary to "keep you safe" from all those scary creatures out there who want to come and get you and take you away. Oh, and be sure to keep all those trillions of U.S. taxpayer dollars flooding into our "defense" coffers.
As an aside, have you ever noticed that Switzerland, which is one of the most armed societies in the world, is not besieged by a "war on terrorism" and by gun massacres? I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that the Swiss government isn't involved in an ongoing crusade to violently remake the world in its image.
Ask any American whether all that death and destruction at the hands of the military and the CIA is necessary, and he's likely to say, "Well, of course it is. People all over the world hate us for our freedom and values. We've got to kill them over there before they come over here to kill us. The war on terrorism goes on forever. I'm a patriot! Praise the troops!"
The thought that the entire scheme of ongoing violence is just one great big racket just doesn't even occur to them. That's what a mindset of deference to authority does to people.
All that ongoing violence that has formed the foundation of America's governmental structure since the totalitarian structure known as the national-security state came into existence after World War II is at the core of the national sickness to which Rand Paul alludes.
And so is the extreme deference to authority paid to the national-security establishment by all too many Americans who have converted the Pentagon and the CIA into their god - one who can do no wrong as it stomps around the world killing, torturing, bombing, shooting, invading, maiming, and occupying, all in the name of "national security," a ridiculous term if there ever was one, a term not even found in the U.S. Constitution.
As I have long written, the national-security establishment has warped and perverted the values, morals, and principles of the American people. This totalitarian structure that was grafted onto our governmental system after World War II to oppose America's World War II partner and ally the Soviet Union has stultified the consciences of the American people, causing them to subordinate themselves to the will and judgment of the military (including the NSA) and the CIA and, of course, to surrender their fundamental God-given rights to liberty and privacy in the quest to be "kept safe" from whoever happens to be the official enemy of the day.
The discomforting fact is that the American people have not been spared the horrific consequences of the ongoing culture of violence that the U.S. national-security establishment has brought to foreign lands. The ongoing culture of violence that forms the foundation of the national security state - killing untold numbers of people on a perpetual basis - has been a rotting and corrosive cancer that has been destroying America from within and that continues to do so.
It's that ongoing culture of violence that brings out the crazies and the loonies, who see nothing wrong with killing people for no good reason at all. In ordinary societies, the crazies and the loonies usually just stay below the radar screen and live out their lives in a fairly abnormal but peaceful manner. But in dysfunctional societies, such as ones where the government is based on killing, torturing, maiming, and destroying people on a constant basis, the crazies and the loonies come onto the radar screen and commit their crazy and loony acts of violence.
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"Architects of American policy towards Russia and Ukraine are destroying American national security": Stephen F. Cohen on the truths U.S. media and politicians hideMyths of American nationalism busted as our interview with noted scholar concludes
Patrick L. SmithIf there is a lesson in Stephen F. Cohen's professional fortunes over the past year, it is the peril of advancing a dispassionate reading of our great country's doings abroad. Cohen's many pieces in The Nation on the Ukraine crisis and the consequent collapse of U.S.-Russia relations now leave him in something close to a state of siege. "My problem with this begins with the fact that… I don't have a vested interest in one of the 'isms,' or ideologies," Cohen says in this, the second part of a long interview conducted last month.
The problem lies with the ideologues infesting the waters wherein Cohen swims. Terminally poisoned by Cold War consciousness, they cannot abide disinterested thought. Cohen has been mostly scholar, partly journalist, since the 1970s. His "Sovieticus" column, launched in The Nation in the 1980s, put a magazine traditionally tilted toward domestic issues among the few American publications providing consistent analysis of Russian affairs. At this point, Cohen's Nation essays are the bedrock scholarly work to which those (few) writing against the orthodoxy turn.
The first half of our exchange, last week on Salon, began with events during the past year and advanced toward the post-Soviet origins of the current crisis. In part two, Cohen completes his analysis of Vladimir Putin's inheritance and explains how he came to focus his thinking on "lost alternatives"-outcomes that could have been but were not. Most surprising to me was the real but foregone prospect of reforming the Soviet system such that the suffering that ensued since its demise could have been averted.
Salon: Putin inherited a shambles, then-as he would say, "a catastrophe."
Stephen F. Cohen: As Russia's leader, Putin has changed over the years, especially in foreign policy but also at home. His first impulse was toward more free-market reforms, anti-progressive taxes. He enacted a 13 percent flat tax-Steve Forbes would've been ecstatic, right? He offers [George W.] Bush what Clinton never really offered Yeltsin: a full partnership. And what does he do? On September 11, 2001, he called George and said, Whatever you want, we're with you. Bush says, Well, I think we're going to have to go to war in Afghanistan. And Putin said, I can help you. We've got major resources and assets in Afghanistan. I even have an army over there called the Northern Alliance. I'll give it to you! You want overflight? It's all yours!
How many American lives did Putin save during our land war in Afghanistan? And do you know what a political price he paid in Russia for that? Because his security people were completely against it.
They were? Please explain.
Oh, yeah. You think they minded seeing America being brought to its knees? They'd been invaded so often; let America get a taste of it! But Putin assumes he's achieved what Yeltsin couldn't and that this benefits the Russian state. He has a real strategic partnership with America. Now, remember, he's already worried about his radical Islamic problem because Russia has nearly 20 million Muslim citizens of its own. Russia sits in the East and in the West; it's on the front lines.
What does Bush give him in return? He expands NATO again and he unilaterally withdraws the United States from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the bedrock of Russia's nuclear security- it's a complete betrayal. Is that how you repay somebody who's helped you save the lives of your citizens? This is where the word "betrayal" begins to enter into the discourse.
It's an important word for Putin.
It's not only Putin; [Dmitry] Medvedev uses it, too, when he becomes president [in 2008]. America has broken its word, it's betrayed us, it's deceived us, and we no longer take America at its word- well, they never should've in the first fucking place, just as Gorbachev should have got the promise not to expand NATO in writing. We'd have done it anyway, but at least they would have had a talking point.
This trust, this naive trust on the part of Russians, that there's something about American presidents that makes them honorable-it suggests they need a crash course in something. This was betrayal for Putin, and for the entire Russian political class, and Putin paid a price.
I've heard him called, among right-wing Russian intellectuals, an appeaser of the West. Soft. You can hear this today: Mariupol? Odessa? Should've taken them a year ago; they belong to us. What's he thinking? Why is he discussing it? [Mariupol and Odessa are two contested cities in the southeastern region of Ukraine.]
So Putin sets his course, and then comes this famous speech he gives in 2007 in Munich, with McCain sitting in the front row. Putin says just what I told you. He says, Look, we want to be your partner; this is what we've wanted to be since Gorbachev. We believe in the common European home. But every time we turn to you or we negotiate with you or we think we have an agreement with you, you act like a hegemon and everybody has to do exactly what you say if they want to to be on your side.
Putin has come to tell them that America is risking a new Cold War with more than a decade of bad behavior towards post-Soviet Russia. John McCain interprets this as the declaration of a new Cold War.
But the demonization of Putin came earlier, before the Munich speech, when he began to drive a few favorite American oligarchs [oil companies] out of the country. I looked it up: No major oil-producing country permits majority foreign ownership of its oil. So there's a long a long history of how Putin goes from a democrat for sure in the U.S. media and an aspiring partner of America to becoming the Hitler of today, as Hillary Clinton put it. You can see what a disease it's become, this Putin-phobia….
RT just aired a documentary in which Putin explains exactly when and why he decided to move as he did in Crimea. It's striking: The deliberations began the night President Yanukovych was ousted in the American-supported coup last year. Can you talk about Putin's thinking on the Crimea question, leading to the annexation?
Putin, in my judgment, did some wrong-headed things. We now know much more about Crimea, but even given what he has said, there was an argument. It wasn't quite as clear-cut as he says it was. There was a debate with two sides.
One side said, "Take Crimea now or fight NATO there later." The other said, "Let the referendum [on association with Russia, held in March 2014] go forward and they're going to vote 80-plus percent to join Russia. We don't have to act on it; they've just made a request and we'll say what we think about it. Meanwhile, we see what happens in Kiev." The Kremlin had done polling in Crimea. And it's the best bargaining chip Putin will have. He'll have Crimea wanting to join Russia and he can say to Washington, Well, you would like the Crimea to remain in Ukraine? Here's what I'd like in return: an eternal ban on NATO membership and federalization of the Ukrainian constitution, because I have to give my Crimean brethren something.
But those arguing that Crimea was the biggest bargaining chip Putin was ever going to have lost. The other side prevailed.
Now, Putin took all the credit, but that's not what really happened. They were all dependent on intelligence coming out of Kiev and Crimea and Donbass. You see now, if you watch that film, what a turning point the overthrow of Yanukovych was. Remember, the European foreign ministers-Polish, German, and French-had brokered an agreement saying that Yanukovych would form a coalition government and stay in power until December, and that was burned in the street. I'll never forget the massive Klitschko [Vitali Klitschko, a prizefighter-turned-political oppositionist, currently Kiev's mayor] standing on a platform at Maidan, all 6' 8" of him, announcing this great triumph of negotiation, and some smaller guy whipping away the microphone and saying, Go fuck yourself. This thing is going to burn in the streets. The next day it did. That night you saw what an undefeated heavyweight champion looks like when he's terror-stricken.
This is the turning point, and "It's all due to Putin," but it's all due to Putin because demonization has become the pivot of the analysis.
What do we do from here to resolve the Ukraine question? You used the word "hope" when talking about the February cease-fire, Minsk II-"the last, best hope." It tripped me up. Hope's a virtue, but it can also be very cruel.
Anyone of any sense and good will knows that it [the solution] lies in the kind of home rule they negotiated in the U.K.-and don't call it a federated Ukraine if that upsets Kiev. As the constitution stands, the governors of all the Ukrainian provinces are appointed by Kiev. You can't have that in eastern Ukraine. Probably can't even have that in Western and Central Ukraine anymore. Ukraine is fragmenting.
I want to turn this around: what is your view of America's strategic goal? I ask in the context of your analysis, in "Failed Crusade," of "transitionology," as you term the paradigm wherein Russia was supposed to transition into a free-market paradise. As the book makes clear, it amounted to the elevation and protection of crooks who asset-stripped most of an entire nation. Now we don't hear much about Russia's "transition." What is Washington's ambition now?
I think the Ukranian crisis is the greatest blow to American national security- even greater than the Iraq war in its long-term implications- for a simple reason: The road to American national security still runs through Moscow. There is not a single major regional or issue-related national security problem we can solve without the full cooperation of whoever sits in the Kremlin, period, end of story.
Name your poison: We're talking the Middle East, we're talking Afghanistan, we're talking energy, we're talking climate, we're talking nuclear proliferation, terrorism, shooting airplanes out of the sky, we're talking about the two terrorist brothers in Boston.
Look: I mean American national security of the kind I care about-that makes my kids and grandkids and myself safe-in an era that's much more dangerous than the Cold War because there's less structure, more nonstate players, and more loose nuclear know-how and materials…. Security can only be partial, but that partial security depends on a full-scale American-Russian cooperation, period. We are losing Russia for American national security in Ukraine as we talk, and even if it were to end tomorrow Russia will never, for at least a generation, be as willing to cooperate with Washington on security matters as it was before this crisis began.
Therefore, the architects of the American policy towards Russia and Ukraine are destroying American national security-and therefore I am the patriot and they are the saboteurs of American security. That's the whole story, and any sensible person who doesn't suffer from Putin-phobia can see it plainly.
Is it too strong to say that the point is to destabilize Moscow?
What would that mean? What would it mean to destabilize the country that may have more weapons of mass destruction than does the U.S.?
Is that indeed the ambition?
I don't think there's any one ambition. I come back to the view that you've got various perspectives in discussion behind closed doors. I guess Mearsheimer [John Mearsheimer, the noted University of Chicago scholar] is right in the sense of saying that there's a faction in Washington that is behaving exactly as a great power would behave and trying to maximize its security, but it doesn't understand that that's what other great powers do, too. That's its failure. Gorbachev and Reagan, though it wasn't originally their idea, probably agreed on the single most important thing: Security had to be mutual. That was their agreement and they built everything on that. We have a military build-up you're going to perceive as a threat and build up, and I will perceive your build-up as a threat… and that's the dynamic of permanent and conventional build-up, a permanent arms race. And that's why Gorbachev and Reagan reasoned, We're on the edge of the abyss. That's why we are going to declare the Cold War over, which they did.
That concept of mutual security doesn't mean only signing contracts: It means don't undertake something you think is in your security but is going to be perceived as threatening, because it won't prove to be in your interest. Missile defense is the classic example: We never should have undertaken any missile defense program that wasn't in cooperation with Russia, but, instead, we undertook it as an anti-Russian operation. They knew it and we knew it and scientists at MIT knew it, but nobody cared because some group believed that you've got to keep Russia down.
The truth is, not everything depends on the president of the United States. Not everything, but an awful lot does, and when it comes to international affairs we haven't really had a president who acted as an actual statesman in regard to Russia since Reagan in 1985-88. Clinton certainly didn't; his Russia policy was clownish and ultimately detrimental to U.S. national security interests. Bush's was reckless and lost one opportunity after another, and Obama's is either uninformed or completely out to lunch. We have not had a statesman in the White House when it comes to Russia since Reagan, and I am utterly, totally, 1000 percent convinced that before November 2013, when we tried to impose an ultimatum on Yanukovych-and even right now, today-that a statesman in the White House could end this in 48 hours with Putin. What Putin wants in the Ukraine crisis is what we ought to want; that's the reality.
Interesting.
What does Putin want? He's said the same thing and he's never varied: He wants a stable, territorial Ukraine-Crimea excepted-and he knows that's possible only if Ukraine is free to trade with the West and with Russia but is never a member of NATO. However, somebody's got to rebuild Ukraine, and he's not going to take that burden on himself, but he will help finance it through discounted energy prices. It could all be done tomorrow if we had a statesman in the White House. Tomorrow! Nobody else has to die.
I think Chancellor Merkel understands this, too.
I think she's come to, but how strong she is and whether Washington will cut her legs out from under her as they're trying to do now… [Shortly before this interview Senator McCain delivered a blunt attack on Merkel at a security conference in Munich for opposing the supply of lethal weapons to Ukraine. The Arizona Republican was similarly critical when Merkel began to explore a diplomatic solution in Ukraine in spring 2013.]
They have very little respect for her, which is wrong.
What Lindsay Graham and McCain did in Germany, in her own country, on German national television, to her face-and the fact that she's a woman didn't help, either. The way they spoke to her, I can't think of a precedent for that.
Parts of your work are very moving, and that's not a word a lot of scholarship prompts. The enormous value the Soviet Union accreted-most Americans know nothing of this; with the media's encouragement, we're completely ignorant of this. There's nothing encouraging us to understand that the hundreds of billions of misappropriated assets during the 1990s was essentially the misappropriation of Soviet wealth.
A lot of it came here, to the United States.
Can you talk about this?
I can tell you about a guy who was formerly very high up in the CIA. I called him about a something I was writing on Russian wealth smuggled through the banks into the United States, and he said, We have informed the FBI exactly where all this wealth is in the United States but we are under strict political orders to do nothing about it. Now, the interesting thing is, why now? Well, it would have badly damaged the Yeltsin regime, which the Clinton administration had unconditionally embraced, but also because that money became part of the flourishing stock and real estate markets here at that time.
Even today in Russia, when you ask people if they wish the Soviet Union hadn't ended, you're still getting over 60 percent, among young people, too, because they hear the stories from their parents and grandparents. It requires a separate study, but it's not rocket science. If young kids see their grandparents dying prematurely because they're not being paid their pensions, they're going to resent it. When the bottom fell out of the Soviet welfare state and out of the professions, what happened in the 1990s was that the Soviet middle class- which was one of the most professional and educated, and had some savings and which therefore should have been the building block of a Russian free market sector- that middle class was wiped out, and it's never been recreated. Instead, you got a country of impoverished people and of very, very rich people-with a small middle class serving the rich. That changed under Putin; Putin has rebuilt the middle class, gradually.
The Russian middle class isn't the same as ours. A lot of Russia's middle class are people who are on the federal budget: Army officers, doctors, scientists, teachers-these are all federal budget people. They're middle class, but they don't become middle class as autonomous property owners. A lot of my friends are members of this class, and a lot of them are very pro-Putin, but a lot of my friends are very anti-Putin, too. The thing about the Soviet Union can be summarized very simply: The Soviet Union lasted 70-plus years, so that would be less than the average life of an American male today. A person cannot jump out of his or her autobiography any more than they can jump out of their skin; it's your life. You were born in the Soviet Union, you had your first sexual experience in the Soviet Union, you were educated, you got a career, you got married, you raised your kids: That was your life. Of course you miss it, certainly parts of it.
There were ethnic nationalities in the Soviet Union who hated it and wanted to break away, and this became a factor in 1991, but for a great many people- certainly the majority of Russians and a great many Ukrainians and Belorussians and the central Asians- it's not surprising that 25 years later, those adults still remember the Soviet Union with affection. This is normal, and I don't find anything bad in it. You know, Putin wasn't actually the first to say this but he did say it and it's brilliant and tells you who Putin is and who most Russians are. He said this: Anyone who doesn't regret the end of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who thinks you can recreate the Soviet Union has no head. That's it, that's exactly right!
Didn't Putin say that the end of the Soviet Union was the 20th century's greatest catastrophe?
It all has to do with the word "the." There's no "the" in Russian. Did Putin say, in translation, that the end of the Soviet Union was "the" greatest catastrophe of the 20th century? If so, there's something wrong with that, because for Jews it was the Holocaust. Or did he say, "one of" the greatest catastrophes?
I would have guessed the latter.
All four professional translators I sent Putin's phrase to said you have to translate it as "one of the greatest catastrophes of the 20th century." Now, we can have a discussion. He's taken a moderate position, but what are the others? Fair enough, but catastrophe for whom? Americans don't think it was a catastrophe. Putin would say, "Look, 20 million Russians found themselves outside the country when the Soviet Union broke up, that was a tragedy for them, a catastrophe. Seventy or 80 percent plunged into poverty in the 1990s, lost everything. Can I put that on the list of "one of the greatest?" I would say sure, because for everybody there's a greater catastrophe. For the Jews there's no catastrophe greater than the Holocaust. For the Armenians, their genocide. Again, people can't jump out of their history. A tolerant, democratic person acknowledges that. Each people and nation has its own history. I'd like to write an article about this, but I'm not going to live long enough to write all the articles or books I want to write. We say, for example, the Russians have not come to grips with and fully acknowledged the horrors of Stalinism and its victims. I would argue in this article that they have done more to acknowledge the horrors of Stalinism than we have of slavery.
Interesting.
For example, do we have a national museum of the history of slavery in the United States? They're building a large one in Moscow to commemorate Stalin's victims. He recently signed a decree mandating a monument in central Moscow to those victims.
In the way of being moved by some of the things you write, I've wanted to ask you about this for years. It has to do with the sentiments of Russians and what they wanted, their ambitions for themselves, some form of… as I read along in these passages I kept saying, "I wonder if he's going to use the phrase 'social democracy.'" And, sure enough, you did. These passages got me to take Rudolph Bahro [author of "The Alternative in Eastern Europe"] off the shelf. The obvious next step after East-West tension subsided was some form of social democracy. I don't know where you want to put it. I put it between Norway and Germany somewhere. To me what happened instead is a horrific tragedy, not only for Russia but for Eastern Europe.
My problem with this begins with the fact that I'm not a communist, I'm not a socialist, a social democrat. I'd like to have enough money to be a real capitalist, but it's a struggle. [Laughs.] I don't have a vested interest in one of the "isms" or the ideologies, but I agree with you. I don't know about Eastern Europe, let's leave it aside, but look at Russia. You'd have thought that the logical outcome of the dismantling of the Stalinist Communist system, because the system was built primarily by Stalin from the 1930s on, would have been Russian social democracy and that, of course, was what Gorbachev's mission was. Lots of books have been written, most persuasively by Archie Brown, the great British scholar, who knows Gorbachev personally, probably as well as I do, that Gorbachev came to think of himself as a European social democrat while he was still in power. That's what his goal was. He had this close relationship with the Social Democratic prime minister of Spain, I forget his name.
Zapatero?
I don't remember, but I remember that they did a lot of social democratic socializing and talking.
Felipe Gonzalez, I think it was.
Gonzalez, that's right. Gorbachev was a very well-informed man and his advisors during his years in power were mostly social democrats and had been for years. Their mission had been to transform the Soviet Union. Now, remember, Lenin began as a social democrat, and the original model for Lenin had been not only Marx but the German Social Democratic Party. The Bolshevik or Communist Party was originally the Russian Social Democratic Party, which split into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. So in a way, and I once said this to Gorbachev, historically you want to go back to Lenin before he became a Bolshevik. He said, "Well that's kind of complicated." Then Gorbachev said, "Everybody agrees Russia is a left-of-center country."
The Russian people are left of center. They're a welfare-state country. Gorbachev had this interesting conversation with Putin, when he went to tell Putin that he, Gorbachev, was going to start a social democratic party. There had been several start-ups and they never went anywhere. And Putin said that's the right thing to do, because Russia really is a left-of-center country. So Putin said the same thing. And so Russia is, if you look at the history of Russia…
Are you talking about Russia very early, thinking about Russian givenness to community and all that?
However you put it all together, the peasant tradition, the urban tradition, the socialist tradition. Almost all the revolutionary parties were socialist. You didn't have a Tea Party among them. This is a Russian tradition. Now, it's obviously changed, but I would say that today, looking at the polls, most Russians overwhelmingly believe that the state has obligations that include medical care, free education, and guaranteeing everybody a job. In fact, it's in the Russian constitution, the guarantee of a job. Most Russians feel there should not be a "free market" but a social or regulated market, that some things should be subsidized, that the government should regulate certain things, and that nobody should be too rich or too poor. For that you get 80 percent of the vote every time. So that's a social democratic program, right? Why don't they have it?
I ask everybody in Russia who wants a social democratic party. They exist, but not a party that can win elections? What's the problem here? I think know, but I want to hear Russians tell me what's right. People cite what you and I would guess. First of all, there's the hangover from communism, which was social democratic and somewhat socialist, in some form.
Second, and this is probably the key thing, social democratic movements tended to grow out of labor movements-labor unions, historically, in England and Scandinavia and Germany. They became the political movement of the labor movement, the working class movement. So you normally get a labor movement that favors political action instead of strikes, creates a political party, you have a parliamentary system, they begin to build support in the working class, elements of the middle class join them, and you end up eventually with European social democracy.
Old Labour in Britain is a perfect example.
Well, the labor unions in Russia are a complete mess. I shouldn't say that, but they're complicated. The major one remains the old Soviet official one, which is in bed deeply with state employers. The independent one, or ones, haven't been able to get enough traction. In almost every European country there were circumstances, you might say the political culture was favorable. Those objective circumstances don't exist [in Russia]. First, you have an insecure savaged middle class that's seen its savings confiscated or devalued repeatedly in the last 25 years. You've got a working class trapped between oligarchs, state interests and old industries, and private entrepreneurs who are very vulnerable. In other words, the working class itself is in transition. Its own insecurities don't lead it to think in terms of political organizations but in terms of issues-of whether Ford Motor Company is going to fire them all tomorrow. They're localized issues.
Then you don't have a leadership. Leadership really matters. No one has emerged, either in the Russian parliament or in Russian political life. By the 1990s Gorbachev was past his prime and too hated for what had happened to the country. He hoped to be, when he ran for president that time [in 1996] and got 1 percent, he hoped to be the social democratic leader. There are a couple guys in Parliament who aspire to be the leader of Russian social democracy…. When I'm asked, and I've told this to young social democrats and to Gennady Zyuganov, whom I've known for 20 years, the leader of the Russian Communist Party, the only real electoral party, that Russia needs social democracy with a Russian face….
What this means is that the most important force in Russia, and people were wrong to say Putin created it, is nationalism. This began, in fact, under Stalin. It was embedded during the Brezhnev years, and it was overshadowed during perestroika in the late-1980s. Then there was an inevitable upsurge as a result of the 1990s. You cannot be a viable political candidate in Russia today unless you come to grips with nationalism.
Therefore, the best way, in my judgment, if you also want democracy, is social democracy with a Russian nationalist face. What's interesting is the guy who was until recently the most popular opposition leader, Navalny [Alexei Navalny, the noted anti-corruption activist], who got nearly 30 per cent of the vote in the Moscow mayoral elections and then blew it by becoming again a foe of the entire system instead of building on his electoral success-he's too nationalistic for the taste of a lot of democrats.
Truly? You wouldn't know it from what you read.
He's got a bad history in regards to the Caucasus people, among others. But what's interesting in this regard is, we don't ever speak of American nationalism. We call it patriotism. It's weird, isn't it? We don't have a state, we have a government….
Every American politician who seeks the presidency in effect tries to make American nationalism the program of his or her candidacy, but they call it patriotism. They're fully aware of the need to do this, right? So why they think Putin doesn't have to do it, too, is completely beyond me. There's no self-awareness.
In Russia, people had lost hope tremendously after 1991 but their hope later attached to Putin-imagine what he faced. For example, can you imagine becoming the leader of such a country and for the sake of consensus having a textbook putting together Tsarist, Soviet and post-Soviet history? Our presidents had a hard time dealing with slave and post-slave, Civil War and post-Civil War history. How do they do it? Each president did it differently, but Putin inherited this conflicting history, and the way he's tried to patch all three together into a consensual way for Russians to view their history and to teach kids in school is very interesting. Now, of course, it's being ruptured again with this war and with Crimea and with this new nationalism.
I'd like to change the subject. Often in the books you mention an interest in alternatives: What could've happened if this or that hadn't. We just covered one, the missed opportunity for a historically logical social democratic outcome in Russia. How do you account for this tendency in your thinking?
We have formative experiences-what shaped you, at least so you think when you look back. You don't know it at the time, you don't know a formative experience is formative until later. You'd agree with that.
It's only in hindsight. "Reality takes form only in memory." Proust.
For me it was growing up in the segregated South. But the reality was valid in retrospect, because I later realized that what I was doing had been so shaped by growing up in the segregated South, the way I reacted to that and the way I learned from it later, actually, in a strange way, led me to Russia.
You suggested this in the book on gulag returnees, "The Victims Return." I wonder if you could explain the connection. How did growing up in Kentucky [Cohen was raised in Owensboro] lead you to Russian studies, and what does it do for your analysis of the Russian situation? How does a Kentucky childhood keep you alert to alternatives?
Well, you have to remember what segregation was. I didn't understand this as a little boy, but it was American apartheid. Owensboro, probably had fewer than 20,000 people then, including the farmers. For a kid growing up in a completely segregated county, first of all, the world you're born into is the normal world. I had no questions about it…. I didn't perceive the injustice of it.
And then you get older and you begin to see the injustice and you wonder, how did this happen?… At Indiana University I run into this professor who becomes my mentor, Robert C. Tucker, [Tucker, who died in 2010, was a distinguished Russianist and author of a celebrated biography of Stalin]. I'd been to Russia-accidentally, I went on a tour-and he asked, "What in Russia interests you?" And I said, "Well, I'm from Kentucky, and I've always wondered if there was an alternative in Kentucky's history between being deep South and not being deep South." And Tucker said, "You know, one of the biggest questions in Russian history is lost alternatives. Nobody ever studies them." And I said, "Aha!"
So the title of your 2009 book, "Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives," is in his honor?
I began to live in Russia in 1976, for two or three months a year until they took my visa away in 1982. This is when I got deeply involved in the dissident movement, smuggling manuscripts out and books back in and all these things. I begin to think, how does Russia change today? And my mind reverted to segregation and the end of segregation and the friends and foes of change…. I wrote an article called "The Friends and Foes of Change" about reformism and conservatism in the Soviet system, because I thought that it was institutions, it was culture, it was history and leaders and that you needed a conjunction of these events before you could get major change in Russia and the Soviet Union…. I published that as an article in 1976 or 1977 and I expanded it for a book I wrote, "Rethinking the Soviet Experience," which was published in 1985, a month before Gorbachev came to power. And everybody would later say, "He foresaw Gorbachev."
Actually I didn't quite. What I foresaw was perestroika. For me it wasn't about the name of the leader, but the policy such leader would enact. I got one thing wrong. Because it was so hard to make this argument in Cold War America, that the Soviet Union had a capacity for reform awaiting it, if factors came together. I didn't think to carry the argument beyond liberalization to actual democratization. So I didn't foresee a Gorbachev who would enact actual democratization, free voting, and dismantle the Communist Party…. But I always thought that thinking about the history of Kentucky, living through segregation, watching the change, seeing the civil rights movement, seeing the resistance to it and why helped me think more clearly about the Soviet Union under Brezhnev and about my dissident friends. And I also knew reformers in the party bureaucracy pretty well, and when we would talk at night, I never mentioned this but my mind would always kind of drift back.
The connection is not at all obvious but you explain it very well and it's clear once you do.
Well, sometimes people read a book that opens their eyes. I think the whole secret, particularly as you get older… Trotsky I think wrote that after some age, I think he said 39 or 45, all we do is document our prejudices. And there's some truth to that, obviously. But one of the ways that you avoid becoming dogmatic about your own published views is to keep looking for things that challenge what you think. You try to filter them through whatever intellectual apparatus you've been using for, in my case, 40 years.
I thought it would be interesting to get through those sections of Kennan's journals ["The Kennan Diaries," 2014] that would be germane to our exchange. What struck me coming away from them was the enormous sadness and pessimism that hung over him in the later years. I wonder if you share that.
My position has always been, America doesn't need a friend in the Kremlin. We need a national security partner. Friendships often don't last. Partnerships based on common interests, compatible self-interests, do.
I have always known such a partnership would be difficult to achieve because there are so many differences, conflicts, and Cold War landmines. There were numerous chances to enhance the relationship-during the Nixon-Brezhnev détente period, Gorbachev and Reagan, Gorbachev and Bush, even with Putin after 9/11, when he helped [George W.] Bush in Afghanistan. But they all became lost opportunities, those after 1991 lost mainly in Washington, n ot Moscow.
When I speak of lost alternatives I do not mean the counter-factual employed by novelists and some historians-the invention of "what-ifs." I mean actual alternatives that existed politically at turning points in history, and why one road was taken and not the other. Much of my work has focused on this large question in Soviet and post-Soviet Russian history and in U.S.-Russian relations.
So you ask if I'm disappointed by the lost opportunities for an American-Russian partnership, especially in light of the terrible confrontation over Ukraine? Having struggled for such a partnership for about 40 years, yes, of course, I'm personally disappointed-and even more so by the Ukraine crisis because I think it may be fateful in the worst sense.
On the other hand, as an historian who has specialized in lost alternatives, well, now I have another to study, to put in historical context and analyze. And it's my historical analysis-that an alternative in Ukraine was squandered primarily in Washington, not primarily in Moscow-that those who slur me don't like.
To which I reply, Let them study history, because few of them, if any, seem ever to have done so.
Patrick Smith is the author of "Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century." He was the International Herald Tribune's bureau chief in Hong Kong and then Tokyo from 1985 to 1992. During this time he also wrote "Letter from Tokyo" for the New Yorker. He is the author of four previous books and has contributed frequently to the New York Times, the Nation, the Washington Quarterly, and other publications. Follow him on Twitter, @thefloutist.
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Jun 19, 2015 | Foreign Policy
...In interviews with Foreign Policy, her European colleagues have described her as "brash," "direct," "forceful," "blunt," "crude," and occasionally, "undiplomatic." But they also stressed that genuine policy differences account for their frustrations with her - in particular, her support for sending arms to Ukraine as the country fends off a Russian-backed rebellion, a policy not supported by the White House.
"She doesn't engage like most diplomats," said a European official. "She comes off as rather ideological."
While European complaints about Nuland's diplomatic style are genuine and fairly ubiquitous, she has also been dealt an incredibly difficult hand.
Nuland frequently meets with senior European leaders who outrank her and delivers messages they often don't want to hear.
In a crisis of this magnitude, many of these delicate tasks would traditionally get kicked up to Nuland's boss, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, Wendy Sherman. But Sherman has been saddled with the momentous job of leading the U.S. negotiating team in the Iran nuclear talks, giving Nuland an unusual degree of latitude and influence for an assistant secretary.
This significant level of autonomy has led her interlocutors to fixate on her as a driving force of hawkishness within the Obama administration, whether fairly or not.
"Many Europeans, and certainly Moscow, hate Nuland, which is just one more reason why her political base on Capitol Hill adores her," said a congressional aide familiar with the issue.
In Europe, Nuland is widely presumed to be the leading advocate for shipping weapons to Kiev - a proposal bitterly opposed by the Germans, Hungarians, Italians, and Greeks who fear setting off a wider conflict with Moscow.
The White House has also argued against providing lethal assistance to Kiev because Moscow enjoys what's known as "escalation dominance," or the ability to outmatch and overwhelm Ukrainian forces regardless of the type of assistance the United States would provide.
Nuland is not the only Obama administration official who has supported arming Ukraine, but in Europe, she has become the face of this policy, thanks to a pivotal event that occurred in February during the annual Munich Security Conference.
At the outset of the forum, Nuland and Gen. Philip Breedlove delivered an off-the-record briefing to the visiting U.S. delegation, which included about a dozen U.S. lawmakers in the House and Senate. Unbeknownst to Nuland and Breedlove, a reporter from the German newspaper Bild snuck into the briefing room and published a report that reverberated across Germany but gained little to no traction in English-language media.
The report said Nuland and Breedlove were pressing U.S. lawmakers to support the shipment of defensive weapons to Ukraine and belittling the diplomatic efforts German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande were making in Russia.
"We would not be in the position to supply so many weapons that Ukraine could defeat Russia. That is not our goal," Breedlove was quoted as saying. "But we must try to raise the price for Putin on the battlefield."
Nuland reportedly added, "I would like to urge you to use the word 'defensive system' to describe what we would be delivering against Putin's offensive systems," according to a translation.
... ... ...
In December, Democrats and Republicans in Congress overwhelmingly passed legislation authorizing the president to provide lethal aid to Ukraine, including ammunition, troop-operated surveillance drones, and antitank weapons. The president agreed to sign the legislation only because it did not require him to provide the aid, which he has yet to do. Trying a new tactic this week, the Senate included a provision in its military policy bill that would withhold half of the $300 million for Ukrainian security assistance until 20 percent of the funds is spent on lethal weaponry for Kiev. The provision is opposed by the White House for fear that lethal assistance would only serve to escalate the bloodshed in Ukraine and hand Putin an excuse for further violent transgressions.
While policy differences like this one account for some of the bad blood between Nuland and her European counterparts, her tough style clearly plays a role as well.
"Some tend to perceive Nuland's assertiveness as a bit too over the edge, at least for the muffled European diplomatic environment," said Federiga Bindi, a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies.
... ... ...
Despite the fact that Nuland is not outside the mainstream of many State Department views on the Ukraine crisis, her reputation as the most pugnacious of hawks isn't likely to subside in the minds of Europeans anytime soon. In many ways, that's because she'll never live down the moment that made her famous: the leaking of a private phone call of her disparaging the European Union in 2014 as the political standoff between the Ukrainian opposition and former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych unfurled.
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Jun 19, 2015 | vz.ru
No matter how successful would be the attempts to seize Russian property in Belgium, it is clear that begins a new stage of Western attack on Russia. The state arrested during the war, but we are in a state of geopolitical conflict. The excuse now selected for arrest, completely unimportant to block Russia will use any reasons.
Dismantle the legal niceties of what happened in Belgium and in France, but for trees it is important to see the forest. The problem is not that, most likely, the current attempt of arrest of property of Russia on the claim of Yukos, based on last year's decision of the arbitration court in the Hague, will not be successful, but more important is that the topic of confiscation of Russian property in the West has moved from the theoretical to the practical.
"The attempted arrest of the Russian property pursued a number of important goals"The coincidence of this event with the launch of the St. Petersburg economic forum by accident, but more than symbolic. While the political and business elite of most European countries are looking for ways of combining Atlantic solidarity and national interests, that is, sanctions against Russia and preserving relations with her, supranational, Atlantic forces are at work on the widening gap between Europe and Moscow, creating new obstacles to save their relationship.
Another piece of information that appeared simultaneously with Belgian history, gives an idea about the next steps to isolate Russia from Europe – New York Times talks about the contents of the new package of sanctions against Moscow, agreed by the EU and the USA. It will be adopted much faster previous, report sources – in the case of the Ukrainian separatists by Moscow and the rebel advance into Ukraine". Considering that the continuing civil war in Ukraine is, unfortunately, only a matter of time, we can say that these sanctions will inevitably be introduced against Russia.
The contents of the new package is known in General terms, but it is impressive – the sanctions "can lead to restriction of export of fuel from Russia", "Russian banks will lose the opportunity to conduct a number of international financial transactions", and "some businesses will not be able to participate in transactions abroad." And in the case of "serious breaches" will be imposed tough financial sanctions, including the shutdown of a number of Russian banks from the SWIFT system. In addition, the U.S. insists on the adoption of restrictive measures against foreign subsidiaries of Russian companies, and also against new sectors of the economy (including against the mining industry and mechanical engineering). Restrictions in the energy sector include sanctions against businesses engaged in the exploration for gas or the production and commissioning of equipment for production and transportation of shale oil, reports RBC with reference to AP.
But if new sanctions require still agreeing on the level of heads of governments of all European countries and the USA will not be so easy to achieve that even in case of resumption of war in Ukraine measures, similar to the arrest of the Russian property in Belgium, do not require such extensive work. Enough to use a few European countries – and the effect will be huge. Moreover, the attempted arrest of the Russian property pursue several objectives.
- First, of course, to exert psychological pressure on the Kremlin – Atlanticists still do not exclude that the increased pressure on Russia will lead to changes in our Ukrainian politics, to put it simply, to the fact that Moscow will agree to atlantisal of Ukraine. The fact that it is impossible in principle for Russia, I understand not all supporters of the isolation of our country. And if so to press – maybe it will be last drop, after which Putin will decide that enough is enough: such considerations seem delusional, but actually exist in Atlantic elite.
- Secondly, the threat of arrest jeopardizes any economic ties between Europe and Russia – both existing and future. What contracts, what supplies (in both directions), if tomorrow in Holland or Germany would be arrested accounts or products paid by Russia or from Russia. What then accounts will be unlocked, and the property is released, not a comforting thought – who would want to risk, to bear the loss and nervous? The claim of Yukos – a convenient excuse to arrest in France, Germany, not to mention the UK or the USA. It's like a minefield, you never know, pass it or not – it is important to make any Western businessman to be afraid to even step on it. And to remove it from Russian, and so it is of limited sanctions.
- Thirdly, it is an attempt to provoke Russia to retaliate. That is, for the arrest or even the confiscation of the property of those Western countries which will decide on the arrest of the Russian property. This would be a major step towards the ultimate isolation of Russia from Europe – and it is clear that Moscow is well aware. But while it would be assumed that until when will the first real case of arrest of the Russian property with counter no need to hurry in order not to be consumed.
You can, of course, wonder, and a large Western business that wants to work with Russia, how his interests? Did he not will to protest against the attempt to deprive him of favorable contacts and profits? It is not only national business from individual European countries, but also the largest supranational corporations, like BP, have large interests in Russia.
The answer is very simple – in the era of globalization, as indeed in any other, is not ruled by big money, and not even the lust for profit, and the elite of geopolitics, people who have strategic power, those who are planning for a long time, and doing it from generation to generation. The Atlanticists, the backbone of the supranational Western elites, understand the seriousness of the challenge posed by Russia of their global project. Yes, now Russia is still weak in order again, as a century ago, to become an alternative to them, but have the audacity to stifle in the Bud – that's why none of "having the right" by and large does not care about the profits, lost on the Russian direction of any Bank or Corporation.
After all, if now not to return Russia to the bullpen, then the losses will be much greater – the changed geopolitical situation will inevitably lead to loss of control of the commodity and money flows, and hence to financial losses. And what is money in comparison with the power, the more global. Especially in the West know Russia must be very careful.
Many in the West are very sorry that we failed to strangle the Communist project in the Bud, during the civil war – and then had 70 years to suffer. With the current "Putin's Russia" they don't want a repeat of those mistakes. Intervention is not possible now, but the economic war will gain momentum. In war as in war you have to be ready for anything.
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tertiaroma.livejournal.com
Article of P. Akopova contains interesting thought, You need to read it fully to appreciate them.The goal of the West disclosed correctly, but can the Russian Federation in the current form confront a new "crusade"?
After all, if the Russian elite has positioned the West as the enemy, as it in reality is to the Russian state, bothe the current contnt and the vector of the Russian economy would be quite different. In a condition, which would at least make the economic and financial arsenal of the West less effective.
But in reality Russian ruling nomenclature suffering from pro-Western mentality tried to srengthen their defences indiscriminatly in all directions, including to the military (while the main blow that are coming are financial), and to increase the patriotism of the population by the projection of the President as an indepencent political figure fighting dictat of the West. While in reality Putin is the politician who underestimated the antagonism of the West and after first negative raction from the West fell into what can be called the "Ukrainian prostration"?
If so, then there are only two ways out of this situation: either the delivery of the fiefdom to ht eUSA as a king, or the transformation of a fiefdom in the sovereign state.
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Jun 14, 2015 | The American Conservative
Jeb Bush made a familiar assertion during his visit to Poland:Bush seemed to suggest he would endorse a more muscular foreign policy, saying the perception of American retreat from the global stage in recent years had emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin to commit aggression in Ukraine.
"When there's doubt, when there's uncertainty, when we pull back, it creates less chance of a more peaceful world," Bush told reporters. "You're seeing the impact of that in Ukraine right now."
Bush's remarks are what we expect from hawks, but they are useful in showing how they indulge in a sort of magical thinking when it comes to the U.S. role in the world. They take for granted that an activist and meddlesome U.S. foreign policy is stabilizing and contributes to peace and security, and so whenever there is conflict or upheaval somewhere it is attributed to insufficient U.S. meddling or to so-called "retreat." According to this view, the conflict in Ukraine didn't happen because the Ukrainian government was overthrown in an uprising and Russia then illegally seized territory in response, but because the U.S. was perceived to be "retreating" and this "emboldened" Russia. It's usually not clear what hawks think would have discouraged Russian interference and intervention in Ukraine under the circumstances, but they seem to think that if only the U.S. had somehow been more assertive and more meddlesome there or in some other part of the world that the conflict would not have occurred or would not be as severe as it is.
This both greatly overrates the power and influence that the U.S. has over the events in other parts of the world, and it tries to reduce every foreign crisis or conflict to how it relates to others' perceptions of U.S. "leadership." Hawks always dismiss claims that other states are responding to past and present U.S. actions, but they are absolutely certain that other states' actions are invited by U.S. "inaction" or "retreat," even when the evidence for said "retreat" is completely lacking. The possibility that assertive U.S. actions may have made a conflict more likely or worse than it would otherwise be is simply never admitted. The idea that the U.S. role in the world had little or nothing to do with a conflict seems to be almost inconceivable to them.
One of the many flaws with this way of looking at the world is that it holds the U.S. most responsible for conflicts that it did not magically prevent while refusing to accept any responsibility for the consequences of things that the U.S. has actually done. Viewing the world this way inevitably fails to take local conditions into account, it ignores the agency of the local actors, and it imagines that the U.S. possesses a degree of control over the rest of the world that it doesn't and can't have. Unsurprisingly, this distorted view of the world reliably produces very poor policy choices.
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Jun 14, 2015 | The American Conservative
Most Americans remember the Bush years as a period of expanding government, ruinous war, and economic collapse. They voted for Obama the first time as a repudiation of those developments. Many did so a second time because most Republicans continue to pretend that they never happened.
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June 12, 2015 | Pravoye Delo
Translated by Kristina Rus
In addition to sanctions, Western-controlled Ukraine increases pressure on the Russian elite, by going after their property.
We already wrote about the Ukrainian junta making moves primarily, legal, on the seizure of Russian state property in Ukraine - http://pravoe-org.livejournal.com/521470.html
Perhaps the most serious take over was a pipeline in Western Ukraine of the Russian state corporation "Transneft".Now, however, the situation has changed. Ukraine started seizing the property of the Russian oligarchs. The hype just increased in the last few days, especially on June 10 and 11, when it became clear that the Minsk-2 is going down the drain. Basically, the flood gates had opened.
In the period from June 8 to 11 a process of requisition of property of the Russian oligarchs began in Ukraine. First of all, Oleg Deripaska lost (in favor of the state) the Zaporozhye Aluminum plant, and Viktor Vekselberg, with a combination of pressure from the Prosecutor's office and an armed takeover, is losing the Pobuzhsky Ferronikel plant.
However, ukies honestly warned about such scenario by the raider №1 in Ukraine - Gennady Korban (a person close to "Benya" Kolomoisky [Korban is former deputy governor of Dnepropetrovsk region - KR], and Korban had the experience of seizing the Russian property in the pre-Maidan era). At the end of May, Korban announced his plan on how to repossess the Russian property:
"Russian banks on the territory of Ukraine shall be confiscated in the first place. They can affect both the exchange rate and loan servicing and property of state corporations. Today a number of Ukrainian state corporations just service the enemy credits".
"If these or other capitals, originating from Russia, are related to specific individuals, directly or indirectly involved in the funding or facilitating terrorism, separatism and the war in our country, then, on the basis of this law, their property on mainland Ukraine must be confiscated," - said Korban, and as an example, listed a number of large Ukrainian enterprises, owned by Russian oligarchs:
http://dnpr.com.ua/content/korban-potreboval-konfiskovat-rossiyskie-banki-i-sobstvennost-rossiyskih-oligarhov
- Nikolaev Alumina refinery and ZAlK [Zaporozhye Aluminum plant] of Oleg Deripaska
- Pobujsky Ferronickel plant of Viktor Vekselberg
- Coal coke enterprises, the "South" mine and Dnepropetrovsk Petrovsky metallurgical plant, belonging to the group "Evraz"
- Purchased by VTB group, assets of the Industrial Union of Donbass
Today, the "Cunning Plan of Korban", unlike the CPP [the Cunning Plan of Putin], is being implemented. Actively implemented. Here are the facts:
First, nationalization
On June 9, junta has completed the process of "nationalization" of Zaporozhye Aluminium plant: ZALK was adjudged from the holding "RUSAL" of Russian Oleg Deripaska. The controlling stake, which is 68.01% of the total number of shares was credited to the account of the State Property Fund of Ukraine. State raiding by the junta became possible after March 11, when the supreme court upheld the "legitimacy" of demands for the return of shares to the state due to the failure by the investor (Deripaska's holding company) to fulfill obligations (formally, the Russian "AVTOVAZ-Invest" and Cyprus company Velbay Holdings could not settle a debt). The official message of junta Prosecutor General can be found here: http://www.gp.gov.ua/ua/news.html?_m=publications&_c=view&_t=rec&id=157430
It's also important to note that Korban's gang set its sights on ZALK since the end of last year:
"In early November, the plant (ZALK) came under the cross-hairs of fighters of battalion "Aidar", the financing of which is connected to the Governor of Dnepropetrovsk region, Igor Kolomoisky. On the night of November 9, 2014 the fighters of Aydar barricaded themselves in the building of Zaporozhzhye Aluminium plant, allegedly "to prevent looting". Zaporozhye police had to aid in liberating the plant from the patriots.
http://rian.com.ua/analytics/20141113/359497708.html
But it was too rough, now they decided to maintain the facade of legitimacy.
Second, revocation of licenses and liquidation
On June 11, in the afternoon, the National Bank of Ukraine adopted the decision on revocation of the banking license and liquidation of "Energobank", according to the resolution of the board of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) No. 370, dated June 11.http://bank.gov.ua/control/uk/publish/article?art_id=18299746&cat_id=55838
Formally "Energobank" is owned by a Russian businessman, Anatoly Danilitskiy. Previously, it belonged to the group of oligarch Alexander Lebedev, the one who likes to engage in publishing activity in London. However, two years ago information surfaced, that there is a written obligation of the new owner Anatoly Danilitsky on reissuance of shares of the bank to the "National Reserve Company" (NRK) of Lebedev. Thus, Danilitsky owns "Energobank" nominally, but the real owner is still Alexander Lebedev. Security services of Ukraine considered the bank a financial "wash" of the Russian oligarchs.
http://sled.net.ua/kievskiy/energobank/kak/moyka/rossiyskogo/oligarkha/2013/06/02 )
But now the bank is liquidated.
Third, a take over with a shoot out
June 11, in the evening. A capture of Pobujsky Ferronickel plant (PFC). This is the only enterprise in Ukraine and the former Soviet Union, producing ferronickel on an industrial scale from poor oxidized nickel ores. Located on the territory of Kirovograd region, on the border with Nikolaev region.
Here is the sequence of events:
1. In Golovanevsk district, Kirovograd region, at around 21:00 a group of armed men tried to enter the Pobuzhsky Ferronickel plant, at the moment they were negotiating with the administration, reported the head of the village council of Dolgaya Pristan of the Nikolaev region, Sergey Titarenko (this settlement is adjacent to the Kirovograd region). "About an hour ago armed men tried to enter the Pobuzhsky Ferronickel plant. Our town is a mile from the plant. We could hear shooting. At the moment there is information on negotiations between the invaders and the administration, " said Sergey Titarenko.
In Pobuzhye, the village head, Sergey Slobodyanyuk explained: "Even this morning the representatives of the prosecutor and tax authorities of Kirovograd region, accompanied by the detachment of police, tried to enter the territory of the enterprise, but only a tax investigator went into the plant. At 9 p.m. about 50 people with guns in black uniforms arrived on buses. They failed to get inside, facing resistance from the staff and the guards. Meanwhile, armed men accompanied the man, who declared that according to the decision of the court, he is the new owner of the Ferronickel plant", - said Sergey Slobodyanyuk. He also added that tomorrow morning, to avoid bloodshed a meeting for the employees, the current administration and the alleged new owner of the enterprise will be held in Pobuzhye House of Culture to determine the fate of the plant.
http://nikvesti.com/news/incidents/70619
2. In the evening, at a press conference in Kiev, the CEO of the Pobuzhsky Ferronickel plant, Oleg Bespalov has informed that on June 11, unknown persons were trying to block the products of Pobujsky Ferronickel plant in Kirovograd region, the investor of which is Solway Investment Group:
"Actions by unknown persons to block the import of a large batch of nickel ore and ferronickel and the prosecutor's office of Kirovograd region conducting simultaneous search actions, we consider as an attempt of illegal seizure of the property of the group"
Deputy director of the PFC on legal affairs, Rustam Dzhamgurov, in turn added that accusations towards PFC are absurd, because PFC provides processing services and does not produce the product, and added that enforcement proceedings opened against PFC were opened due to a claim of a physical person, who has no relation to the company. Dzhamgurov clarified that this individual has never appeared in court and did not provide explanatory materials on the case:
"In this case we are talking about an organized judicial arbitrariness and lawlessness ... 72 thousand tonnes of ore and 7 thousand tons of ferronickel were arrested. The company is carrying huge losses."
http://comments.ua/politics/517228-rukovodstvo-pfk-zayavilo-zahvate.html
3. The products of PFC are shipped through the port of Ilyichevsk, and there it was detained. (Ilyichevsk - is Odessa region, where Saakashvili is now governor). It is important that on June 8 a scandal was raised claiming the products of PFC are used for defense purposes and are illegally shipped to Russia:
"Press service (of the port) stated that on Monday, June 8, false information was circulated about the alleged illegal shipment of ferronickel products used in the defense industry, in particular, in the production of alloy steel for armored vehicles. At the port this media campaign to discredit the head of the enterprise, Yury Kruk, was connected to the search for the position of director of the Ilyichevsk Commercial Sea Port, conducted by the Ministry of Infrastructure. On June 8, some online media, indeed, reported that allegedly the arrested batch of 7 thousand tons of ferronickel was being loaded on the ship "Seldonis" at terminal 4 of Pier 18 of the Ilyichevsk port. ... The shipment of ferronickel is allegedly owned by "Bowring Trading", and it was going to be transported to Russia."
http://www.04868.com.ua/article/851529
Oh, and by the way, who is watching TV? Is there anything on Russia-24 or the Channel 1 on the an armed seizure of a Ferronickel plant, which essentially belongs to Russian investors? And on the liquidation of a Russian Bank? Nothing? Let's pretend, it's not ours?... Oh, well...
And more. Such an attack on the property of the Russian oligarchs (Deripaska, and most importantly, Vekselberg, and the attack will likely continue) is going on with the full support of the state - Prosecutor General. Therefore, it is planned. Consequently, it's a part of a master plan. A plan of pressure on their property, in addition to the sanctions of the West against Russia, which were largely intended to cause discontent in the Russian oligarchy. Today, yesterday, the day before yesterday a second front was opened in this direction.
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Jun 12, 2015 | marknesop.wordpress.com
Lyttenburgh, June 11, 2015 at 5:22 pmThe "Nation Interest" erupted with this article several days ago:marknesop, June 11, 2015 at 9:48 pmRussia and America: Toward a New Détente
The "meat" of this long article boils down to the following:
For this new diplomatic partnership to be effective, both parties must enter into it with a realistic mind-set. That is the first step. The United States has to accept the fact that Russia is a great power and treat it that way. Washington has to be sensitive to Moscow's perspectives and interests, particularly on its borders. The Kremlin has to realize that to receive great-power treatment, it's got to behave far more responsibly and accept responsibility for joint solutions. Putin can't go on trying to dominate and intimidate his neighbors, just as the U.S. president can't be seen as seeking to pull these neighbors out of the Russian orbit.
Second, both sides have to recognize their very real complementary interests. That's perfectly obvious now when it comes to regional issues, fighting terrorism and nuclear proliferation. There's no denying that there are serious conflicts on Russia's western border or that Russia has clear military superiority there. Russia can cause real turmoil for Europe, which is why both parties have got to understand that the solution lies in diplomatic sensitivity and compromise, rather than fighting. It does not take a rocket scientist to see that the present mutual hostility imperils the interests of both sides.
How would Détente Plus work in practice?
First, both sides have to commit to diplomacy at the highest levels. Particularly in the initial years, there would have to be annual presidential summits and semiannual meetings of foreign and defense ministers. Only top-level political leaders can make the decisions required of Détente Plus.
Second, these joint ventures must be given high visibility. Optics are critical both to reestablish Russia's status as a great power, and for the United States to gain more restrained and cooperative Russian behavior in return. Kremlin leaders are surely realistic enough to see this trade-off and curb themselves. Until this mountaintop diplomacy begins to produce, Western nations are fully justified in sustaining sanctions and continuing to build a more credible military presence eastward.
Third, Détente Plus has to progress on two fronts: maintaining the basic integrity and independence of countries on Russia's borders while being attentive to Russian interests there; and fashioning joint action on broader issues such as Middle East instability and terrorism.
Well, what did you expect? Of course, in our time any "meaty" part will turn out to be just "vegetarian" one!
Our good and knowledgeble Leslie H. Gelb – a "president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, a former columnist for the New York Times, and a former senior State and Defense Department official" – basically suggests, that some shiny glass beads and a great priviledge to be treated like a
White ManUS of A's equal is sufficient to placate Kremlin's ego, and afterwards Putin (whom our good author blames for all crisises and setbacks that ever happened in the region – hell, he even claims that Putin artificially keeps Azeri-Armenian conflict burning!) will gladly become reasonle and abandon all Russia's foreign interests. Huzzah!What this shizofrenic article doesn't answer, however, is some very nasty and down to earth questions:
1) New "detente+" (ugh!) strategy suggested here presumes that the US must "be sensetive to Moscow's perspectives and interests, particularly on its borders" and "maintaining the basic integrity and independence of countries on Russia's borders".
2) Then what are good mister Gelb's thought on Crimea? Did he really, honestly presumes that Russia will just hand over a peninsula with 3 mlns of Russian citizens "back" to the Ukraine in the name of "maintaining the basic integrity… of countries on Russia's borders"?
3) Or maybe mister Gelb suggests that despite the fact that both UkrArmy and the NatzGuard suffered humiliating defeats in the past Russia should allow "just for lulz" the Ukrainian border guards to resume their work in eastern parts of the People Republics?
4) Did he really think that a couple of glass beads will make Putin look the other way, when NATO pimped-up NatzGuard and whoever they managed to grab during the "5th wave of Mobilization" descends upon People Republics?
And the icing on the top – well, you gonna laugh! Our good mr. Gelb blames the EU going full Nuland!
Alas, the European Union has demonstrated the wrong way to proceed in the last two years. It essentially proposed to incorporate the Ukrainian economy into Europe's and leave Russia behind. It pursued a Europe-win/Russia-lose approach rather than the win-win policy argued for here. Obviously Moscow couldn't accept this and turned the competition to its strength - stirring up Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine and sending in Russian arms and men.
Did I mention the self-delusion of "Murica did no wrong here" exposed on every single page of this article? Well, pardon me – I thought it was self evident!
P.S. Are there still people interested in hearing some of my accounts about being a soldier in Russian Army? Pavlo?
Yes, that is a thing of beauty – I liked your analogy of the shiny glass beads, like the trade with the Indians in which they gave away furs worth a fortune for cheap baubles. Everything old is new again, because this sort of soul-searching (Russia has been wronged, we must stop treating it like a child) has been done before, and far better, by former U.S. Defense secretary Robert McNamara in "Out of the Cold – New Thinking for American Foreign and Defense Policy in the 21st Century". I've added it to the library – just the picture, I'll add the text tomorrow if I have time – but from memory, Mr. McNamara blamed much of the cold war on America and its intransigence, and lamented the many, many misunderstandings that caused both sides to misinterpret the other's motives. He was quite candid (so far, I just started it) that the USSR behaved exactly as any nation in its position would have done given the same circumstances, that it was only safeguarding its regional interests and was not remotely interested in a war with Europe or with America when it had just lost millions of its people to war and seen its industrial production reduced by something like two-thirds. But even then the west treated the USSR as if it was a naive tribesman who could be bought off with a shiny tin hatchet because he does not recognize what has true value.The USA had plenty of opportunity to act on his advice (it was published in 1989) and lead the effort to find common ground. But it was having too much fun making an enemy of the Soviet Union and undercutting every effort it made to develop itself.
Lyttenburgh, June 11, 2015 at 10:03 pm
Correct me if I'm dead wrong, Mark, but wasn't one of the reasons for McNamara's dismissal (whatever fanciful term they used doesn't matter) some fears by the glorious administration of LBJ that "Goddamit, we have another Forrestal in the making here! Quick, remove him before he goes nuts completely!" which might somehow have influenced the consequent perception of everything said and written by the former Sec. of Defense McNamara?marknesop, June 11, 2015 at 10:21 pmThat's very possible – I'm afraid my knowledge of his career is woefully incomplete and I mostly remember him as a tricky dissembler in the famous Gulf of Tonkin Incident which lit off America's military participation in the Vietnam War. It was fairly evident from declassified records that McNamara wanted America actively involved in the war rather than just in an advisory capacity, and those records show he withheld advice of military commanders from the President because those commanders argued against overt action until more facts were known. He would later argue that he supported the Vietnam War out of loyalty to administration policy rather than being drunk with power, although his initial management of it suggested he wanted to run it personally. As president of the World Bank, he stated that countries permitting access to birth control would get preferential treatment. Although I agree that countries have to permit that choice, thorny an issue as it is – because plenty of history shows that making a woman bear an unwanted child is not going to force a positive change in her attitude and a subsequent responsible raising of the child – it is not the kind of thing you announce publicly. He was a little erratic, to put it mildly, but he also served as Defense Secretary for 7 years, which I believe is a record.yalensis, June 12, 2015 at 3:14 amIt will make more sense when I post a couple of excerpts; his advice on treatment of Russia (which was still the Soviet Union then) was eminently sensible because it argued the Russians only wanted to be treated as equals and for genuine dialogue to take place rather than a quick meeting of the Old Boys Club followed by a group gang-bang of Russia with everyone pointing accusing fingers. But it's easy to say something makes sense when you agree with it, so I'll let readers decide for themselves. There's no arguing that he knew a great deal and that his experience of current events far exceeds ours, by the simple virtue of his having been present at so many high-level planning sessions and gatherings. But his matter-of-fact recounting of historic events such as Churchill's bargaining with Stalin on spheres of influence suggests he had an inquiring mind and a good memory for history, since the famous deal written on a scrap of paper, offering division of influence in various eastern-European countries by percentages (and which Stalin approved with a simple check mark) is not well-known. That was a huge betrayal as well since – for example – the Soviet Union was offered "90% influence" in Romania, and the west set to meddling in it with no delay and now it is a NATO member.
From what I have read about McNamara and the Vietnam war:Paul II, June 11, 2015 at 11:25 pm
McNamara screwed up badly, and knew it. His hubris and hunger for power caused untold destruction of lives and a geo-strategic defeat for America.The thing is, that McNamara was that rare type (in his position) who actually had a conscience. He was not a psychopath. He had a logical mind, was eventually able to analyze his own mistakes, and in later life sought redemption by telling the truth.
An interesting if highly flawed individual. Shakespeare could have written a play about him.
Many within the Russian elite just eat up every morsel of the idea that someone, somewhere in the West wants to treat Russia as an equal. The old convergence meme, along with plenty of time for Italian villas and French wine, women, and song. So it behooves Western operatives to create some stories like that. Sure, it was the EU's fault. Yep. To me, this is more like factions within the Nazis debating what kind of post-war scenario would work for the USSR. How many should be deported to Brazil, how many should be sterilized, that kind of thing. Russia should spend more time on getting rid of the huge and powerful fifth column and improving industrial production, and less time on partnership discussions.yalensis, June 12, 2015 at 3:16 amHear hear!yalensis, June 12, 2015 at 3:04 amFrankly, I would rather see bitter conflict than the kind of "detente" that Gelb is proposing.LIke you say, for a few glass beads, Putin is supposed to pretend that all is okey-dokey and go back to the era when Russia and America were pretending to fight "terrorism" together. Overlooking the fact that the "terrorists" are all paid for and trained by America.
In any case, realistically speaking, Russia and America do not have any interests in common. Not one single one that I can think of. The divorce should be finalized.
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Jun 10, 2015 | Zero Hedge
While on the surface the European leaders of G-7 nations are all smiles in their photo-ops next to US president Barack Obama, there is an unmistakable tension and simmering resentment at the US for forcing Europe into America's personal crusades."Today, Europe is not independent… The US is drawing us [the EU] into a crusade against Russia, which contradicts the interests of Europe," said the former French Prime Minister Fillon while the chief economist at Bremer Landesbank adds that as a result of US policies "unmeasurable damage lies in an elevated geopolitical risk situation for the people in the EU."
* * *
German Banker: Obama Is Destroying Europe, submitted by investigative historian Eric Zuesse
Interviewed on June 6th by German Economic News, the chief economist at Bremer Landesbank, Folker Hellmeyer, says that because of Obama's sanctions against Russia, German exports declined year-over-year by 18% in 2014, and by 34% in the first two months of 2015 (no later figures), but he asserts that "The damage is much more comprehensive than these statistics show," because those are only the "primary losses," and there are in addition "secondary effects," which get even worse over time.
For example:
"European countries with strong business in Russia, including Finland and Austria, are economically hit very hard. These countries consequently place fewer orders from Germany. Moreover, considering that European corporations will circumvent the sanctions, to create production facilities at the highest efficiency level in Russia, we lose this potential capital stock, which is the basis of our prosperity. Russia wins the capital stock," at the EU's expense, even though the sanctions are targeted against Russia.
But the nub is this:
"For the future, Germany and the EU place their economic reliability into question with Russia. The relationship of trust is broken by Germany and the EU. In order to build such confidence, it takes several years. Between signature and delivery are up to five years. ... Siemens is now thrown out from a major project for this reason [i.e., because the requisite predictability has been lost]. Alstom has likewise lost the contract for the railway line from Moscow to Beijing. Consequently, the potential for damage is much more massive than the current figures show, not only for Germany, but for the entire EU."
Then, he says: "More [projects] still in planning include the axis from Peking to Moscow as part of the Shanghai Corporation and the BRIC countries, the largest growth project in modern history, the construction of the infrastructure of Eurasia, from Moscow to Vladivostok, to Southern China and India. How far the EU and Germany's sanctions-policy regarding Russia figures in these developing-countries' mega-projects will depend upon whether we'll be seen as hostile in other emerging countries than Russia. [NOTE from Eric Zuesse: Obama speaking 28 May 2014 to graduating West Point cadets:
'Russia's aggression toward former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe, while China's economic rise and military reach worries its neighbors. From Brazil to India, rising middle classes compete with us, and governments seek a greater say in global forums.'
His attitude toward developing countries is clear - they are enemies, to be dealt with via the military, not economic partners to advance with us in economic cooperation.] But, obviously, there is a lack that some participants in European politics [and inside the White House!] have in their abilities to think abstractly on our behalf."
Asked who will be paying the price for this, he says:
"The measurable damage is loss of growth, in lost wages, losses in contributions to the social system and in tax revenue. This is true for the past 12 months, and it is valid for the years ahead. The people in Germany and the EU will pay the price through lost prosperity and stability. The unmeasurable damage lies in an elevated geopolitical risk situation for the people in the EU."
Asked about the situation in Ukraine, Hellmeyer says:
"It is indeed irritating. People who are focused not only on Western 'quality media' are amazed at those media hiding the aggression of Kiev and the discriminatory laws implemented by the Government in Kiev, which constitute a serious challenge to the claim that Western values and democracy are being supported by the West. I believe, to Mr Steinmeier's credit, that he is in fact talking plainly about these matters behind closed doors. The question is whether the behavior of the Atlantic alliance supports Mr. Steinmeier. I refer in this regard especially to Victoria Nuland.
The fact is that by the coup in the Ukraine, an oligarchy friendly towards Moscow was replaced by an oligarchy now oriented toward the United States. It's geopolitics, which benefits third forces, but definitely not Germany, not the EU, not Russia, and not Ukraine."
So, he sees U.S. as having gained at the expense of every other country, but especially at Europe's expense.
Asked about the future, Folker Hellmeyer says:
"For me, the conflict has already been decided. The axis Moscow-Beijing-BRIC wins. The dominance of the West is through.
In 1990 those countries accounted for only about 25% of world economic output. Today, they represent 56% of world economic output, and 85% of world population. They control about 70% of the world's foreign exchange reserves. They grow annually by an average of 4% - 5%. Since the United States were not prepared to share power internationally (e.g., by changing the voting-apportionments in the IMF and World Bank), the future rests with those countries themselves, to build in the emerging markets sector on their own financial system. There lies their future. The EU is currently being drawn into the conflict, which the United States caused because she did not share power and want to share. The longer we pursue this [mono-polar, hegemonic, Imperial, supremacist, internationally dictatorial, aggressive] policy in the EU, the higher the price [to Europe will be]."
He goes on to say:
"The fact is that the emerging countries emancipate themselves from US control. This is evident in the creation of competitive institutions of the World Bank (AIIB) and the IMF (New Development Bank) by the axis of the emerging countries. This displeases the still prevailing hegemon. The current international hot spots of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Egypt, to the Ukraine, are an expression of this, in the background, as a clearly identifiable power-confrontation [between the U.S. and every other country]. If we were there intending to establish democracy and freedom, let's look at the success in achieving those goals. [His implication: it's failure.]"
German Economic News asks:
"The contempt with which the US government deals with the Europeans is remarkable, such as the NSA tapping the Chancellor's phone, and Nuland's famous 'Fuck the EU' statement. Have European politicians no self-respect, or are they just too cowardly?"
Hellmeyer responds: "The person who is a true democrat takes seriously his duties as a politician for the public's well-being, and does not allow his nation's self-determination to be so contemptuously trampled underfoot, such as has followed from that remark. The person who is not a true democrat, has with respect to the above values and canon, severe deficits."
CLOSE from Zuesse:
- Why is there not, in Europe, a huge movement to abandon NATO, and to kick out the U.S. military? Whom is the U.S. 'defending' Europeans from, after the Warsaw Pact ended in 1991?
- Why did not Gorbachev demand that NATO disband when the Warsaw Pact did - simultaneous (instead of one-sided) disbanding of the Cold War, so that there would not become the foundation for international fascism to arise to conquer Russia (first, to surround it by an expanding NATO - and ultimately via TPP & TTIP), in the aftermath?
- Why is there not considerable public debate about these crucial historical, cultural, and economic, matters?
- Why is there such deceit, which requires these massive questions to be ignored so long by 'historians'?
- How is it even possible for the world to move constructively forward, in this environment, of severe censorship, in the media, in academia, and throughout 'the free world'?
- Why is there no outrage that the Saudi and other Arabic royals fund islamic jihad (so long as it's not in their own countries) but America instead demonizes Russia's leaders, who consistently oppose jihadists and jihadism?
- Why are America's rulers allied with the top financiers of jihad? Why is that being kept so secret? Why are these injustices tolerated by the public?
- Who will change this, and how? When will that desperately needed change even start? Will it start soon enough?
Maybe WW III won't occur, but the damages are already horrible, and they're getting worse. This can go on until the end; and, if it does, that end will make horrible look like heaven, by comparison. It would be worse than anything ever known - and it could happen in and to our generation.
* * *
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity, and of Feudalism, Fascism, Libertarianism and Economics.
And then, here is former French Prime Minister Francois Fillon who told RT that the "US is drawing Europe into crusade against Russia, against our interests"
The US is drawing European states into a "crusade" against Russia, which goes against Europe's interests, former French Prime Minister Francois Fillon has said. Speaking to French media, he stressed that Europe now is dependent on Washington.
"Today, Europe is not independent… The US is drawing us [the EU] into a crusade against Russia, which contradicts the interests of Europe," Fillon told the BFMTV channel.
The ex-French prime minister, who served in Nicolas Sarkozy's government from 2007 till 2012, lashed out at Washington and its policies.
Washington, Fillon said, pursues "extremely dangerous" policies in the Middle East that the EU and European states have to agree with.
He accused German intelligence of spying on France "not in the interests of Germany but in the interests of the United States."
Fillon pointed out that Washington is pressuring Germany to concede to Greece and find a compromise.
He noted the "American justice system" often interferes with the work of "European justice systems."
"Europe is not independent," the ex-PM said, calling for "a broad debate on how Europe can regain its independence."
This, however, would not be possible if Europe goes ahead and signs the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a proposed EU-US treaty, which has drawn much criticism for its secretiveness and lack of accountability.
"I am definitely against signing this agreement [TTIP] in the form in which it is now," he added.
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Jun 8, 2015 | Economist's View
Paul Krugman: Fighting the Derp
"How can you protect yourself against derpitude?":Fighting the Derp, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: When it comes to economics - and other subjects, but I'll focus on what I know best - we live in an age of derp and cheap cynicism. ...What am I talking about here? "Derp" is a term borrowed from the cartoon "South Park"...: people who keep saying the same thing no matter how much evidence accumulates that it's completely wrong. ...
And there's a lot of derp out there.
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et al, June 8, 2015 at 4:50 amAntiwar.com – Alfred McCoy and Tom Engelhardt: Washington's Great Game and Why It's Failingjeremn, June 8, 2015 at 6:38 am
http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2015/06/07/washingtons-great-game-and-why-its-failing/…Yet even America's stunning victory in the Cold War with the implosion of the Soviet Union would not transform the geopolitical fundamentals of the world island. As a result, after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Washington's first foreign foray in the new era would involve an attempt to reestablish its dominant position in the Persian Gulf, using Saddam Hussein's occupation of Kuwait as a pretext.
In 2003, when the U.S. invaded Iraq, imperial historian Paul Kennedy returned to Mackinder's century-old treatise to explain this seemingly inexplicable misadventure. "Right now, with hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops in the Eurasian rimlands," Kennedy wrote in the Guardian, "it looks as if Washington is taking seriously Mackinder's injunction to ensure control of 'the geographical pivot of history.'" If we interpret these remarks expansively, the sudden proliferation of U.S. bases across Afghanistan and Iraq should be seen as yet another imperial bid for a pivotal position at the edge of the Eurasian heartland, akin to those old British colonial forts along India's Northwest Frontier…
…Instead of focusing purely on building a blue-water navy like the British or a global aerospace armada akin to America's, China is reaching deep within the world island in an attempt to thoroughly reshape the geopolitical fundamentals of global power. It is using a subtle strategy that has so far eluded Washington's power elites.
After decades of quiet preparation, Beijing has recently begun revealing its grand strategy for global power, move by careful move. Its two-step plan is designed to build a transcontinental infrastructure for the economic integration of the world island from within, while mobilizing military forces to surgically slice through Washington's encircling containment…
####It can't be much clearer than that. Re-balancing to land based infrastructure reduces China's exposure to the USA's control of the seas. All they need to to is push back the USA little by little, regularly to change the risk equation. Russia, the shortest route for goods from Asia to Europe is also fundamental to this. Instead of sending massive cargo ships to Europe, go by rail & Russia is putting the Trans-siberian railway through a deep upgrade. The US is then just left with drones & air power, one single arm of the pincer and also quite vulnerable.
US supplies defensive sniper arms to Ukraine. But uses Bulgaria as an intermediate destination to hide what it is doing?I can't decide whether these were weapons used to train the National Guard, which just happened to pass through Bulgaria, or if the US has been gun running arms into Ukraine (using Bulgaria) as the article suggests.
http://fortruss.blogspot.ch/2015/06/leaked-documents-expose-american-scheme.html?m=1
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Jun 03, 2015 | salon.com
A sophisticated game of manipulation is afoot over Russia: power, influence and money. U.S. hands are not clean
A couple of weeks ago, this column guardedly suggested that John Kerry's day-long talks in Sochi with Vladimir Putin and his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, looked like a break in the clouds on numerous questions, primarily the Ukraine crisis. I saw no evidence that President Obama's secretary of state had suddenly developed a sensible, post-imperium foreign strategy consonant with a new era. It was force of circumstance. It was the 21st century doing its work.
This work will get done, cleanly and peaceably or otherwise.
Sochi, an unexpected development, suggested the prospect of cleanliness and peace. But events since suggest that otherwise is more likely to prove the case. It is hard to say because it is hard to see, but our policy cliques may be gradually wading into very deep water in Ukraine.
Ever since the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, reality itself has come to seem up for grabs. Karl Rove, a diabolically competent political infighter but of no discernible intellectual weight, may have been prescient when he told us to forget our pedestrian notions of reality-real live reality. Empires create their own, he said, and we're an empire now.
The Ukraine crisis reminds us that the pathology is not limited to the peculiar dreamers who made policy during the Bush II administration, whose idea of reality was idealist beyond all logic. It is a late-imperial phenomenon that extends across the board. "Unprecedented" is considered a dangerous word in journalism, but it may describe the Obama administration's furious efforts to manufacture a Ukraine narrative and our media's incessant reproduction of all its fallacies.
At this point it is only sensible to turn everything that is said or shown in our media upside down and consider it a second time. Who could want to live in a world this much like Orwell's or Huxley's-the one obliterating reality by destroying language, the other by making historical reference a transgression?
Language and history: As argued several times in this space, these are the weapons we are not supposed to have.
Ukraine now gives us two fearsome examples of what I mean by inverted reason.
One, it has been raining reports of Russia's renewed military presence in eastern Ukraine lately. One puts them down and asks, What does Washington have on the story board now, an escalation of American military involvement? A covert op? Let us watch.
Two, we hear ever-shriller charges that Moscow has mounted a dangerous, security-threatening propaganda campaign to destroy the truth-our truth, we can say. It is nothing short of "the weaponization of information," we are provocatively warned. Let us be on notice: Our truth and our air are now as polluted with propaganda as during the Cold War decades, and the only apparent plan is to make it worse.
O.K., let us do what sorting can be done.
Charges that Russia is variously amassing troops and materiel on its border with Ukraine or sending same across said border are nothing new. They are what General Breedlove, the strange-as-Strangelove NATO commander, gets paid to put out. These can be ignored, as most Europeans do.
But in April a new round of the escalation charges began. Michael Gordon, the New York Times' reliably obliging State Department correspondent, reported in a story with a single named source that Russia was adding soldiers and air defense systems along its border.
The sources for this were Marie Harf, one of State's spokespeople, and the standard variety of unnamed officials and analysts. Here is how it begins:
In a sign that the tense crisis in Ukraine could soon escalate, Russia has continued to deploy air defense systems in eastern Ukraine and has built up its forces near the border, American officials said on Wednesday.
Western officials are not sure if the military moves are preparations for a new Russian-backed offensive that would be intended to help the separatists seize additional territory.
"Could," "has continued," "not sure," "would be." And this was the lead, where the strongest stuff goes.
Scrape away the innuendo, and what you are reading in this piece is a whole lot of nothing. The second paragraph, stating what officials are not sure of, was a necessary contortion to get in the phrase "new Russian-backed offensive," which was the point of the piece. As journalism, this is so bad it belongs in a specimen jar.
Context, the stuff this kind of reporting does its best to keep from readers:
By mid-April, Washington was still at work trying to subvert the Minsk II ceasefire, an anti-Russian assassination campaign was under way in Kiev and the Poroshenko government, whether or not it approved of the campaign, was proving unable, unwilling or both to implement any of the constitutional revisions to which Minsk II committed it.
A week before the April 22 report, 300 troops from the 173rd Airborne had arrived to begin training the Ukrainian national guard. The Times piece acknowledged this for the simple reason it was the elephant in the living room, but by heavy-handed implication it dismissed any thought of causality.
Given the context, I would not be at all surprised to learn that Moscow may have put air defense systems in place. And I am not at all sure what is so worrisome about them. Maybe it is the same reasoning Benjamin Netanyahu applied when Russia recently agreed to supply Iran with air defense technology: It will make it harder for us to attack them, the dangerous Israeli complained.
Neither am I sure what is so worrisome about Russians training eastern Ukrainian partisans-another charge Harf leveled-if it is supposed to be a mystery why American trainers at the other end of the country prompt alarm in Moscow.
Onward from April 22 the new theme flowed. On May 17 Kiev claimed that it had captured two uniformed Russian soldiers operating inside Ukraine. On May 21 came reports that European monitors had interviewed the two under unstated conditions and had ascertained they were indeed active-duty infantry. This gave "some credence" to Kiev's claim, the Times noted, although at this point some is far short of enough when Kiev makes these kinds of assertions.
On May 30-drum roll, please-came the absolute coup de grâce. The Atlantic Council, one of the Washington think tanks-its shtick seems to be some stripe of housebroken neoliberalism-published a report purporting to show that, in the Times' language, "Russia is continuing to defy the West by conducting protracted military operations inside Ukraine."
Read the report here. It's first sentence: "Russia is at war with Ukraine."
"Continuing to defy?" "At war with Ukraine?" If you refuse to accept the long, documented record of Moscow's efforts to work toward a negotiated settlement with Europe-and around defiant Americans-and if you call the Ukraine conflict other than a civil war, well, someone is creating your reality for you.
Details. The Times described "Hiding in Plain Sight: Putin's War in Ukraine" as "an independent report." I imagine Gordon-he seems to do all the blurry stuff these days-had a straight face when he wrote three paragraphs later that John Herbst, one of the Atlantic Council's authors, is a former ambassador to Ukraine.
I do not know what kind of a face Gordon wore when he reported later on that the Atlantic Council paper rests on research done by Bellingcat.com, "an investigative website." Or when he let Herbst get away with calling Bellingcat, which appears to operate from a third-floor office in Leicester, a city in the English Midlands, "independent researchers."
I wonder, honestly, if correspondents look sad when they write such things-sad their work has come to this.
One, Bellingcat did its work using Google, YouTube and other readily available social media technologies, and this we are supposed to think is the cleverest thing under the sun. Are you kidding?
Manipulating social media "evidence" has been a parlor game in Kiev; Washington; Langley, Virginia, and at NATO since the Ukraine crisis broke open. Look at the graphics included in the presentation. I do not think technical expertise is required to see that these images prove what all others offered as evidence since last year prove: nothing. It looks like the usual hocus-pocus.
Two, examine the Bellingcat web site and try to figure out who runs it. I tried the about page and it was blank. The site consists of badly supported anti-Russian "reports"-no "investigation" aimed in any other direction.
I look at this stuff now and think, Well, there may be activity on Russia's borders or inside Ukraine, but maybe not. Those two soldiers may be Russian and may be on active duty, but I cannot draw any conclusion.
I do not appreciate having to think this way-not as a reader and not as a former newsman. I do not like reading Times editorials, such as Tuesday's, which institutionalizes "Putin's war" and other such tropes, and having to say, Our most powerful newspaper is into the created reality game.
A few things can be made clear in all this. Straight off the top it is almost certain, despite a logical wariness of presented evidence, that Russia has personnel and weapons deployed along its border and in Ukraine.
I greatly hope so, and whether they are on duty or otherwise interests me not at all.
First of all, it is a highly restrained approach to a geopolitical circumstance that Moscow recognizes as dangerous, Washington does not seem to and Kiev emphatically does not. In reversed circumstances, a troubled nation would have long back turned into an open conflict between two nuclear powers. Fig leafs have their place.
I have written before on the question of spheres of influence: They are to be observed if not honored. Stephen Cohen, the Russianist scholar, prefers "spheres of security," and the phrase makes the point plainly. Russia cannot be expected to abandon its interests as Cohen defines them, and considering what is at issue for Moscow, the response is intelligently measured.
Equally, Moscow appears to recognize that without any equilibrium between the Russian-tilted east and the Western-tilted west, Ukraine will be a bloodbath. Irresponsible as it has proven, and with little or no control over armed extreme rightist factions, Kiev cannot be allowed even an attempt to resolve this crisis militarily.
One has to consider how these things are conventionally done. I had a cousin who piloted helicopters in Vietnam long ago. When we spread the conflict to Laos and Cambodia he flew in blue jeans, a T-shirt, sneakers and without dog tags. "If you go down, we don't know you," was the O.D.
A directly germane case is Angola in the mid-1970s. When the Portuguese were forced to flee the old colony, the CIA began supplying right-wing opportunists in the north and south with weapons, money, and agency personnel. Only in response did Cuba send troops that quickly proved decisive. I remember well all the howls of "aggression"-all of them hypocritical rubbish: American efforts to subvert the movement that still governs Angola peaceably continued for a dozen more years.
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The Times editorial just noted is headlined, "Vladimir Putin Hides the Truth." This is upside-down-ism at its very worst.It is not easy to put accounts of the Ukraine crisis side by side to compare them. Think of two bottles of unlabeled wine in a blind taste test. Now read on.
I do not see how there can be any question that Moscow's take on Ukraine and the larger East-West confrontation is the more coherent. Read or listen to Putin's speeches, notably that delivered at the Valdai Discussion Club, a Davos variant, in Sochi last October. It is historically informed, with a grasp of interests (common and opposing), the nature of the 21st century environment and how best outcomes are to be achieved in it.
Altogether, Moscow offers a vastly more sophisticated, coherent accounting of the Ukraine crisis than any American official has or ever will. This is for one simple reason: Neither Putin nor Lavrov bears the burden American officials do of having to sell people mythical renderings of how the world works or their place in it.
Russia's interests are clear and can be stated clearly, to put the point another way. America's-the expansion of opportunity for capital and the projection of power-must always remain shrouded.
The question of plausibility is a serious imbalance, critical in its implications. In my view it accounts for that probably unprecedented propaganda effort noted earlier. It has ensued apace since Andrew Lack, named in January as America's first chief propaganda officer (CEO of the new Broadcasting Board of Governors), instantly declared information a field of battle. A war of the worldviews, we may call it.
This war grows feverish as we speak. In the current edition of The Nation, a journalist named James Carden publishes a remarkable piece detailing the extremes now approached. I rank it a must read, and you can find it here.
Carden's piece is called "The New McCarthyism," and any reader having a look will know well enough why our drift back toward the paranoid style of the 1950s is something we all ought to guard against. A great deal of this column would be banned as "disinformation." Whatever your stripe, I urge you to recognize this as serious.
The focus here is on a report called "The Menace of Unreality: How the Kremlin Weaponizes Information, Culture and Money." It is written by Peter Pomerantsev and Michael Weiss. It is published by an Internet magazine called The Intepreter, as a special report sponsored by the Institute for Modern Russia.
Credential problems galore. Weiss is an "expert" on flavors of the month, a main-chancer who sat at the late Christopher Hitchens' feet and inhabited a think tank in London before taking the editor's chair at The Interpreter. Pomersantsev was a TV producer in the most decadent corners of the Russian media circus, wheeling against it all only when he lost out. Now he is a darling of our media, naturally.
Both, most important, seem to carry water for Michail Khodorkovsky, the oligarchic crook whom Western media, from the Times on down, now lionize as a democrat because he and Putin are enemies. Khodorkovsky funds the Institute for Modern Russia, based in New York. The IMR, in turn, funds The Interpreter.
Got the fix? Ready to take this report seriously, are we?
Astonishingly enough, a lot of people are. As Carden reports, Weiss and Pomerantsev cut considerable mustard among the many members of Congress nursing the new Russophobia. Anne Applebaum, the prominent paranoid on all questions Russian; and Geoffrey Pyatt, Obama's coup-cultivating ambassador in Kiev: Many weighty figures stand with these guys.
Carden lays out his thesis expertly. Putin's weaponization of news makes him more dangerous than any communist ever was, "The Menace of Unreality" asserts, and he must be countered. How? With "an internationally recognized ratings system for disinformation."
"Media organizations that practice conscious deception should be excluded from the community," Weiss and Pomerantsev write-the community being those of approved thought.
No, Carden is not kidding.
It may seem odd, but I credit Weiss and Pomerantsev with one insight. The infection of ideology now debilitates us. Blindness spreads and has to be treated. But there agreement ends, as I consider their report to be among the more extreme cases of the disease so far to show itself.
You can follow the internal logic, but I would not spend too much time on it because there is none once you exit their bubble. There is only one truth, the argument runs, and it just so happens it is exactly what we think. There is no other way to see things. All is TINA, "there is no alternative."
It would be easy to dismiss Weiss and Pomerantsev as supercilious hacks, and I do. But not the stance. They say too clumsily and bluntly what is actually the prevalent intellectual frame, a key aspect of the neoliberal stance. TINA, the argument Thatcher made famous, applies to all things.
To say "The Menace of Unreality" advocates a kind of intellectual protectionism is not strong enough. Their idea comes to the control of information, which is to say the control of the truth. And if you can think of a more efficient way to define the production of propaganda, use the comment box.
Fighting alleged propaganda with propaganda: This is upside down for you. It is what we get when people make up reality for us.
Patrick Smith is the author of "Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century." He was the International Herald Tribune's bureau chief in Hong Kong and then Tokyo from 1985 to 1992. During this time he also wrote "Letter from Tokyo" for the New Yorker. He is the author of four previous books and has contributed frequently to the New York Times, the Nation, the Washington Quarterly, and other publications. Follow him on Twitter, @thefloutist.
More Patrick L. Smith.
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Jun 06, 2015 | RT News
...The RT network, Kusturica says, is destroying the "Hollywood-CNN stereotype of the good and bad guys, where blacks, Hispanics, Russians, Serbs are the villains, and white Americans, wherever you look, are OK!"
"[US Secretary of State] Kerry and the congressmen are bothered by the fact that RT sends signals that the world is not determined by the inevitability of liberal capitalism, that the US is leading the world into chaos, that Monsanto is not producing healthy food, that Coca-Cola is ideal for cleaning automobile alloys and [is] not for the human stomach, that in Serbia the percentage of people who die from cancer has risen sharply due to the 1999 NATO bombings ... that the fingerprints of the CIA are on the Ukrainian crisis, and that Blackwater fired at the Ukrainian police, and not Maidan activists," the filmmaker wrote.
... ... ...
RT is a real threat to US state propaganda as it reaches Americans "in their own homes, in perfect English, better than they use on CNN." And that is why, according to the director, Washington could get fed up and seek to silence RT by force – much like NATO did to Serbian state TV in April 1999.
...CNN, which he considers the flag-bearer of pro-American propaganda: "CNN in direct transmissions assures that since the 1990s America has been leading humanitarian actions, and not wars, and that its military planes rain angels, not bombs!"
...Kusturica believes, "RT will ever more demystify the American Dream and in primetime will reveal the truth hidden for decades from the eyes and hearts of average Americans."
Born in what is today Bosnia-Herzegovina, Emir Kusturica is a 60-year-old Serbian filmmaker, actor and musician. He has won numerous international awards for his films, and was appointed Serbia's ambassador to UNICEF in 2007.
Read also
- US introduces $30 mn bill to target 'Russian propaganda', ISIS threat - RT USA
- 'Nuclear war our likely future' Russia & China won't accept US hegemony, Reagan official warns - RT News
- US 'crossed all imaginable lines' forcing #Ukraine to do its bidding – Russian Def. Min. http://on.rt.com/zp2l7f
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Jun 02, 2015 | the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens
Nixon's and Kissinger's dangerous games in the Vietnam War – The Madman strategy
Recent documents show that the hardcore branch of the US policy during the Vietnam war, was playing dangerous games with North Vietnam and the Soviets, in order to drag the other side to negotiations.
We see today a similar game played by the neocons in Ukraine and Asia-Pacific. In the new Cold War, neocons are playing more dangerous games with Russia and China, as they try to persuade that they will not hesitate to proceed in a nuclear strike against both their rivals, because they see that the Sino-Russian bloc threatens the US global sovereignty.
From National Security Archive:
"Nixon's and Kissinger's Madman strategy during the Vietnam War included veiled nuclear threats intended to intimidate Hanoi and its patrons in Moscow. The story is recounted in a new book, Nixon's Nuclear Specter: The Secret Alert of 1969, Madman Diplomacy, and the Vietnam War, co-authored by Jeffrey Kimball, Miami University professor emeritus, and William Burr, who directs the Archive's Nuclear History Documentation Project. Research for the book, which uncovers the inside story of White House Vietnam policymaking during Nixon's first year in office, drew on hundreds of formerly top secret and secret records obtained by the authors as well as interviews with former government officials."
"With Madman diplomacy, Nixon and Kissinger strove to end the Vietnam War on the most favorable terms possible in the shortest period of time practicable, an effort that culminated in a secret global nuclear alert in October of that year. Nixon's Nuclear Specter provides the most comprehensive account to date of the origins, inception, policy context, and execution of 'JCS Readiness Test' -the equivalent of a worldwide nuclear alert that was intended to signal Washington's anger at Moscow's support of North Vietnam and to jar the Soviet leadership into using their leverage to induce Hanoi to make diplomatic concessions. Carried out between 13 and 30 October 1969, it involved military operations around the world, the continental United States, Western Europe, the Middle East, the Atlantic, Pacific, and the Sea of Japan. The operations included strategic bombers, tactical air, and a variety of naval operations, from movements of aircraft carriers and ballistic missile submarines to the shadowing of Soviet merchant ships heading toward Haiphong."
"The authors also recount secret military operations that were part of the lead-up to the global alert, including a top secret mining readiness test that took place during the spring and summer of 1969. This mining readiness test was a ruse intended to signal Hanoi that the US was preparing to mine Haiphong harbor and the coast of North Vietnam. It is revealed for the first time in this book."
"Another revelation has to do with the fabled DUCK HOOK operation, a plan for which was initially drafted in July 1969 as a mining-only operation. It soon evolved into a mining-and-bombing, shock-and-awe plan scheduled to be launched in early November, but which Nixon aborted in October, substituting the global nuclear alert in its place. The failure of Nixon's and Kissinger's 1969 Madman diplomacy marked a turning point in their initial exit strategy of winning a favorable armistice agreement by the end of the year 1969. Subsequently, they would follow a so-called long-route strategy of withdrawing U.S. troops while attempting to strengthen South Vietnam's armed forces, although not necessarily counting on Saigon's long-term survival."
"In 1969, the Nixon's administrations long-term goal was to provide President Nguyen Van Thieus government in Saigon with a decent chance of surviving for a reasonable interval of two to five years following the sought-after mutual exit of US and North Vietnamese forces from South Vietnam. They would have preferred that President Thieu and South Vietnam survive indefinitely, and they would do what they could to maintain South Vietnam as a separate political entity. But they were realistic enough to appreciate that such a goal was unlikely and beyond their power to achieve by a military victory on the ground or from the air in Vietnam."
"Giving Thieu a decent chance to survive, even for just a decent interval, however, rested primarily on persuading Hanoi to withdraw its troops from the South or, if that failed, prolonging the war in order to give time for Vietnamization to take hold in order to enable Thieu to fight the war on his own for a reasonable period of time after the US exited Indochina. In 1969, Nixon and Kissinger hoped that their Madman threat strategy, coupled with linkage diplomacy, could persuade Hanoi to agree to mutual withdrawal at the negotiating table or lever Moscows cooperation in persuading Hanoi to do so. In this respect, Nixon's Nuclear Specter is an attempt to contribute to better understanding of Nixon and Kissinger's Vietnam diplomacy as a whole."
These materials are reproduced from www.nsarchive.org with the permission of the National Security Archive.
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May 29, 2015 | http://www.theamericanconservative.com
John McCain and Lindsey Graham try to rewrite history to vindicate the Iraq war, and blame Obama for ISIS.
...McCain's widely known and tolerated flair for the dramatic now places an "episode" that most Americans could not rightly pin down, much less explain without the aid of Google, alongside slavery, the Trail of Tears, the federal crackdown on World War I-era Bonus Marchers, and the entire Vietnam War.His partner in this long-running routine, Sen. Lindsey Graham, also reminiscent of Dr. Strangelove's Mr. President, we must not allow a mineshaft gap!", laid out the latest talking points in an interview about the ISIS takeover of Ramadi in Iraq this month:
It's a predictable outcome of withdrawing all forces back in 2011…The military advised [Obama] to leave 10,000 troops. When he refused to take their advice, everything you see before you is a result of that big mistake.
Graham, McCain, and their fellow Republican hawks, energized by an election over a year away, are once again using foreign policy overseas to bludgeon Obama, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and by extension, the whole Democratic Party in the arena of domestic politics here at home. It's a deadly fandango that places national security in the balance, while lawmakers play rhetorical games, often crossing, if not leaping, the usual boundaries of diplomatic propriety and control.
"Imperial senators, basically that's what they are … playing this real life version of Risk," said Matthew Hoh, an Iraq War veteran, referring to the strategy board game in an interview with TAC. Hoh was the highest U.S. official to resign in protest of the Afghanistan war policy when he quit his State Department post in 2009.
Hoh says playing "real life Risk" is all about deception, and in the case of Iraq, a larder of revisionist history, which, as McCain and Graham have demonstrated, involves an elaborate tweaking of the story of how the U.S. withdrew from Iraq in 2011, and why. It also requires the ambitious assumption that a) American forces had every right and opportunity to stay there indefinitely, and b) there would be no consequences if they did so
...Negotiations reportedly wore on until the eleventh hour, but finally broke down when Maliki could not promise criminal immunity for U.S. troops there. "Frankly, given that less than 20 percent of the Iraqi public wanted American troops to stay, and given the great resentment in the Iraqi population …there wasn't much sympathy to grant Americans full legal immunities in the Iraqi parliament," said former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq James Jeffrey in 2014. The withdrawal was complete in 2011.
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance reporter and TAC contributing editor. Follow her on Twitter.
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Even British regime do practiced state capitalism till private liberalization been pushed by Margaret Thatcher."
Jun 04, 2015 | The Guardian
bcnteacher 4 Jun 2015 08:17
Money money money, grab grab grab. The opening up of Iran is all about western companies making money and peace may be a fortunate side effect.
BabyLyon 4 Jun 2015 08:14
Russia and China are more eastern, than western. It's easier for Iran to communicate with them, I think this may be a reason too.
But maybe it's just reputation. The USA has been partying in the Middle East for decades, so people there already know who Americans are and what to expect from them. Russians and Chinese are involved too, but ways they use to achieve an agreement are not so... insolent, I'd say.
abdur razzak 4 Jun 2015 07:38
Good, more power to them. This is a much more efficient way to use resources for the benefit of the whole population than anything the west ever tried.
http://www.latestdatabase.com/1DrSigmundFraud -> JoePope 4 Jun 2015 07:22
The US probably won't be doing business there for obvious reasons. Iran wants to protect it's industries if sanctions are lifted for obvious reasons. You only need to look at the UK for reasons as to what happens if you don't while the US for instance now has only 3 levels of classes
- Poor
- Extremely poor
- Extremely wealthy
Iran does have a healthy middle class one the downtrodden US labor force would die for. Their Oil wealth has been put to good use check out the Tehran Metro for instance
Or their Ski Resorts
Top Hotels
Education one of the better Middle east countries
Against crippling sanctions they've achieved what the vast majority of countries in the region could only have dreampt of
normankirk -> LoungeSuite 4 Jun 2015 06:47
And neo liberalism delivers such a great standard of living for ALL Americans and Brits does it?
HollyOldDog -> LoungeSuite 4 Jun 2015 06:27
Resistance against what? Oh, you must mean the Western steam roller that crushes all life in countries that wish to follow their own destiny. Why would Iran want to join the 'Also Rans' who are only allowed the scraps thrown from the Western Oligarch Table?
MaoChengJi -> LoungeSuite 4 Jun 2015 06:21
Sort of like in Putin's Russia.
Yeah, exactly. Like Putin's Russia compared to Yeltsin's Russia. Like China.
LoungeSuite -> MaoChengJi 4 Jun 2015 06:08
Neoliberalism will fail soon, but state-controlled economies will survive,
Sort of like in Putin's Russia. And now in Venezuela. Oh. And the Cuban is a supreme example of socialism. (Gone wrong of course. Somehow, it always goes wrong. Oh! And America is to blame. Standard Guardian discourse).
HollyOldDog -> Luminaire 4 Jun 2015 06:01Swimming against the tide again is your speciality. Plus you just love throwing nonsense around. I have noticed that the Far Right Ukrainian punishers are up to their nasty tricks again just before a G7 meeting.
Wow, you must think that the rest of the world is truly as gullible as those in Canada and Australia when the USA once again stirs the shit at the bottom of the West Ukrainian pond.
HollyOldDog -> normankirk 4 Jun 2015 05:48
It's a pity that successive British Governments were not better disposed to hanging on to British State assets rather than selling off the family jewels.
JoePope 4 Jun 2015 05:15
I'm not sure why state ownership of certain assets and industries is presented as a bad thing, in Guardian of all places. This is how governments pay for high standard of education, healthcare and strong defence. This is how governments avoid the debt trap and compounded interest charges creeping into the tax bill -- it is difficult to support the welfare system in any populous country purely through tax collection. One would have to have perfect conditions of natural resources/reserves, high technology, innovation and diversification, favourable geopolitical environment & export ability, stable and predictable population levels AND the lack of short term electioneering and corruption to achieve that. Even then, it is debatable whether private ownership and capital especially foreign capital in the case of strategic assets (energy, defence) is justified or needed.
Of course a fully centrally planned economy has been proven to be inefficient and uncompetitive when met with open/free markets -- the "greed is good" mantra, profit seeking motive and consumerism trumps the desire to empower and care for the wider population and more worryingly the need to maintain social cohesion, independence and security. Therefore, a balance should be sought through bilateral or regional deals with economies which are at a similar developmental level, to ensure healthy competition exists and drives improvements in labour productivity, product quality and technology.
This analysis gives some interesting information on Iran but reads as sour grapes and profiteering attempt by western investment funds and corporations. I hope Iranians keep the family jewels in their hands and allow external trade and investment only on terms favorable to their people and their economy.
normankirk -> MaoChengJi 4 Jun 2015 04:13
Good shit, I agree. Must be how come they can afford a good public health system, their primary health care network is acclaimed. They also have 81% home ownership as against The US and UK on about 65%. Education is valued and they have a high rate of women accessing tertiary education.
All of the above is how they have been so resilient in the face of pretty brutal sanctions.
But of course these days, having national assets is akin to being a dictatorship in the eyes of corporatocracies.
MaoChengJi Dmitry Berezhnov 4 Jun 2015 03:26
It's this kind: we, the westerners, are the most advanced civilization! The proof: our economies are all privatized, not government-run! The Iranians Russian, and Chinese are still savages! They have a long way to go to achieve our advanced level of civilization!
Yes, you can make money trading and making deals with savages, but you need to understand their savagery ways and be careful.
allowmetosayuarefool 4 Jun 2015 02:50
US expert don't really understand that state capitalism is not a communist theory. Majority of Asian nations had practiced state capitalism.
Even British regime do practiced state capitalism till private liberalization been pushed by Margaret Thatcher.
Private liberation had its own disadvantages.look at HK economic - largely been controlled by few family of tycoon. Today, UK election result had been determined by UK BANKER.
MaoChengJi 4 Jun 2015 02:42
The economy in the Islamic republic is still largely state-owned, with much of its 'privatised' capital in the hands of regime-affiliated organizations
Good, more power to them. This is a much more efficient way to use resources for the benefit of the whole population than anything the west ever tried.
Neoliberalism will fail soon, but state-controlled economies will survive, if they are isolated enough from the failing neoliberal environment. Sounds like the Iranian economy is, and good for them.
Dmitry Berezhnov 4 Jun 2015 00:14
Could not figure what kind of article that is, either:
- In case we are not going to sign a nuclear deal, please note that there's no democracy and we will have to invade them.
or:
- Iran is kind of not bad for investments, look how China and Russia make money on cooperation while we cannot due to sanctions implied by ourself.
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Zero Hedge
Submitted by Michael Klare via TomDispatch.com,Think of this as a little imperial folly update -- and here's the backstory.
In the years after invading Iraq and disbanding Saddam Hussein's military, the U.S. sunk about $25 billion into "standing up" a new Iraqi army. By June 2014, however, that army, filled with at least 50,000 "ghost soldiers," was only standing in the imaginations of its generals and perhaps Washington. When relatively small numbers of Islamic State (IS) militants swept into northern Iraq, it collapsed, abandoning four cities -- including Mosul, the country's second largest -- and leaving behind enormous stores of U.S. weaponry, ranging from tanks and Humvees to artillery and rifles. In essence, the U.S. was now standing up its future enemy in a style to which it was unaccustomed and, unlike the imploded Iraqi military, the forces of the Islamic State proved quite capable of using that weaponry without a foreign trainer or adviser in sight.
In response, the Obama administration dispatched thousands of new advisers and trainers and began shipping in piles of new weaponry to re-equip the Iraqi army. It also filled Iraqi skies with U.S. planes armed with their own munitions to destroy, among other things, some of that captured U.S. weaponry. Then it set to work standing up a smaller version of the Iraqi army. Now, skip nearly a year ahead and on a somewhat lesser scale the whole process has just happened again. Less than two weeks ago, Islamic State militants took Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province. Iraqi army units, including the elite American-trained Golden Division, broke and fled, leaving behind -- you'll undoubtedly be shocked to hear -- yet another huge cache of weaponry and equipment, including tanks, more than 100 Humvees and other vehicles, artillery, and so on.
The Obama administration reacted in a thoroughly novel way: it immediately began shipping in new stocks of weaponry, starting with 1,000 antitank weapons, so that the reconstituted Iraqi military could take out future "massive suicide vehicle bombs" (some of which, assumedly, will be those captured vehicles from Ramadi). Meanwhile, American planes began roaming the skies over that city, trying to destroy some of the equipment IS militants had captured.
Notice anything repetitive in all this -- other than another a bonanza for U.S. weapons makers? Logically, it would prove less expensive for the Obama administration to simply arm the Islamic State directly before sending in the air strikes. In any case, what a microcosm of U.S. imperial hubris and folly in the twenty-first century all this training and equipping of the Iraqi military has proved to be. Start with the post-invasion decision of the Bush administration to totally disband Saddam's army and instantly eject hundreds of thousands of unemployed Sunni military men and a full officer corps into the chaos of the "new" Iraq and you have an instant formula for creating a Sunni resistance movement. Then, add in a little extra "training" at Camp Bucca, a U.S. military prison in Iraq, for key unemployed officers, and -- Voilà! -- you've helped set up the petri dish in which the leadership of the Islamic State movement will grow. Multiply such stunning tactical finesse many times over globally and, as TomDispatch regular Michael Klare makes clear today, you have what might be called the folly of the "sole superpower" writ large.
Delusionary Thinking in Washington
The Desperate Plight of a Declining Superpower
Take a look around the world and it's hard not to conclude that the United States is a superpower in decline. Whether in Europe, Asia, or the Middle East, aspiring powers are flexing their muscles, ignoring Washington's dictates, or actively combating them. Russia refuses to curtail its support for armed separatists in Ukraine; China refuses to abandon its base-building endeavors in the South China Sea; Saudi Arabia refuses to endorse the U.S.-brokered nuclear deal with Iran; the Islamic State movement (ISIS) refuses to capitulate in the face of U.S. airpower. What is a declining superpower supposed to do in the face of such defiance?
This is no small matter. For decades, being a superpower has been the defining characteristic of American identity. The embrace of global supremacy began after World War II when the United States assumed responsibility for resisting Soviet expansionism around the world; it persisted through the Cold War era and only grew after the implosion of the Soviet Union, when the U.S. assumed sole responsibility for combating a whole new array of international threats. As General Colin Powell famously exclaimed in the final days of the Soviet era, "We have to put a shingle outside our door saying, 'Superpower Lives Here,' no matter what the Soviets do, even if they evacuate from Eastern Europe."
Imperial Overstretch Hits Washington
Strategically, in the Cold War years, Washington's power brokers assumed that there would always be two superpowers perpetually battling for world dominance. In the wake of the utterly unexpected Soviet collapse, American strategists began to envision a world of just one, of a "sole superpower" (aka Rome on the Potomac). In line with this new outlook, the administration of George H.W. Bush soon adopted a long-range plan intended to preserve that status indefinitely. Known as the Defense Planning Guidance for Fiscal Years 1994-99, it declared: "Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union."
H.W.'s son, then the governor of Texas, articulated a similar vision of a globally encompassing Pax Americana when campaigning for president in 1999. If elected, he told military cadets at the Citadel in Charleston, his top goal would be "to take advantage of a tremendous opportunity -- given few nations in history -- to extend the current peace into the far realm of the future. A chance to project America's peaceful influence not just across the world, but across the years."
For Bush, of course, "extending the peace" would turn out to mean invading Iraq and igniting a devastating regional conflagration that only continues to grow and spread to this day. Even after it began, he did not doubt -- nor (despite the reputed wisdom offered by hindsight) does he today -- that this was the price that had to be paid for the U.S. to retain its vaunted status as the world's sole superpower.
The problem, as many mainstream observers now acknowledge, is that such a strategy aimed at perpetuating U.S. global supremacy at all costs was always destined to result in what Yale historian Paul Kennedy, in his classic book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, unforgettably termed "imperial overstretch." As he presciently wrote in that 1987 study, it would arise from a situation in which "the sum total of the United States' global interests and obligations is… far larger than the country's power to defend all of them simultaneously."
Indeed, Washington finds itself in exactly that dilemma today. What's curious, however, is just how quickly such overstretch engulfed a country that, barely a decade ago, was being hailed as the planet's first "hyperpower," a status even more exalted than superpower. But that was before George W.'s miscalculation in Iraq and other missteps left the U.S. to face a war-ravaged Middle East with an exhausted military and a depleted treasury. At the same time, major and regional powers like China, India, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey have been building up their economic and military capabilities and, recognizing the weakness that accompanies imperial overstretch, are beginning to challenge U.S. dominance in many areas of the globe. The Obama administration has been trying, in one fashion or another, to respond in all of those areas -- among them Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and the South China Sea -- but without, it turns out, the capacity to prevail in any of them.
Nonetheless, despite a range of setbacks, no one in Washington's power elite -- Senators Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders being the exceptions that prove the rule -- seems to have the slightest urge to abandon the role of sole superpower or even to back off it in any significant way. President Obama, who is clearly all too aware of the country's strategic limitations, has been typical in his unwillingness to retreat from such a supremacist vision. "The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation," he told graduating cadets at West Point in May 2014. "That has been true for the century past and it will be true for the century to come."
How, then, to reconcile the reality of superpower overreach and decline with an unbending commitment to global supremacy?
The first of two approaches to this conundrum in Washington might be thought of as a high-wire circus act. It involves the constant juggling of America's capabilities and commitments, with its limited resources (largely of a military nature) being rushed relatively fruitlessly from one place to another in response to unfolding crises, even as attempts are made to avoid yet more and deeper entanglements. This, in practice, has been the strategy pursued by the current administration. Call it the Obama Doctrine.
After concluding, for instance, that China had taken advantage of U.S. entanglement in Iraq and Afghanistan to advance its own strategic interests in Southeast Asia, Obama and his top advisers decided to downgrade the U.S. presence in the Middle East and free up resources for a more robust one in the western Pacific. Announcing this shift in 2011 -- it would first be called a "pivot to Asia" and then a "rebalancing" there -- the president made no secret of the juggling act involved.
"After a decade in which we fought two wars that cost us dearly, in blood and treasure, the United States is turning our attention to the vast potential of the Asia Pacific region," he told members of the Australian Parliament that November. "As we end today's wars, I have directed my national security team to make our presence and mission in the Asia Pacific a top priority. As a result, reductions in U.S. defense spending will not -- I repeat, will not -- come at the expense of the Asia Pacific."
Then, of course, the new Islamic State launched its offensive in Iraq in June 2014 and the American-trained army there collapsed with the loss of four northern cities. Videoed beheadings of American hostages followed, along with a looming threat to the U.S.-backed regime in Baghdad. Once again, President Obama found himself pivoting -- this time sending thousands of U.S. military advisers back to that country, putting American air power into its skies, and laying the groundwork for another major conflict there.
Meanwhile, Republican critics of the president, who claim he's doing too little in a losing effort in Iraq (and Syria), have also taken him to task for not doing enough to implement the pivot to Asia. In reality, as his juggling act that satisfies no one continues in Iraq and the Pacific, he's had a hard time finding the wherewithal to effectively confront Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, the various militias fighting for power in fragmenting Libya, and so on.
The Party of Utter Denialism
Clearly, in the face of multiplying threats, juggling has not proven to be a viable strategy. Sooner or later, the "balls" will simply go flying and the whole system will threaten to fall apart. But however risky juggling may prove, it is not nearly as dangerous as the other strategic response to superpower decline in Washington: utter denial.
For those who adhere to this outlook, it's not America's global stature that's eroding, but its will -- that is, its willingness to talk and act tough. If Washington were simply to speak more loudly, so this argument goes, and brandish bigger sticks, all these challenges would simply melt away. Of course, such an approach can only work if you're prepared to back up your threats with actual force, or "hard power," as some like to call it.
Among the most vocal of those touting this line is Senator John McCain, the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a persistent critic of President Obama. "For five years, Americans have been told that 'the tide of war is receding,' that we can pull back from the world at little cost to our interests and values," he typically wrote in March 2014 in a New York Times op-ed. "This has fed a perception that the United States is weak, and to people like Mr. Putin, weakness is provocative." The only way to prevent aggressive behavior by Russia and other adversaries, he stated, is "to restore the credibility of the United States as a world leader." This means, among other things, arming the Ukrainians and anti-Assad Syrians, bolstering the NATO presence in Eastern Europe, combating "the larger strategic challenge that Iran poses," and playing a "more robust" role (think: more "boots" on more ground) in the war against ISIS.
Above all, of course, it means a willingness to employ military force. "When aggressive rulers or violent fanatics threaten our ideals, our interests, our allies, and us," he declared last November, "what ultimately makes the difference… is the capability, credibility, and global reach of American hard power."
A similar approach -- in some cases even more bellicose -- is being articulated by the bevy of Republican candidates now in the race for president, Rand Paul again excepted. At a recent "Freedom Summit" in the early primary state of South Carolina, the various contenders sought to out-hard-power each other. Florida Senator Marco Rubio was loudly cheered for promising to make the U.S. "the strongest military power in the world." Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker received a standing ovation for pledging to further escalate the war on international terrorists: "I want a leader who is willing to take the fight to them before they take the fight to us."
In this overheated environment, the 2016 presidential campaign is certain to be dominated by calls for increased military spending, a tougher stance toward Moscow and Beijing, and an expanded military presence in the Middle East. Whatever her personal views, Hillary Clinton, the presumed Democratic candidate, will be forced to demonstrate her backbone by embracing similar positions. In other words, whoever enters the Oval Office in January 2017 will be expected to wield a far bigger stick on a significantly less stable planet. As a result, despite the last decade and a half of interventionary disasters, we're likely to see an even more interventionist foreign policy with an even greater impulse to use military force.
However initially gratifying such a stance is likely to prove for John McCain and the growing body of war hawks in Congress, it will undoubtedly prove disastrous in practice. Anyone who believes that the clock can now be turned back to 2002, when U.S. strength was at its zenith and the Iraq invasion had not yet depleted American wealth and vigor, is undoubtedly suffering from delusional thinking. China is far more powerful than it was 13 years ago, Russia has largely recovered from its post-Cold War slump, Iran has replaced the U.S. as the dominant foreign actor in Iraq, and other powers have acquired significantly greater freedom of action in an unsettled world. Under these circumstances, aggressive muscle-flexing in Washington is likely to result only in calamity or humiliation.
Time to Stop Pretending
Back, then, to our original question: What is a declining superpower supposed to do in the face of this predicament?
Anywhere but in Washington, the obvious answer would for it to stop pretending to be what it's not. The first step in any 12-step imperial-overstretch recovery program would involve accepting the fact that American power is limited and global rule an impossible fantasy. Accepted as well would have to be this obvious reality: like it or not, the U.S. shares the planet with a coterie of other major powers -- none as strong as we are, but none so weak as to be intimidated by the threat of U.S. military intervention. Having absorbed a more realistic assessment of American power, Washington would then have to focus on how exactly to cohabit with such powers -- Russia, China, and Iran among them -- and manage its differences with them without igniting yet more disastrous regional firestorms.
If strategic juggling and massive denial were not so embedded in the political life of this country's "war capital," this would not be an impossibly difficult strategy to pursue, as others have suggested. In 2010, for example, Christopher Layne of the George H.W. Bush School at Texas A&M argued in the American Conservative that the U.S. could no longer sustain its global superpower status and, "rather than having this adjustment forced upon it suddenly by a major crisis… should get ahead of the curve by shifting its position in a gradual, orderly fashion." Layne and others have spelled out what this might entail: fewer military entanglements abroad, a diminishing urge to garrison the planet, reduced military spending, greater reliance on allies, more funds to use at home in rebuilding the crumbling infrastructure of a divided society, and a diminished military footprint in the Middle East.
But for any of this to happen, American policymakers would first have to abandon the pretense that the United States remains the sole global superpower -- and that may be too bitter a pill for the present American psyche (and for the political aspirations of certain Republican candidates) to swallow. From such denialism, it's already clear, will only come further ill-conceived military adventures abroad and, sooner or later, under far grimmer circumstances, an American reckoning with reality.
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Dec 14, 2006 | Politics Forum .org
At the "Paleoconservative" The American Conservative Scott McConnell says:Quote:I cut out a large middle section of the article which is well worth the read for those needing some history and background about who the neoconservatives are and how they got into trouble.Neoconservatives lobbied for an unnecessary war and are getting blamed. But they have made comebacks before.
by Scott McConnell
Republicans may have gotten “a thumpin’,†but the neocons appear to be suffering a full-fledged rout. The intellectual faction that had its origins in City College’s storied Alcove No.1 during the 1930s (home of the “anti-Stalinist†socialists) has become a household word, and not in a good way. Apolitical grandmothers write their children e-mails deriding “the neocons and their war.†Intellectuals who have logged years on the payroll of well-funded neoconservative institutions forward little ditties through cyberspace: (to the tune of “Thanks for the Memoriesâ€)
But thanks to the neocons,
For every war a shill,
We’re driven from the Hill
But their mission was accomplished
Since our troops are dying still.
A cakewalk it was.Thanks for the neocons
Those late-night shows on Fox
We watched while drinking shots
Sure Cheney lied and soldiers died
But ain’t Ann Coulter hot?
A kegger, it was.If disrespecting the neoconservatives is emerging as a minor national sport, it should be enjoyed, and tempered, with realism. The last few years have been difficult for the faction, the years to come perhaps more challenging still. But they are as aware of their own vulnerabilities as anyoneâ€"much more so than the Bush-Rove Republicans with whom they have been allied. Neoconservatives have faced the political wilderness before and survived. They have other political options.
...
In the short run at least, neoconservatism is wounded and is likely to present a different public face. The soaring language about how it is America’s destiny to spread democracy throughout the globe, the efforts to define an American global empire as something greatly to be desiredâ€"this will dropped, a casualty of the Iraq fiasco. But it’s not clear that the neocons will miss the democracy baggage. Jeanne Kirkpatrick’s famous essay “Dictatorships and Double Standardsâ€â€"the one that landed her the post of Ronald Reagan’s ambassador to the United Nations, was published in Commentary and considered a primary example of “neo†conservative thinking of the period. But recall that her argument was that “authoritarian†regimes could be reliable American allies in the Cold War, and Washington was destabilizing them by hectoring about human rights and democracy. Kirkpatrick was wrong in the end about how durable communist “totalitarian†regimes turned out to be (compared to the authoritarian dictatorships she favored), but the dominant perspective of the essay was undeniably realistâ€"an attempt to take the world with its myriad political cultures as it was rather than imposing upon it a pre-fabricated American model.What won’t be dropped is the neoconservatives’ attachment to Israel and the tendency to conflate the Jewish state’s interests (as defined in right-wing Israeli terms) with America’s. So one can look forward to neoconservative agitation on two fronts: a powerful campaign to draw the United States into a war to eliminate Iran’s nuclear potential and an equally loud effort in support of maintaining Israeli dominance over the West Bank and denying the Palestinians meaningful statehood. Those who argue effectively for a more even-handed American policy towards Israel and Palestine will risk the full measure of smears linking them to historical anti-Semitism. The archetypical neoconservative argument will no longer be Bob Kagan and Bill Kristol’s call for American “benevolent global hegemony,†but Gabriel Schoenfeld’s attack on John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in Commentary, an essay that sought to connect the pair’s work to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
This election season ends with neoconservatism widely mocked and openly contemptuous of the president who took its counsels. The key policy it has lobbied for since the mid-1990sâ€"the invasion of Iraqâ€"is an almost universally acknowledged disaster. So one can see why the movement’s obituaries are being written. But the group was powerful and influential well before its alliance with George W. Bush. In its wake it leaves behind crisesâ€"Iraq first among themâ€"that will not be easy to resolve, and neocons will not be shy about criticizing whatever imperfect solutions are found to the mess they have created. Perhaps most importantly, neoconservatism still commands more salariesâ€"able people who can pursue ideological politics as fulltime work in think tanks and periodicalsâ€"than any of its rivals. The millionaires who fund AEI and the New York Sun will not abandon neoconservatism because Iraq didn’t work out. The reports of the movement’s demise are thus very much exaggerated.
December 18, 2006 Issue
Does Neoconservatism Have a Future? Adam_Smith [+-] Political ... At the "Paleoconservative" The American Conservative Scott McConnell says:Quote: They Only Look Dead Neoconservatives lobbied for an unnecessary war and are ... It is the future of liberalism Adam Smith in crises, ...
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May 29, 2015 | nakedcapitalism.com
By Michael T. Klare, a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of The Race for What's Left. A documentary movie version of his book Blood and Oil is available from the Media Education Foundation. Follow him on Twitter at @mklare1. Originally published at TomDispatch
Take a look around the world and it's hard not to conclude that the United States is a superpower in decline. Whether in Europe, Asia, or the Middle East, aspiring powers are flexing their muscles, ignoring Washington's dictates, or actively combating them. Russia refuses to curtail its support for armed separatists in Ukraine; China refuses to abandon its base-building endeavors in the South China Sea; Saudi Arabia refuses to endorse the U.S.-brokered nuclear deal with Iran; the Islamic State movement (ISIS) refuses to capitulate in the face of U.S. airpower. What is a declining superpower supposed to do in the face of such defiance?
This is no small matter. For decades, being a superpower has been the defining characteristic of American identity. The embrace of global supremacy began after World War II when the United States assumed responsibility for resisting Soviet expansionism around the world; it persisted through the Cold War era and only grew after the implosion of the Soviet Union, when the U.S. assumed sole responsibility for combating a whole new array of international threats. As General Colin Powell famously exclaimed in the final days of the Soviet era, "We have to put a shingle outside our door saying, 'Superpower Lives Here,' no matter what the Soviets do, even if they evacuate from Eastern Europe."
Imperial Overstretch Hits Washington
Strategically, in the Cold War years, Washington's power brokers assumed that there would always be two superpowers perpetually battling for world dominance. In the wake of the utterly unexpected Soviet collapse, American strategists began to envision a world of just one, of a "sole superpower" (aka Rome on the Potomac). In line with this new outlook, the administration of George H.W. Bush soon adopted a long-range plan intended to preserve that status indefinitely. Known as the Defense Planning Guidance for Fiscal Years 1994-99, it declared: "Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union."
H.W.'s son, then the governor of Texas, articulated a similar vision of a globally encompassing Pax Americana when campaigning for president in 1999. If elected, he told military cadets at the Citadel in Charleston, his top goal would be
"to take advantage of a tremendous opportunity - given few nations in history - to extend the current peace into the far realm of the future. A chance to project America's peaceful influence not just across the world, but across the years."
For Bush, of course, "extending the peace" would turn out to mean invading Iraq and igniting a devastating regional conflagration that only continues to grow and spread to this day. Even after it began, he did not doubt - nor (despite the reputed wisdom offered by hindsight) does he today - that this was the price that had to be paid for the U.S. to retain its vaunted status as the world's sole superpower.
The problem, as many mainstream observers now acknowledge, is that such a strategy aimed at perpetuating U.S. global supremacy at all costs was always destined to result in what Yale historian Paul Kennedy, in his classic book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, unforgettably termed "imperial overstretch." As he presciently wrote in that 1987 study, it would arise from a situation in which "the sum total of the United States' global interests and obligations is… far larger than the country's power to defend all of them simultaneously."
Indeed, Washington finds itself in exactly that dilemma today. What's curious, however, is just how quickly such overstretch engulfed a country that, barely a decade ago, was being hailed as the planet's first "hyperpower," a status even more exalted than superpower. But that was before George W.'s miscalculation in Iraq and other missteps left the U.S. to face a war-ravaged Middle East with an exhausted military and a depleted treasury. At the same time, major and regional powers like China, India, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey have been building up their economic and military capabilities and, recognizing the weakness that accompanies imperial overstretch, are beginning to challenge U.S. dominance in many areas of the globe. The Obama administration has been trying, in one fashion or another, to respond in all of those areas - among them Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and the South China Sea - but without, it turns out, the capacity to prevail in any of them.
Nonetheless, despite a range of setbacks, no one in Washington's power elite - Senators Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders being the exceptions that prove the rule - seems to have the slightest urge to abandon the role of sole superpower or even to back off it in any significant way. President Obama, who is clearly all too aware of the country's strategic limitations, has been typical in his unwillingness to retreat from such a supremacist vision. "The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation," he told graduating cadets at West Point in May 2014. "That has been true for the century past and it will be true for the century to come."
How, then, to reconcile the reality of superpower overreach and decline with an unbending commitment to global supremacy?
The first of two approaches to this conundrum in Washington might be thought of as a high-wire circus act. It involves the constant juggling of America's capabilities and commitments, with its limited resources (largely of a military nature) being rushed relatively fruitlessly from one place to another in response to unfolding crises, even as attempts are made to avoid yet more and deeper entanglements. This, in practice, has been the strategy pursued by the current administration. Call it the Obama Doctrine.
After concluding, for instance, that China had taken advantage of U.S. entanglement in Iraq and Afghanistan to advance its own strategic interests in Southeast Asia, Obama and his top advisers decided to downgrade the U.S. presence in the Middle East and free up resources for a more robust one in the western Pacific. Announcing this shift in 2011 - it would first be called a "pivot to Asia" and then a "rebalancing" there - the president made no secret of the juggling act involved.
"After a decade in which we fought two wars that cost us dearly, in blood and treasure, the United States is turning our attention to the vast potential of the Asia Pacific region," he told members of the Australian Parliament that November. "As we end today's wars, I have directed my national security team to make our presence and mission in the Asia Pacific a top priority. As a result, reductions in U.S. defense spending will not - I repeat, will not - come at the expense of the Asia Pacific."
Then, of course, the new Islamic State launched its offensive in Iraq in June 2014 and the American-trained army there collapsed with the loss of four northern cities. Videoed beheadings of American hostages followed, along with a looming threat to the U.S.-backed regime in Baghdad. Once again, President Obama found himself pivoting - this time sending thousands of U.S. military advisers back to that country, putting American air power into its skies, and laying the groundwork for another major conflict there.
... ... ...
But however risky juggling may prove, it is not nearly as dangerous as the other strategic response to superpower decline in Washington: utter denial.
For those who adhere to this outlook, it's not America's global stature that's eroding, but its will - that is, its willingness to talk and act tough. If Washington were simply to speak more loudly, so this argument goes, and brandish bigger sticks, all these challenges would simply melt away. Of course, such an approach can only work if you're prepared to back up your threats with actual force, or "hard power," as some like to call it.
Among the most vocal of those touting this line is Senator John McCain, the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a persistent critic of President Obama. "For five years, Americans have been told that 'the tide of war is receding,' that we can pull back from the world at little cost to our interests and values," he typically wrote in March 2014 in a New York Times op-ed. "This has fed a perception that the United States is weak, and to people like Mr. Putin, weakness is provocative." The only way to prevent aggressive behavior by Russia and other adversaries, he stated, is "to restore the credibility of the United States as a world leader." This means, among other things, arming the Ukrainians and anti-Assad Syrians, bolstering the NATO presence in Eastern Europe, combating "the larger strategic challenge that Iran poses," and playing a "more robust" role (think: more "boots" on more ground) in the war against ISIS.
Above all, of course, it means a willingness to employ military force. "When aggressive rulers or violent fanatics threaten our ideals, our interests, our allies, and us," he declared last November, "what ultimately makes the difference… is the capability, credibility, and global reach of American hard power."
A similar approach - in some cases even more bellicose - is being articulated by the bevy of Republican candidates now in the race for president, Rand Paul again excepted.
... ... ...
However initially gratifying such a stance is likely to prove for John McCain and the growing body of war hawks in Congress, it will undoubtedly prove disastrous in practice. Anyone who believes that the clock can now be turned back to 2002, when U.S. strength was at its zenith and the Iraq invasion had not yet depleted American wealth and vigor, is undoubtedly suffering from delusional thinking. China is far more powerful than it was 13 years ago, Russia has largely recovered from its post-Cold War slump, Iran has replaced the U.S. as the dominant foreign actor in Iraq, and other powers have acquired significantly greater freedom of action in an unsettled world. Under these circumstances, aggressive muscle-flexing in Washington is likely to result only in calamity or humiliation.
Time to Stop Pretending
Back, then, to our original question: What is a declining superpower supposed to do in the face of this predicament?
Anywhere but in Washington, the obvious answer would for it to stop pretending to be what it's not. The first step in any 12-step imperial-overstretch recovery program would involve accepting the fact that American power is limited and global rule an impossible fantasy. Accepted as well would have to be this obvious reality: like it or not, the U.S. shares the planet with a coterie of other major powers - none as strong as we are, but none so weak as to be intimidated by the threat of U.S. military intervention. Having absorbed a more realistic assessment of American power, Washington would then have to focus on how exactly to cohabit with such powers - Russia, China, and Iran among them - and manage its differences with them without igniting yet more disastrous regional firestorms.
If strategic juggling and massive denial were not so embedded in the political life of this country's "war capital," this would not be an impossibly difficult strategy to pursue, as others have suggested. In 2010, for example, Christopher Layne of the George H.W. Bush School at Texas A&M argued in the American Conservative that the U.S. could no longer sustain its global superpower status and, "rather than having this adjustment forced upon it suddenly by a major crisis… should get ahead of the curve by shifting its position in a gradual, orderly fashion." Layne and others have spelled out what this might entail: fewer military entanglements abroad, a diminishing urge to garrison the planet, reduced military spending, greater reliance on allies, more funds to use at home in rebuilding the crumbling infrastructure of a divided society, and a diminished military footprint in the Middle East.
But for any of this to happen, American policymakers would first have to abandon the pretense that the United States remains the sole global superpower - and that may be too bitter a pill for the present American psyche (and for the political aspirations of certain Republican candidates) to swallow. From such denialism, it's already clear, will only come further ill-conceived military adventures abroad and, sooner or later, under far grimmer circumstances, an American reckoning with reality.
voxhumana, May 29, 2015 at 4:58 amAn interesting read. Would have been far better without the Democratic partisanship:
"Whatever her personal views, Hillary Clinton, the presumed Democratic candidate, will be forced to demonstrate her backbone by embracing similar positions."
forced?
"American policymakers would first have to abandon the pretense that the United States remains the sole global superpower - and that may be too bitter a pill for the present American psyche (and for the political aspirations of certain Republican candidates) to swallow."
oh, I see… only certain Republican candidates' political aspirations are premised on war and global hegemony but poor Hillary "we came, we saw, he died" Clinton will be "forced" to go along if she wants to be elected.
Klare makes many good points but suggesting that Hillary Clinton will be forced to be a war monger, forced to promote her well established neocon foreign policy bona fides, is absurd
Katniss Everdeen, May 29, 2015 at 6:36 amMy thoughts exactly.
And just as bogus as the knee-jerk, neanderthal "republicans bad, democrats good" grunting is the characterization of gwb's middle east policies as "missteps" and "miscalculations."
They knew exactly what they were doing and they knew how it would turn out. It made a few people tremendously wealthy, and justified the apparatus of population surveillance and control which is fast becoming necessary for maintaining the illusion that the us is anything more than a shadow of its former self.
weinerdog43, May 29, 2015 at 8:33 am
Seriously? Please show me exactly where 'republicans bad; democrats good' is located. The reason it looks bad if you are a republican partisan, is because most of the problem lies there. Yes, Obama has been a colossal disappointment, but he campaigned as a Liberal but has governed as a moderate/conservative republican.
To this day, over 60% of republicans think the Iraq war was a good thing. While I'll agree that the 'power elite' in Washington love them some war, to argue that democrats in the street think the same is grossly unfair.
lylo, May 29, 2015 at 10:54 am
I would object to the idea that he has governed as a Republican.
I mean, prior to the more recent Republican presidents, it wasn't that bad of a party: they didn't like to spend money on anything, represented small towns and business owners. Which went pretty well with the Democrats prior to our more recent crop: they liked to spend on the people and represented the more urban populations. See? This is a decent argument worth having. And the one that the "people on the street" represent, both sides.Recent Republican presidents are neoconservatives–they love war and enriching the elite, preferring to represent big finance and corporations. Recent Democrat presidents are neoliberals–they love war and enriching the elite, preferring to represent big finance and corporations.
Unsurprisingly, Obama is a neoliberal. (BTW: it's all just code for fascist!)
You've roped yourself hard into the very paradigm that the guy was lamenting, and in a way, proved his point. You seem to imply that average democrats are so much less tribal and more enlightened, yet the majority of democrats polled support our actions in Libya.
You seem to think the problem is republicans, and it's not: it's fascism and blind party loyalty.
steviefinn, May 29, 2015 at 6:20 amNot to mention that the US appears to be rotting from within in terms of debt, corruption etc, within a world where resources that supported an earlier lifestyle are becoming ever scarcer. I seem to remember that the decline of Rome was similar in some details with this, but at least you guys don't have millions of desperate Huns, Visigoths etc threatening your Northern border.
I remember at a pretty rough school I once attended how the long ruling school yard bully ended up being abandoned by his cohorts & losing his power. As was his habit he picked on a much smaller new kid who just happened to be a southpaw who also just happened to know how to deliver a single very effective liver punch.
Doug, May 29, 2015 at 6:40 am
Klare's assessment is correct that US super power delusions outstrip US resources (not to mention woefully ignorant yet arrogant office holders in both parties). However, he misses the mark in naming the counter parties with whom the US government must deal.
Finding a path forward has far more to do with reclaiming hegemony over the likes of Halliburton, JPMorganChase, ExxonMobil, Blackstone, and so on than it does with diplomacy etc respecting Russia, China, Iran and any number of other so-called nations that, in turn - like the US - are mere partners/puppets serving the corporations - the real superpowers in a world of 'free markets'.
Carla, May 29, 2015 at 6:57 am
Agreed. Wonder if you have read "National Security and Double Government" by Michael J. Glennon. Or for that matter, if Klare has.
MikeNY, May 29, 2015 at 7:03 am
It would mean accepting that "American Exceptionalism" is and always has been a fiction. We are neither humble nor wise enough to do that.
Jim Haygood, May 29, 2015 at 9:17 am
'No one in Washington's power elite seems to have the slightest urge to abandon the role of sole superpower or even to back off it in any significant way,' writes Klare.
Down the road, this means that the vast value-subtraction scheme of U.S. global supremacy will fold the same way the gold-backed dollar did in 1971: with an anticlimactic, out-of-the-blue weekend executive order announcing 'we're done with all that.'
To paraphrase Emperor Hirohito's surrender speech, 'the global supremacy situation has developed not necessarily to America's advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interests.'
Why do bad things happen to good superpowers?
Whine Country, May 29, 2015 at 10:20 am
"good superpowers"…add that to George Carlin's list of famous oxymorons. How about right next to "military intelligence"?
TedWa, May 29, 2015 at 12:11 pm
As soon as Obomba said that I had to laugh. If you have to tell everyone you're cool – as soon as you say it, you're not. If you have to tell everyone that you're the best at something, as soon as you say it, you're not. It's that moment of claiming in public what everyone knew in secret that makes it not true, and a good joke in the making. It's taking serious respect in private and turning it into something else (pride maybe) that's deserving of open ridicule.
American exceptionalism is a joke and Obomba's playing checkers. We're no different than anyone else in this world.
Nick, May 29, 2015 at 7:41 am
In the post-globalized world we now find ourselves in, the US may not be the supreme actor it once was, rather it will lead the world's democracies in a grand coalition – this is perhaps Obama's greatest legacy. It's particularly odd India is classified as an adversary, as they are not only the largest democracy on the planet, but a newly minted key US trade partner. Similarly, Saudi Arabia has finally grown up, after decades of reliance on the US for military protection; however they are still indisputable American allies.
Things can change very quickly, Syria is on the brink of collapse and an Iran deal is within sight. China's economy is fragile, while the US economy is stabilizing. Even given DC disorganization, this is much too pessimistic I'd say, the next few decades will see many unimagined positive developments for the US (forefront of renewable energy, breadbasket of the world, 3D printing revolution, resurgence of domestic space industry, energy independence, cutting edge drones and AI, to name but a few).
Ignim Brites, May 29, 2015 at 8:33 am
Leader of a grand coalition of the world's democracies is the essence of the neo-con vision of the US "universal" and indispensable role. Obama pays lip service to this idea but his intention is to destroy it and he is succeeding. It's all over now baby blue.
OIFVet, May 29, 2015 at 12:18 pm
"it will lead the world's democracies in a grand coalition – this is perhaps Obama's greatest legacy."
Step away from the blue pill, Nick. What "democracies" are these where the governments go against popular will to impose austerity, where corruption in the form of campaign fundraising and lobbying is legalized, and where the government of lesser members of the "grand coalition" get their marching orders from Washington, often against the best interest of the nation and the will of its people? Obama helped to expose the meaningless of the term, to a greater extent than even Bush did, because he managed to bring Bush's "Old Europe" to heel too – quite a legacy indeed. The less "freedom and democracy" there is the more and louder the US and its "allies" shout it from the mountaintops. It's a sham.
As for your second paragraph: wow! Some questions: For whom is "America's economy" stabilizing? How does one survive in this stabilized economy of crappy McJobs? Have you asked the considerable FF lobby about whether it will permit a move to the "forefront of renewable energy"? How do you square the imagined lead in renewables with the very real strategy of energy independence based on fossils, particularly fracked fossils? "Will America be the "breadbasket of the world" after Monsanto grabs Ukraine's chernozem or before? In either case, is it even possible to be the breadbasket given less water in California to water the Inland Empire? I can go on, the point is, your entire comment was a rah-rah USA!USA! cheer that relies on wishful thinking. And that's pretty much America's problem: cheerleading has replaced sober thinking. We have cheerleaders for politicians, cheerleader press, and cheerleader Nicks.
It's effing scary to the rest of us that the entire strategy seems to be wishful thinking firmly rooted in exceptionalism and delusions about what is freedom and democracy, with the latter having been reduced to a competition of who amongst corporate-sponsored candidates can offer more exceptionalism and promise to drop more bombs someplace we don't like so that General Dynamics can either increase its stock dividends or do some stock buy backs.
sleepy, May 29, 2015 at 1:29 pm
@hatti552
Since the drive for US global hegemony probably had more advocates among postwar dem internationalists–many of whom were New Deal holdovers–as it did among the traditionally isolationist repubs, I'm not sure if your neat little left/right dichotomy works.
In any case, aside from labeling, do you care to give any reasons for your support of US global hegemony? Do you think it's not working because Obama hasn't tried hard enough (basically the repub position) and you favor doubling down a'la McCain?
Jesper, May 29, 2015 at 8:58 am
My take is that if there had been a long-term strategy for the US good that its government was following/implementing then it is almost impossible to detect and decipher for people outside of the power-centers in DC. And if there is no long-term strategy, be it to keep the US as the sole superpower or to improve the lives of ordinary Americans, then the explanation must be something different.
Maybe another angle might help in describing the situation?
Is the US government (and the power-brokers in DC) acting to keep the US strong or to keep themselves (personally) powerful?
NotTimothyGeithner, May 29, 2015 at 10:36 am
The U.S. government needs a powerful figurehead/central authority to control the bureaucracy and to wrestle control, the Federalist papers made note of this even before the imperial presidency, but there hasn't been a powerful democrat since LBJ. Obama, Clinton, and Carter were right wing leaders of nominally lefty parties, and the result was they spent much of their Administrations browbeating their own party to maintain control or push their legislation instead of cleaning the Pentagon or Wall Street. Obama's ideas and personality don't control members of Congress. It's Wall Street money. If a popular Obama walked into a random state and ignored an incumbent Senator in favor of a challenger, the incumbent would never r have the money to overcome one soundbite which would be carried by the news as a free spectacle. The result is an open season for everyone else's pet project because no one can stop them and two they might get lost or fired when the next strong center arrives.
The U.S. government is responding to every mouth at the trough. Gore couldn't have invaded Iraq not because he wouldn't have but because he wouldn't have the political support from his own party to shutdown other pet projects to prepare the MIC and population for it. Dubya didn't fight his party back benchers until 2005. After he moved on SS, Dubya became irrelevant because he was no longer popular enough to be feared.
It's not just Goldman Sachs. It's everyone who works in Nuland's office. They don't want to be part of a failed program or a public embarrassment. Because Obama is weak, he can't move on obvious stains such as Nuland because she represents a supporter in DC. Without many of these clowns, he would be alone because he's lost much of his popularity, did nothing for down ticket races, and threatened many members into submission.
While a person is popular, they can walk in and tell the baron class how things will be or they won't be barons. If they align themselves with the barons, they cease to be popular and rely on the barons who more autonomy and options than the 99% and have to acquiesce. Not every baron has the exact same goal. If they get too uppity, the king will act, but they can get away with a great deal if the king irritates the masses because his strength comes from above not below. It's really that simple. If the Obots had made demands of Obama, every other article in print would be why can't he have a third term. Republican Presidential candidates would be terrified of his successor instead of racing to sign up supporters.
Ignoring the GOP and long term problems with Team Blue recruitment, much of the Obama mess goes tend his own standing goes back to his decision to be President on TV and rely on experts from the previous two administration's who had just been rejected. Hillary in '08 never discussed Bill's record because it would hurt her with her more ignorant supporters who projected onto Hillary.
DJG, May 29, 2015 at 9:14 am
The symptoms have been in evidence for a long time, and it isn't clear to me that we have reached the moment when collapse will happen or when even John McCain will recognize that something has gone wrong. McCain and Obama, being all tactics and no strategy, have yet to figure out that U.S. supply lines for the military and for our decadent corporations are way overstretched. Has either proposed closing a military base? Has either advised food purveyors to stop importing garlic (garlic!) from China?
Not even the evidence of continuing U.S. defeats–in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya–elicits an appropriate response from the elites. So they venture into Ukraine, the next failure.
Unlike Rome, though, I'd venture to say that the USA has chosen some particularly pernicious "allies," such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and England (soon to be detached from Scotland). Each of these so-called allies is more than self-serving. The U.S. elites, though, rather than showing any skepticism, have been craven in dealing with the big four. Our relation to England seems to be to conduct their foreign policy and protect the illegality of the City of London in exchange for some nostalgia about Toad in a Hole.
hemeantwell, May 29, 2015 at 9:31 am
Klare, whose work over the years has been largely useful, is a lazy writer when it comes to the Cold War. To simplistically talk about it as "resisting Soviet expansionism around the world" ignores how US expansionism, aka imperialism, conditioned Soviet policy. As a professor of peace studies he must certainly be familiar with the substantial body of work by authors such as Williams, Alperovitz, Cohen and others who show that the US did nothing to allay Soviet security concerns and instead adopted an offensive posture that, to the Soviets, recommended ensuring friendly neighbors by whatever means necessary. What is disgusting about Klare now is that, by casually repeating formulaic ideological themes, he only adds to the ignorance regarding the current mess in the Ukraine, a mess that in my view basically reprises the late 1940s. Sure, he does talk about "sharing the planet with other powers," but he seems unwilling to say what that means. In that sense this professor of peace falls behind murderers like Kissinger, who has been critical of NATO efforts to turn the Ukraine into a launchpad on Russia's doorstep.
OIFVet, May 29, 2015 at 12:21 pm
+100
sufferin'succotash, May 29, 2015 at 9:40 am
HW Bush's pronouncement that "the American Way of Life is non-negotiable" around the time of the Gulf War more or less let the cat out of the bag.
Neocon delusions of grandeur aside, much of the US interventionism over the past several decades has been driven by the need to keep the Cheap Oil flowing in. That is, if one assumes that the AWL depends on cheap oil.
knowbuddhau, May 29, 2015 at 11:45 am
Thanks to the others who take Klare to task for lazy rhetorical shortcuts that only serve to further bury the truth of our times. I agree that we're in a period of imperial decline. But "missteps"?! "Miscalculations"?! The phrase you're looking for, professor, is "war crimes." Calling our wars of aggression by their true name is still a step too far, eh?
One measure of our hubris is the inability of "serious" and "respectable" critics to openly proclaim that we've been serial war criminals since the days of the Indian Wars. Our continental empire was built by making treaties at gun point, without much intent to honor them, as a means to grab the land. (ISTM General Sherman made remarks to that effect, but I can't find the quote.) Our global empire hasn't been much different.
I suppose Indian Removal and wiping out the buffalo, and the continuing efforts to undermine tribal sovereignty today, were, and are, likewise "missteps" and "miscalculations" we can somehow blame on Republicans exclusively.
NotTimothyGeithner, May 29, 2015 at 12:53 pm
I think you may be thinking of Grant not Sherman, but both would be denounced by Team Blue as pinko commies. One of Grant's SOTU's included a call for universal, public education and not one dollar for sectarian schools. The charter movement would be appalled.
Amazingly enough, Grant and Sherman are oozing intelligent sound bites which proves the modern Democrats don't have a messaging problem as much as a message problem.
OIFVet, May 29, 2015 at 12:27 pm
I suppose Indian Removal and wiping out the buffalo, and the continuing efforts to undermine tribal sovereignty today, were, and are, likewise "missteps" and "miscalculations" we can somehow blame on Republicans exclusively
Of course not! Stalin! Golodomor! Outside enemies and justifications are the norm, it's just that from time to time we have to engage in intramural squabbling just to perpetuate the myth that there is a qualitative difference between the two wings of the Corporate Party and thus we have a democracy with a real choice of parties and ideas.
Code Name D, May 29, 2015 at 1:35 pm
One who makes no mistakes is incapable of learning from them.
Steven, May 29, 2015 at 1:54 pm
(I can't seem to manage a concise response to Naked Capitalism's postings. What follows is just the last couple of paragraphs of what I hope will be a (mercifully) short posting on OpEdNews.)
Klare needs to take that last step. It isn't about 'peak oil' or 'peak everything' so much as 'peak debt' or 'peak money', i.e. a world awash in money and in mad pursuit of ever more of it. There are indeed physical limits. But with a little luck the world (of humans) may still have the resources to right-size itself to fit within them. However that won't happen until the greed of the world's plutocracy and the ambitions of their psychopathic servants in the political class are controlled.
80 years ago the Nobel Prize winning chemist explained where oil DOES come into the picture:
Though it was not understood a century ago, and though as yet the applications of the knowledge to the economics of life are not generally realised, life in its physical aspect is fundamentally a struggle for energy, …
Soddy, Frederick M.A., F.R.S.. Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt (Kindle Locations 1089-1091). Distributed Proofreaders Canada.
The 'backing' for the petrodollar now includes the monetized value of Chinese and third world labor and natural resources as well as OPEC oil. But controlling the outcome of life's "struggle for energy" is still the crumbling cornerstone of both US foreign and domestic economic policies:
• control the world's access to energy and it has no choice but submitting to the hegemon's will
• the U.S. political system is now owned lock, stock and barrel by a financial / military industrial / fossil fuels complex (am I forgetting anybody?). The powers that be are trying to preserve the existing status quo by insuring that life remains a "struggle for energy".
The denizens of Wall Street and Washington can perhaps be forgiven for believing they were the "masters of the universe" at the conclusion of WWII. What they can NOT be forgiven is their belief – then or now – is that "the end of history" had arrived (unless they cause it).
fresno dan, May 29, 2015 at 1:54 pm
I don't know if I buy the premise that the US was ever as powerful as it proclaims itself to be. I remember when guys in black pajamas, with no navy or air force defeated the "most powerful nation on earth"
Fifty years later, when the US is supposedly the "Sole superpower" on earth, a bunch of guys with no air force or navy defeated us in Afghanistan….
I will concede we did no "lose" in Iraq….although I will NOT concede that we won either…
and I will say we won unequivocally in Grenada.Am I seeing a pattern?
sleepy, May 29, 2015 at 2:32 pm
At least in Vietnam, it was the policy that lost. As far as I recall, the military won every battle.
I think the same can be said, more or less, about Iraq and Afghanistan. It's difficult for the military to sustain and fulfill stupid policy.
They all show the limits of military force in the pursuit of idiocy. Garbage in, garbage out.
If the US wants to hang on to some sort of international influence, it needs to hone up on its diplomatic skills and downplay its sabre-rattling.
NotTimothyGeithner, May 29, 2015 at 3:12 pm
The military won every battle based on our count. Cornwallis won every battle against continentals, but he was forced to flee because he couldn't supply his army without splitting it and letting his baggage train and foraging parties come under fire. The whole we won every battle mantra is propaganda to avoid holding many of the generals and the MIC accountable for their lies and mistakes. When a platoon was massacred on patrol, it wasn't a "battle." I guess there was no honor in shooting guys in the back unlike say a drone strike. When the military was in a position to launch a massive aerial counter attack, then we won and temporarily planted a flag while the position grew weaker. But hey we won the battle. Did we have a great record without the air power which limited how the various enemies could move troops?
Air power made battles impossible in many ways. The Tet Offensive was everywhere all at once which means there were no reserves or occupation forces ready. The goal was to spur uprisings and force the Americans to redeploy which is what happened, and the costs of defending urban areas skyrocketed as the Vietcong and North Vietnamese forced the U.S. and it's puppets out of the country side. Oh sure, the enemy was forced to flee the cities they attacked, but they didn't bring the forces needed to occupy or destroy the U.S. and South Vietnam forces. Did we win that battle? No, they were completely unprepared for a multi-city assault. It was beneath the notice of the Pentagon brass, so they cooked up an excuse to call it a win.
sleepy, May 29, 2015 at 3:48 pm
So, we just need to beef up our military, retrain the troops, have smarter generals, and our empire can continue on into the indefinite future, policy be damned!
The US public ultimately saw Vietnam as a complete policy failure preserving a corrupt local government, and the US withdrew. There was no Dien Bien Phu. Domestic opposition forced the US out.
As soon-to-be-disciplined General Shinseki said to Congress prior to the invasion of Iraq, that the Iraqis would not welcome us with flowers and it would take 500,000 troops to occupy the nation for years for the policy to be successful.
susan the other, May 29, 2015 at 2:46 pm
If the TPP is just an attempt to make the ASEAN countries militaristic enough to give us some breathing room, then that's pretty interesting. They can come together under the TPP umbrella and form a quiet military coalition to relieve the world's only superpower. Think of us as a senile superpower. John Foster Dulles wanted the ASEAN countries to all have the bomb. Why should we be the only bomb droppers? The only totally absurd country. The greater question has evolved finally. Why can't we all function rationally? And with a dedication to the environment.
I've been wondering how we were going to pay Russia for helping us thru this mess. Crimea was one payment. But Russia has given us much more than we have given her, so other payments might include some of our bases around the world. A great gift to an almost superpower. And an agreement that we will only bluster about China's islands in the South China Sea but we won't really do anything. Bluster is how you wind down from being a super killer because you got too old and fat.
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Mar 31, 2015 | The National Interest
The OSCE reported that the main railway station in the city was shelled on March 25, and a visit to it the day after showed that to be so. Rebel tanks could be seen participating in exercises on the rural outskirts of Donetsk on the 26th. The sound of sporadic artillery fire could be heard in the city's centrally located Leninsky District well into the early hours of the 27th.
The mood among many in Donetsk-noncombatants as well as rebel fighters who comprise what is known as the Army of Novorossiya-indicates little interest in a rapprochement with Kiev. This is, given the conditions of the city after nearly a full year of war, rather understandable. Many bitterly complain of Kiev's chosen moniker for the military campaign it is waging against the separatist fighters, the "Anti-Terrorist Operation." Ordinary citizens and combatants alike view it as an attempt to dehumanize them as a whole by grouping the entire population of the region in with likes of ISIS.Interactions with several rebel rank-and-files and a briefing from two rebel officers reveal even less of an appetite for a way back into the Ukrainian fold. As one senior officer put it: "Ukraine is dead. It was killed on May 2 in Odessa." Questions regarding Russian involvement were met with scoffs-though one did admit that "[their] Russian brothers" did provide food supplies to the area.
... ... ...
Interestingly, the rebels seem to have a similar mindset to those U.S. Congressmen who overwhelmingly voted to supply Kiev with lethal military aid last week: that the remilitarization of the conflict is simply inevitable. One rebel commander said that he expects Kiev to launch a new major offensive "within a week" and added, matter-of-factly: "We are ready." And ready, he claims, for the long haul.
... ... ...
Yet it seems that the Washington establishment's (though, interestingly, it seems not the president's) preferred policy choice is to send lethal aid to Kiev because it is believed, no doubt sincerely, that a supply of javelin anti-tank missiles will somehow increase the number of Russian fatalities to such an extent that public opinion would turn against Putin-thereby forcing him to back down.
This is nothing more than a fantasy dressed up as a strategy because it attributes little to no agency on the part of the rebel fighters or, for that matter, the area's noncombatants. The simple, undeniable fact is that even if Russia was to be persuaded-via sanctions or via a significant uptick in military casualties - to wash its hands of the region, there is almost no chance that the indigenous military forces in the region would simply melt away. What is continuing to unfold in the Donbass - despite repeated protestations from Kiev's representatives in Washington - is a civil war between two groups with diametrically opposed visions for the future of their country. It is a civil war that also-given that each side has enormously powerful supporters-poses a genuinely grave risk to global security.
James Carden is a contributing editor for The National Interest.
Igor
Wow! Who is allowed to publish this article in the Western free press? Who allowed the journalist of National Interest go to Moscow and to Donetsk!? And what about the story about invisible Russian army? :-))) James Carden is real hero! :-))) Western press need 1 year for understanding of simple things...
Imba > Igor
Psst, don't scare them with your sarcasm. I'm sure author feels like a pioneer on Wild West, while writing such articles. You can scare him away and we will have to read again dull and boring articles about invasions, annexation, tattered economy, moscovites eating hedgehogs and so on.
Please respect him ;)Dima Lauri > Imba
I am sure authors who does not accept the version of Washington will be soon labeled by "Putin troll", "Payed KGB agent", "Drunk/Stupid" or whatever verbal distortion.
folktruther
a good article for a change. the Ukraine coup engineered by Washington was the worst event of Obama's administration, and may perhaps turn out to be worse that Bush jr's invasion of Iraq. Washington simply wants a war, cold or hot, to disconnect Europe from Russia. hopefully Europe, especially Germany and france, will rebel against Washington policy like they did the Chinese bank, averting a war among nuclear powers. but the issue is currently in doubt.
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May 20, 2015 | theweek.com
None of the conservatives running for president want to be associated with the last Republican president - not even his brother (for whom stepping away is rather complicated). After all, George W. Bush left office with an approval rating hovering in the low 30s, and his grandest project was the gigantic catastrophe of the Iraq War, which we're still dealing with and still debating. If you're a Republican right now you're no doubt wishing we could talk about something else, but failing that, you'd like the issue framed in a particular way: The war was an honest mistake, nobody lied to the public, and anything bad that's happening now is Barack Obama's fault.
For the moment I want to focus on the part about the lies. I've found over the years that conservatives who supported the war get particularly angry at the assertion that Bush lied us into war. No, they'll insist, it wasn't his fault: There was mistaken intelligence, he took that intelligence in good faith, and presented what he believed to be true at the time. It's the George Costanza defense: It's not a lie if you believe it.
Here's the problem, though. It might be possible, with some incredibly narrow definition of the word "lie," to say that Bush told only a few outright lies on Iraq. Most of what he said in order to sell the public on the war could be said to have some basis in something somebody thought or something somebody alleged (Bush was slightly more careful than Dick Cheney, who lied without hesitation or remorse). But if we reduce the question of Bush's guilt and responsibility to how many lies we can count, we miss the bigger picture.
What the Bush administration launched in 2002 and 2003 may have been the most comprehensive, sophisticated, and misleading campaign of government propaganda in American history. Spend too much time in the weeds, and you risk missing the hysterical tenor of the whole campaign.
That's not to say there aren't plenty of weeds. In 2008, the Center for Public Integrity completed a project in which they went over the public statements by eight top Bush administration officials on the topic of Iraq, and found that no fewer than 935 were false, including 260 statements by President Bush himself. But the theory on which the White House operated was that whether or not you could fool all of the people some of the time, you could certainly scare them out of their wits. That's what was truly diabolical about their campaign.
And it was a campaign. In the summer of 2002, the administration established something called the White House Iraq Group, through which Karl Rove and other communication strategists like Karen Hughes and Mary Matalin coordinated with policy officials to sell the public on the threat from Iraq in order to justify war. "The script had been finalized with great care over the summer," White House press secretary Scott McClellan later wrote, for a "campaign to convince Americans that war with Iraq was inevitable and necessary."In that campaign, intelligence wasn't something to be understood and assessed by the administration in making their decisions, it was a propaganda tool to lead the public to the conclusion that the administration wanted. Again and again we saw a similar pattern: An allegation would bubble up from somewhere, some in the intelligence community would say that it could be true but others would say it was either speculation or outright baloney, but before you knew it the president or someone else was presenting it to the public as settled fact.
And each and every time the message was the same: If we didn't wage war, Iraq was going to attack the United States homeland with its enormous arsenal of ghastly weapons, and who knows how many Americans would perish. When you actually spell it out like that it sounds almost comical, but that was the Bush administration's assertion, repeated hundreds upon hundreds of time to a public still skittish in the wake of September 11. (Remember, the campaign for the war began less than a year after the September 11 attacks.)
Sometimes this message was imparted with specific false claims, sometimes with dark insinuation, and sometimes with speculation about the horrors to come ("We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," said Bush and others when asked about the thinness of much of their evidence). Yet the conclusion was always the same: The only alternative to invading Iraq was waiting around to be killed. I could pick out any of a thousand quotes, but here's just one, from a radio address Bush gave on September 28, 2002:
The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given. The regime has long-standing and continuing ties to terrorist groups, and there are al Qaeda terrorists inside Iraq. This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year.
What wasn't utterly false in that statement was disingenuous at best. But if there was anything that marked the campaign, it was its certainty. There was seldom any doubt expressed or admitted, seldom any hint that the information we had was incomplete, speculative, and the matter of fevered debate amongst intelligence officials. But that's what was going on beneath the administration's sales job.
The intelligence wasn't "mistaken," as the Bush administration's defenders would have us believe today. The intelligence was a mass of contradictions and differing interpretations. The administration picked out the parts that they wanted - supported, unsupported, plausible, absurd, it didn't matter - and used them in their campaign to turn up Americans' fear.
This is one of the many sins for which Bush and those who supported him ought to spend a lifetime atoning. He looked out at the American public and decided that the way to get what he wanted was to terrify them. If he could convince them that any day now their children would die a horrible death, that they and everything they knew would be turned to radioactive ash, and that the only chance of averting this fate was to say yes to him, then he could have his war. Lies were of no less value than truth, so long as they both created enough fear.
And it worked.
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Apr 05, 2015 | Zero Hedge
Submitted by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,It is impossible to overstate the magnitude of the warfare-state revolution that transformed the federal government and American society after World War II. The roots of America's foreign-policy crises today, along with the massive infringements on civil liberties and privacy and the federal government's program of secret indefinite incarceration, torture, assassination, and extra-judicial executions can all be traced to the grafting of a national-security apparatus onto America's federal governmental system in the 1940s.
Certainly, the seeds for what happened in the post-WWII era were sown prior to that time, specifically in the move toward empire, which, interestingly enough, occurred during the same period of time that Progressives were inducing Americans to abandon their system of economic liberty and free markets in favor of socialism and interventionism in the form of a welfare state and regulated economy.
I'm referring to the year 1898, when the U.S. government intervened in the Spanish American War, with the ostensible aim of helping the Cuban and Filipino people win their independence. It was a false and fraudulent intervention, one that was actually designed to place Cuba and the Philippines under the control of the U.S. government. The result was a brutal war in the Philippines between U.S. forces and the Filipino people, along with a never-ending obsession to control Cuba, one that would ending up becoming a central focus of the national-security state.
A national-security state and an empire certainly weren't among the founding principles of the United States. In fact, the revolution in 1776 was against an empire that the British colonists in America no longer wanted to be part of. They were sick and tired of the endless wars and ever-increasing taxes, regulations, and oppression that come with empire and overgrown military establishments.
In fact, there was a deep antipathy toward standing armies among the Founding Fathers. The words of James Madison, the father of the Constitution, reflect the mindset of our American ancestors:
A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.
What about foreign interventionism? The speech that John Quincy Adams delivered to Congress on the 4th of July, 1821, entitled "In Search of Monsters to Destroy," expressed the sentiments of our predecessors. Adams pointed out that there were lots of bad things in the world, things like tyranny, oppression, famines, and the like. He said though that America would not send troops to slay these monsters. Instead, America would build a model society of freedom right here at home for the people of the world. In fact, if America ever became a military empire that would engage in foreign interventionism, Adams predicted, it would fundamentally change the character of American society, one that would look more like a society under dictatorial rule.
That's not to say that 19th-century America was a libertarian paradise with respect to warfare, any more than it was a libertarian paradise in general, as I pointed out in my article "America's Welfare-State Revolution." But the fact is that there was no overgrown military establishment, no CIA, no NSA, no conscription, no foreign interventionism, and no foreign aid (and no income tax, IRS, Federal Reserve, and fiat money to fund such things).
There was a basic military force but in relative terms it wasn't very large. There were also wars, such as the War of 1812, the Civil War, and the Mexican War, and many military skirmishes, but with the exception of the Civil War, the casualties were relatively low, especially compared with such foreign wars as World War I and World War II.
Moreover, it was an established practice to demobilize after each war. That is, a permanent war machine and perpetual war were not built into the system. War and military interventionism were the exception, not the rule.
That all changed with the embrace of a national-security establishment after World War II. In his Farewell Address in 1961, President Eisenhower observed that the national-security state - or what he called the military-industrial complex - constituted an entirely new way of life for the American people, one that entailed what amounted to a new, permanent warfare-state branch of the federal government, consisting of an overgrown military establishment, a CIA, and an NSA, along with an army of private-sector contractors and subcontractors who were feeding at the public trough on a permanent basis.
Most significantly, Ike pointed out that this national-security apparatus constituted a grave threat to the liberties and democratic processes of the American people.
This revolutionary transformation was justified in the name of "national security," which have become the two most important words in the American lexicon, notwithstanding the fact that no one has ever been able to define the term. The warfare-state revolution would be characterized by an endless array of threats to national security, beginning with communism and communists, the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, and others, and later morphing into Saddam Hussein, terrorism, terrorists, Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, ISIS, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, the Taliban, and even the Muslims.
In the process, Adams proved right. By grafting a totalitarian-like structure onto America's federal governmental system, the United States began displaying the characteristics of a dictatorial society.
Assassination, torture, rendition, secret prisons, medical experiments on unsuspecting Americans, the hiring of Nazis, indefinite detention, partnerships with criminal organizations and foreign dictators, coups, sanctions, embargoes, invasions, undeclared wars, wars of aggression, and extra-judicial executions. When any of those types of things occurred in the 19th century, they were considered exceptions to the system. Now they have become permanent parts of the system.
And look at the results of this gigantic warfare-state transformation: ever-increasing infringements on liberty and privacy, ever-increasing spending, debt, and taxes, and ever-increasing anger and hatred toward our country. Yes, all the things that characterized the British Empire that British colonists revolted against in 1776. How's that for irony?
Meanwhile, like the welfare state, modern-day Americans continue to remain convinced that their system of government has never changed in a fundamental way. They continue to play like their governmental system is founded on the same constitutional principles as when the country was founded. It is a supreme act of self-deception.
The truth is that America has now had two different governmental systems: One without a national-security apparatus and one with it. It seems to me that it's a no-brainer as to who was right and which system was better in terms of freedom, privacy, peace, prosperity, and harmony.
Thin_Ice
This! You should see the faces on people when I try to explain to them that we're not supposed to have an ever present military. They call me unpatriotic and a hater of our verterans. WTF?!?! I try explaining to them we shouldn't have "veterans", that many of the conflicts they were part of should never have happened. Still, I'm the bad guy despite the fact that the country's ideals have drifted so far off course. I'm reluctantly getting more and more used to the deer in the headlights response from people, which is sad.
El VaqueroCalm down, don't get angry, and use the Socratic method with them. The cognitive dissonance will still fight back, but ask them about why we were in Vietnam and Iraq. Lead them to the conclusion that those wars never should have been fought. Unplugging from the matrix is very, very difficult and very, very uncomfortable. You want them to understand your point of view so that it is much harder for them to condemn you for it. You are dealing with deeply ingrained cultural values that they have never questioned.
And be nice to the troops. Most of them were duped into believing that they were doing good. You want them to turn on their masters if their masters turn on us.
q99x2
There is no America. There's parts of the globe that are labeled United States but the Banks and Corporations have more money and power than nations. They control the land mass that people refer to as America. They control the military that wears American uniforms and they control the nuclear weapons that used to be American weapons. That is why nuclear weapons can be removed from the US without prosecution or military intervention. Deal with it bitchez.
Chupacabra-322
The biggest dilemma facing today's younger Generation is the lack of a point of reference. 911 & other False Flag / PsyOp's have diluted their minds full of lies & deception.
A former KGB Agent interviewed by G. Edward Griffen explained that for a propaganda campaign to be truly effective it has to cross over generations or be "Generational."
We"re well into the second decade of the biggest PsyOp ever conducted over the masses on a Global Scale, 911. The Social Engineers / Revisionists have been very busy rewriting history.
"He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the future controls the past."
-George Orwell.Fun Facts
The mightiest nation on earth is run exclusively for the benefit of the mightiest banks on earth.
Too big to fail, too big to bail, too big to jail.
The politico are the puppet class.
The people [at the very bottom of the pyramid] are the serf class with no money, no voice, no power.
All as intended. Follow the money. Read the protocols for more detail.
Pitiful
If it were so easy. Unfortunately there are people who want control, for who knows what reason. I always wondered myself why anyone would want more than they need but I have never been able to come up with a clear answer that makes any logical sense. I can give a prime example: I had a friend in college who was very wealthy and frugal, so frugal they went to a community college with me. He was always telling me he needed more money (he already had an eight figure stash) and one day I asked him why he needed more. The only response he could come up with was: Becuase I want it. Again, I asked what for and he couldn't ever come up with a reasonable explanation other than he wanted it. I don't know about anyone else here but I can say for sure that if I was able to scrounge seven figures in my savings, I would be done saving with no need for any more. But I'm a simple, realistic person and I would expect that my children (not that I will ever have any) pave their own road like I did and I would leave nothing for them or anyone else and expect them to do the same. My money will all be spent and recycled back into the economy when I'm gone. There is no use for it after death. I'm a firm believer that if you can't survive on your own, you don't deserve to survive at all. The animals have already figured this out and humans knew it at one point to. Leave the weak to die or be dragged down with them.
If I ever had the opportunity to ask one of the banksters who has some "end-game" plan for power and control over others I would only have one question: How is that going to improve your life and why would you do that anyway? You already have everything you could possibly need for the next 100 generations of your family. What is the fucking point?
TacticalZen
We are Rome and will follow their pattern of decline, although vastly accelerated given our modern communications and banking.
Herdee
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, a former Treasury Official in Ronald Reagan's Administration puts it pretty bluntly in what he's telling Americans.Americans reading this need to wake up to what a right wing neo-fascist government is doing to their society.
http://thenewsdoctors.com/can-evil-be-defeated-dr-paul-craig-roberts/
All religious Americans especially need to pay heed to his insights.It's no joke,it's what's happening right now.Can evil be defeated?The founding fathers warned you about it.
Amish Hacker
The MIC will always need a credible boogeyman to justify its existence. For years this role was played by the Soviet Union. We were told to be afraid of commies in Moscow, in the State Department, in Hollywood, and under every bed. Then, suddenly, came the end of Ivan, and the MIC was threatened with irrelevance, even dissolution. We the People were beginning to wonder aloud about a "peace dividend." Obviously, this could not be allowed.
The MIC solution was to replace the Soviet menace with the terrorist menace. Really, you have to admire the psychopathic brilliance of this move, since terrorism is a conceptual boogeyman that will never expire or be deposed. Multiple, ongoing wars are now our new normal, and saddest of all, we seem to be getting used to it.
Jack Burton
This post somehow brings to mind a High School Class Reunion I attented 5 years ago. We are all old enough now to have been set in our careers for 30 years. So when you talk to people you can get a good insight into how they all made their livings after High School. My town School was small, my class was 145 students.
What amazed me was what we all ended up talking about. It was the Military. Because as Americans THIS was the common bond we men share. Over half of the men there were veterans, me included, but even more than that, there was our lives after military service, and those who went direct to college. The college kids grew up and from those I talked to, there we many who work for the big defense industries in the Minneapolis Metro Area. Plus we had students who went west and worked for giant defense industries out there. Our conversations revolved around missiles, torpedoes, radars, air craft and high explosives. I met a class mate who designed the explosives for Bunker Busters and other High Energy weapons. One class mate helped build the guidance for the type of torpedoes my ship used. One class mate knew the type of detection gear I operated in the Navy, as his father designed much of it. On and On it went.
By the end of the night, it seems half of our class was employed in military design and construction, the other half of average guys were all vets. Yes, Middle America, out where I live, is a totally militarized entity. It really hit home when you talk to a group you have known all your life.
Monetas
If we ever had an Empire .... it was a Moral Empire .... and it needs to be regained, improved and expanded .... it's called American Exceptionalism .... and I'm not impressed with the pretenders to our throne .... nor their bootlicking lackeys .... a bunch of chickens .... cackling in the Barnyard of Life !
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Sept 1, 2013 | studentpulse.com
After World War II, the United States military gradually came into a position of overwhelming dominance in the world. Military spending in the United States far outpaces that of other countries, with their world share of military expenditures at 41% in 2011, followed by Russia and China with only eight and four percent respectively (SIPRI 2012). This has been the case since the Second World War and has been justified in different ways over time. The arguments for continued military dominance have ranged from "long-term economic gains" at the start of the war (Shoup and Murray 1977, cited in Hossein-zadeh 2006: 45) to Soviet containment during the Cold War, "a broader responsibility of global militarism" since the 1980s (Ryan 1991, cited in Hossein-zadeh 2006: 73), and most recently the need to protect citizens against Islamic fundamentalism and terrorist attacks. Nevertheless, there has been consistent concern that powerful groups in military, political, and corporate positions, profiteering from conflict and sharing interests in intensifying defense expenditure, have become the primary actors for making and administering U.S. foreign policy. Today the scope of the defense industry is now much bigger than legitimate security needs justify (see, for example, Moskos 1974, Mintz 1985, Waddell 2001 and Hossein-zadeh 2006).
This analysis argues that expansion of the U.S. military establishment from the 1940s onward was initially a means to an end in the process of stabilizing the world economy and serving national security interests, but -- over time -- became an end in itself, serving the interests of an elite group that uses the projection of power as a way to justify the continued expansion of military spending. This essay is divided into two sections: the first focuses on the origins of America's military-industrial complex, beginning with a definition of the elite group that the complex comprises. Next, by focusing on the period in which the foundation for the complex was laid – the Second World War – it is argued that the complex arose unintentionally in some ways, although important characteristics of it were visible from the start. Third, military Keynesianism, often used to defend high military budgets once the complex was in place, will be discussed and refuted. The second section focuses on the most important argument in favor of high military budgets today: the need to protect American citizens from the global threat of terrorism. It is argued that public perceptions of the causes of terrorism are incorrect, yet have been gladly utilized and fostered by the American military-industrial complex to justify an ineffective global war.
The Evolving Military-Industrial Complex in the United States
What distinguishes the "power elite" that constitutes the military-industrial complex from other powerful groups in American society who also seek advancement of their own interests, is that this is not a ruling class based solely on the ownership of property (Mills 1956, cited in Moskos 1974: 499-500). Rather, it is a coalition of civilian agencies that formally shape military policy (such as the Senate and the CIA), military institutions, private firms, research institutions and think tanks – all centered on and linked to the Pentagon (Hossein-zadeh 2006: 13). As a result of power arising from the occupancy in top bureaucratic positions as well as from capital ownership, the interests of the ruling elite go beyond the mere accumulation of wealth and include desires to maintain themselves in power and to press for specific forms of public policy. Their most important common interest is intensifying defense expenditure. War profiteering in itself is not new – wars have always been fought at least in part for economic gains. Today's military-industrial complex is different in that it treats war as a business: the ruling elite's goal of having a large military establishment is not to expand the nation's wealth, but "to appropriate the lion's share of existing wealth for the military establishment" (Hossein-zadeh 2006: 90). As a consequence, decisions on defense allocation, arms production and military operations are motivated by desires for profit and personal power, not necessarily by security requirements.
This is not to say that expansion of the military budget has always been an 'end' for a powerful group of elites, but in fact was initially a means to serve other ends. The first big expansion of the military establishment took place in the early years of the Second World War, when the U.S. had legitimate concerns for its own national security due to such events as the attack on Pearl Harbor, and feared the war would negatively impact foreign trade. Military expansion is a logical result of the former concern, as it is a means to preserve physical security. However, it is closely linked to the latter concern, too. The Council on Foreign Relations, one of the nation's most influential think foreign policy think-tanks, advised the U.S. government that it needed free access to markets and raw materials in all regions outside of continental Europe for economic self-sufficiency. To this end, the U.S. advocated globalization and open economic cooperation through multilateralism. At the time, the crisis of the '30s and the war had made the concept of the free market highly unpopular. This made "military supremacy for the U.S. within the non-German world" a complementary requirement to ensure all countries within the "U.S.-led, non-German Grand Area," including Japan, would accept American conditions (Shoup and Murray 1977, cited in Hossein-zadeh 2006: 45). In short, military spending was not yet an end in itself, it was the combined result of needing to increase power in the face of security challenges and wanting to restore trust in and stabilize the global capitalist system.
Key characteristics of the current military-industrial complex, however, were already present when the objectives of U.S. foreign policy during World War II were drafted. As Hossein-zadeh points out, a brief look at the social status and class composition of the Council on Foreign Relations, which consisted of wealthy, influential people with ties to major industrial corporations and politicians, shows that a ruling class shaped major government policies "operating through the institutional umbrella of the Council, and providing intellectual justification for major foreign policy overhauls" (2006: 41). The military-industrial complex in its present form might not have been in place then or have been created intentionally, but clearly there already was a power elite based on more than capital ownership, and strong ties between the military, political, and corporate spheres.
After World War II, the Cold War stabilized U.S. foreign policy for over forty years1. With its demise, a "vacuum in the organizing principles of national government" had emerged (Waddell 2001: 133). Even if unintended, the military-industrial complex was well in place by now, and suggestions to curtail the military budget were met with fierce opposition. However, cutting back on non-military public expenditures while an expensive military establishment is preserved proved harder to justify with the loss of the perceived Soviet threat. An argument in favor of military spending that has been used consistently is that it boosts economic growth (Dreze 2000: 180). Mintz, for instance, notes that the military-industrial complex is seen by many to have "considerable influence on levels of employment, … the profitability of arms manufacture and the scope of exports" (1983: 124).
The view that large military spending is an effective means of demand stimulation and job creation, and hence of economic growth, is called military Keynesianism. Keynes' (non-military) theory holds that in times of inadequate purchasing power, the (non-military) private sector becomes wary of expansion, and so the government should spend money in order to boost the stagnant economy by stimulating demand. Since expansion of the military industry is a government investment, it could have the desired economic effects in times of recession. However, it is important to keep in mind that Keynes argues for little government spending in times of high employment and sufficient demand. Military Keynesianists seem to ignore this fact completely and have argued for high government expenditures even during the Golden Age after World War II – and in no other sector than the military-industrial one. This can only be explained by the fact that it is a constantly shrinking number of people experiencing the economic benefits of high military spending (Waddell 2001: 135). The same people tend to switch positions between the Pentagon, its prime contractors and lobbying think tanks supporting those contractors, meaning that military spending is no longer an economic stimulus for the entire nation. Instead, it has become a redistributive mechanism of national resources in favor of the wealthy (Hossein-zadeh 2006: 226).
Cashing In on the War on Terror
What gets lots in the debate over the economic consequences of military spending is the effect it has on international stability. An old principle asserts that military threats are essential in preventing wars from occurring (Dreze 2000: 1178), but an overly extended military establishment means actual military operations are necessary from time to time to 'prove' the necessity of the army. And indeed, militarists have found that the most effective manner of convincing the American public of the need of a large military establishment is the constant 'discovery' of external threats. The threat currently most emphasized by the U.S. is global terrorism. We argue that while some fears of Islamic fundamentalism are justified, most are not; and that the threat of terrorism is not logically followed by higher military investment.
The U.S. is not being fair in its assessment of the Arab threat. Public discourse today implies that Islam is inherently more rigid and anti-modern than other religions. Huntington famously predicted that most major conflicts would be between Muslims and non-Muslims, as "Islam has bloody borders" (1993: 12). In 1990, historian Bernard Lewis described a "surge of hatred" rising from the Islamic world that "becomes a rejection of Western civilisation as such" (cited in Coll 2012). Richard Perle, American neoconservative militarist and advisor to Israel's Likud Party, proposes a strategy of "de-contextualization" to explain acts of terrorism and violent resistance to occupation, arguing that we must stop trying to understand the territorial, geopolitical and historical reasons that some groups turn to fundamentalism; instead, reasons for the violence of such groups must be sought in the Islamic way of thinking (Hossein-zadeh 2006: 101).
Religious fundamentalism, however, is universal: it arises in response to modernity and secularism, both of which tend to weaken or threaten religious traditions. John Voll points out that by the early 1990s, "violent militancy was clearly manifest among Hindu fundamentalists, Buddhists in Sri Lanka, Jewish fundamentalists in Israel and others elsewhere" (1994, cited in Hossein-zadeh 2006: 110-11). As one scholar points out, if the Bosnians, the Palestinians and the Kashmiris are asked about their borders they would say that, respectively, Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism are the ones that have bloody borders (Ahmed 2002: 29). Yet statements like the ones by Huntington, Lewis and Perle cited above single out Islam as the most dangerous potential enemy of the West. They all interpret the militancy of Islamic fundamentalism as being somehow directly caused by distinctive Islamic doctrines and traditions (Voll 1994, cited in Hossein-zadeh 2006: 111) and attribute terrorist attacks to "pathological problems of the Muslim mind" (Hossein-zadeh 2006: 101). In doing so, they posit a characteristic supposedly shared by Muslims from Indonesia through Iran to Senegal, that makes conflict with the West inevitable.
An incorrect assessment of the roots of terrorism does not justify the extent to which the U.S. expanded its military activity after 2001; nor does it explain why it continues to fight an ineffective war. As Peña points out, a larger military would not have prevented the tragedy of 9/11, and it will not prevent future terrorist actions (2001, cited in Snider 2004). Terrorism, much like the war that is fought against it, is a means of pursuing objectives, not an actor. It cannot be stopped by military action as fighting does nothing to address the issues that terrorists feel can only be resolved violently; if anything, this is more likely to lead to a vicious cycle of constantly growing military budgets and an ever higher number of terrorist attacks. As one author put it: "the moral crusade to end terrorism can only begin with a realistic assessment of its cause" (Snider 2004). So far, the global war on terror has done little to eradicate terrorism.
On the contrary, it seems the threat of an attack is now bigger: the number of terrorist attacks worldwide has increased from just over 1800 in 2001, to a staggering five-thousand ten years later (START 2012). The question that arises, then, is why successive U.S. administrations have found it so difficult to accept that perhaps their assessment of the causes of terrorism is incorrect; that perhaps, the policies built on their premises are not effective, but rather a self-fulfilling prophecy, leading to a vicious cycle of constantly expanding military activities and an increasing number of individuals who believe their grievances cannot be settled non-violently. This has everything to do with the never-ending need for militarism: 9/11 was approached by the U.S. as an opportunity for aggression. The attacks, however heinous, were approached by the government not as crimes (which would require criminal prosecution and law enforcement), but as a personal attack against Americans (Hossein-zadeh 2006: 91). With the views expressed by Huntington, Lewis and Perle widespread among the American public already, pre-emptive war and military expansion was easily justifiable to Americans. After all, how would dialogue help if the Muslim mind is pathologically troubled? An American citizen might cringe at the idea, but it is true: the 9/11 tragedy "came from heaven to an administration determined to ramp up military budgets" (Johnson 2004: 64).
Conclusion
This essay has sought to argue that the U.S. military-industrial complex was the unintentional result of both a desire to stabilize the global capitalist system and to protect national security interests, but that military spending is now closely linked to the personal interests of a small, influential group of elites. In the first section, it was illustrated that the context of the Second World War made increased military expenditures a necessary means to other ends, although the power elite that would eventually come to benefit from these expenditures was already in place. Once in place, this power elite has constantly needed to justify the disproportionate allocation of national resources to the military establishment. Emphasizing the economic benefits of military investment by drawing on Keynesian theory is a way of doing so, but military Keynesianists seem to give a one-sided account of the theory, one that suits their interests.
The second section focused on the global war on terror, arguing that the U.S. is capitalizing on public fears which are based on an incorrect assessment of the causes of terrorism. The war on terror has done little to eradicate terrorism, but as long as the public continues believing it is a necessary war, the U.S. military-industrial complex will continue using it as an opportunity to keep military budgets high.
References
- Ahmed, A. (2002) 'Ibn Khaldun's understanding of civilizations and the dilemmas of Islam and the West today', Middle East Journal, Vol. 56, No. 1, pp. 20-45
- Coll, S. (2012) 'Days of Rage', The New Yorker, 1 October. [Online] Available at http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2012/10/01/121001taco_talk_coll (accessed 7 January 2013)
- Dreze, J. (2000) 'Militarism, development and democracy', Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 35, No. 14, pp. 1171-1183
- Hossein-zadeh, I. (2006). The political economy of U.S. militarism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan
- Huntington, S. P. (1993) 'The Clash of Civilizations?' in The Council on Foreign Relations, ed. 1996, Samuel P. Huntington's the clash of civilizations: the debate, New York: Council on Foreign Relations, pp. 1-26
- Johnson, C. (2004) The sorrows of empire: militarism, secrecy, and the end of the republic. New York: Henry Holt and Company
- Mintz, A. (1985) 'The military-industrial complex: American concepts and Israeli realities', The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 29, No. 4, pp. 623-639
- Moskos, C. (1974) 'The concept of the military-industrial complex: radical critique or liberal bogey?', Social Problems, Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 498-512
- SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) (2012) Military spending and armament: the 15 major spender countries in 2011 (table). Solna: SIPRI. Available at http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/milex/resultoutput/milex_15 (accessed 4 January 2013)
- Snider, B. (2004) 'Manufacturing terrorism', antiwar.com, 14 June. [Online] Available at http://antiwar.com/blog/2004/06/14/manufacturing-terrorism/ (accessed 6 January 2013)
- START (National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism). (2012) Incidents over time. Maryland: Global Terrorism Database. [Data file] Available at http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/Results.aspx?region= (accessed 7 January 2013)
- Waddell, B. (2001) 'Limiting national interventionism in the United States: the warfare-welfare state as a restrictive government paradigm', Capital and class, Vol. 74, pp. 109-140
1.) The U.S. did have to rethink the expenses of their policies during the crisis of the '70s, when expanding on both warfare and welfare became too expensive. Allocating taxpayers' money to the military had become harder to justify for several reasons; by this time, however, the military-industrial complex was well in place. Beneficiaries of militarism succeeded in maintaining high military budgets, mainly by exaggerating the 'Soviet threat' (such as in the now-discredited Team B report by the Committee on the Present Danger). This was clearly a way of defining the elite group's interests in terms of national interests and is relevant to the topic, but it is not within the scope of the essay to discuss this in detail.
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May 15, 2015 | informationclearinghouse.info
The concept of American exceptionalism is as old as the United States, and it implies that the country has a qualitative difference from other nations. This notion of being special gives Americans the sense that playing a lead role in world affair is part of their natural historic calling. However there is nothing historically exceptional about this: the Roman empire also viewed itself as a system superior to other nations and, more recently, so did the British and the French empires.
On the topic of American exceptionalism, which he often called "Americanism", Seymour Martin Lipset noted that "America's ideology can be described in five words: liberty, egalitarism, individualism, populism and laissez-faire. The revolutionary ideology, which became American creed, is liberalism in its eighteenth and nineteenth-century meaning. It departed from conservatism Toryism, statist communitarianism, mercantilism and noblesse-oblige dominant in monarchical state-church formed cultures." Naturally identifying America's system as a unique ideology, just like calling its successful colonial war against Britain a revolution, is a fallacy. For one, America was never based on social equality, as rigid class distinctions always remained through US history.
In reality, the US has never broken from European social models. American exceptionalism implies a sense of superiority, just like in the case of the British empire, the French empire and the Roman empire. In such imperialist systems, class inequality was never challenged and, as matter of fact, served as cornerstone of the imperial structure. In American history, the only exception to this system based on social inequality was during the post World War II era of the economic "miracle". The period from 1945 to the mid 1970s was characterized by major economic growth, an absence of big economic downturns, and a much higher level of social mobility on a massive scale. This time frame saw a tremendous expansion of higher education: from 2.5 million people to 12 million going to colleges and universities, and this education explosion, naturally, fostered this upward mobility where the American dream became possible for the middle class.
Regardless of real domestic social progress made in the United States after the birth of the empire in 1945, for the proponents of American exceptionalism - this includes the entire political class - the myth of the US being defined as a "shining city on a hill" has always been a rationale to justify the pursuit of imperialism. For example, when President Barack Obama addressed the nation to justify the US military intervention in Libya, he said that "America is different", as if the US has a special role in history as a force for good. In a speech on US foreign policy, at West Point on May 28, 2014, Obama bluntly stated:
"In fact, by most measures, America has rarely been stronger relative to the rest of the world. Those who argue otherwise - who suggest that America is in decline or has seen its global leadership slip away are misreading history. Our military has no peer…. I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being."
In his book, Democracy In America, Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville was lyrical in his propaganda-like adulation of American exceptionalism, defining it almost as divine providence.
"When the earth was given to men by the Creator, the earth was inexhaustible. But men were weak and ignorant, and when they had learned to take advantage of the treasures which it contained, they already covered its surface and were soon obliged to earn by the sword an asylum for repose and freedom. Just then North America was discovered, as if it had been kept in reserve by the Deity and had risen from beneath the waters of the deluge", wrote de Tocqueville.
This notion, originated by the French author, and amplified ever since, which defined the US as the "divine gift" of a moral and virtuous land, is a cruel fairy tale. It is mainly convenient to ease up America's profound guilt. After all, the brutal birth of this nation took place under the curse of two cardinal sins: the theft of Native American lands after committing a genocide of their population; and the hideous crime of slavery, with slaves building an immense wealth for the few, in a new feudal system, with their sweat, tears and blood.
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May 09, 2015 | antiwar.com
President Barack Obama's decision to join other Western leaders in snubbing Russia's weekend celebration of the 70th anniversary of Victory in Europe looks more like pouting than statesmanship, especially in the context of the U.S. mainstream media's recent anti-historical effort to downplay Russia's crucial role in defeating Nazism.Though designed to isolate Russia because it had the audacity to object to the Western-engineered coup d'état in Ukraine on Feb. 22, 2014, this snub of Russia's President Vladimir Putin – like the economic sanctions against Russia – is likely to backfire on the U.S. and its European allies by strengthening ties between Russia and the emerging Asian giants of China and India.
Notably, the dignitaries who will show up at this important commemoration include the presidents of China and India, representing a huge chunk of humanity, who came to show respect for the time seven decades ago when the inhumanity of the Nazi regime was defeated – largely by Russia's stanching the advance of Hitler's armies, at a cost of 20 to 30 million lives.
Obama's boycott is part of a crass attempt to belittle Russia and to cram history itself into an anti-Putin, anti-Russian alternative narrative. It is difficult to see how Obama and his friends could have come up with a pettier and more gratuitous insult to the Russian people.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel – caught between Washington's demand to "isolate" Russia over the Ukraine crisis and her country's historic guilt in the slaughter of so many Russians – plans to show up a day late to place a wreath at a memorial for the war dead.
But Obama, in his childish display of temper, will look rather small to those who know the history of the Allied victory in World War II. If it were not for the Red Army's costly victories against the German invaders, particularly the tide-turning battle at Stalingrad in 1943-1944, the prospects for the later D-Day victory in Normandy in June 1944 and the subsequent defeat of Adolf Hitler would have been much more difficult if not impossible.
Yet, the current Russia-bashing in Washington and the mainstream U.S. media overrides these historical truths. For instance, a New York Times article by Neil MacFarquhar on Friday begins: "The Russian version of Hitler's defeat emphasizes the enormous, unrivaled sacrifices made by the Soviet people to end World War II " But that's not the "Russian version"; that's the history.
For its part, the Washington Post chose to run an Associated Press story out of Moscow reporting: "A state-of-the-art Russian tank on Thursday ground to a halt during the final Victory Day rehearsal. After an attempt to tow it failed, the T-14 rolled away under its own steam 15 minutes later." (Subtext: Ha, ha! Russia's newest tank gets stuck on Red Square! Ha, ha!).
This juvenile approach to pretty much everything that's important - not just U.S.-Russia relations - has now become the rule. From the U.S. government to the major U.S. media, it's as if the "cool kids" line up in matching fashions creating a gauntlet to demean and ridicule whoever the outcast of the day is. And anyone who doesn't go along becomes an additional target of abuse.
That has been the storyline for the Ukraine crisis throughout 2014 and into 2015. Everyone must agree that Putin provoked all the trouble as part of some Hitler-like ambition to conquer much of eastern Europe and rebuild a Russian empire. If you don't make the obligatory denunciations of "Russian aggression," you are called a "Putin apologist" or "Putin bootlicker."
Distorting the History
So, the evidence-based history of the Western-sponsored coup in Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014, must be forgotten or covered up. Indeed, about a year after the events, the New York Times published a major "investigative" article that ignored all the facts of a U.S.-backed coup in declaring there was no coup.
The Times didn't even mention the notorious, intercepted phone call between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt in early February 2014 in which Nuland was handpicking the future leaders, including her remark "Yats is the guy," a reference to Arseniy Yatsenyuk who – after the coup – quickly became prime minister. [See Consortiumnews.com's "NYT Still Pretends No Coup in Ukraine."]
Even George Friedman, the president of the Washington-Establishment-friendly think-tank STRATFOR, has said publicly in late 2014: "Russia calls the events that took place at the beginning of this year a coup d'état organized by the United States. And it truly was the most blatant coup in history."
Beyond simply ignoring facts, the U.S. mainstream media has juggled the time line to make Putin's reaction to the coup – and the threat it posed to the Russian naval base in Crimea – appear to be, instead, evidence of his instigation of the already unfolding conflict.
For example, in a "we-told-you-so" headline on March 9, the Washington Post declared: "Putin had early plan to annex Crimea." Then, quoting AP, the Post reported that Putin himself had just disclosed "a secret meeting with officials in February 2014 Putin said that after the meeting he told the security chiefs that they would be 'obliged to start working to return Crimea to Russia.' He said the meeting was held Feb. 23, 2014, almost a month before a referendum in Crimea that Moscow has said was the basis for annexing the region."
So there! Gotcha! Russian aggression! But what the Post neglected to remind readers was that the U.S.-backed coup had occurred on Feb. 22 and that Putin has consistently said that a key factor in his actions toward Crimea came from Russian fears that NATO would claim the historic naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea, representing a strategic threat to his country.
Putin also knew from opinion polls that most of the people of Crimea favored reunification with Russia, a reality that was underscored by the March referendum in which some 96 percent voted to leave Ukraine and rejoin Russia.
But there was not one scintilla of reliable evidence that Putin intended to annex Crimea before he felt his hand forced by the putsch in Kiev. The political reality was that no Russian leader could afford to take the risk that Russia's only warm-water naval base might switch to new NATO management. If top U.S. officials did not realize that when they were pushing the coup in early 2014, they know little about Russian strategic concerns – or simply didn't care.
Last fall, John Mearsheimer, a pre-eminent political science professor at the University of Chicago, stunned those who had been misled by the anti-Russian propaganda when he placed an article in the Very-Establishment journal Foreign Affairs entitled "Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West's Fault."
You did not know that such an article was published? Chalk that up to the fact that the mainstream media pretty much ignored it. Mearsheimer said this was the first time he encountered such widespread media silence on an article of such importance.
The Sole Indispensable Country
Much of this American tendency to disdain other nations' concerns, fears and points of pride go back to the Washington Establishment's dogma that special rules or (perhaps more accurately) no rules govern U.S. behavior abroad – American exceptionalism. This arrogant concept, which puts the United States above all other nations like some Olympic god looking down on mere mortals, is often invoked by Obama and other leading U.S. politicians.
That off-putting point has not been missed by Putin even as he has sought to cooperate with Obama and the United States. On Sept. 11, 2013, a week after Putin bailed Obama out, enabling him to avoid a new war on Syria by persuading Syria to surrender its chemical weapons, Putin wrote in an op-ed published by the New York Times that he appreciated the fact that "My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust."
Putin added, though, "I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism," adding: "It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord's blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal."
More recently, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov drove home this point in the context of World War II. This week, addressing a meeting to mark the 70th anniversary of Victory in Europe, Lavrov included a pointed warning: "Today as never before it is important not to forget the lessons of that catastrophe and the terrible consequences that spring from faith in one's own exceptionalism."
The irony is that as the cameras pan the various world leaders in the Red Square reviewing stand on Saturday, Obama's absence will send a message that the United States has little appreciation for the sacrifice of the Russian people in bearing the brunt – and breaking the back – of Hitler's conquering armies. It is as if Obama is saying that the "exceptional" United States didn't need anyone's help to win World War II.
President Franklin Roosevelt was much wiser, understanding that it took extraordinary teamwork to defeat Nazism in the 1940s, which is why he considered the Soviet Union a most important military ally. President Obama is sending a very different message, a haughty disdain for the kind of global cooperation which succeeded in ridding the world of Adolf Hitler.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He is a 30-year veteran of the CIA and Army intelligence and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). McGovern served for considerable periods in all four of CIA's main directorates.
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May 09, 2015 | NYTimes.com
Reprinted from May 07, 2015 article at Salon.com
As of mid-April, when a Pentagon flack announced it in Kiev, and as barely reported in American media, U.S. troops are now operating openly in Ukraine.Now there is a lead I have long dreaded writing but suspected from the first that one day I would. Do not take a moment to think about this. Take many moments. We all need to. We find ourselves in grave circumstances this spring.
At first I thought I had written what newspaper people call a double-barreled lead: American soldiers in Ukraine, American media not saying much about it. Two facts.
Wrong. There is one fact now, and it is this: Americans are being led blindfolded very near the brink of war with Russia.
One cannot predict there will be one. And, of course, right-thinking people hope things will never come to one. In March, President Obama dismissed any such idea as if to suggest it was silly. "They're not interested in a military confrontation with us," Obama said of the Russians-wisely. Then he added, unwisely: "We don't need a war."
Don't need a war to get what done, Mr. President? This is our question. Then this one: Washington is going to stop at exactly what as it manipulates its latest set of puppets in disadvantaged countries, this time pretending there is absolutely nothing thoughtless or miscalculated about doing so on Russia's historically sensitive western border?
The pose of American innocence, tatty and tiresome in the best of times, is getting dangerous once again.
The source of worry now is that we do not have an answer to the second question. The project is plain: Advance NATO the rest of the way through Eastern Europe, probably with the intent of eventually destabilizing Moscow. The stooges now installed in Kiev are getting everything ready for the corporations eager to exploit Ukrainian resources and labor.
And our policy cliques are willing to go all the way to war for this? As of mid-April, when the 173rd Airborne Brigade started arriving in Ukraine, it looks as if we are on notice in this respect.
In the past there were a few vague mentions of an American military presence in Ukraine that was to be in place by this spring, if I recall correctly. These would have been last autumn. By then, there were also reports, unconfirmed, that some troops and a lot of spooks were already there as advisers but not acknowledged.
Then in mid-March President Poroshenko introduced a bill authorizing-as required by law-foreign troops to operate on Ukrainian soil. There was revealing detail, according to Russia Insider, a free-standing website in Moscow founded and run by Charles Bausman, an American with an uncanny ability to gather and publish pertinent information."According to the draft law, Ukraine plans three Ukrainian-American command post exercises, Fearless Guardian 2015, Sea Breeze 2015 and Saber Guardian/Rapid Trident 2015," the publication reported, "and two Ukrainian-Polish exercises, Secure Skies 2015, and Law and Order 2015, for this year."
This is a lot of dry-run maneuvering, if you ask me. Poroshenko's law allows for up to 1,000 American troops to participate in each of these exercises, alongside an equal number of Ukrainian "National Guardsmen," and we will insist on the quotation marks when referring to this gruesome lot, about whom more in a minute.
Take a deep breath and consider that 1,000 American folks, as Obama will surely get around to calling them, are conducting military drills with troops drawn partly from Nazi and crypto-Nazi paramilitary groups . Sorry, I cannot add anything more to this paragraph. Speechless.
It was a month to the day after Poroshenko's bill went to parliament that the Pentagon spokesman in Kiev announced-to a room empty of American correspondents, we are to assume-that troops from the 173rd Airborne were just then arriving to train none other than "National Guardsmen." This training includes "classes in war-fighting functions," as the operations officer, Maj. Jose Mendez, blandly put it at the time.
The spokesman's number was "about 300," and I never like "about" when these people are describing deployments. This is how it always begins, we will all recall. The American presence in Vietnam began with a handful of advisers who arrived in September 1950. (Remember MAAG, the Military Assistance Advisory Group?)
Part of me still thinks war with Russia seems a far-fetched proposition. But here's the thing: It is even more far-fetched to deny the gravity of this moment for all its horrific, playing-with-fire potential.
I am getting on to apoplectic as to the American media's abject irresponsibility in not covering this stuff adequately. To leave these events unreported is outright lying by omission. Nobody's news judgment can be so bad as to argue this is not a story.
Last December, John Pilger, the noted Australian journalist now in London, said in a speech that the Ukraine crisis had become the most extreme news blackout he had seen his entire career. I agree and now need no more proof as to whether it is a matter of intent or ineptitude. (Now that I think of it, it is both in many cases.)
To cross the "i"s and dot the "t"s, as I prefer to do, the Times did make two mentions of the American troops. One was the day of the announcement, a brief piece on an inside page, datelined Washington. Here we get our code word for this caper: It will be "modest" in every mention.
The second was in an April 23 story by Michael Gordon, the State Department correspondent. The head was, "Putin Bolsters His Forces Near Ukraine, U.S. Says." Read the thing here.
The story line is a doozy: Putin-not "the Russians" or "Moscow," of course-is again behaving aggressively by amassing troops-how many, exactly where and how we know is never explained-along his border with Ukraine. Inside his border, that is. This is the story. This is what we mean by aggression these days.
In the sixth paragraph we get this: "Last week, Russia charged that a modest program to train Ukraine's national guard that 300 American troops are carrying out in western Ukraine could 'destabilize the situation.'" Apoplectically speaking: Goddamn it, there is nothing modest about U.S. troops operating on Ukrainian soil, and it is self-evidently destabilizing. It is an obvious provocation, a point the policy cliques in Washington cannot have missed.
At this point, I do not see how anyone can stand against the argument-mine for some time-that Putin has shown exemplary restraint in this crisis. In a reversal of roles and hemispheres, Washington would have a lot more than air defense systems and troops of whatever number on the border in question.
The Times coverage of Ukraine, to continue briefly in this line, starts to remind me of something I.F. Stone once said about the Washington Post: The fun of reading it, the honored man observed, is that you never know where you'll find a page one story.
In the Times' case, you never know if you will find it at all.
Have you read much about the wave of political assassinations that erupted in Kiev in mid-April? Worry not. No one else has either-not in American media. Not a word in the Times.
The number my sources give me, and I cannot confirm it, is a dozen so far-12 to 13 to be precise. On the record, we have 10 who can be named and identified as political allies of Viktor Yanukovych, the president ousted last year, opponents of a drastic rupture in Ukraine's historic relations to Russia, people who favored marking the 70th anniversary of the Soviet defeat of the Nazis-death-deserving idea, this-and critics of the new regime's corruptions and dependence on violent far-right extremists.
These were all highly visible politicians, parliamentarians and journalists. They have been murdered by small groups of these extremists, according to reports readily available in non-American media. In my read, the killers may have the same semi-official ties to government that the paramilitary death squads in 1970s Argentina-famously recognizable in their Ford Falcons-had with Videla and the colonels.
The Poroshenko government contrives to assign Russia the blame, but one can safely ignore this. Extreme right members of parliament have been more to the point. After a prominent editor named Oles Buzyna was fatally shot outside his home several weeks ago, a lawmaker named Boris Filatov told colleagues, "One more piece of shit has been eliminated." From another named Irina Farion, this: Death will neutralize the dirt this shit has spilled. Such people go to history's sewers."
Kindly place, Kiev's parliament under this new crowd. Washington must be proud, having backed yet another right-wing, anti-democratic, rights-trampling regime that does what it says.
And our media must be silent, of course. It can be no other way. Gutless hacks: You bet I am angry.
* * * I end this week's column with a tribute.
A moment of observance, any kind, for William Pfaff, who died at 86 in Paris late last week. The appreciative obituary by the Times' Marlise Simons is here.
Pfaff was the most sophisticated foreign affairs commentator of the 20th century's second half and the first 15 years of this one. He was a great influence among colleagues (myself included) and put countless readers in a lot of places in the picture over many decades. He was a vigorous opponent of American adventurism abroad, consistent and reasoned even as resistance to both grew in his later years. By the time he was finished he was published and read far more outside America than in it.
Pfaff was a conservative man in some respects, which is not uncommon among America's American critics. In this I put him in the file with Henry Steele Commager, C. Vann Woodward, William Appleman Williams, and among those writing now, Andrew Bacevich. He was not a scholar, as these writers were or are, supporting a point I have long made: Not all intellectuals are scholars, and not all scholars are intellectuals.
Pfaff's books will live on and I commend them: "Barbarian Sentiments," "The Wrath of Nations," "The Bullet's Song," and his last, "The Irony of Manifest Destiny," are the ones on my shelf.
Farewell from a friend, Bill.
Patrick Smith is the author of "Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century." He was the International Herald Tribune's bureau chief in Hong Kong and then Tokyo from 1985 to 1992. During this time he also wrote "Letter from Tokyo" for the New Yorker. He is the author of four previous books and has contributed frequently to the New York Times, the Nation, the Washington Quarterly, and other publications. Follow him on Twitter, @thefloutist. More Patrick L. Smith.
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April 23, 2015 | Antiwar.com
The megalomaniacs of the Washington power elite actually think they can mold the Middle East to their specifications. No calamity resulting from their clumsy machinations ever causes them to rethink this preposterous conceit.
Look at some of their more recent handiwork. In 2003, on the basis of shoddy intelligence if not conscious lies, President George W. Bush had the U.S. military overthrow Iraqi dictator (and former ally) Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Muslim whose secular regime discriminated against the Shia majority. With Saddam gone and his Ba'ath party dispersed, the Shiites inevitably assumed power, assisted by American forces that put down a Sunni insurgency and enabled Shiite militias to ethnically cleanse most of the capital, Baghdad. Millions were killed, injured, and displaced.
Next door, of course, is the Shiite Islamic Republic of Iran, which has been America's bête noir since 1979, when a revolution overthrew the U.S.-backed autocratic shah and militants held American hostages, 26 years after the CIA helped to oust a prime minister and restore the shah to power. Iraq under Saddam had also been Iran's enemy; he launched an eight-year war of aggression against the Islamic Republic in the 1980s, aided by the United States. (Among other assistance, US satellite intelligence helped Saddam wage chemical warfare against the Iranians.) In balance-of-power terms, Saddam was the counterforce that checked Iranian influence. But now Saddam's regime was gone.
One did not need to be an expert to know that Iran would benefit. Iraq's sectarian Shiite prime minister from 2006 to 2014, Nouri al-Maliki, was favored by Iran, as is his successor, Haider al-Abadi. Even Bush administration's original pick to lead post-Saddam Iraq, Ahmed Chalabi, had long been close to Iran.
So despite some 30 years of America's cold, covert, cyber, and proxy war against Iran, the Bush administration was indispensable in helping Iran gain greater influence in the Middle East.
This influence has grown even greater now with the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, which was a predictable consequence of Saddam's overthrow and sectarian Shiite rule, before which there was no Sunni al-Qaeda in Iraq, much less ISIS, its even more virulent offshoot. The Obama administration has assumed the lead in the effort to "degrade and destroy" ISIS, which is officially regarded as a "threat to the homeland," but Obama's method is largely confined to airpower, with only a small force on the ground. Most analysts believe that airpower alone will not suffice. The fight on the ground in Iraq is being handled by that country's Shiite army and an assortment of vengeful Shiite militias, making the Sunnis fearful of sectarian violence and even accepting of the brutal and intolerant ISIS. Who advises these forces? None other than Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani of the Iranian Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution and commander of the Quds Force, a division of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Soleimani reportedly is playing a major role in the current effort to retake Takrit, Saddam's hometown, from ISIS.
This objectively places the United States on the same side as Iran, but the Obama administration cannot acknowledge this without granting Iran prestige. Indeed, American and Israeli officials worry that the price of defeating ISIS will be a Middle East dominated by Iran as never before.
Of course, ISIS also controls territory in next-door Syria, which is ruled by Iran's ally Bashar al-Assad, a member of a minority Shiite sect whose regime is embroiled in a civil war. Obama has called for Assad's departure, but Assad is also fighting ISIS (as well as Syria's al-Qaeda franchise), putting him, too, objectively on America's side.
The question arising from this tangled tale is: What were the American and Israeli advocates of war with Iraq thinking back in 2003? Was their plan to build up Iranian influence in order to justify war and regime change? That would explain why advocates of the Iraq policy are trying to torpedo multilateral talks with Iran over its nonexistent nuclear weapons program. But war with Iran, which is much larger and more populous Iraq, would be a catastrophe.
In light of all this, should Americans trust their lives and well-being to the arrogant Washington power elite?
Sheldon Richman is a Research Fellow at The Independent Institute, which is based in Oakland, California.
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english
.pravda - December 21, 2012 7:23 PM.ru There can be no doubt that in 2012, the foreign policy of the United States of America is no longer based upon diplomacy, but rather, skulduggery, bullying, blackmail, belligerence, interference, supporting terrorists and sometime neofascists
Enrique Ferro's insight:
AND THE PROBLEM IS THAT THE U S OF A COMMANDS THE ALLEGIANCE OF OVER 100 VASSAL STATES, AS MORALLY CORRUPT AS THEIR MASTER!
"The conclusion is that the United States of America is not a respectable member of the international community. The USA and its poodle states are cowardly pariahs acting in a pack for security and attacking sovereign nations imposing democracy from 30,000 feet and implementing it using terrorists."
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The Atlantic
Andrew Bacevich has a wonderful essay, in the form of an open letter to Paul Wolfowitz, in the current Harper's. You have to subscribe to read it -- but, hey, you should be subscribing to any publication whose work you value. This essay isolates the particular role Wolfowitz had in the cast of characters that led us to war. As a reminder, they included:
- Dick Cheney, who was becoming a comic-book churl by this stage of his public life;
- Colin Powell, the loyal soldier, staffer, and diplomat whose "Powell Doctrine" and entire life's work stood in opposition to the kind of war that he, with misguided loyalty, was to play so central a role in selling;
- Tony Blair, the crucial ally who added rhetorical polish and international resolve to the case for war;
- Donald Rumsfeld, with his breezy contempt for those who said the effort would be difficult or long;
- Paul Bremer, whose sudden, thoughtless dismantling of the Iraqi army proved so disastrous;
- Condoleezza Rice, miscast in her role as White House national-security advisor;
- George Tenet, the long-time staffer who cooperated with the "slam-dunk!" intelligence assessment despite serious disagreement within the CIA;
- and of course George W. Bush himself, whose combination of limited knowledge and strong desire to be "decisive" made him so vulnerable to the argument that the "real" response to the 9/11 attacks should be invading a country that had nothing to do with them.
But Paul Wolfowitz was in a category of his own because he was the one who provided the highest-concept rationale for the war. As James Galbraith of the University of Texas has put it, "Wolfowitz is the real-life version of Halberstam's caricature of McNamara" [in The Best and the Brightest].
Bacevich's version of this assessment is to lay out as respectfully as possible the strategic duty that Wolfowitz thought the U.S. would fulfill by invading Iraq. Back before the war began, I did a much more limited version of this assessment as an Atlantic article. As Bacevich puts it now, Wolfowitz was extending precepts from his one-time mentor, Albert Wohlstetter, toward a model of how the United States could maximize stability for itself and others.
As with the best argumentative essays, Bacevich takes on Wolfowitz in a strong rather than an oversimplified version of his world-view. You have to read the whole thing to get the effect, but here is a brief sample (within fair-use limits):
With the passing of the Cold War, global hegemony seemed America's for the taking. What others saw as an option you, Paul, saw as something much more: an obligation that the nation needed to seize, for its own good as well as for the world's....Bacevich explains much more about the Wohlstetter / Wolfowitz grand view. And then he poses the challenge that he says Wolfowitz should now meet:Although none of the hijackers were Iraqi, within days of 9/11 you were promoting military action against Iraq. Critics have chalked this up to your supposed obsession with Saddam. The criticism is misplaced. The scale of your ambitions was vastly greater.
In an instant, you grasped that the attacks provided a fresh opportunity to implement Wohlstetter's Precepts, and Iraq offered a made-to-order venue....In Iraq the United States would demonstrate the efficacy of preventive war.... The urgency of invading Iraq stemmed from the need to validate that doctrine before the window of opportunity closed.
One of the questions emerging from the Iraq debacle must be this one: Why did liberation at gunpoint yield results that differed so radically from what the war's advocates had expected? Or, to sharpen the point, How did preventive war undertaken by ostensibly the strongest military in history produce a cataclysm?
Not one of your colleagues from the Bush Administration possesses the necessary combination of honesty, courage, and wit to answer these questions. If you don't believe me, please sample the tediously self-exculpatory memoirs penned by (or on behalf of) Bush himself, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Tenet, Bremer, Feith, and a small squad of eminently forgettable generals...
What would Albert [Wohlstetter] do? I never met the man (he died in 1997), but my guess is that he wouldn't flinch from taking on these questions, even if the answers threatened to contradict his own long-held beliefs. Neither should you, Paul. To be sure, whatever you might choose to say, you'll be vilified, as Robert McNamara was vilified when he broke his long silence and admitted that he'd been "wrong, terribly wrong" about Vietnam. But help us learn the lessons of Iraq so that we might extract from it something of value in return for all the sacrifices made there. Forgive me for saying so, but you owe it to your country.
Anyone who knows Andrew Bacevich's story will understand the edge behind his final sentence. But you don't have to know that to respect the challenge he lays down. I hope Paul Wolfowitz will at some point rise to it.
For another very valuable assessment of who was right and wrong, when, please see John Judis's piece in The New Republic.
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Mar 5, 2015 | The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
RPI Director Daniel McAdams is interviewed on RT. Transcript below; video here.Victoria Nuland's anti-Russian rhetoric comes from the neocon camp of US politics, seeking to stir the Ukraine crisis, thrilled by the prospect of defense industry expansion and more arms sales, Daniel McAdams of the Ron Paul Peace Institute told RT.
RT: World leaders and international monitors agree the situation in Ukraine is generally improving. Why are we still witnessing aggressive rhetoric from some US officials?
Daniel McAdams: Because the US does not want peace to break out. The US is determined to see its project through. But unfortunately like all of its regime change projects this one is failing miserably. Victoria Nuland completely disregards the role of the US in starting the conflict in Ukraine. She completely glosses over the fact that the army supported by Kiev has been bombarding Eastern Ukraine, as if these independent fighters in the east are killing themselves and their own people. Victoria Nuland was an aid to Dick Cheney; she is firmly ensconced in the neocon camp. The neocons believe very strongly in lying, the noble lie… They lied us into the war in Iraq; they are lying now about Ukraine. Lying is what the neocons do.
RT: Nuland listed a lot of hostile actions by Russia without providing any reliable proof. Do you think she can she be challenged on these topics?
DM: Maybe she is right but the US hasn't provided one piece of proof, except for Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt's Rorschach tests he passes off as a satellite photo. Maybe they are true but we have to present some evidence because we've seen now the neocons have lied us into the war. This is much more serious than the attack on small Iraq. This has the potential for a global nuclear war. So I think they should be held to a higher level of scrutiny. Thus far they have not provided any. We do know however that the US is providing military aid. As the matter of fact this week hundreds of American troops are arriving in Ukraine. Why is that not an escalation? Why is it only an escalation when the opponents of the US government are involved?
RT: How probable is that the Western nations ship lethal aid to Ukraine?
DM: It is interesting because Victoria Nuland this week spent some time with Andriy Parubiy, one of the founders of the fascist party in Ukraine and I believe one of the founders of the Joseph Goebbels Institute. She met with him this week and had a photo taken with him. He came back to Ukraine and assured his comrades that the US will provide additional, non-lethal weapons - whatever that means - and felt pretty strongly that they would provide lethal weapons. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey has been urging the US government to provide lethal weapons as has the new US defense secretary [Ashton Carter], both of whom come from the military industrial complex which is thrilled by prospect of a lot more arms to be sold.
RT: Nuland has said the State Department is in talks with EU leaders for another round of sanctions on Russia. Do you think the EU will agree?
DM: I think they will be pressured into agreeing. It is interesting that Nuland said that the new Rada, the new Ukrainian parliament, in this first four months has been a hive of activity. I was just watching some videos from the fights in the Ukrainian parliament. So that was one bit of unintentional humor probably in her speech. It looks like a fight club over there.
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Apr 12, 2015 | The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
Militarism and military spending are everywhere on the rise, as the new Cold War propaganda seems to be paying off. The new "threats" that are being hyped bring big profits to military contractors and the network of think tanks they pay to produce pro-war propaganda.
Here are just a few examples:
The German government announced last week that it would purchase 100 more "Leopard" tanks – a 45 percent increase in the country's inventory. Germany had greatly reduced its inventory of tanks as the end of the Cold War meant the end of any threat of a Soviet ground invasion of Europe. The German government now claims these 100 new tanks, which may cost nearly half a billion dollars, are necessary to respond to the new Russian assertiveness in the region. Never mind that Russia has neither invaded nor threatened any country in the region, much less a NATO member country.
The US Cold War-era nuclear bunker under Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, which was all but shut down in the 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, is being brought back to life. The Pentagon has committed nearly a billion dollars to upgrading the facility to its previous Cold War-level of operations. US defense contractor Raytheon will be the prime beneficiary of this contract. Raytheon is a major financial sponsor of think tanks like the Institute for the Study of War, which continuously churn out pro-war propaganda. I am sure these big contracts are a good return on that investment.
NATO, which I believe should have been shut down after the Cold War ended, is also getting its own massively expensive upgrade. The Alliance commissioned a new headquarters building in Brussels, Belgium, in 2010, which is supposed to be completed in 2016. The building looks like a hideous claw, and the final cost – if it is ever finished – will be well over one billion dollars. That is more than twice what was originally budgeted. What a boondoggle! Is it any surprise that NATO bureaucrats and generals continuously try to terrify us with tales of the new Russian threat? They need to justify their expansion plans!
So who is the real enemy? The Russians?
No, the real enemy is the taxpayer. The real enemy is the middle class and the productive sectors of the economy. We are the victims of this new runaway military spending. Every dollar or euro spent on a contrived threat is a dollar or euro taken out of the real economy and wasted on military Keynesianism. It is a dollar stolen from a small business owner that will not be invested in innovation, spent on research to combat disease, or even donated to charities that help the needy.
One of the most pervasive and dangerous myths of our time is that military spending benefits an economy. This could not be further from the truth. Such spending benefits a thin layer of well-connected and well-paid elites. It diverts scarce resources from meeting the needs and desires of a population and channels them into manufacturing tools of destruction. The costs may be hidden by the money-printing of the central banks, but they are eventually realized in the steady destruction of a currency.
The elites are terrified that peace may finally break out, which will be bad for their profits. That is why they are trying to scuttle the Iran deal, nix the Cuba thaw, and drum up a new "Red Scare" coming from Moscow. We must not be fooled into believing their lies.
Copyright © 2015 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
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March 9, 2015 | naked capitalism
Yves here. Andrew Bacevich excoriates policy intellectuals as "blight on the republic". His case study focuses on the military/surveillance complex but he notes in passing that the first policy intellectuals were in the economic realm. And we are plagued with plenty of malpractice there too.
by Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations emeritus at Boston University's Pardee School of Global Studies. He is writing a military history of America's War for the Greater Middle East. His most recent book is Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country. Originally published at TomDispatch
Policy intellectuals - eggheads presuming to instruct the mere mortals who actually run for office - are a blight on the republic. Like some invasive species, they infest present-day Washington, where their presence strangles common sense and has brought to the verge of extinction the simple ability to perceive reality. A benign appearance - well-dressed types testifying before Congress, pontificating in print and on TV, or even filling key positions in the executive branch - belies a malign impact. They are like Asian carp let loose in the Great Lakes.
It all began innocently enough. Back in 1933, with the country in the throes of the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt first imported a handful of eager academics to join the ranks of his New Deal. An unprecedented economic crisis required some fresh thinking, FDR believed. Whether the contributions of this "Brains Trust" made a positive impact or served to retard economic recovery (or ended up being a wash) remains a subject for debate even today. At the very least, however, the arrival of Adolph Berle, Raymond Moley, Rexford Tugwell, and others elevated Washington's bourbon-and-cigars social scene. As bona fide members of the intelligentsia, they possessed a sort of cachet.
Then came World War II, followed in short order by the onset of the Cold War. These events brought to Washington a second wave of deep thinkers, their agenda now focused on "national security." This eminently elastic concept - more properly, "national insecurity" - encompassed just about anything related to preparing for, fighting, or surviving wars, including economics, technology, weapons design, decision-making, the structure of the armed forces, and other matters said to be of vital importance to the nation's survival. National insecurity became, and remains today, the policy world's equivalent of the gift that just keeps on giving.
People who specialized in thinking about national insecurity came to be known as "defense intellectuals." Pioneers in this endeavor back in the 1950s were as likely to collect their paychecks from think tanks like the prototypical RAND Corporation as from more traditional academic institutions. Their ranks included creepy figures like Herman Kahn, who took pride in "thinking about the unthinkable," and Albert Wohlstetter, who tutored Washington in the complexities of maintaining "the delicate balance of terror."
In this wonky world, the coin of the realm has been and remains "policy relevance." This means devising products that convey a sense of novelty, while serving chiefly to perpetuate the ongoing enterprise. The ultimate example of a policy-relevant insight is Dr. Strangelove's discovery of a "mineshaft gap" - successor to the "bomber gap" and the "missile gap" that, in the 1950s, had found America allegedly lagging behind the Soviets in weaponry and desperately needing to catch up. Now, with a thermonuclear exchange about to destroy the planet, the United States is once more falling behind, Strangelove claims, this time in digging underground shelters enabling some small proportion of the population to survive.
In a single, brilliant stroke, Strangelove posits a new raison d'être for the entire national insecurity apparatus, thereby ensuring that the game will continue more or less forever. A sequel to Stanley Kubrick's movie would have shown General "Buck" Turgidson and the other brass huddled in the War Room, developing plans to close the mineshaft gap as if nothing untoward had occurred.
The Rise of the National Insecurity State
Yet only in the 1960s, right around the time that Dr. Strangelove first appeared in movie theaters, did policy intellectuals really come into their own. The press now referred to them as "action intellectuals," suggesting energy and impatience. Action intellectuals were thinkers, but also doers, members of a "large and growing body of men who choose to leave their quiet and secure niches on the university campus and involve themselves instead in the perplexing problems that face the nation," as LIFE Magazine put it in 1967. Among the most perplexing of those problems was what to do about Vietnam, just the sort of challenge an action intellectual could sink his teeth into.
Over the previous century-and-a-half, the United States had gone to war for many reasons, including greed, fear, panic, righteous anger, and legitimate self-defense. On various occasions, each of these, alone or in combination, had prompted Americans to fight. Vietnam marked the first time that the United States went to war, at least in considerable part, in response to a bunch of really dumb ideas floated by ostensibly smart people occupying positions of influence. More surprising still, action intellectuals persisted in waging that war well past the point where it had become self-evident, even to members of Congress, that the cause was a misbegotten one doomed to end in failure.
In his fine new book American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity, Christian Appy, a historian who teaches at the University of Massachusetts, reminds us of just how dumb those ideas were.
As Exhibit A, Professor Appy presents McGeorge Bundy, national security adviser first for President John F. Kennedy and then for Lyndon Johnson. Bundy was a product of Groton and Yale, who famously became the youngest-ever dean of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, having gained tenure there without even bothering to get a graduate degree.
For Exhibit B, there is Walt Whitman Rostow, Bundy's successor as national security adviser. Rostow was another Yalie, earning his undergraduate degree there along with a PhD. While taking a break of sorts, he spent two years at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. As a professor of economic history at MIT, Rostow captured JFK's attention with his modestly subtitled 1960 book The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto, which offered a grand theory of development with ostensibly universal applicability. Kennedy brought Rostow to Washington to test his theories of "modernization" in places like Southeast Asia.
Finally, as Exhibit C, Appy briefly discusses Professor Samuel P. Huntington's contributions to the Vietnam War. Huntington also attended Yale, before earning his PhD at Harvard and then returning to teach there, becoming one of the most renowned political scientists of the post-World War II era.
What the three shared in common, apart from a suspect education acquired in New Haven, was an unwavering commitment to the reigning verities of the Cold War. Foremost among those verities was this: that a monolith called Communism, controlled by a small group of fanatic ideologues hidden behind the walls of the Kremlin, posed an existential threat not simply to America and its allies, but to the very idea of freedom itself. The claim came with this essential corollary: the only hope of avoiding such a cataclysmic outcome was for the United States to vigorously resist the Communist threat wherever it reared its ugly head.
Buy those twin propositions and you accept the imperative of the U.S. preventing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, a.k.a. North Vietnam, from absorbing the Republic of Vietnam, a.k.a. South Vietnam, into a single unified country; in other words, that South Vietnam was a cause worth fighting and dying for. Bundy, Rostow, and Huntington not only bought that argument hook, line, and sinker, but then exerted themselves mightily to persuade others in Washington to buy it as well.
Yet even as he was urging the "Americanization" of the Vietnam War in 1965, Bundy already entertained doubts about whether it was winnable. But not to worry: even if the effort ended in failure, he counseled President Johnson, "the policy will be worth it."
How so? "At a minimum," Bundy wrote, "it will damp down the charge that we did not do all that we could have done, and this charge will be important in many countries, including our own." If the United States ultimately lost South Vietnam, at least Americans would have died trying to prevent that result - and through some perverted logic this, in the estimation of Harvard's youngest-ever dean, was a redeeming prospect. The essential point, Bundy believed, was to prevent others from seeing the United States as a "paper tiger." To avoid a fight, even a losing one, was to forfeit credibility. "Not to have it thought that when we commit ourselves we really mean no major risk" - that was the problem to be avoided at all cost.
Rostow outdid even Bundy in hawkishness. Apart from his relentless advocacy of coercive bombing to influence North Vietnamese policymakers, Rostow was a chief architect of something called the Strategic Hamlet Program. The idea was to jumpstart the Rostovian process of modernization by forcibly relocating Vietnamese peasants from their ancestral villages into armed camps where the Saigon government would provide security, education, medical care, and agricultural assistance. By winning hearts-and-minds in this manner, the defeat of the communist insurgency was sure to follow, with the people of South Vietnam vaulted into the "age of high mass consumption," where Rostow believed all humankind was destined to end up.
That was the theory. Reality differed somewhat. Actual Strategic Hamlets were indistinguishable from concentration camps. The government in Saigon proved too weak, too incompetent, and too corrupt to hold up its end of the bargain. Rather than winning hearts-and-minds, the program induced alienation, even as it essentially destabilized peasant society. One result: an increasingly rootless rural population flooded into South Vietnam's cities where there was little work apart from servicing the needs of the ever-growing U.S. military population - hardly the sort of activity conducive to self-sustaining development.
Yet even when the Vietnam War ended in complete and utter defeat, Rostow still claimed vindication for his theory. "We and the Southeast Asians," he wrote, had used the war years "so well that there wasn't the panic [when Saigon fell] that there would have been if we had failed to intervene." Indeed, regionally Rostow spied plenty of good news, all of it attributable to the American war.
"Since 1975 there has been a general expansion of trade by the other countries of that region with Japan and the West. In Thailand we have seen the rise of a new class of entrepreneurs. Malaysia and Singapore have become countries of diverse manufactured exports. We can see the emergence of a much thicker layer of technocrats in Indonesia."
So there you have it. If you want to know what 58,000 Americans (not to mention vastly larger numbers of Vietnamese) died for, it was to encourage entrepreneurship, exports, and the emergence of technocrats elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
Appy describes Professor Huntington as another action intellectual with an unfailing facility for seeing the upside of catastrophe. In Huntington's view, the internal displacement of South Vietnamese caused by the excessive use of American firepower, along with the failure of Rostow's Strategic Hamlets, was actually good news. It promised, he insisted, to give the Americans an edge over the insurgents.
The key to final victory, Huntington wrote, was "forced-draft urbanization and modernization which rapidly brings the country in question out of the phase in which a rural revolutionary movement can hope to generate sufficient strength to come to power." By emptying out the countryside, the U.S. could win the war in the cities. "The urban slum, which seems so horrible to middle-class Americans, often becomes for the poor peasant a gateway to a new and better way of life." The language may be a tad antiseptic, but the point is clear enough: the challenges of city life in a state of utter immiseration would miraculously transform those same peasants into go-getters more interested in making a buck than in signing up for social revolution.
Revisited decades later, claims once made with a straight face by the likes of Bundy, Rostow, and Huntington - action intellectuals of the very first rank - seem beyond preposterous. They insult our intelligence, leaving us to wonder how such judgments or the people who promoted them were ever taken seriously.
How was it that during Vietnam bad ideas exerted such a perverse influence? Why were those ideas so impervious to challenge? Why, in short, was it so difficult for Americans to recognize bullshit for what it was?
Creating a Twenty-First-Century Slow-Motion Vietnam
These questions are by no means of mere historical interest. They are no less relevant when applied to the handiwork of the twenty-first-century version of policy intellectuals, specializing in national insecurity, whose bullshit underpins policies hardly more coherent than those used to justify and prosecute the Vietnam War.
The present-day successors to Bundy, Rostow, and Huntington subscribe to their own reigning verities. Chief among them is this: that a phenomenon called terrorism or Islamic radicalism, inspired by a small group of fanatic ideologues hidden away in various quarters of the Greater Middle East, poses an existential threat not simply to America and its allies, but - yes, it's still with us - to the very idea of freedom itself. That assertion comes with an essential corollary dusted off and imported from the Cold War: the only hope of avoiding this cataclysmic outcome is for the United States to vigorously resist the terrorist/Islamist threat wherever it rears its ugly head.
At least since September 11, 2001, and arguably for at least two decades prior to that date, U.S. policymakers have taken these propositions for granted. They have done so at least in part because few of the policy intellectuals specializing in national insecurity have bothered to question them.
Indeed, those specialists insulate the state from having to address such questions. Think of them as intellectuals devoted to averting genuine intellectual activity. More or less like Herman Kahn and Albert Wohlstetter (or Dr. Strangelove), their function is to perpetuate the ongoing enterprise.
The fact that the enterprise itself has become utterly amorphous may actually facilitate such efforts. Once widely known as the Global War on Terror, or GWOT, it has been transformed into the War with No Name. A little bit like the famous Supreme Court opinion on pornography: we can't define it, we just know it when we see it, with ISIS the latest manifestation to capture Washington's attention.
All that we can say for sure about this nameless undertaking is that it continues with no end in sight. It has become a sort of slow-motion Vietnam, stimulating remarkably little honest reflection regarding its course thus far or prospects for the future. If there is an actual Brains Trust at work in Washington, it operates on autopilot. Today, the second- and third-generation bastard offspring of RAND that clutter northwest Washington - the Center for this, the Institute for that - spin their wheels debating latter day equivalents of Strategic Hamlets, with nary a thought given to more fundamental concerns.
What prompts these observations is Ashton Carter's return to the Pentagon as President Obama's fourth secretary of defense. Carter himself is an action intellectual in the Bundy, Rostow, Huntington mold, having made a career of rotating between positions at Harvard and in "the Building." He, too, is a Yalie and a Rhodes scholar, with a PhD. from Oxford. "Ash" - in Washington, a first-name-only identifier ("Henry," "Zbig," "Hillary") signifies that you have truly arrived - is the author of books and articles galore, including one op-ed co-written with former Secretary of Defense William Perry back in 2006 calling for preventive war against North Korea. Military action "undoubtedly carries risk," he bravely acknowledged at the time. "But the risk of continuing inaction in the face of North Korea's race to threaten this country would be greater" - just the sort of logic periodically trotted out by the likes of Herman Kahn and Albert Wohlstetter.
As Carter has taken the Pentagon's reins, he also has taken pains to convey the impression of being a big thinker. As one Wall Street Journal headline enthused, "Ash Carter Seeks Fresh Eyes on Global Threats." That multiple global threats exist and that America's defense secretary has a mandate to address each of them are, of course, givens. His predecessor Chuck Hagel (no Yale degree) was a bit of a plodder. By way of contrast, Carter has made clear his intention to shake things up.
So on his second day in office, for example, he dined with Kenneth Pollack, Michael O'Hanlon, and Robert Kagan, ranking national insecurity intellectuals and old Washington hands one and all. Besides all being employees of the Brookings Institution, the three share the distinction of having supported the Iraq War back in 2003 and calling for redoubling efforts against ISIS today. For assurances that the fundamental orientation of U.S. policy is sound - we just need to try harder - who better to consult than Pollack, O'Hanlon, and Kagan (any Kagan)?
Was Carter hoping to gain some fresh insight from his dinner companions? Or was he letting Washington's clubby network of fellows, senior fellows, and distinguished fellows know that, on his watch, the prevailing verities of national insecurity would remain sacrosanct? You decide.
Soon thereafter, Carter's first trip overseas provided another opportunity to signal his intentions. In Kuwait, he convened a war council of senior military and civilian officials to take stock of the campaign against ISIS. In a daring departure from standard practice, the new defense secretary prohibited PowerPoint briefings. One participant described the ensuing event as "a five-hour-long college seminar" - candid and freewheeling. "This is reversing the paradigm," one awed senior Pentagon official remarked. Carter was said to be challenging his subordinates to "look at this problem differently."
Of course, Carter might have said, "Let's look at a different problem." That, however, was far too radical to contemplate - the equivalent of suggesting back in the 1960s that assumptions landing the United States in Vietnam should be reexamined.
In any event - and to no one's surprise - the different look did not produce a different conclusion. Instead of reversing the paradigm, Carter affirmed it: the existing U.S. approach to dealing with ISIS is sound, he announced. It only needs a bit of tweaking - just the result to give the Pollacks, O'Hanlons, and Kagans something to write about as they keep up the chatter that substitutes for serious debate.
Do we really need that chatter? Does it enhance the quality of U.S. policy? If policy/defense/action intellectuals fell silent would America be less secure?
Let me propose an experiment. Put them on furlough. Not permanently - just until the last of the winter snow finally melts in New England. Send them back to Yale for reeducation. Let's see if we are able to make do without them even for a month or two.
In the meantime, invite Iraq and Afghanistan War vets to consider how best to deal with ISIS. Turn the op-ed pages of major newspapers over to high school social studies teachers. Book English majors from the Big Ten on the Sunday talk shows. Who knows what tidbits of wisdom might turn up?
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March 11, 2015 | consortiumnews.com
Exclusive: In House testimony, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland blamed Russia and ethnic-Russian rebels for last summer's shoot-down of MH-17 over Ukraine, but the U.S. government has not substantiated that charge. So, did Nuland mislead Congress or just play a propaganda game, asks Robert Parry.An early skill learned by Official Washington's neoconservatives, when they were cutting their teeth inside the U.S. government in the 1980s, was how to frame their arguments in the most propagandistic way, so anyone who dared to disagree with any aspect of the presentation seemed unpatriotic or crazy.
During my years at The Associated Press and Newsweek, I dealt with a number of now prominent neocons who were just starting out and mastering these techniques at the knee of top CIA psychological warfare specialist Walter Raymond Jr., who had been transferred to President Ronald Reagan's National Security Council staff where Raymond oversaw inter-agency task forces that pushed Reagan's hard-line agenda in Central America and elsewhere. [See Consortiumnews.com's "The Victory of 'Perception Management.'"]
One of those quick learners was Robert Kagan, who was then a protégé of Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams. Kagan got his first big chance when he became director of the State Department's public diplomacy office for Latin America, a key outlet for Raymond's propaganda schemes.
Though always personable in his dealings with me, Kagan grew frustrated when I wouldn't swallow the propaganda that I was being fed. At one point, Kagan warned me that I might have to be "controversialized," i.e. targeted for public attack by Reagan's right-wing media allies and anti-journalism attack groups, like Accuracy in Media, a process that did indeed occur.
Years later, Kagan emerged as one of America's top neocons, a co-founder of the Project for the New American Century, which opened in 1998 to advocate for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, ultimately gaining the backing of a large swath of the U.S. national security establishment in support of that bloody endeavor.
Despite the Iraq disaster, Kagan continued to rise in influence, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a columnist at the Washington Post, and someone whose published criticism so alarmed President Barack Obama last year that he invited Kagan to a White House lunch. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Obama's True Foreign Policy Weakness."]
Kagan's Wife's Coup
But Kagan is perhaps best known these days as the husband of neocon Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, one of Vice President Dick Cheney's former advisers and a key architect of last year's coup in Ukraine, a "regime change" that toppled an elected president and touched off a civil war, which now has become a proxy fight involving nuclear-armed United States and Russia.
In an interview last year with the New York Times, Nuland indicated that she shared her husband's criticism of President Obama for his hesitancy to use American power more assertively. Referring to Kagan's public attacks on Obama's more restrained "realist" foreign policy, Nuland said, "suffice to say … that nothing goes out of the house that I don't think is worthy of his talents. Let's put it that way."
But Nuland also seems to have mastered her husband's skill with propaganda, presenting an extreme version of the situation in Ukraine, such that no one would dare quibble with the details. In prepared testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week, Nuland even slipped in an accusation blaming Russia for the July 17 shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 though the U.S. government has not presented any proof.
Nuland testified, "In eastern Ukraine, Russia and its separatist puppets unleashed unspeakable violence and pillage; MH-17 was shot down."
Now, it's true that if one parses Nuland's testimony, she's not exactly saying the Russians or the ethnic Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine shot down the plane. There is a semi-colon between the "unspeakable violence and pillage" and the passive verb structure "MH-17 was shot down." But anyone seeing her testimony would have understood that the Russians and their "puppets" shot down the plane, killing all 298 people onboard.
When I submitted a formal query to the State Department asking if Nuland's testimony meant that the U.S. government had developed new evidence that the rebels shot down the plane and that the Russians shared complicity, I received no answer.
Perhaps significantly or perhaps not, Nuland presented similarly phrased testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday but made no reference to MH-17. So, I submitted a new inquiry asking whether the omission reflected second thoughts by Nuland about making the claim before the House. Again, I have not received a reply.
However, both of Nuland's appearances place all the blame for the chaos in Ukraine on Russia, including the 6,000 or more deaths. Nuland offered not a single word of self-criticism about how she contributed to these violent events by encouraging last year's coup, nor did she express the slightest concern about the actions of the coup regime in Kiev, including its dispatch of neo-Nazi militias to carry out "anti-terrorist" and "death squad" operations against ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Nuclear War and Clashing Ukraine Narratives."]
Russia's Fault
Everything was Russia's fault – or as Nuland phrased it: "This manufactured conflict - controlled by the Kremlin; fueled by Russian tanks and heavy weapons; financed at Russian taxpayers' expense - has cost the lives of more than 6,000 Ukrainians, but also of hundreds of young Russians sent to fight and die there by the Kremlin, in a war their government denies."
Nuland was doing her husband proud. As every good propagandist knows, you don't present events with any gray areas; your side is always perfect and the other side is the epitome of evil. And, today, Nuland faces almost no risk that some mainstream journalist will dare contradict this black-and-white storyline; they simply parrot it.
Besides heaping all the blame on the Russians, Nuland cited – in her Senate testimony – some of the new "reforms" that the Kiev authorities have just implemented as they build a "free-market state." She said, "They made tough choices to reduce and cap pension benefits, increase work requirements and phase in a higher retirement age; … they passed laws cutting wasteful gas subsidies."
In other words, many of the "free-market reforms" are aimed at making the hard lives of average Ukrainians even harder – by cutting pensions, removing work protections, forcing people to work into their old age and making them pay more for heat during the winter.
Nuland also hailed some of the regime's stated commitments to fighting corruption. But Kiev seems to have simply installed a new cast of bureaucrats looking to enrich themselves. For instance, Ukraine's Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko is an expatriate American who – before becoming an instant Ukrainian citizen last December – ran a U.S. taxpayer-financed investment fund for Ukraine that was drained of money as she engaged in lucrative insider deals, which she has fought to keep secret. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Ukraine's Finance Minister's American 'Values.'"]
Yet, none of these concerns were mentioned in Nuland's propagandistic testimony to the House and Senate – not that any of the committee members or the mainstream press corps seemed to care that they were being spun and even misled. The hearings were mostly opportunities for members of Congress to engage in chest-beating as they demanded that President Obama send U.S. arms to Ukraine for a hot war with Russia.
Regarding the MH-17 disaster, one reason that I was inquisitive about Nuland's insinuation in her House testimony that the Russians and the ethnic Russian rebels were responsible was that some U.S. intelligence analysts have reached a contrary conclusion, according to a source briefed on their findings. According to that information, the analysts found no proof that the Russians had delivered a BUK anti-aircraft system to the rebels and concluded that the attack was apparently carried out by a rogue element of the Ukrainian military.
After I published that account last summer, the Obama administration went silent about the MH-17 shoot-down, letting stand some initial speculation that had blamed the Russians and the rebels. In the nearly eight months since the tragedy, the U.S. government has failed to make public any intelligence information on the crash. [See Consortiumnews.com's "The Danger of an MH-17 'Cold Case.'"]
So, Nuland may have been a bit duplicitous when she phrased her testimony so that anyone hearing it would jump to the conclusion that the Russians and the rebels were to blame. It's true she didn't exactly say so but she surely knew what impression she was leaving.
In that, Nuland appears to have taken a page from the playbook of her husband's old mentor, Elliott Abrams, who provided misleading testimony to Congress on the Iran-Contra Affair in the 1980s – and even though he was convicted of that offense, Abrams was pardoned by President George H.W. Bush and thus was able to return to government last decade to oversee the selling of the Iraq War.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America's Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry's trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America's Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.
Friend (MakePeaceNotWar), March 11, 2015 at 7:25 pm
I'm terribly sorry, but I would like to post this small joke from the other side of the ocean. The knowledge of geography and facts shown by representatives of the U.S. State's Department is so overwhelming that one can proudly claim:dennis morrisseau, March 11, 2015 at 8:12 pm"1 nuland = 100 psakis"
Thank you for your attention, please don't be insulted.
PS Jane Psaki and Marie Harf are inventors of the Belarussian sea (Belarus is a landlocked country), Rostov mountains (Rostov region in Russia consists of flatlands only) and the dependence of Russian on European export and gas (it's the opposite in reality). For Europeans it's like saying Grand Hill of America instead of the Great Canyon and Lincolnton instead of Washington.
PSS Mrs. Nuland claimed that Crimeans are mostly unhappy about joining Russia (well, according to the German GfK survey published in BloombergReview only 4% are unhappy – but it's of course a lie, evil Putin must have put pressur eon GfK to puvlish these data).
xxx, March 11, 2015 at 9:15 pmCookie Nudelman is perhaps beginning to lose some of her chocolate chips?
2LT Dennis Morrisseau USArmy [armor – Vietnam era] retired.
The crash occurred over territory controlled by pro-Russian separatists, during a battle in Donbass, in an area controlled by the Donbass People's Militia. According to American and German intelligence sources, the plane was shot down by pro-Russian separatists using a Buk surface-to-air missile fired from the territory which they controlled. The Russians denied any and all access to the wreckage, contravening standards for investigating civilian aircraft disasters. Evidence from open sources indicated that separatists in Ukraine were in control of a Buk missile launcher on 17 July and transported it from Donetsk to Snizhne.Immediately after the crash, a post appeared on the VKontakte social media website attributed to Igor Girkin, leader of the Donbass separatists, claiming responsibility for shooting down an AN-26, but after it became clear that a civilian aircraft had been shot down, the separatists denied any involvement, and the post was taken down. Malaysia said intelligence reports on the downing of MH17 were "pretty conclusive", but more investigation was necessary to be certain that a surface-to-air missile brought down the plane.
US sources attributed the downing to a missile fired from separatist-controlled territory, with their judgment based on sensors that traced the path of the missile, analysis of shrapnel patterns in the wreckage, voice print analysis of separatists' conversations in which they claimed credit for the strike, as well as photos and other data from social media sites.
The underlying assumptions of this and other articles by Mr. Parry on this and other questions regarding Russia is that anything the West says is always a lie and anything Putin says is always the truth.
What absurdity!
Gregory Kruse, March 11, 2015 at 11:04 pm
You should apply for a job at the State Department, but I have a few points to question.
1. The territory held by the "separatists" is so small that it would be impossible to determine that anything occurred "over" that territory.
2. According to German and US propaganda, the plane was shot down by ….etc.
3. The Russians denied any and all access to the wreckage, but the US analyzed the shrapnel patterns and there was plenty of pictures and other data from social media.
4. There were sensors all over the place but there has been no presentation of such data.
5. Some separatists admitted to downing the plane, proven by "voice print analysis of their conversations".
6. Parry thinks the West always lies, and Putin always tells the truth. This is called personalization. How about, " the West always lies, but the East always tells the truth". Or, Victoria Nuland always lies, and Putin always tells the truth". None of these ways of saying it are true, but the first one seems less absurd because it is clever propaganda, and that's the point.Nick Gibbon, March 12, 2015 at 3:13 am
If from this article you don't question US sources on, oh, most things these days then pity you.
Meanwhile here's some proper, rational analysis about MH17:-
Joe B, March 12, 2015 at 8:36 am
Your sources are not credible at all. None of those "analyses" have any value at all, and the suppression of information by the US proves the deception.1. "sensors that traced the path of the missile"
In fact no such evidence was presented or claimed: the whole debate would be different if that existed. The US denied any such photos and presented none. Russia claimed photos showing Ukraine fighter planes near the plane.2. "analysis of shrapnel patterns in the wreckage"
The evidence was concealed, reports were of shrapnel vs. bullets although photos showed bullet-like holes. If a missile it might have just as well have been air-launched. If ground-launched, both sides had SAMs in the area.3. voice print analysis of separatists' conversations … from social media sites.
This evidence is absurdly vague and suspect. If such persons so claimed, it was apparently gossip; we are of course not given the contrary gossip.
The fact that the USG suppressed the aerial photos, flight recorder data, ATC communications, etc., and accused Russia repeatedly of sending in armored divisions with no evidence whatsoever, proves the intent to deceive We the People by any and all means whatsoever. No USG "evidence" in this matter has any credibility, and those who accept it at face value merely state a lack of concern for truth and justice.
Joe L, March 12, 2015 at 10:31 am
Have you read Robert Parry's article "Germans Clear Russia in MH-17 Case" (October 20, 2014)? I believe this article is based on a Der Spiegel article where German Intelligence, the BND, claim that they believe that the "rebels" shot down MH-17 but they did it with a "captured" BUK missile system from a "Ukrainian Military Base"! Also in the article it points out that the German BND dismiss Russian evidence of an SU-25 shoot-down but also that photos provided by the Ukrainian Government of MH-17 "have been manipulated". Also, you are using "evidence" from "social media" as evidence? Well for me, if this truly was shot down by Russia or the "rebels" I am sure that the US would have satellite data since I believe there was a satellite overhead on that day and the US being the largest surveillance apparatus on the planet. With such surveillance power available to the west, why has the investigation of MH-17 devolved to mainly evidence from "social media"?
By the way, here is the article to Mr. Parry's article.
Consortium News: "Germans Clear Russia in MH-17 Case" (October 20, 2014):
https://consortiumnews.com/2014/10/20/germans-clear-russia-in-mh-17-case/spktruth200, March 11, 2015 at 10:41 pm
Russia told the EU that they had a sat image proving Kiev Right Wing Nazis in charge of the Kiev military actually shot down the plane in an effort to blame Russia. Immediately Merkel and Holland made a desperate trip to Moscow to keep them from responding…Notice, not one corporate media has ever brought that issue up again. EU and foreign governments also know who really did 911, and PUTIN threatened to go public on that issue too.
madeleine, March 12, 2015 at 12:32 am
thank you for showing how deceitful these neocons really are.
seems like the US is the new USSR !
Huley, March 12, 2015 at 1:36 pm
No, that is totally wrong: The necon-US is getting more and more a HITLER-style regime, a NAZI-regime, mentally sick, preparing and organizing chaos, regime-change, war, ethnic clensing all over the world: "Exceptionalsm", "leader of the world", "to be the first", are nothing but synonyms for conquering the world. The US is getting the most hatetd state in the world.
The neocons should be eliminated before they take their chance destroying the world.
Andrew Nichols, March 12, 2015 at 12:43 am
Nuland is of the Goebbelsian propaganda school where it doesnt matter whether or not what she says is true, it becomes the truth because its repeated enough. I do wonder if she thinks she can survive nuclear war. We live in dark times a pivotal moment where the Empire really is upping the ante. We may not survive it.
Mary, March 12, 2015 at 1:18 am
Nuland and her hubby - war pigs.Sydney Vilen, March 12, 2015 at 2:08 am
Why did Hillary Clinton bring Nuland, former adviser to VP Dick Cheney, into the State Department? The answer to this seems very relevant to the next presidential election.Bob, March 12, 2015 at 12:48 pmI completely agree, the answer to this question may well be the answer to All of our perplexing questions…jimbo, March 12, 2015 at 11:49 am
I have been with Parry and his view that the Russians are the better guys in this conflict but I am being swayed in another direction especially due to a report on Vice which shows how active duty Russian soldiers had been killed in the Ukraine.Huley, March 12, 2015 at 1:18 pm
This rotten mad creature should be brought to justice like the complete bunch of neocon organized criminals and fascists.Tom Coombs, March 12, 2015 at 2:24 pm
Hey Robert keep up the good work. I was checking my bookmarked "Project for New American Century" today (it's been a long time since i visited the site) the website is gone, is there anyway to get an archived copy? I was introducing your website and your books to a friend of mine who is the editor of the "Valley Voice" a bi-weekly paper in the Slocan Valley of British Columbia in Canada. I lent her the four books of yours and was trying to show her the American Century website. Could you e-mail me and let me know how i can get a copy of their manifesto, i consider it the mein kamf of our time…Tom CoombsCharron, March 12, 2015 at 2:35 pm
I saw the testimony Ms. Nuland gave before the Senators of the Foreign Affairs Committee last week on CSpan. After hearing a number of questions and comments by the Senators of the Foreign Relations committee I was extremely depressed. I have never heard such drivel in all my 84 years.One Senator wanted assurance that we would install a nuclear missile system in the Ukraine, and I well remember what our reaction was when we learned that Soviet Russia was installing missile systems in Cuba. They were so cocksure and oblivious to reality I felt we were being governed by mad men.
I mean I came away extremely scared. They were all so unconnected with reality, it was unbelievable, and the Democrat Senators on the committee were as bad as the Republican. They had no understanding of what was going on in the Ukraine! You would think that as Senators they would have some slight understanding but they were all posturing as defenders of freedom and protectors of America from the evil Putin. They were all playing out a role in the morality play that they had created, that had no connection with reality. I mean I am used to baloney from our members of Congress, but this was on another level. Unbelievable!
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Zero Hedge
Authored by Ben Tanosborn,For years, Winston Churchill's famous quote, "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried," has served as Americans' last word in any political discussion which requires validation of the US government, no matter how corrupt or flawed in its behavior, as the best in the planet, comparatively or by default. Never mind the meaning that Mr. Churchill had intended back in 1947, or how the international political panorama has changed during the past seven decades.
These remarks were made by Britain's prime minister before the House of Commons a few months before there was a changing of the guards in the "Anglo-Saxon Empire" as the Brits gave away their colonial hegemony in favor of the super-influential economic and military power represented by the United States. And that was symbolically marked by Britain's relinquishing its mandate in Palestine, and the creation of Israel.
Such reference to democracy in the quote, explicitly defining it as a "government by the people," basically applied to Britain and the United States at the close of World War II; but such condition has deteriorated in the US to the point where the "common people" no longer have a say as to how the nation is run, either directly or through politicians elected with financial support provided by special interests, undoubtedly expecting their loyalty-vote. Yet, while this un-democratization period in our system of government was happening, there were many nations that were adopting a true code of democracy, their citizens having a greater say as to how their countries are governed. Recognizing such occurrence, however, is a seditious sin for an American mind still poisoned by the culture of exceptionalism and false pride in which it has been brainwashed.
And that's where our empire, or sphere of influence, stands these days… fighting the windmills of the world, giants that we see menacing "American interests," and doing it under the banner of "for democracy and human rights." Such lofty empire aims appear to rationalize an obscene military budget almost twice as large as those of Russia, China, India and United Kingdom combined! Americans, representing less than 5 percent of the world's population, are footing a military bill almost twice as large as that expended by half of the world's population. If that isn't imperialistic and obscene, it's difficult to image what other societal behavior could be more detrimental to peace and harmony in this global village where we all try to co-exist.
Empires and global powers of the past most often resorted to deposing of antagonistic foreign rulers by invading their countries and installing amicable/subservient puppet rulers. The United States and the United Kingdom, perhaps trying to find refuge, or an excuse, in their democratic tradition, have resorted to regime change "manipulations" to deal with adversary governments-nations. [Bush43's Iraq invasion stands as a critical exception by a mongrel government: half-criminal (Dick Cheney-as mentor), and half-moronic (George W. Bush-as mentee).]
Regime change has served the United States well throughout much of the Americas from time immemorial; an endless litany of dictators attesting to shameless in-your-face puppetry… manipulations taking the form of sheer military force, or the fear of such force; bribery of those in power, or about to attain power – usually via military coup; or the promise of help from the Giant of the North (US) in improving economic growth, education and health. Kennedy's 1961 Alliance for Progress proved to be more political-PR than an honest, effective effort to help the people in Latin America… such program becoming stale and passé in Washington by decade's end; the focus shifting in a feverish attempt to counter the efforts by Castro's Cuba to awaken the revolutionary spirit of sister republics in Central and South America (Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua…).
After almost two centuries of political and economic meddling in Latin America under the Monroe Doctrine (1823) banner, much of it involving regime change, the US is finally coming to terms with the reality that its influence has not just waned but disappeared. Not just in nations which may have adopted socialist politics, but other nations as well. US' recent attempt to get other regional republics to label Venezuela (Maduro's leftist government) as a security threat not only met with opposition from the twelve-country Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) but has brought in the end of an era. It's now highly unlikely that secretive efforts by the CIA to effect regime change in Latin America will find support; certainly not the support it had in the past.
To Washington's despair, similar results, if for other reasons, are happening throughout North Africa and the extended Middle East; certainly not the results the US had hoped for or anticipated from the revolutionary wave in the Arab Spring, now entering its fifth year. It is no longer the flow of oil that keeps Washington committed to a very strong presence in the Middle East. It is America's Siamese relationship with Israel.
But if regime change is no longer an effective weapon for the US in Latin America or the Middle East, the hope is still high that it might work in Eastern Europe, as America keeps corralling Russian defenses to within a holler of American missilery. Ukraine's year-old regime change is possibly the last hurrah in US-instigated regime changes… and it is still too early to determine its success; the US counting on its front-line European NATO partners to absorb the recoil in terms of both the economy and a confrontational status now replacing prior smooth relations.
Somehow it is difficult to envision an outcome taking place in Ukraine which would allow the United States a foothold at the very doorsteps of Russia; something totally as inconceivable as if China or Russia were contemplating establishing military bases in Mexico or any part of Central America or the Caribbean.
The era of using regime change as a weapon of mass deception may have already ended for the United States of America… and hopefully for the entire world.
Mon, 03/23/2015 - 22:46 | 5920475 JustObserving
America has always lied itself to war - few believe US lies now. Obama almost lied his way to a war with Syria about sarin:
Lies: An Abbreviated History of U.S. Presidents Leading Us to War
8. Vietnam (Kennedy, Johnson, 1964) -- Lies: Johnson said Vietnam attacked our ships in the Gulf of Tonkin in August, 1964.Truth: The US didn't want to lose the southeast Asia region, and its oil and sea lanes, to China. This "attack" was convenient. Kennedy initiated the first major increase in US troops (over 500).
9. Gulf War (G.H.W. Bush, 1991) -- Lies: To defend Kuwait from Iraq. Truth: Saddam was a threat to Israel, and we wanted his oil and land for bases.
10. Balkans (Clinton, 1999) -- Lies: Prevent Serb killing of Bosnians. Truth: Get the Chinese out of Eastern Europe (remember the "accidental" bombing of their embassy in Belgrade?) so they could not get control of the oil in the Caspian region and Eastward. Control land for bases such as our huge Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, and for the proposed Trans-Balkan Oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea area to the Albanian port of Valona on the Adriatic Sea.
11. Afghan (G.W. Bush, 2001) -- Lies: The Taliban were hiding Osama. Truth: To build a gas/oil pipeline from Turkmenistan and other northern 'xxstan' countries to a warm water (all year) port in the Arabian Sea near Karachi (same reason the Russians were there), plus land for bases.
12. Iraq (G.W. Bush, 2003) -- Lies: Stop use of WMDs -- whoops, bring Democracy, or whatever.Truth: Oil, defense of Israel, land for permanent bases (we were kicked out of Saudi Arabia) to manage the greater Middle East, restore oil sales in USD (Saddam had changed to Euros)
http://www.activistpost.com/2010/12/13-lies-abbreviated-history-of-us.ht...
Lies and Consequences in Our Past 15 Wars
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/9419-lies-and-consequences-in-our-pas...
gdogus erectus
Even articles like this erroneously refer to the US as a democracy. WTF. The programming runs deep.
"A republic...if you can keep it."
cornfritter
Very poorly written article. Better to say that Andy Jackson was about the last bad ass to fight of the banksters and die a natural death, then Salmon Chase and his buddies passed the legal tender laws, and shortly thereafter (or possibly before) London dispatched the Fabian socialists with their patient gradualism. We were firmly back under the yoke of London banking cartel come 1913. And you are correct, a republic is an EXTREMELY limited form of democracy (not truly akin to traditional 51% takes it democratic concepts at all). The elected leader's function was supposed to be to guard the principles of the Constitution and the limited Republic, and history will remember that, despite this cruft of an article.
In the eyes of many who founded this nation, it was only a stepping stone to a global government, the new Rome - but the new Rome will be the UN with a global bank, and the multinational corporations holding court, and then the end come.
Then again, I may be wrong.
negative rates
suteibuWhat passes for gvt is silly these days, we are a legend in our own minds.
anusocracy"Governments would become political churches"
Like in the Middle East? And you will counter by saying that people are forced to live under those governments and, yet, thousands are freely going there from around the world to join ISIS.
Otherwise, such a system would work right up until one government church decided there wasn't enough room in the area for competitors (probably within a year, maybe six months). Let the political/religious tribal wars begin.
|Bankers couldn't be banksters without government.
Maybe it's the monopoly of force thingy you don't understand.
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July 1, 2008 | Foreign Affairs
Listen to this essay on CFR.org
What is the national interest? This is a question that I took up in 2000 in these pages. That was a time that we as a nation revealingly called "the post-Cold War era." We knew better where we had been than where we were going. Yet monumental changes were unfolding -- changes that were recognized at the time but whose implications were largely unclear.
And then came the attacks of September 11, 2001. As in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the United States was swept into a fundamentally different world. We were called to lead with a new urgency and with a new perspective on what constituted threats and what might emerge as opportunities. And as with previous strategic shocks, one can cite elements of both continuity and change in our foreign policy since the attacks of September 11.
What has not changed is that our relations with traditional and emerging great powers still matter to the successful conduct of policy. Thus, my admonition in 2000 that we should seek to get right the "relationships with the big powers" -- Russia, China, and emerging powers such as India and Brazil -- has consistently guided us. As before, our alliances in the Americas, Europe, and Asia remain the pillars of the international order, and we are now transforming them to meet the challenges of a new era.
What has changed is, most broadly, how we view the relationship between the dynamics within states and the distribution of power among them. As globalization strengthens some states, it exposes and exacerbates the failings of many others -- those too weak or poorly governed to address challenges within their borders and prevent them from spilling out and destabilizing the international order. In this strategic environment, it is vital to our national security that states be willing and able to meet the full range of their sovereign responsibilities, both beyond their borders and within them. This new reality has led us to some significant changes in our policy. We recognize that democratic state building is now an urgent component of our national interest. And in the broader Middle East, we recognize that freedom and democracy are the only ideas that can, over time, lead to just and lasting stability, especially in Afghanistan and Iraq.
As in the past, our policy has been sustained not just by our strength but also by our values. The United States has long tried to marry power and principle -- realism and idealism. At times, there have been short-term tensions between them. But we have always known where our long-term interests lie. Thus, the United States has not been neutral about the importance of human rights or the superiority of democracy as a form of government, both in principle and in practice. This uniquely American realism has guided us over the past eight years, and it must guide us over the years to come.
GREAT POWER, OLD AND NEW
By necessity, our relationships with Russia and China have been rooted more in common interests than common values. With Russia, we have found common ground, as evidenced by the "strategic framework" agreement that President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed in Sochi in March of this year. Our relationship with Russia has been sorely tested by Moscow's rhetoric, by its tendency to treat its neighbors as lost "spheres of influence," and by its energy policies that have a distinct political tinge. And Russia's internal course has been a source of considerable disappointment, especially because in 2000 we hoped that it was moving closer to us in terms of values.
Yet it is useful to remember that Russia is not the Soviet Union. It is neither a permanent enemy nor a strategic threat. Russians now enjoy greater opportunity and, yes, personal freedom than at almost any other time in their country's history. But that alone is not the standard to which Russians themselves want to be held. Russia is not just a great power; it is also the land and culture of a great people. And in the twenty-first century, greatness is increasingly defined by the technological and economic development that flows naturally in open and free societies. That is why the full development both of Russia and of our relationship with it still hangs in the balance as the country's internal transformation unfolds.
The last eight years have also challenged us to deal with rising Chinese influence, something we have no reason to fear if that power is used responsibly. We have stressed to Beijing that with China's full membership in the international community comes responsibilities, whether in the conduct of its economic and trade policy, its approach to energy and the environment, or its policies in the developing world. China's leaders increasingly realize this, and they are moving, albeit slowly, to a more cooperative approach on a range of problems. For instance, on Darfur, after years of unequivocally supporting Khartoum, China endorsed the UN Security Council resolution authorizing the deployment of a hybrid United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force and dispatched an engineering battalion to pave the way for those peacekeepers. China needs to do much more on issues such as Darfur, Burma, and Tibet, but we sustain an active and candid dialogue with China's leaders on these challenges.
The United States, along with many other countries, remains concerned about China's rapid development of high-tech weapons systems. We understand that as countries develop, they will modernize their armed forces. But China's lack of transparency about its military spending and doctrine and its strategic goals increases mistrust and suspicion. Although Beijing has agreed to take incremental steps to deepen U.S.-Chinese military-to-military exchanges, it needs to move beyond the rhetoric of peaceful intentions toward true engagement in order to reassure the international community.
Our relationships with Russia and China are complex and characterized simultaneously by competition and cooperation. But in the absence of workable relations with both of these states, diplomatic solutions to many international problems would be elusive. Transnational terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, climate change and instability stemming from poverty and disease -- these are dangers to all successful states, including those that might in another time have been violent rivals. It is incumbent on the United States to find areas of cooperation and strategic agreement with Russia and China, even when there are significant differences.
Obviously, Russia and China carry special responsibility and weight as fellow permanent members of the UN Security Council, but this has not been the only forum in which we have worked together. Another example has emerged in Northeast Asia with the six-party framework. The North Korean nuclear issue could have led to conflict among the states of Northeast Asia, or to the isolation of the United States, given the varied and vital interests of China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States. Instead, it has become an opportunity for cooperation and coordination as the efforts toward verifiable denuclearization proceed. And when North Korea tested a nuclear device last year, the five other parties already were an established coalition and went quickly to the Security Council for a Chapter 7 resolution. That, in turn, put considerable pressure on North Korea to return to the six-party talks and to shut down and begin disabling its Yongbyon reactor. The parties intend to institutionalize these habits of cooperation through the establishment of a Northeast Asian Peace and Security Mechanism -- a first step toward a security forum in the region.
The importance of strong relations with global players extends to those that are emerging. With those, particularly India and Brazil, the United States has built deeper and broader ties. India stands on the front lines of globalization. This democratic nation promises to become a global power and an ally in shaping an international order rooted in freedom and the rule of law. Brazil's success at using democracy and markets to address centuries of pernicious social inequality has global resonance. Today, India and Brazil look outward as never before, secure in their ability to compete and succeed in the global economy. In both countries, national interests are being redefined as Indians and Brazilians realize their direct stake in a democratic, secure, and open international order -- and their commensurate responsibilities for strengthening it and defending it against the major transnational challenges of our era. We have a vital interest in the success and prosperity of these and other large multiethnic democracies with global reach, such as Indonesia and South Africa. And as these emerging powers change the geopolitical landscape, it will be important that international institutions also change to reflect this reality. This is why President Bush has made clear his support for a reasonable expansion of the UN Security Council.
SHARED VALUES AND SHARED RESPONSIBILITY
As important as relations are with Russia and China, it is our work with our allies, those with whom we share values, that is transforming international politics -- for this work presents an opportunity to expand the ranks of well-governed, law-abiding democratic states in our world and to defeat challenges to this vision of international order. Cooperation with our democratic allies, therefore, should not be judged simply by how we relate to one another. It should be judged by the work we do together to defeat terrorism and extremism, meet global challenges, defend human rights and dignity, and support new democracies.
In the Americas, this has meant strengthening our ties with strategic democracies such as Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, and Chile in order to further the democratic development of our hemisphere. Together, we have supported struggling states, such as Haiti, in locking in their transitions to democracy and security. Together, we are defending ourselves against drug traffickers, criminal gangs, and the few autocratic outliers in our democratic hemisphere. The region still faces challenges, including Cuba's coming transition and the need to support, unequivocally, the Cuban people's right to a democratic future. There is no doubt that centuries-old suspicions of the United States persist in the region. But we have begun to write a new narrative that speaks not only to macroeconomic development and trade but also to the need for democratic leaders to address problems of social justice and inequality.
I believe that one of the most compelling stories of our time is our relationship with our oldest allies. The goal of a Europe whole, free, and at peace is very close to completion. The United States welcomes a strong, united, and coherent Europe. There is no doubt that the European Union has been a superb anchor for the democratic evolution of eastern Europe after the Cold War. Hopefully, the day will come when Turkey takes its place in the EU.
Membership in the EU and NATO has been attractive enough to lead countries to make needed reforms and to seek the peaceful resolution of long-standing conflicts with their neighbors. The reverse has been true as well: the new members have transformed these two pillars of the transatlantic relationship. Twelve of the 28 members of NATO are former "captive nations," countries once in the Soviet sphere. The effect of their joining the alliance is felt in a renewed dedication to promoting and protecting democracy. Whether sending troops to Afghanistan or Iraq or fiercely defending the continued expansion of NATO, these states have brought new energy and fervor to the alliance.
In recent years, the mission and the purpose of the alliance have also been transformed. Indeed, many can remember when NATO viewed the world in two parts: Europe and "out of area," which was basically everywhere else. If someone had said in 2000 that NATO today would be rooting out terrorists in Kandahar, training the security forces of a free Iraq, providing critical support to peacekeepers in Darfur, and moving forward on missile defenses, hopefully in partnership with Russia, who would have believed him? The endurance and resilience of the transatlantic alliance is one reason that I believe Lord Palmerston got it wrong when he said that nations have no permanent allies. The United States does have permanent allies: the nations with whom we share common values.
Democratization is also deepening across the Asia-Pacific region. This is expanding our circle of allies and advancing the goals we share. Indeed, although many assume that the rise of China will determine the future of Asia, so, too -- and perhaps to an even greater degree -- will the broader rise of an increasingly democratic community of Asian states. This is the defining geopolitical event of the twenty-first century, and the United States is right in the middle of it. We enjoy a strong, democratic alliance with Australia, with key states in Southeast Asia, and with Japan -- an economic giant that is emerging as a "normal" state, capable of working to secure and spread our values both in Asia and beyond. South Korea, too, has become a global partner whose history can boast an inspiring journey from poverty and dictatorship to democracy and prosperity. Finally, the United States has a vital stake in India's rise to global power and prosperity, and relations between the two countries have never been stronger or broader. It will take continued work, but this is a dramatic breakthrough for both our strategic interests and our values.
It is now possible to speak of emerging democratic allies in Africa as well. Too often, Africa is thought of only as a humanitarian concern or a zone of conflict. But the continent has seen successful transitions to democracy in several states, among them Ghana, Liberia, Mali, and Mozambique. Our administration has worked to help the democratic leaders of these and other states provide for their people -- most of all by attacking the continental scourge of HIV/AIDS in an unprecedented effort of power, imagination, and mercy. We have also been an active partner in resolving conflicts -- from the conclusion of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which ended the civil war between the North and the South in Sudan, to active engagement in the Great Lakes region, to the intervention of a small contingent of U.S. military forces in coordination with the African Union to end the conflict in Liberia. Although conflicts in Darfur, Somalia, and other places tragically remain violent and unresolved, it is worth noting the considerable progress that African states are making on many fronts and the role that the United States has played in supporting African efforts to solve the continent's greatest problems.
A DEMOCRATIC MODEL OF DEVELOPMENT
Although the United States' ability to influence strong states is limited, our ability to enhance the peaceful political and economic development of weak and poorly governed states can be considerable. We must be willing to use our power for this purpose -- not only because it is necessary but also because it is right. Too often, promoting democracy and promoting development are thought of as separate goals. In fact, it is increasingly clear that the practices and institutions of democracy are essential to the creation of sustained, broad-based economic development -- and that market-driven development is essential to the consolidation of democracy. Democratic development is a unified political-economic model, and it offers the mix of flexibility and stability that best enables states to seize globalization's opportunities and manage its challenges. And for those who think otherwise: What real alternative worthy of America is there?
Democratic development is not only an effective path to wealth and power; it is also the best way to ensure that these benefits are shared justly across entire societies, without exclusion, repression, or violence. We saw this recently in Kenya, where democracy enabled civil society, the press, and business leaders to join together to insist on an inclusive political bargain that could stem the country's slide into ethnic cleansing and lay a broader foundation for national reconciliation. In our own hemisphere, democratic development has opened up old, elite-dominated systems to millions on the margins of society. These people are demanding the benefits of citizenship long denied them, and because they are doing so democratically, the real story in our hemisphere since 2001 is not that our neighbors have given up on democracy and open markets; it is that they are broadening our region's consensus in support of democratic development by ensuring that it leads to social justice for the most marginalized citizens.
The untidiness of democracy has led some to wonder if weak states might not be better off passing through a period of authoritarian capitalism. A few countries have indeed succeeded with this model, and its allure is only heightened when democracy is too slow in delivering or incapable of meeting high expectations for a better life. Yet for every state that embraces authoritarianism and manages to create wealth, there are many, many more that simply make poverty, inequality, and corruption worse. For those that are doing pretty well economically, it is worth asking whether they might be doing even better with a freer system. Ultimately, it is at least an open question whether authoritarian capitalism is itself an indefinitely sustainable model. Is it really possible in the long run for governments to respect their citizen's talents but not their rights? I, for one, doubt it.
For the United States, promoting democratic development must remain a top priority. Indeed, there is no realistic alternative that we can -- or should -- offer to influence the peaceful evolution of weak and poorly governed states. The real question is not whether to pursue this course but how.
We first need to recognize that democratic development is always possible but never fast or easy. This is because democracy is really the complex interplay of democratic practices and culture. In the experience of countless nations, ours especially, we see that culture is not destiny. Nations of every culture, race, religion, and level of development have embraced democracy and adapted it to their own circumstances and traditions. No cultural factor has yet been a stumbling block -- not German or Japanese "militarism," not "Asian values," not African "tribalism," not Latin America's alleged fondness for caudillos, not the once-purported preference of eastern Europeans for despotism.
The fact is, few nations begin the democratic journey with a democratic culture. The vast majority create one over time -- through the hard, daily struggle to make good laws, build democratic institutions, tolerate differences, resolve them peacefully, and share power justly. Unfortunately, it is difficult to grow the habits of democracy in the controlled environment of authoritarianism, to have them ready and in place when tyranny is lifted. The process of democratization is likely to be messy and unsatisfactory, but it is absolutely necessary. Democracy, it is said, cannot be imposed, particularly by a foreign power. This is true but beside the point. It is more likely that tyranny has to be imposed.
The story today is rarely one of peoples resisting the basics of democracy -- the right to choose those who will govern them and other basic freedoms. It is, instead, about people choosing democratic leaders and then becoming impatient with them and holding them accountable on their duty to deliver a better life. It is strongly in our national interest to help sustain these leaders, support their countries' democratic institutions, and ensure that their new governments are capable of providing for their own security, especially when their nations have experienced crippling conflicts. To do so will require long-term partnerships rooted in mutual responsibility and the integration of all elements of our national power -- political, diplomatic, economic, and, at times, military. We have recently built such partnerships to great effect with countries as different as Colombia, Lebanon, and Liberia. Indeed, a decade ago, Colombia was on the verge of failure. Today, in part because of our long-term partnership with courageous leaders and citizens, Colombia is emerging as a normal nation, with democratic institutions that are defending the country, governing justly, reducing poverty, and contributing to international security.
We must now build long-term partnerships with other new and fragile democracies, especially Afghanistan. The basics of democracy are taking root in this country after nearly three decades of tyranny, violence, and war. For the first time in their history, Afghans have a government of the people, elected in presidential and parliamentary elections, and guided by a constitution that codifies the rights of all citizens. The challenges in Afghanistan do not stem from a strong enemy. The Taliban offers a political vision that very few Afghans embrace. Rather, they exploit the current limitations of the Afghan government, using violence against civilians and revenues from illegal narcotics to impose their rule. Where the Afghan government, with support from the international community, has been able to provide good governance and economic opportunity, the Taliban is in retreat. The United States and NATO have a vital interest in supporting the emergence of an effective, democratic Afghan state that can defeat the Taliban and deliver "population security" -- addressing basic needs for safety, services, the rule of law, and increased economic opportunity. We share this goal with the Afghan people, who do not want us to leave until we have accomplished our common mission. We can succeed in Afghanistan, but we must be prepared to sustain a partnership with that new democracy for many years to come.
One of our best tools for supporting states in building democratic institutions and strengthening civil society is our foreign assistance, but we must use it correctly. One of the great advances of the past eight years has been the creation of a bipartisan consensus for the more strategic use of foreign assistance. We have begun to transform our assistance into an incentive for developing states to govern justly, advance economic freedom, and invest in their people. This is the great innovation of the Millennium Challenge Account initiative. More broadly, we are now better aligning our foreign aid with our foreign policy goals -- so as to help developing countries move from war to peace, poverty to prosperity, poor governance to democracy and the rule of law. At the same time, we have launched historic efforts to help remove obstacles to democratic development -- by forgiving old debts, feeding the hungry, expanding access to education, and fighting pandemics such as malaria and HIV/AIDS. Behind all of these efforts is the overwhelming generosity of the American people, who since 2001 have supported the near tripling of the United States' official development assistance worldwide -- doubling it for Latin America and quadrupling it for Africa.
Ultimately, one of the best ways to support the growth of democratic institutions and civil society is to expand free and fair trade and investment. The very process of implementing a trade agreement or a bilateral investment treaty helps to hasten and consolidate democratic development. Legal and political institutions that can enforce property rights are better able to protect human rights and the rule of law. Independent courts that can resolve commercial disputes can better resolve civil and political disputes. The transparency needed to fight corporate corruption makes it harder for political corruption to go unnoticed and unpunished. A rising middle class also creates new centers of social power for political movements and parties. Trade is a divisive issue in our country right now, but we must not forget that it is essential not only for the health of our domestic economy but also for the success our foreign policy.
There will always be humanitarian needs, but our goal must be to use the tools of foreign assistance, security cooperation, and trade together to help countries graduate to self-sufficiency. We must insist that these tools be used to promote democratic development. It is in our national interest to do so.
THE CHANGING MIDDLE EAST
What about the broader Middle East, the arc of states that stretches from Morocco to Pakistan? The Bush administration's approach to this region has been its most vivid departure from prior policy. But our approach is, in reality, an extension of traditional tenets -- incorporating human rights and the promotion of democratic development into a policy meant to further our national interest. What is exceptional is that the Middle East was treated as an exception for so many decades. U.S. policy there focused almost exclusively on stability. There was little dialogue, certainly not publicly, about the need for democratic change.
For six decades, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, a basic bargain defined the United States' engagement in the broader Middle East: we supported authoritarian regimes, and they supported our shared interest in regional stability. After September 11, it became increasingly clear that this old bargain had produced false stability. There were virtually no legitimate channels for political expression in the region. But this did not mean that there was no political activity. There was -- in madrasahs and radical mosques. It is no wonder that the best-organized political forces were extremist groups. And it was there, in the shadows, that al Qaeda found the troubled souls to prey on and exploit as its foot soldiers in its millenarian war against the "far enemy."
One response would have been to fight the terrorists without addressing this underlying cause. Perhaps it would have been possible to manage these suppressed tensions for a while. Indeed, the quest for justice and a new equilibrium on which the nations of the broader Middle East are now embarked is very turbulent. But is it really worse than the situation before? Worse than when Lebanon suffered under the boot of Syrian military occupation? Worse than when the self-appointed rulers of the Palestinians personally pocketed the world's generosity and squandered their best chance for a two-state peace? Worse than when the international community imposed sanctions on innocent Iraqis in order to punish the man who tyrannized them, threatened Iraq's neighbors, and bulldozed 300,000 human beings into unmarked mass graves? Or worse than the decades of oppression and denied opportunity that spawned hopelessness, fed hatreds, and led to the sort of radicalization that brought about the ideology behind the September 11 attacks? Far from being the model of stability that some seem to remember, the Middle East from 1945 on was wracked repeatedly by civil conflicts and cross-border wars. Our current course is certainly difficult, but let us not romanticize the old bargains of the Middle East -- for they yielded neither justice nor stability.
The president's second inaugural address and my speech at the American University in Cairo in June 2005 have been held up as rhetorical declarations that have faded in the face of hard realities. No one will argue that the goal of democratization and modernization in the broader Middle East lacks ambition, and we who support it fully acknowledge that it will be a difficult, generational task. No one event, and certainly not a speech, will bring it into being. But if America does not set the goal, no one will.
This goal is made more complicated by the fact that the future of the Middle East is bound up in many of our other vital interests: energy security, nonproliferation, the defense of friends and allies, the resolution of old conflicts, and, most of all, the need for near-term partners in the global struggle against violent Islamist extremism. To state, however, that we must promote either our security interests or our democratic ideals is to present a false choice. Admittedly, our interests and our ideals do come into tension at times in the short term. America is not an NGO and must balance myriad factors in our relations with all countries. But in the long term, our security is best ensured by the success of our ideals: freedom, human rights, open markets, democracy, and the rule of law.
The leaders and citizens of the broader Middle East are now searching for answers to the fundamental questions of modern state building: What are to be the limits on the state's use of power, both within and beyond its borders? What will be the role of the state in the lives of its citizens and the relationship between religion and politics? How will traditional values and mores be reconciled with the democratic promise of individual rights and liberty, particularly for women and girls? How is religious and ethnic diversity to be accommodated in fragile political institutions when people tend to hold on to traditional associations? The answers to these and other questions can come only from within the Middle East itself. The task for us is to support and shape these difficult processes of change and to help the nations of the region overcome several major challenges to their emergence as modern, democratic states.
The first challenge is the global ideology of violent Islamist extremism, as embodied by groups, such as al Qaeda, that thoroughly reject the basic tenets of modern politics, seeking instead to topple sovereign states, erase national borders, and restore the imperial structure of the ancient caliphate. To resist this threat, the United States will need friends and allies in the region who are willing and able to take action against the terrorists among them. Ultimately, however, this is more than just a struggle of arms; it is a contest of ideas. Al Qaeda's theory of victory is to hijack the legitimate local and national grievances of Muslim societies and twist them into an ideological narrative of endless struggle against Western, especially U.S., oppression. The good news is that al Qaeda's intolerant ideology can be enforced only through brutality and violence. When people are free to choose, as we have seen in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq's Anbar Province, they reject al Qaeda's ideology and rebel against its control. Our theory of victory, therefore, must be to offer people a democratic path to advance their interests peacefully -- to develop their talents, to redress injustices, and to live in freedom and dignity. In this sense, the fight against terrorism is a kind of global counterinsurgency: the center of gravity is not the enemies we fight but the societies they are trying to radicalize.
Admittedly, our interests in both promoting democratic development and fighting terrorism and extremism lead to some hard choices, because we do need capable friends in the broader Middle East who can root out terrorists now. These states are often not democratic, so we must balance the tensions between our short-term and our long-term goals. We cannot deny nondemocratic states the security assistance to fight terrorism or defend themselves. At the same time, we must use other points of leverage to promote democracy and hold our friends to account. That means supporting civil society, as we have done through the Forum for the Future and the Middle East Partnership Initiative, and using public and private diplomacy to push our nondemocratic partners to reform. Changes are slowly coming in terms of universal suffrage, more influential parliaments, and education for girls and women. We must continue to advocate for reform and support indigenous agents of change in nondemocratic countries, even as we cooperate with their governments on security.
An example of how our administration has balanced these concerns is our relationship with Pakistan. Following years of U.S. neglect of that relationship, our administration had to establish a partnership with Pakistan's military government to achieve a common goal after September 11. We did so knowing that our security and that of Pakistan ultimately required a return to civilian and democratic rule. So even as we worked with President Pervez Musharraf to fight terrorists and extremists, we invested more than $3 billion to strengthen Pakistani society -- building schools and health clinics, providing emergency relief after the 2005 earthquake, and supporting political parties and the rule of law. We urged Pakistan's military leaders to put their country on a modern and moderate trajectory, which in some important respects they did. And when this progress was threatened last year by the declaration of emergency rule, we pushed President Musharraf hard to take off his uniform and hold free elections. Although terrorists tried to thwart the return of democracy and tragically killed many innocent people, including former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistani people dealt extremism a crushing defeat at the polls. This restoration of democracy in Pakistan creates an opportunity for us to build the lasting and broad-based partnership that we have never achieved with this nation, thereby enhancing our security and anchoring the success of our values in a troubled region.
A second challenge to the emergence of a better Middle East is posed by aggressive states that seek not to peacefully reform the present regional order but to alter it using any form of violence -- assassination, intimidation, terrorism. The question is not whether any particular state should have influence in the region. They all do, and will. The real question is, What kind of influence will these states wield -- and to what ends, constructive or destructive? It is this fundamental and still unresolved question that is at the center of many of the geopolitical challenges in the Middle East today -- whether it is Syria's undermining of Lebanon's sovereignty, Iran's pursuit of a nuclear capability, or both states' support for terrorism.
Iran poses a particular challenge. The Iranian regime pursues its disruptive policies both through state instruments, such as the Revolutionary Guards and the al Quds force, and through nonstate proxies that extend Iranian power, such as elements of the Mahdi Army in Iraq, Hamas in Gaza, and Hezbollah in Lebanon and around the world. The Iranian regime seeks to subvert states and extend its influence throughout the Persian Gulf region and the broader Middle East. It threatens the state of Israel with extinction and holds implacable hostility toward the United States. And it is destabilizing Iraq, endangering U.S. forces, and killing innocent Iraqis. The United States is responding to these provocations. Clearly, an Iran with a nuclear weapon or even the technology to build one on demand would be a grave threat to international peace and security.
But there is also another Iran. It is the land of a great culture and a great people, who suffer under repression. The Iranian people deserve to be integrated into the international system, to travel freely and be educated in the best universities. Indeed, the United States has reached out to them with exchanges of sports teams, disaster-relief workers, and artists. By many accounts, the Iranian people are favorably disposed to Americans and to the United States. Our relationship could be different. Should the Iranian government honor the UN Security Council's demands and suspend its uranium enrichment and related activities, the community of nations, including the United States, is prepared to discuss the full range of issues before us. The United States has no permanent enemies.
Ultimately, the many threats that Iran poses must be seen in a broader context: that of a state fundamentally out of step with the norms and values of the international community. Iran must make a strategic choice -- a choice that we have sought to clarify with our approach -- about how and to what ends it will wield its power and influence: Does it want to continue thwarting the legitimate demands of the world, advancing its interests through violence, and deepening the isolation of its people? Or is it open to a better relationship, one of growing trade and exchange, deepening integration, and peaceful cooperation with its neighbors and the broader international community? Tehran should know that changes in its behavior would meet with changes in ours. But Iran should also know that the United States will defend its friends and its interests vigorously until the day that change comes.
A third challenge is finding a way to resolve long-standing conflicts, particularly that between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Our administration has put the idea of democratic development at the center of our approach to this conflict, because we came to believe that the Israelis will not achieve the security they deserve in their Jewish state and the Palestinians will not achieve the better life they deserve in a state of their own until there is a Palestinian government capable of exercising its sovereign responsibilities, both to its citizens and to its neighbors. Ultimately, a Palestinian state must be created that can live side by side with Israel in peace and security. This state will be born not just through negotiations to resolve hard issues related to borders, refugees, and the status of Jerusalem but also through the difficult effort to build effective democratic institutions that can fight terrorism and extremism, enforce the rule of law, combat corruption, and create opportunities for the Palestinians to improve their lives. This confers responsibilities on both parties.
As the experience of the past several years has shown, there is a fundamental disagreement at the heart of Palestinian society -- between those who reject violence and recognize Israel's right to exist and those who do not. The Palestinian people must ultimately make a choice about which future they desire, and it is only democracy that gives them that choice and holds open the possibility of a peaceful way forward to resolve the existential question at the heart of their national life. The United States, Israel, other states in the region, and the international community must do everything in their power to support those Palestinians who would choose a future of peace and compromise. When the two-state solution is finally realized, it will be because of democracy, not despite it.
This is, indeed, a controversial view, and it speaks to one more challenge that must be resolved if democratic and modern states are to emerge in the broader Middle East: how to deal with nonstate groups whose commitment to democracy, nonviolence, and the rule of law is suspect. Because of the long history of authoritarianism in the region, many of the best-organized political parties are Islamist, and some of them have not renounced violence used in the service of political goals. What should be their role in the democratic process? Will they take power democratically only to subvert the very process that brought them victory? Are elections in the broader Middle East therefore dangerous?
These questions are not easy. When Hamas won elections in the Palestinian territories, it was widely seen as a failure of policy. But although this victory most certainly complicated affairs in the broader Middle East, in another way it helped to clarify matters. Hamas had significant power before those elections -- largely the power to destroy. After the elections, Hamas also had to face real accountability for its use of power for the first time. This has enabled the Palestinian people, and the international community, to hold Hamas to the same basic standards of responsibility to which all governments should be held. Through its continued unwillingness to behave like a responsible regime rather than a violent movement, Hamas has demonstrated that it is wholly incapable of governing.
Much attention has been focused on Gaza, which Hamas holds hostage to its incompetent and brutal policies. But in other places, the Palestinians have held Hamas accountable. In the West Bank city of Qalqilya, for instance, where Hamas was elected in 2004, frustrated and fed-up Palestinians voted it out of office in the next election. If there can be a legitimate, effective, and democratic alternative to Hamas (something that Fatah has not yet been), people will likely choose it. This would especially be true if the Palestinians could live a normal life within their own state.
The participation of armed groups in elections is problematic. But the lesson is not that there should not be elections. Rather, there should be standards, like the ones to which the international community has held Hamas after the fact: you can be a terrorist group or you can be a political party, but you cannot be both. As difficult as this problem is, it cannot be the case that people are denied the right to vote just because the outcome might be unpleasant to us. Although we cannot know whether politics will ultimately deradicalize violent groups, we do know that excluding them from the political process grants them power without responsibility. This is yet another challenge that the leaders and the peoples of the broader Middle East must resolve as the region turns to democratic processes and institutions to resolve differences peacefully and without repression.
THE TRANSFORMATION OF IRAQ
Then, of course, there is Iraq, which is perhaps the toughest test of the proposition that democracy can overcome deep divisions and differences. Because Iraq is a microcosm of the region, with its layers of ethnic and sectarian diversity, the Iraqi people's struggle to build a democracy after the fall of Saddam Hussein is shifting the landscape not just of Iraq but of the broader Middle East as well.
The cost of this war, in lives and treasure, for Americans and Iraqis, has been greater than we ever imagined. This story is still being written, and will be for many years to come. Sanctions and weapons inspections, prewar intelligence and diplomacy, troop levels and postwar planning -- these are all important issues that historians will analyze for decades. But the fundamental question that we can ask and debate now is, Was removing Saddam from power the right decision? I continue to believe that it was.
After we fought one war against Saddam and then remained in a formal state of hostilities with him for over a decade, our containment policy began to erode. The community of nations was losing its will to enforce containment, and Iraq's ruler was getting increasingly good at exploiting it through programs such as oil-for-food -- indeed, more than we knew at the time. The failure of containment was increasingly evident in the UN Security Council resolutions that were passed and then violated, in our regular clashes in the no-fly zones, and in President Bill Clinton's decision to launch air strikes in 1998 and then join with Congress to make "regime change" our government's official policy in Iraq. If Saddam was not a threat, why did the community of nations keep the Iraqi people under the most brutal sanctions in modern history? In fact, as the Iraq Survey Group showed, Saddam was ready and willing to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction programs as soon as international pressure had dissipated.
The United States did not overthrow Saddam to democratize the Middle East. It did so to remove a long-standing threat to international security. But the administration was conscious of the goal of democratization in the aftermath of liberation. We discussed the question of whether we should be satisfied with the end of Saddam's rule and the rise of another strongman to replace him. The answer was no, and it was thus avowedly U.S. policy from the outset to try to support the Iraqis in building a democratic Iraq. It is important to remember that we did not overthrow Adolf Hitler to bring democracy to Germany either. But the United States believed that only a democratic Germany could ultimately anchor a lasting peace in Europe.
The democratization of Iraq and the democratization of the Middle East were thus linked. So, too, was the war on terror linked to Iraq, because our goal after September 11 was to address the deeper malignancies of the Middle East, not just the symptoms of them. It is very hard to imagine how a more just and democratic Middle East could ever have emerged with Saddam still at the center of the region.
Our effort in Iraq has been extremely arduous. Iraq was a broken state and a broken society under Saddam. We have made mistakes. That is undeniable. The explosion to the surface of long-suppressed grievances has challenged fragile, young democratic institutions. But there is no other decent and peaceful way for the Iraqis to reconcile.
As Iraq emerges from its difficulties, the impact of its transformation is being felt in the rest of the region. Ultimately, the states of the Middle East need to reform. But they need to reform their relations, too. A strategic realignment is unfolding in the broader Middle East, separating those states that are responsible and accept that the time for violence under the rubric of "resistance" has passed and those that continue to fuel extremism, terrorism, and chaos. Support for moderate Palestinians and a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and for democratic leaders and citizens in Lebanon have focused the energies of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the states of the Persian Gulf. They must come to see that a democratic Iraq can be an ally in resisting extremism in the region. When they invited Iraq to join the ranks of the Gulf Cooperation Council-Plus-Two (Egypt and Jordan), they took an important step in that direction.
At the same time, these countries look to the United States to stay deeply involved in their troubled region and to counter and deter threats from Iran. The United States now has the weight of its effort very much in the center of the broader Middle East. Our long-term partnerships with Afghanistan and Iraq, to which we must remain deeply committed, our new relationships in Central Asia, and our long-standing partnerships in the Persian Gulf provide a solid geostrategic foundation for the generational work ahead of helping to bring about a better, more democratic, and more prosperous Middle East.
A UNIQUELY AMERICAN REALISM
Investing in strong and rising powers as stakeholders in the international order and supporting the democratic development of weak and poorly governed states -- these broad goals for U.S. foreign policy are certainly ambitious, and they raise an obvious question: Is the United States up to the challenge, or, as some fear and assert these days, is the United States a nation in decline?
We should be confident that the foundation of American power is and will remain strong -- for its source is the dynamism, vigor, and resilience of American society. The United States still possesses the unique ability to assimilate new citizens of every race, religion, and culture into the fabric of our national and economic life. The same values that lead to success in the United States also lead to success in the world: industriousness, innovation, entrepreneurialism. All of these positive habits, and more, are reinforced by our system of education, which leads the world in teaching children not what to think but how to think -- how to address problems critically and solve them creatively.
Indeed, one challenge to the national interest is to make certain that we can provide quality education to all, especially disadvantaged children. The American ideal is one of equal opportunity, not equal outcome. This is the glue that holds together our multiethnic democracy. If we ever stop believing that what matters is not where you came from but where you are going, we will most certainly lose confidence. And an unconfident America cannot lead. We will turn inward. We will see economic competition, foreign trade and investment, and the complicated world beyond our shores not as challenges to which our nation can rise but as threats that we should avoid. That is why access to education is a critical national security issue.
We should also be confident that the foundations of the United States' economic power are strong, and will remain so. Even amid financial turbulence and international crises, the U.S. economy has grown more and faster since 2001 than the economy of any other leading industrial nation. The United States remains unquestionably the engine of global economic growth. To remain so, we must find new, more reliable, and more environmentally friendly sources of energy. The industries of the future are in the high-tech fields (including in clean energy), which our nation has led for years and in which we remain on the global cutting edge. Other nations are indeed experiencing amazing and welcome economic growth, but the United States will likely account for the largest share of global GDP for decades to come.
Even in our government institutions of national security, the foundations of U.S. power are stronger than many assume. Despite our waging two wars and rising to defend ourselves in a new global confrontation, U.S. defense spending today as a percentage of GDP is still well below the average during the Cold War. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have indeed put an enormous strain on our military, and President Bush has proposed to Congress an expansion of our force by 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 marines. The experience of recent years has tested our armed forces, but it has also prepared a new generation of military leaders for stabilization and counterinsurgency missions, of which we will likely face more. This experience has also reinforced the urgent need for a new kind of partnership between our military and civilian institutions. Necessity is the mother of invention, and the provincial reconstruction teams that we deploy in Afghanistan and Iraq are a model of civil-military cooperation for the future.
In these pages in 2000, I decried the role of the United States, in particular the U.S. military, in nation building. In 2008, it is absolutely clear that we will be involved in nation building for years to come. But it should not be the U.S. military that has to do it. Nor should it be a mission that we take up only after states fail. Rather, civilian institutions such as the new Civilian Response Corps must lead diplomats and development workers in a whole-of-government approach to our national security challenges. We must help weak and poorly functioning states strengthen and reform themselves and thereby prevent their failure in the first place. This will require the transformation and better integration of the United States' institutions of hard power and soft power -- a difficult task and one that our administration has begun. Since 2001, the president has requested and Congress has approved a nearly 54 percent increase in funding for our institutions of diplomacy and development. And this year, the president and I asked Congress to create 1,100 new positions for the State Department and 300 new positions for the U.S. Agency for International Development. Those who follow us must build on this foundation.
Perhaps of greater concern is not that the United States lacks the capacity for global leadership but that it lacks the will. We Americans engage in foreign policy because we have to, not because we want to, and this is a healthy disposition -- it is that of a republic, not an empire. There have been times in the past eight years when we have had to do new and difficult things -- things that, at times, have tested the resolve and the patience of the American people. Our actions have not always been popular, or even well understood. The exigencies of September 12 and beyond may now seem very far away. But the actions of the United States will for many, many years be driven by the knowledge that we are in an unfair fight: we need to be right one hundred percent of the time; the terrorists, only once. Yet I find that whatever differences we and our allies have had over the last eight years, they still want a confident and engaged United States, because there are few problems in the world that can be resolved without us. We need to recognize that, too.
Ultimately, however, what will most determine whether the United States can succeed in the twenty-first century is our imagination. It is this feature of the American character that most accounts for our unique role in the world, and it stems from the way that we think about our power and our values. The old dichotomy between realism and idealism has never really applied to the United States, because we do not really accept that our national interest and our universal ideals are at odds. For our nation, it has always been a matter of perspective. Even when our interests and ideals come into tension in the short run, we believe that in the long run they are indivisible.
This has freed America to imagine that the world can always be better -- not perfect, but better -- than others have consistently thought possible. America imagined that a democratic Germany might one day be the anchor of a Europe whole, free, and at peace. America believed that a democratic Japan might one day be a source of peace in an increasingly free and prosperous Asia. America kept faith with the people of the Baltics that they would be independent and thus brought the day when NATO held a summit in Riga, Latvia. To realize these and other ambitious goals that we have imagined, America has often preferred preponderances of power that favor our values over balances of power that do not. We have dealt with the world as it is, but we have never accepted that we are powerless to change the world. Indeed, we have shown that by marrying American power and American values, we could help friends and allies expand the boundaries of what most thought realistic at the time.
How to describe this disposition of ours? It is realism, of a sort. But it is more than that -- what I have called our uniquely American realism. This makes us an incredibly impatient nation. We live in the future, not the past. We do not linger over our own history. This has led our nation to make mistakes in the past, and we will surely make more in the future. Still, it is our impatience to improve less-than-ideal situations and to accelerate the pace of change that leads to our most enduring achievements, at home and abroad.
At the same time, ironically, our uniquely American realism also makes us deeply patient. We understand how long and trying the course of democracy is. We acknowledge our birth defect, a constitution founded on a compromise that reduced my ancestors each to three-fifths of a man. Yet we are healing old wounds and living as one American people, and this shapes our engagement with the world. We support democracy not because we think ourselves perfect but because we know ourselves to be deeply imperfect. This gives us reason to be humble in our own endeavors and patient with the endeavors of others. We know that today's headlines are rarely the same as history's judgments.
An international order that reflects our values is the best guarantee of our enduring national interest, and America continues to have a unique opportunity to shape this outcome. Indeed, we already see glimpses of this better world. We see it in Kuwaiti women gaining the right to vote, in a provincial council meeting in Kirkuk, and in the improbable sight of the American president standing with democratically elected leaders in front of the flags of Afghanistan, Iraq, and the future state of Palestine. Shaping that world will be the work of a generation, but we have done such work before. And if we remain confident in the power of our values, we can succeed in such work again.
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Mar 15, 2015 | M of A
Fred Hiatt's funny pages again and again come up with ever same demand "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran". But the neocon crew now seem a little bit unsure about the issue.
Today's funny page "Bomb Iran" piece is by the notorious neocon Joshua Muravchik. It has astonishingly a somewhat qualified headline: War with Iran is probably our best option.
One wonders why this is qualified. Why only probably? Why not the guaranteed best option? Why not for sure?
Joshua Muravchik, a one trick bomb Iran pony, is usually much more assertive when calling for bombing Iran.
- Here he is straight out and unqualified in a 2006 op-ed in a LA Times headlined simply as Bomb Iran.
- In 2007 he is quoted in The Guardian with no reservations: Target Iran: US able to strike in the spring.
- In a 2009 in a Foreign Policy letter to his fellow neoconservatives: Operation Come back.
- 2011 in an American Enterprise piece: TWO CHEERS - Second Thoughts on the Bush Doctrine.
- 2014 in Hoover Institute paper: Time to Combat the Spreading Virus of Radical Islam
[W]e must stop Iran's nuclear program, and the only likely way to achieve this is by military means.It was always "bomb Iran" demanded as response to the ever false claim that Iran is striving for nukes. Bombing Iran was not "probably" the best option but "the only likely way". "Bomb Iran!" straight away, fully lunatic and unqualified.
Why is it now only probably good to bomb Iran?
jfl | Mar 14, 2015 1:55:32 PM | 2
He's preaching to a wider audience than to his usual choir? It was OK to be crazy with them, but now that the neo-cons are really pressing for delivery instead of just sounding off, he has to make a show of an argument to the as yet 'unconvinced?
dh | Mar 14, 2015 2:12:58 PM | 3
Hedging his bets. Netanyahu isn't too popular in Washington right now.
notlurking | Mar 14, 2015 2:26:25 PM | 4
Good article about the nutty professor Dr Muravchik.....
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2015/03/three-maps-for-professor-muravchik.html
Laguerre | Mar 14, 2015 3:22:25 PM | 5
Is it really surprising? Netanyahu's speech was a disaster. Even the most right-wing patriotic anti-Obama GOP politician must hesitate at enfeebling the US presidency as an institution. Once the presidency delegitimized, future Republican presidents may also find their authority weakened.
Netanyahu's speech has also led to a weakening of his support in Israel, and he may lose in the election. There the thinking is different - has Netanyahu put the vital US alliance in question? That associated with Netanyahu's incompetence on the Israeli economy.
It was a weak speech. He didn't come up with any new definitive justification against Iran. That failure was vital, as he effectively bet a high stake in deciding to go ahead.
Piotr Berman | Mar 14, 2015 4:14:16 PM | 9
Muravchik can safely ply his mental product, because no military will heed it, unless its leadership is profoundly retarded. As we discussed, there was a rehearsal of what may happen: the war of Israel with Hezbollah. Countermeasures of Iran:
- Plan A. Bombing causes superficial damage, victory declared, US humiliated.
- Plan B. Bombing causes major damage, Iran declares waters near its shore close to maritime traffic on the account of hostilities. Even now, with oil glut, that would be a major blow to the world economy (check Strait of Hormuz and its significance for oil trade).
Follow-up to Plan B. American response: bombing near Strait of Hormuz to stop Iranian missile batteries. Here is where the experience of 2006 comes in: the countermeasure has the form of hundreds or thousands of plausible outlets of tunnels where the missile launchers and missile can survive the bombing. Follow-up: send Marines. Iran is familiar with effective tactics for that alternative, again, lots of tunnel and short range missiles. Follow-up: Dahiya doctrine, slam population centers.
Would that happen, China and Russia will go "ballistic" and European support is far, far from certain. We are talking about prelude to WWIII in all its thermonuclear glory. At the very least, China and Russia will declare all sanctions on Iran null and void, and Russia will offer supplies of most advanced anti-aircraft systems, and perhaps anti-naval systems to boot, and perhaps nuclear umbrella to secure those supplies from preventative bombing (Diego Garcia is the best retaliatory target, being free of civilian casualties).
What will follow is probably multilateral mediation with Iran offering re-opening the waters to maritime trade in exchange for reparations and non-aggression guarantees.
This scenario is speculative, but there were various signals that China and Russia have "red lines". For example, why USA backed down so easily from the idea of attacking Syria? Other example include various remarks in speeches, and concrete actions so far. Moreover, this scenario is so disastrous that one has to ask: what percentage of probability that it would happen is "worth it"?
Piotr Berman | Mar 14, 2015 4:33:26 PM | 10
I read Porter's article, and I differ on one point: there is a divorce between AIPAC and neocons on Iran issue.
AIPAC is still a force in D.C., but divided AIPAC, not so much. Democratic part of AIPAC derided the letter of 47, perhaps not through the mouths of AIPAC officials, but various commentators who are connected to the "liberal part" of the Establishment, like Tom Friedman. Basically, powerful donors of Democrats where fully in synch with Administration on that one. Keep in mind that Obama is bold ONLY after checking the support.
Porter attributed the support of the letter of 47 to AIPAC, but his links are going back to his story, and details all point to Adelson's wing of AIPAC (more precisely, ZOA, EIC etc.) Basically, the establishment sometimes works in concert (e.g. when any sanctions on Israeli behavior have to be thwarted, or in respect to the policy on Ukraine), but sometimes it splits into cliques of "wimps" and "morons" (Realists and Exceptionalists? there are many labels).
hans | Mar 14, 2015 4:46:34 PM | 11
~70% of Americans are OK with a ME war now, today. Think about that. Then consider any one of the current crop of clowns running for president sitting in the White House with a Rethuglican House and Senate.
These guys mean it. They aren't joking. Just the other day "Lindsey Graham: As president I would deploy the military against Congress" to force the Congress to fund war... Think about it hard.
http://www.vox.com/2015/3/11/8193751/lindsey-graham-military-coup
Alberto | Mar 14, 2015 6:24:08 PM | 13
I hate to burst everyone's power bubble but Russia, Iran, Syria, have a mutual defense pact. So in essence Iran and Syria have offensive nukes in their arsenals. And an existential attack on either brings Russia into the conflict. Like Johnny Rotten said "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"Willy2 | Mar 14, 2015 7:44:21 PM | 14
"'Mistrust Is Growing': European Leaders Blast GOP Senators for Letter to Iran"guest77 | Mar 14, 2015 7:59:34 PM | 15
Was a revival of chatter surrounding Russia's sale of the S-300 to Iran in Jan. 2015, as well of Iran showing off their own DIY system. Both probably another result of Idiot Netanyahu's war-mongering. Since Ukraine, I really don't see any reason for Russia to hold back.Russia and Iran sign defense deal, 'may resolve' S300 missile delivery issue RT
Russia may send S-300 missile system to Iran JPost
Russia may send S-300 missile system to Iran - media ReutersDebka, that old rag, even mentioned the S-400.
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"TWO CHEERS - Second Thoughts on the Bush Doctrine"
He seems to have failed to distinguish between "second thoughts" and "wet dreams".guest77 | Mar 14, 2015 8:03:34 PM | 16
You have to love this quote:
"The potential sale of the S-300 defense system will jeopardize prospects for resolving the Iranian nuclear issue through diplomacy," Reps. Peter Roskam (R., Ill.) and Ted Deutch (D., Fla.) wrote to Kerry.
I had to laugh. It won't jeopardize prospects for resolving the Iranian nuclear issue through "diplomacy", it will jeopardize prospects for resolving the issue through an aerial attack on the country though...
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Thus the US launched the coup d'état in Ukraine.
RT Op-Edge
Dominant neo-conservatives in the US are pursuing a very anti-Russian policy and seem to be hysterical and delusional in it, Dr. Clifford A. Kiracofe, Jr., former Senior Professional Staff Member of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, told RT.
The US is going to send more non-lethal military aid to Ukraine US Vice President Joe Biden told Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in a phone conversation.
RT: We've heard from Victoria Nuland and David Cameron last week, both of whom alluded to "keeping the pressure on Russia", including with more sanctions. Why do you think they keep blaming Russia for everything that's happening in Ukraine, and what is your forecast for the future of US-Russia relations?
Dr. Clifford A. Kiracofe:The tendency here in Washington is just to keep the so-called pressure which means economic sanctions which is a form of economic warfare of course, and also the propaganda this information warfare that's another aspect of the so-called pressure. So this information warfare, economic sanctions are part of the package of so-called tools. I mean we can also see NATO is kind of rattling sabers, etc. So a combination of this is coordinated through Washington, the White House, and State Department with allies in Europe. I think the Europeans appear to me to be getting a little bit tired of too much pressure and may not continue the so-called economic sanctions. I think the Europeans are divided. Some Europeans sort of slavishly want to follow Washington. But on the other hand there are some more sensible people in the EU who seek a more independent policy from Washington and therefore would try for bettering relations with Russia after we get through this crisis. So I think the Europeans are divided among themselves and also from Washington. In terms of Washington and the future of Russian relations, the US will certainly continue the Cold War if you wish…actually it's worse than the Cold War, because it was more stable during the Cold war… But I think Washington will continue along this anti-Russian line and you can see reactions in Congress and commentary from the White House that indicated a continuing hard-line toward Russia.
RT: Germany's Der Spiegel magazine goes as far as asking whether the Americans are trying to thwart the peace efforts promoted by Germany and its EU partners. What do you think?
CK: I think that Der Spiegel article that you mention is accurate, I read it myself, and I think we need to place it within the overall context of the US global policy which is of course to launch these pressures around the world so as to maintain a hegemonic position. And to maintain a hegemonic position the concept is to sort of break-up or reduce the effectiveness of the BRICS countries, and of course to divide Russia from China, and to divide Russia from Europe. It's part of a global strategy and thus we have to discuss US-Russia relationship in the overall context of the US hegemonic global policy.
Thus the US launched the coup d'état in Ukraine. President Obama has already admitted that he indeed was responsible for this so-called power transition. The coup d'état in Ukraine and the destabilization of Central Europe generally is part of this process to go on with the offensive against Russia, to try to block Russian-European relations. Obviously if we want to move to a new type of international system, a more modern type of international relations in terms of a multi-polar world, polycentric world or a pluralist world of course the NATO alliance is obsolete. But the intention of the US in to continue to promote the NATO alliance, to use it against other powers in the world and to impose hegemony. The opposite would be to have the NATO alliance dissolved… the Warsaw Pact of course has dissolved…and to have as Russian side put forward a Common European House, a project to have a common European space where Russians, the EU could cooperatively work together.
I think the main instrumentality for blocking Russia that Washington is trying to use is this obsolete NATO alliance which is increasingly being strengthened and expanded and aimed at Russia. We have to remember that that most Americans have no idea of the geography: "Ukraine border from Moscow? What are we talking about? 300 miles, something like that?" So these issues of Ukraine and the stability in Eastern and Central Europe are extremely sensitive matters for not only Russia but also for the West Europeans which I think is reflected in the Der Spiegel article, it's reflected in the sentiments of more sophisticated Germans and French and others who have a grasp of the historical context as well. I mean Russia has been a part of Europe for many centuries, how can you isolate Russia from Europe? Of course Russia has an Asian dimension too and an Asian destiny as well. But you cannot isolate Russia historically from Europe - it's a part of Europe. So the US policies, the neo-conservative point of view - which is dominant in Washington - is fundamentally anti-Russian, no matter what Russia will do the neo-cons will always go for a Cold War or worse with respect to Russia.
RT: Many in the West are calling on Russia to exert more pressure on the rebels in East Ukraine. Do you think the West will be doing the same to the Kiev government, to stop this conflict?
CK: Yes I do. As I said before more sophisticated thoughtful Europeans are concerned about the US perhaps manipulating NATO or the EU and we do have that call from Ms. Nuland about her attitude to the EU. What we have now in Washington… the psychology, the mindset at the moment is almost hysteria with respect to Russia and a very Cold War sentiment here in Washington. And this is being propelled by the very dominant neo-conservative thinking and advisors throughout the Congress and the executive branch. So in my own view while there are Europeans who would like to see a better relationship with Russia as well as with the US, a more equal relationship with the US… I think Europe is split. It's better for Europe to distance itself at the moment from the US particularly when Washington is so delusional; I've never seen it this delusional before, except for the instance of the Iraq war… It's just this delusion and hysteria in Congress and a very aggressive attitude in the State Department. One would think diplomats would be more diplomatic…
I believe that the Europeans are somewhat divided: more thoughtful ones are reflecting the dangers of the Ukrainian crisis potentially causing instability in Europe and moving out of Eastern and Central Europe into Western Europe. I think irrespective of some language of some leadership elements in Europe, I think there is well-known voices have been speaking out in favor of trying to get behind this crisis and repair relations with Russia.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
2ndiceberg yesterday at 18:13
Benoit ZuccarellI
You know, something stinks about this whole set up. China has been made wealthy by the West sending all manufacturing
more...
Not just neo-con but neo-liberal. Double whammy.
Enrique at 08:10 the day before yesterday
The NeoCon Mafia is the worst danger for World stability, worse than their ISIL puppets.
Remo Gutierrez at 00:26 the day before yesterday
The US is still trying to push TTIP trade deal with Europe. With Russia out of the picture US corporations figure it will pressure Europe into signing the deal.
Jonni H. 3 days ago 19:58
That last comment from "the Word of God" is an uneducated point of view from someone that has probably never been outside there precious USA. People in the US need to understand that there government lies just like every other government. To even make statements like this is totally delusional.
What's going on in Ukraine is just another bunch of lies from the US Government. I have been there and I have seen what's going on. The media in the US is totally filled with lies about what is really happening. I only feel for the people of Ukraine. They are the real losers in all of this. This is all about controlling the natural resources, nothing more. Civil Wars just make a good cover story!
The Word of God 3 days ago 19:28
Russians will always find someone prominent among 330 million Americans with an opinion they like and can use for propaganda. This is because there is every possible opinion about everything among them. Whatever the truth is, Russia's actions are aggressive, hostile, violate treaties it signed, are illegal, and are not acceptable to most Americans and many in Europe. They do warrant a new cold war, a war Russia will lose just the way it lost the last one. It was given a chance to become a civilized nation, a part of the world in the 21st century. Instead its government chose to behave like a 19th century imperial power. When it loses this time, it won't be given a second chance.
Benoit ZuccarellI 3 days ago 19:11
You know, something stinks about this whole set up. China has been made wealthy by the West sending all manufacturing jobs there, 70 million of them, so they are not going to double-cross the West. So with no problems with China, what does it matter about Russia.....?
Its starting to look as if this is all a big charade to induce world-wide 'austerity' on the 99% while the 1% gets rich and the 1% then tells the 99% all about the big bad boogeyman that doesn't even exist.
Enrique Ferro 3 days ago 18:41
If the US is thinking to drive a wedge between Russia and China, I think it is going to be a disappointment. Likewise isolating Russia from the BRICS looks like a hard die mission. As for Europe, there is a trend to repent. It has become even a fashion to go to Moscow for talks, the last pilgrim was, yesterday, the Spanish FM, who is not a Podemos Minister, but from the PP government, the same party which had Sr Aznar as its PM!!!
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Mar 05, 2015 | hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk
You might have thought that a serious book on the Ukraine crisis, written by a distinguished academic in good clear English, and published by a reputable house, might have gained quite a bit of attention at a time when that country is at the centre of many people's concerns.
But some readers here now understand that publishing, and especially the reviewing of books, are not the simple marketplaces of ideas which we would all wish them to be.
And so, as far as I can discover, this book :
'Frontline Ukraine : Crisis in the Borderlands , by Richard Sakwa. Published by I.B.Tauris
…though it came out some months ago, has only been reviewed in one place in Britain, the Guardian newspaper, by Jonathan Steele, the first-rate foreign correspondent whose rigour and enterprise (when we were both stationed in Moscow) quite persuaded me to overlook his former sympathy for the left-wing cause (most notably expressed in a 1977 book 'Socialism with a German Face' about the old East Germany, which seemed to me at the time to be ah, excessively kind).
Mr Steele's review can be read here
I have said elsewhere that I would myself be happier if the book were more hostile to my position on this conflict. Sometimes I feel that it is almost too good to be true, to have my own conclusions confirmed so powerfully, and I would certainly like to see the book reviewed by a knowledgeable proponent of the NATO neo-conservative position. Why hasn't it been?
But even so I recommend it to any reader of mine who is remotely interested in disentangling the reality from the knotted nets of propaganda in which it is currently shrouded.
Like George Friedman's interesting interview in the Moscow newspaper 'Kommersant' ( you can read it here http://russia-insider.com/en/2015/01/20/2561 ) , the book has shifted my own view.
I have tended to see the *basic* dispute in Ukraine as being yet another outbreak of the old German push into the east, carried out under the new, nice flag of the EU, a liberal, federative empire in which the vassal states are tactfully allowed limited sovereignty as long as they don't challenge the fundamental politico-economic dominance of Germany. I still think this is a strong element in the EU's thrust in this direction.
But I have tended to neglect another feature of the new Europe, also set out in Adam Tooze's brilliant 'The Deluge' – the firm determination of the USA to mould Europe in its own image (a determination these days expressed mainly through the EU and NATO).
I should have paid more attention to the famous words 'F*** the EU!' spoken by the USA's Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, in a phone call publicised to the world by (presumably) Russian intelligence. The EU isn't half as enthusiastic about following the old eastern road as is the USA. Indeed, it's a bit of a foot-dragger.
The driving force in this crisis is the USA, with the EU being reluctantly tugged along behind. And if Mr Friedman is right (and I think he is), the roots of it lie in Russia's decision to obstruct the West's intervention in Syria.
Perhaps the key to the whole thing (rather dispiriting in that it shows the USA really hasn't learned anything important from the Iraq debacle) is the so-called 'Wolfowitz Doctrine' of 1992, named after the neo-con's neo-con, Paul Wolfowitz, and summed up by Professor Sakwa (p.211) thus: 'The doctrine asserted that the US should prevent "any country from dominating any region of the world that might be a springboard to threaten unipolar and exclusive US dominance"'.
Note how neatly this meshes with what George Friedman says in his interview.
Now, there are dozens of fascinating things in Professor Sakwa's book, and my copy is scored with annotations and references. I could spend a week summarising it for you. (By the way, the Professor himself is very familiar with this complex region, and might be expected, thanks to his Polish ancestry, to take a different line. His father was in the Polish Army in 1939, escaped to Hungary in the chaos of defeat, and ended up serving in Anders's Second Corps, fighting with the British Army at El Alamein, Benghazi, Tobruk and then through Italy via Monte Cassino. Then he was in exile during the years of Polish Communism. Like Vaclav Klaus, another critic of current western policy, Professor Sakwa can hardly be dismissed as a naif who doesn't understand about Russia, or accused of being a 'fellow-traveler' or 'useful idiot'.
He is now concerned at 'how we created yet another crisis' (p xiii) .
But I would much prefer that you read it for yourself, and so will have to limit my references quite sternly.
There are good explanations of the undoubted anti-Semitism and Nazi sympathies of some strands in Ukrainian politics. Similar nastiness, by the way, is to be found loose in some of the Baltic States. I mention this n because it justified classifying the whole movement as 'Neo-Nazi', which is obviously false, but because it tells us something very interesting about the nature of nationalism and Russophobia in this part of the world. No serious or fair description of the crisis can ignore it. Yet, in the portrayal of Russia as Mordor, and the Ukraine as Utopia, western media simply leave out almost everything about Ukraine that doesn't appeal to their audiences, the economic near collapse, the Judophobia and Russophobia (the derogatory word 'Moskal', for instance, in common use), the worship of the dubious (this word is very generous, I think) Stepan Bandera by many of the Western ultra-nationalists, the violence against dissenters from the Maidan view ( see http://rt.com/news/ukraine-presidential-candidates-attacked-516/). The survival and continued power of Ukraine's oligarchs after a revolution supposedly aimed at cleaning up the country is also never mentioned. We all know about Viktor Yanukovych;s tasteless mansion, but the book provides some interesting details on President Poroshenko's residence (it looks rather like the White House) , which I have not seen elsewhere.
The detailed description of how and why the Association Agreement led to such trouble is excellent. I had not realised that, since the Lisbon Treaty, alignment with NATO is an essential part of EU membership (and association) – hence the unavoidable political and military clauses in the agreement.
So is the filleting of the excuse-making and apologetics of those who still pretend that Yanukovych was lawfully removed from office: the explicit threat of violence from the Maidan, the failure to muster the requisite vote, the presence of armed men during the vote, the failure to follow the constitutional rules (set beside the available lawful deal, overridden by the Maidan, under which Yanukovych would have faced early elections and been forced to make constitutional changes) .
Then here we have Ms Nuland again, boasting of the $5 billion (eat your heart out, the EU, with your paltry £300 million) http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/2013/dec/218804.htm which the USA has 'invested in Ukraine. 'Since Ukraine's independence in 1991, the United States has supported Ukrainians as they build democratic skills and institutions, as they promote civic participation and good governance, all of which are preconditions for Ukraine to achieve its European aspirations. We've invested over $5 billion to assist Ukraine in these and other goals that will ensure a secure and prosperous and democratic Ukraine.
It's worth noting that in this speech, in December 2013, she still envisages the supposedly intolerable Yanukovych as a possible partner.
Other points well made are the strange effect of NATO expansion into Eastern Europe, which has created the very tension against which it now seeks to reassure border nations, by encouraging them, too, to join, the non-binding nature of the much-trumpeted Budapest memorandum, the lack of coverage of the ghastly events in Odessa, the continuing lack of a proper independent investigation into the Kiev mass shootings in February 2014 .
Also examined is the Russian fear of losing Sevastopol, an entirely justified fear given that President Yushchenko had chosen to say in Georgia, during the war of August 2008, that Russia's basing rights in the city would end in 2017. The 'disappearance; of the 'Right Sector' and 'Svoboda' vote in recent elections is explained by their transfer to the radical Party led by Oleh Lyashko.
Professor Sakwa also explores Russia's behaviour in other border disputes , with Norway and China, in which it has been far from aggressive. And he points out that Ukraine's nationalists have made their country's life far more difficult by their rigid nationalist approach to the many citizens of that country who, while viewing themselves as Ukrainian, do not share the history or passions of the ultra-nationalists in the West.
Likewise he warns simple-minded analysts that the conflict in the East of Ukraine is not desired by Russia's elite, which does not wish to be drawn into another foreign entanglement (all Russian strategists recall the disastrous result of the Afghan intervention). But it may be desired by Russian ultra-nationalists, not necessarily controllable.
He points out that Russia has not, as it did in Crimea, intervened decisively in Eastern Ukraine to ensure secession. And he suggests that those Russian nationalists are acting in many cases independently of Moscow in the Donetsk and Lugansk areas. Putin seeks to control them and limit them, but fears them as well.
In general, the book is an intelligent, well-researched and thoughtful attempt to explain the major crisis of our time. Anybody, whatever he or she might think of the issue, would benefit from reading it. It is shocking that it is not better known, and I can only assume that its obscurity, so far is caused by the fact that it does not fit the crude propaganda narrative of the 'Putin is Hitler' viewpoint.
How odd that we should all have learned so little from the Iraq debacle. This time the 'WMD' are non-existent Russian plans to expand and/or attack the Baltic states. And of course the misrepresentation of both sides in the Ukrainian controversy is necessary for the portrayal of Putin as Hitler and his supporters as Nazis, and opponents of belligerence as Nazi fellow-travellers. The inconvenient fact , that if there are Nazis in this story , they tend to be on the 'good' side must be ignored. Let us hope the hysteria subsides before it carries us into another stupid war.
March 5, 2015 Comments (54) Categories: Cold War , History , New Cold War , Russia , Ukraine | Permalink
Comments
LornaJean | 10 March 2015 at 09:00 AM
There should be a proper inquiry into who really started this conflict I recall watching on TV as the boxer who was leading the Kiev mob came out of lengthy negotiations with the 3 EU ministers and the crowds booing and erupting The infamous Julia also appeared on the scene. this was of course after only a few hours previously that Obama announced that he had agreement with Putin to have a peaceful resolution and elections in 3 months.
As I watched the eruption of the mob I Thought this will end badly and at that point the EU should have withdrawn. However the subsequent violence and the removal of the elected leader followed. All interviews with the people in the East and Crimea showed their distrust of the Kiev crowd and it was clear that the oligarchs on the East who had many workers and controlled the manufacturing would not support the East. Putin is a nasty man but to suggest that he deliberately caused this situation is a travesty.Russia with refugees pouring over the border reacted to the situation and who can blame them.? Now a less belligerent and frankly dishonest approach needs to be taken by the EU I can not see that the Kiev regime can ever win the loyalty of the East after this bitter war.the only solution is some sort of autonomous regios that allows the Esst of Ukraine to rule themselves.
Bill Jones | 10 March 2015 at 01:28 AM
This made me smile:
" I would certainly like to see the book reviewed by a knowledgeable proponent of the NATO neo-conservative position. Why hasn't it been? "
Because to be knowledgeable is not to be a Neo-conservative.
Mr Rob | 09 March 2015 at 02:45 PM
@Mike B
"I haven't responded to your comments on McCain and Nuland because I thought that I had made it clear that I thought external interference from any quarter was undesirable and I accept that there has been such interference from both sides."
Oh really? You do not remember writing this then?
"It was Ukrainians, not the EU, who ousted Yanukovych. They should be allowed to deal with their internal disputes and decide their future alliances and associations."
or this?
"However, the EU, whatever its faults (and, believe me, it is not my "beloved" EU) did not organise his removal. It was carried out by, and on behalf of, Ukrainians. It was an internal matter and, whatever the faults on either side, should have been left at that."
And on this thread you had not even mentioned the USA involvement. You have been consistently dishonest by omission. Well, at least you're consistent.
And now you manage the immortal words
"I do maintain, though, that the interference of the EU and USA" [well done for mentioning them at last],"which cannot be denied" [but can, it seems, be ignored...] "and which was reflected in Russia's own behaviour cannot be compared with Russia's subsequent blatant military involvement in a sovereign country's internal conflict."
So on the one hand the EU and the USA have interfered, but on the other it is an "internal conflict".
Priceless.
Roy Robinson | 08 March 2015 at 05:48 PM
@Alan Thomas By my reading of certain facts I deduce there is a de facto alliance between Russia and China. These facts being that Russia trades arms to China but the USA will not trade arms to either. On May 8th Xi Jingping will attend the Victory Day celebrations in Moscow accompanied by his junk yard dog Kim Jong Un of North Korea. No Western leaders as far as I know will be in attendance. De facto alliances such as the one Britain had with France in 1914 are always hard to call because unlike formal ones such as Nato there is nothing in writing. I also suspect that one reason China has not tried to match America in nuclear weapons so far is because Russia already does so. North Korea is also very useful in that it can be used to threaten Japan without China appearing to be the aggressor.
Mr Rob | 08 March 2015 at 11:16 AM
@ Mike B
I see you have ignored my request to answer the questions I posed to Hector (who has also yet to respond) about the US presence at the Maidan. Perhaps you needed to ignore my request in order to write this drivel with a straight face:
Re Yanukovych: "However, the EU, whatever its faults (and, believe me, it is not my "beloved" EU) did not organise his removal. It was carried out by, and on behalf of, Ukrainians. It was an internal matter and, whatever the faults on either side, should have been left at that."
Some Ukrainians carried out the WW2 massacre at Khatyn (not Katyn) - does that mean that all Ukrainians are responsible for it, approved of it, or that it was carried out on behalf of Ukrainians? Of course not.
You have also studiously avoided mention of the presence at the Maidan of US Senator McCain and US Assistant Secretary of State Nuland, and the latter's meetings with the Maidan leaders, co-ordinated with US Ambassador Pyatt.
You have also somehow omitted to mention Yatseniuk's ("Yats") lightning visit to Washington days after the overthrow of Yanukovych, or the visit of CIA Director Brennan to Kiev.
And just for the record, I have first-hand oral evidence of people in Minsk, Belarus, being offered money to go to the Maidan - so even that the Maidan crowd was completely Ukrainian is probably untrue.
You accuse Mr Klimenko of bias, and yet you yourself give and repeat a dishonest account of what is known to have happened at the Maidan.
Such behaviour has no place in proper debate.
Ian | 08 March 2015 at 11:04 AM
To Mike B and others...
It's all very well to agonize about what Ukrainians may or may not want. We could all weep huge quantities of crocodile tears over Ukraine's thwarted "self determination", but the essential fact is that Ukrainians are not agreed about what they want. Some appear to want closer ties with the EU, some appear to want to maintain the status quo and some appear to want closer ties with the Russian Federation.
All of which is "interesting" until different factions within Ukraine start calling on their preferred partners to back them up. It seems to me that the US and the EU have contributed more than one would reasonably expect to the discord in Ukraine and silly expectations in a great many Ukrainians. To describe this as "irresponsible" is something of an understatement.
We are now in a situation where the "preferred partners" might come to blows over the confused and discordant expectations of Ukraine. In such a situation. it would be hard for me to care less about what Ukrainians want especially when some of Ukraine's politicians sound as though they would happily see the world burn if only it ensures "territorial Integrity" for Ukraine.
It's a very old trick for which "socialists" should be famous. Describe a group as deserving, noble and disadvantaged... and use this supposed circumstance to justify the most ridiculous, regressive and destructive policy the human mind can invent. Of course, with our own "socialists", the all important thing is that they are not only well rewarded with a reputation for being "caring sharing human beings"... but also very well paid for the disasters they inflict on us.
Edward Klimenko | 08 March 2015 at 10:50 AM
@MikeB
'did not organise his removal. It was carried out by, and on behalf of, Ukrainians. It was an internal matter'
What the EU did was the equivalent of persuading one party in a Mexican stand-off to lower his weapon so that the other can shoot him safely. Yes, the EU most certainly organized Yanukovich's removal - the EU normally takes a dim view of governments established by putsch, but recognized this particular band of putschists almost immediately.
And why was it not an internal matter when Ukrainian police were attempting to clear Maidan of the lawless occupying mob, but instead a human rights crisis demanding sanctions against everyone from the Prosecutor-General to Yanukovich's barber?
'You should note, however, that he fled his country on the same day that he announced an agreement with his opponents.'
You are mistaken, he did not flee the country the day the agreement was made. He left the city of Kiev for Kharkov, his motorcade coming under fire as he did so. As the putsch developed, he called a conference in Kharkov of regional governors still loyal to the rightful president, the participants agreeing to administer their own regions until lawful authority could be reestablished in the rest of the country.
Two factors brought about the failure of this effort: the first was the success of Valentin Nalivaichenko's takeover of the SBU, and the second was the cowardly betrayal by Kharkov regional governor Mikhail Dobkin and Kharkov city mayor Gennady Kernes, who panicked and fled when they heard that the SBU was after them (both would later cut deals with the Maidan regime for their own survival). Fearing capture by the SBU and feeling unable to trust anybody, Yanukovich then departed for the Crimea.
You might think this would be safe place for him to make his stand. You would be wrong - the mood in Crimea at the time was one of utter disgust for Yanukovich and the Regions Party on account of their utter failure to defend the state and the people, which only grew after it came to light that the scum Yanukovich had appointed as mayor of Sevastopol had been conspiring to surrender the city to the Right Sector. Crimea wanted out of the Ukraine, and had no interest in helping Yanukovich get his seat back. Out of options, he finally fled to the Russian mainland on or about February 26.
As for the rest, I'll say it again: the 'Holodomor' is a fiction, an attempt to portray a famine that affected a vast swathe of the USSR as campaign against Ukrainians specifically, when in truth it most heavily affected the non-Ukrainian Donbass region. It is invoked by western Ukrainians whose ancestors did not experience it to justify their racial hatred for eastern Ukrainians whose ancestors did. You ought to be ashamed of spreading such rot, and you should stop trying to frame your own biases as 'objectivity'.
Grant | 07 March 2015 at 08:32 PM
I listened to that.
Everything Peter said was spot on. That other bloke who was challenging you is a dangerous idiot. You pointed out to him that we do not call Chinese regime tyrants, or the Saudis, yet he immediately replies calling Putin a vile tyrant. Totally obvious to what you just told him like he is a brainwashed stuck record.
NATO is now the armed wing of EU expansion. They intentionally sent Russia that message during the Kosovo war by including the Luftwaffe bombing in previous Russia spheres of influence.
mikebarnes | 07 March 2015 at 07:13 PM
@ Edward Klimenko
If nothing else I like your style . Many contributors here think they know. And a few think you know more than them. I think on this subject you certainly know more than I . Whether your correct is unknown at least by me . But.
Oh that our snot brained, could have need for the dentistry they so deserve.
No matter whose in the right here , and I suspect neither are. Its their business and that of the federation they once belonged . Just as northern Island was our business . But Clinton poked his snout in .
The compromise, killers and bombers running the country might well be repeated with a split country just like the many created since the chaos following WWII.
Roy Robinson | 07 March 2015 at 05:42 PM
@Alan Thomas The Eurasian hard men such as Putin, Erdogan , Modi and XI Jinping all seem to understand one another and are doing business together.
They all lead countries which have been on the receiving of Western aggression over the last few centuries Modern Westerners with their naive PC outlook like to overlook this but the people in those countries have not forgotten from which direction the threat to them has usually come from and the past losses and humiliations which resulted.
When someone sees themselves as a benefactor to mankind but others see as a thief with a violent history there is always going to be room for a big understanding.
Alan Thomas | 07 March 2015 at 03:44 PM
Roy Robinson
Perhaps, when it comes to China, the 'west' cannot see a solution, in which case hurling - or even simply registering - criticism might be seen as a waste of time and effort. In any case, since when did it make sense to ignore lesser villains simply because one can't take on the bigger ones?
Steve Jones | 07 March 2015 at 03:11 PM
I suspect the neocons are now looking at the General Patton play of outsourcing a war against Russia to Germany.
Germany should leave the EU together with France and the PIGS using the euro as an excuse. Their departure might shake out a few others like Croatia, Hungary and Austria plus a few more. Let the banks fail then go in with Russia and the other BRICS.
Edward Klimenko | 07 March 2015 at 02:04 PM
@MikeB
' Are you so sure that Ukrainians wanted their now ex-president?'
Almost twelve and a half million Ukrainians voted for him in 2010, and that is a far better indicator of what Ukrainians wanted than the actions of around ten thousand Nazi terrorists in February 2014.
' It was Ukrainians, not the EU, who ousted Yanukovych'
What a nonsensical and disingenuous remark. Yanukovich was the democratically -elected president(most likely the last that the Ukraine will ever have). EuroMaidan was an assembly of Nazi terrorists and their apologists. Europe used threats and blackmail to prevent Yanukovich from doing his duty and protecting the country from this violent mob. Europe then tricked him into signing a 'peace agreement' and pulling back the police from their positions, allowing the terrorist mob and its sponsors to rampage freely through Kiev and seize the institutions of the state.
You will probably cite the lack of an immediate militant response to the putsch as proof that Ukrainians wanted this abomination of a government. Well, there we have democracy according to Mike! No need for elections, might makes right and proves the existence of an underlying consensus! Brilliant.
Let's take your logic a bit further. The rebellion now rules in Donbass, and no armed movement has arisen there to demand the return of the region to Ukrainian rule. Do you accept this as evidence of the people's wish not to be ruled by the Maidan regime? If the rebels break the Ukrainian lines, and take control of the rest of the country, will you shrug and conclude that Ukrainians wanted to be with Russia after all?
' , I would prefer people to be aggressive with me by throwing money in my direction, rather than launching rockets,
Throwing money at the Ukraine enables the Maidan regime to throw rockets at Ukrainian citizens. Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk have no legal authority to rule over anybody, yet your beloved EU insists that these putsch-installed thugs are the government of the Ukraine, and that all Ukrainians must obey them or die.
' Nothing the EU has done, though, justifies Russian military intervention in Ukraine'
Everything the EU has done justifies everything Russia has done, and would justify a good deal more. The European officials who formulated European policy toward the Ukraine in the past year are responsible for the war and for all the crimes of the Maidan regime, and they should all face the death penalty - starting with Ashton.
Think on this: if not for the Crimea operation, all the depravity that the Ukraine has heaped upon Donetsk would have been visited upon Crimea. You think that Crimeans would have been better off being shelled, shot, raped and tortured by the Ukrainian military? Go and tell them so!
Just make sure that your health insurance covers reconstructive dentistry first.
Paul Taylor | 07 March 2015 at 12:00 PM
Hector. You clearly have no idea about Hitler and Germany in the late 1930s.Germany was just taking back land that was stolen in June 1919. Hitler had mass support from the Germanic people in those parts and in some areas such as parts of Austria he was even more popular than he was in Germany itself.
It was madness that we went to war against Germany,we should have remained neutral like Spain or Switzerland and let Hitler defeat Stalin on his own.
Paulus M | 07 March 2015 at 10:46 AM
@ kevin 1
"Personally, I have difficulty with this quote because I don't think facts do change, that's why they are called facts. New information may come to light but the facts though temporarily hidden from view remain constant. But that's just my opinion."
It all depends on whether the facts/evidence supports the hypothesis. If they don't then no matter how erudite it appears - it's wrong. What our media don't want you to question or look at is who started this conflict. From day one, I've never been in doubt that Washington is the main driver and the EU the junior partner. The Nato alliance acts as a bind and a figleaf. Time and again the facts sindicates that the "west" is an aggressor bloc which tramples over sovereignty and makes a mockery of supposed international law.
Mr Rob | 07 March 2015 at 10:08 AM
Are you claiming that prior to the "removal" of Yanukovych
US Senator McCain did not appear at the Maidan,
and that US Assistant Secretary of State Nuland did not appear at the Maidan,
and that she did not hold a series of meetings with its leaders,
and that she and US Ambassador Pyatt did not co-ordinate these efforts with a clear aim as to who they wanted to see in power (our man "Yats"),
and that only days after Yanukovych fled,
Yatseniuk was not shaking hands with US President Obama at the White House
and that US Director of the CIA Brennan was not in Kiev?
Do you claim that the US was leaving Ukraine to "sort out it's [sic] own issues"?
Please do respond rather than lapse into silence, I'd be fascinated to see how you have reached your conclusions in the face of the known facts.
Kevin 1 | 07 March 2015 at 09:27 AM
@ Ronnie
I think you'll find that, in circumstances such as those you describe, PH tends to quote the famous retort attributed to Keynes, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" I'm just surprised that he hasn't done so (yet) in this instance.
Personally, I have difficulty with this quote because I don't think facts do change, that's why they are called facts. New information may come to light but the facts though temporarily hidden from view remain constant. But that's just my opinion.
N.Belcher | 07 March 2015 at 01:28 AM
Dear Mr Hitchens
In December 2011 The U.S Federal Reserve bailed out European banks to the
tune of Billions of Dollars.
It is reported that they tried to keep this bailout a secret at the time.Do you think that this , and the latest E.U initiative to have The Ukraine
are linked ? i.e that it was a condition of the U.S bailout or expected of The
E.U that they continue to expand into The Ukraine in return for these U.S Dollars?
Yours N.Belcher.
Roy Robinson | 07 March 2015 at 01:04 AM
While the West obsesses about the supposed threat from Putin it seems totally oblivious to the rise of Xi Jinping a Chinese leader who looks like being of the magnitude of Mao.
He has described himself as the leader of a party wedded to the ideology of Lenin, Stalin and Mao and is concentrating all the power in his own hands.
There is no Western propaganda campaign against him yet although think about it, ten years ago there wasn't one against Putin.
Xi has stated that he gets on well with Putin as they have similar personalities.
Edward Klimenko | 06 March 2015 at 08:44 PM
'Might there be the slightest chance of Ukrainians' wishes being given some consideration?'
Capital idea. But you know what the Ukrainians wanted? They wanted Viktor Yanukovich as President and they wanted the Parliament they elected in 2012. What scant regard America and Europe gave their wishes!
Bob | 06 March 2015 at 06:42 PM
Ronnie that purported paper was presented in early Feb 2014 well after Maidan was underway, not exactly planned from day one. It was also Kiev at the behest of the US who started the ATO, resorting to violence away from the Franco-German and Russian negotiations.
I might add the anti Russian propaganda in the media had started well before Sochi started. This was all planned a while back and not by Russia.
Ian | 06 March 2015 at 03:49 PM
It does not seem to me there is a "change of mind" or any inconsistency implied in Mr Hitchens's recommendation of Richard Sakwa's book. There may be a slight change of emphasis but it was always understood and mentioned that the US of A was an additional driving force to events in eastern Europe. It does not alter the validity of the view that the EU is "Germany by other means" and that the EU/Germany covets "lebensraum" in the east. So far as I can see, it can only be of academic interest whether the developing crisis is primarily EU or US led.
Nor has Mr Hitchens ever attempted to exonerate President Putin or Russia, giving more than sufficient emphasis to "Russian interests" and "Russia's perceived sphere of influence" ... to crudely paraphrase. It does not matter if Russia is or is not entitled to these perceptions. That the perceptions exist should be a major consideration in the policy of any other "player" who would prefer a continued, peaceful existence.
What is important is whether either side can afford to "back down" and which side is "most guilty" with regards creating this crisis. It seems fairly obvious that it is the US and the EU who can best afford to "back off"... and it is the US and the EU whose posturing and behavior have contributed most to the current situation.
For those who adhere to the "bad Putin"/"Naughty Russia" model, rest assured that the US and the EU are unlikely to give up on this one. They are determined to give the big bad bear a spanking.
I fear that they have got it badly wrong, seriously misjudged Russia's president and relied to heavily on dated intelligence about Russian capabilities.
Posted by: Incognito | 06 March 2015 at 12:41 PM
John,
I think it's an oversight on PH's part (we're all human, right?) to have placed so much emphasis on Germany in his analysis of the the crisis, and, in so doing to have tacitly downplayed the role of the US. Plainly put Germany-although it is the de facto seat of power in the EU- doesn't have the brass to so flagrantly antagonise Russia without back-up.
Moreover, if anyone doesn't think the EU is 'briefed' on foreign policy by the US state department, they are living in an alternate reality. America is a continuation of the British Empire by other means.
Grant | 06 March 2015 at 12:23 PM
Pat Davers "Indeed, I think that European leaders acted naively in aligning with the US, and were genuinely dismayed at the outcome of their tacit support for the coup in Ukraine"
I do wish people would study the comments made by the EU leaders when initial proposals for third way consultations with the Russians was proposed, they said things like "the last people we would speak to over this would be the Russians".
The EU leaders detest everything Russia stands for, as they are enlightened supra nationalists. It was precisely their arrogant and dismissive attitude that led to armed conflict and only after thousands had died did they come to meet Putin in Russia to seek a peace.
Pat Davers | 06 March 2015 at 11:46 AM
"Are we witnessing a Hitchens change of mind?"
I think we are seeing a shift of opinion as to who has the been the main driver behind the Ukraine conflict; it was not so much EU (ie German-led) expansionism as NATO (ie US-led) imperialism that brought us where we are now, as of course many people have been saying all along.
Indeed, I think that European leaders acted naively in aligning with the US, and were genuinely dismayed at the outcome of their tacit support for the coup in Ukraine, and are probably now regretting their actions. The fact that is was Merkel and Hollande who brokered the Minsk agreement without US involvement would seem to support this.
Bob | 06 March 2015 at 10:51 AM
Ronnie you have clearly have never done any scenario planning or read position papers, obviously the Kremlin would have several plans of action for the breakdown of the Ukraine. Regardless of the document's validity, the title is invalid. "Direct interstate relations" cannot exist between Moscow and regions annexed to Russia, the plan is obviously talking about a political breakup of Ukraine, not annexation. Even then though, i dont entirely believe it.
If Russia's plan was to break up Ukraine into statelets, I see no reason why it still hasn't recognized the independence of LPR and DPR and instead continues to treat them, in both language and action, as regions of Ukraine seeking federalization. A federal and perhaps confederate Ukraine would obviously be to Russia's interest. Complete breakup of Ukraine -maybe but it's difficult to see how.
Weak.
Daniel | 06 March 2015 at 07:25 AM
Dear Peter,
Thank you for another thought-provoking article. It's nice to have some measured thinking amongst the media-mob's clamour.
A little off the current topic but I was expecting to see a comment on the recent ACMD report in which the scientist's covering letter states: 'international evidence suggests many popular types of prevention activity are ineffective at changing behaviour, and a small number may even increase the risks for drug use' . Paradoxically, thought not unexpectedly, the report ends up stating the that the solution is more drugs education in schools.. Just thought it may be worth flagging as it reminded me of your previous posts regarding sex education and its supposed 'benefits'.
S. Coleman | 05 March 2015 at 09:36 PM
I would not be alone here in welcoming PH's recognition of the importance of the role of the US. I think Brian Meredith also expressed this view.
Michael Hudson (the American economist) expresses it up pithily: the US is saying to Europe, 'Let's you and Russia fight' and Europe in going along with this invitation is damaging her own vital interests.
Edward Klimenko | 05 March 2015 at 08:31 PM
The Ukrainian Parliament has already moved 'Defender of the Fatherland Day' to October 14th - the official founding date of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. If anybody thinks that this is a coincidence, they haven't been paying attention.
This very Thursday the Parliament of Ukraine reached a milestone - honoring with a minute's silence the memory of UPA genocidaire Roman Shukhevich. I won't bother listing in detail the depravities that Shukhevich organised in his capacity as a UPA commander - suffice it to say that women and children were favourite targets, and blades were generally preferred to bullets - but those not familiar with the subject are encouraged to look it up. In particular, search the name 'Zygmunt Rumel' to find out what comes of trying to negotiate with Ukrainian nationalists.
The only consolation is that the Maidan project is less a political movement than organised mental illness, and that failure is written in its DNA.
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Mar 13, 2015 | moonofalabama.org
The government of the Unites States (GDP US$ 16,768,100 million) declares that the situation in Venezuela (GDP US$ 371,339 million):
... constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United StatesThis, the White House says, requires to:
... declare a national emergency to deal with that threat"Why," ask the Venezuelans, including the U.S. sponsored opposition, "do you think we are an unusual and extraordinary threat which requires you to declare a national emergency?
"We do not believe for a moment that you are an unusual and extraordinary threat which requires us to declare a national emergency", is the answer:
Officials in Washington said that declaring Venezuela a national security threat was largely a formality."A formality?" ask Venezuelans. "Why is it a formality to see us as an unusual and extraordinary threat to your national security? That does not make sense. What's next? Will it be a simply a formality to kill us?"
"It is formality needed to be able to sanction some of your government officials," an anonymous U.S. senior official explains. "To do so the law requires that we declare you to be an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security which requires us to declare a national emergency."
"But we ain't no such threat. You yourself says so. So why would you sanction our officials when you yourself say that there is no real basis for this? On what legal grounds are you acting? Why these sanctions?"
"Because the the situation in Venezuela ... constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States which requires us to declare a national emergency to deal with that threat."
"That is like declaring war on us. That does not make sense".
"Well, it's just a formality."
---
On might have hoped that the above would be the "most outlandish" nonsense the U.S. government could produce. But that is not yet the case.
The Venezuelan President Maduro responded in the National Assembly:
"The aggression and the threat of the government of the United States is the greatest threat that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, our country, has ever received," he said to applause, [...] "Let's close ranks like a single fist of men and women. We want peace."He spoke of past American military interventions in Latin America and warned that the United States was preparing an invasion and a naval blockade of Venezuela.
"For human rights, they are preparing to invade us," he said, ...
During the last 125 years the U.S. intervened in South America at least 56 times through military or intelligence operations. This ever intervening country is the same country that just declared Venezuela to be an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States that requires to declare a national emergency.
It is certainly not outlandish for Maduro to believe that such a declaration will be followed by one of those continued interventions. Especially not when disguised U.S. officials travel around Venezuela and distribute money to opposition parties. Maduro is not alone in seeing the threat of another U.S. intervention. All South American nations have condemned the U.S. declaration and even pro-American opposition politicians in Venezuela were outraged about it.
But for the ever anonymous U.S. officials it is the victim of their outlandish exaggerations that doth protest too much:
"It's remarkable that the [Venezuelan] government can say the most outlandish things about the U.S. government - what is this, the 16th or 17th coup attempt that we're doing? And now we're invading?" the official said. "The shelf life of all of these accusations is what, a day or two? Even the dullest of media consumers is going to see that there is no invasion."Noting the U.S. doublespeak in this whole affair it advise to be very careful in believing that "there is no invasion" claim.
Posted by b on March 12, 2015 at 11:01 AM | Permalink
nmb | Mar 12, 2015 11:31:02 AM | 1
Venezuela: A plan for coup d'état and assassination of Maduro
Wayoutwest | Mar 12, 2015 12:09:23 PM | 2
I doubt the US is going to be invading or blockading Venezuela any time soon. This asinine proclamation was necessary for the increased sanctions the US has imposed and it is definitely a ratcheting-up of pressure and intimidation. It also appears to be designed to cause the Maduro government to overreact and institute decisions that can be demonized as harsh and undemocratic.
I hope the people of Venezuela and the other progressive countries of SA are ready and willing to really confront these aggressive US moves.
Dan | Mar 12, 2015 12:20:15 PM | 3
The current government of Venezuela is a clear threat to the financial interests of the oligarchs who control the US government.
Wayoutwest | Mar 12, 2015 1:26:51 PM | 11
For me the most interesting part of the US proclamation was not the National Security threat but the claim of a threat to US Foreign Policy. This illustrates the power of the Bolivarian Revolution to sever much of SA from US dominance and the level of US Ruling Class fear because of their diminishing power and influence worldwide.Some Guy | Mar 12, 2015 3:02:11 PM | 16
Ah yes. The old tried and true "making the economy scream" in preparation for a coup ploy. Venezuela has held out so far but I have confidence in The Empire®. Their psychopathic persistence should be able to turn that country into what Guatemala, El Salvador and Colombia are--a chamber of fucking horrors.Piotr Berman | Mar 12, 2015 3:50:30 PM | 17
As a geography Nazi, I would insists that the list that was linked showed only four cases of interventions in South America. Indeed, interventions in Central America and Caribbean are dime a dozen, and probably the count was partial, South America is more distant and the countries are a bit too large for open interventions. Diplomacy was almost always friendly to non-leftist military regimes or death squads, but a direct engagement like coordination of the attempt to depose Chavez by military means were rare.diogenes | Mar 12, 2015 4:04:41 PM | 19For some reason, it is almost 15 years that Jihad was declared in USA against Venezuela, and formal fatwa proclaimed on TV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DykgMyTjWU4 (this video was from 2009, when Rev. Robertson wonder why Chavez was not assassinated yet). Since USA is a democracy, and the people are Christian, it is a duty of the government to follow the will of the Christian folks and at least attempt to execute fatwas of Christian clerics. However, I do not know enough about Robertson's Christianity to figure out how the fatwa came about.
According to a link from the website of TeleSUR, a Venezuelan television station, on Feb. 28, 2015 an employee of NED (ie American agent) travelled to Venezuela for a secret meeting with opposition figures (ie bought and paid for greedy foreign stooges) to settle an argument about the distribution of millions of dollars previously contributed by NED.The agent used a forged or stolen passport in a false name, and disguised her appearance to match with the photo in the passport; and travelled to the meeting in a vehicle with forged or stolen plates.
This agent, whose real name is Sarah Kornblith, a few months previously had written an article in NED's "scholarly journal" denouncing the Chavez and Maduro regimes and also:
"lauding the political arrangement that existed in Venezuela before Chavez. Known as the Punto Fijo Pact, under that system, two traditional parties would alternate in power, deliberately excluding the voices of Venezuela's poor majority."
You mean like Democrats and Republicans? You can't make this stuff up!
lysias | Mar 12, 2015 5:43:03 PM | 22
I'm just now reading a book about Gen. Vernon Walters, Der Drahtzieher: Vernon Walters -- Ein Geheimdienstgeneral des Kalten Krieges, by Klaus Eichner and Ernst Langrock, which details all the coups and secret chicanery that general was involved in, both in Latin America and in Europe.
Posted by: ToivoS | Mar 12, 2015 11:40:14 PM | 29
In 2002 I thought Chavez was toast. Given the last century of US intervention in South America it seemed obvious that Chavez would be over thrown by the US. But then the war in Iraq went very badly. The US was was distracted and had to focus its energy on the Iraq war. Chavez was spared the focus of US imperialism. For some time I thought the silver lining in the failed US war in Iraq was that it distracted our interests away from South America. This permitted a number of Latin American countries to drift away from US influence, not just Venezuela but also Bolivia and Nicaragua and some of the other countries elected left wing governments.The US has spent the last century trying to prevent governments arising that actually represent all of the people and not just the upper middle classes that are eager to please US corporations. I think what we are seeing today is that the US is now refocusing on South America and are willing to devote resources towards removing those governments that have arisen that attempt to represent the poor and not just the bourgeois elements. This has been happening over the last few years. In Obama's first few years he threw his support (behind the scenes as it developed) behind the Honduran upper classes that removed the popularly elected government of Manunel Zelaya.
In any case, I think the Manuela government in Venezuela is going to be deposed through US intervention and next will be the government in Bolivia. And there is little that the rest of world can do to stop it. After all, the Monroe Doctrine has given the US that right and there is no outside force that can stop us unless they are willing to engage in nuclear war.
However, the more the US flexes its muscle in Latin America, the less effective it will be in pushing its policies in Ukraine and towards the 'pivot to Asia' that was supposed to be one of Obama's signature policies. And this is not to mention Obama's efforts for more war in Iraq and Syria. So to the extent that Venezuela might suffer today other parts of the world will be provided some respite from US attention. The US is thoroughly over committed.
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Mar 12, 2015 | themillenniumreport.com
Neocon Nuland spins wild tales for Senate Foreign Relations Committee; plays into fascist hands
OKLAHOMA CITY – Neoconservative warmonger Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland, America's Assistant Secretary of State, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – with a straight face – that Crimeans are "suffering a reign of terror" under the control of the Russians.Nuland, who makes a living deceiving lawmakers and anyone else who crosses her path, told the committee this week: "Today Crimea remains under illegal occupation and human-rights abuses are the norm, not the exception, for many at-risk groups there."
The "at-risk groups," Nuland said, included Crimean Tatars, Ukrainians who refuse to surrender their passports, gays and lesbians, journalists and "others," according to an AFP report.
Additionally, Nuland, an apologist for the pro-Nazi Svoboda and Right Sector fascists who are the actual ones leading a reign of terror against innocents in eastern Ukraine, said pro-Russian separatists in the those areas of Lugansk and Donetsk "unleashed unspeakable violence and pillage."
However, the exact opposite is true.
Sputnik News, a Russian news outlet, offered a tongue-in-cheek article today headlined "Life 'Under a Reign of Terror': What Nuland Doesn't Want You To See," countered each statement from Nuland with recent photographs of the beautiful Black Sea coast, including a fantastic photo of a "sand sculpture" celebrating the 70th anniversary of the February 1945 Yalta Conference (aka Crimea or Argonaut Conference) with the Big Three – Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin and Franklin D. Roosevelt – there in Crimea, which was a part of the Soviet Union, and a traditional vacation spot for the czars and later for other Russian leaders and workers. (As historian Webster Griffin Tarpley has reported, Roosevelt was assassinated shortly after the conference and Truman – who replaced pro-Soviet, peace-seeking VP Henry Wallace – leading to the kick off of the Cold War).
A year after Crimea became part of Russia once again, "82-percent of those polled said they fully supported Crimea's inclusion in Russia, and another 11 percent expressed partial support. Only four-percent spoke out against it," reports Sputnik News.
Additionally, despite Nuland's denunciations, 51-percent of Crimeans "reported that their well-being had improved in the past year" and that Crimean retirees "have started receiving much higher Russian pensions."
And believe it or not, as Nuland claims that Moscow is salting the earth of Ukraine, Sputnik News reports that the Crimean peninsula will "receive 47 billion rubles (equivalent to $705 million in US dollars), or 75 percent of its budget, from Russia." The news report notes that when Crimea was under Ukrainian control they never financed Crimea at anything near that level.
And yet the US/Kiev axis continues to deny they are behind the crimes in the Donbass region, while claiming those aforementioned thuggish Ukrainian Nazis (friends of John McCain's, of course) are liberating democrats. And it certainly doesn't help that the Obama administration is infested with Nuland-esque neocons and raving Russophobes, particularly as NATO ramps up military maneuvers in the Black Sea and the US sends 600 paratroopers to Ukraine to train that country's fascist army. Russia, meanwhile, has flatly stated that any efforts to threaten Russia's security, bad things will start to happen. Are we seeing a new Cold War or are we rapidly heading to a hot war?
And let's not forget, Ms. Nuland, that your Ukrainian "freedom fighters" – namely one crazed Ukrainian MP named Yuriy Bereza brazenly promised – on Ukrainian national television – to "burn down Crimea, with all of its residents if needed." It starts to make sense that the Crimeans are far happier under Russian rule.
And as Webster Griffin Tarpley stated on World Crisis Radio this week, Victoria Nuland is an "embarrassment" to the United States and our anti-fascist traditions. He added that Nuland is "crude, scurrilous, ignorant and boiling over with venom." #ImpeachNuland.
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March 10, 2015 | http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/2015/mar/238722.htm
Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs
Statement Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Washington, DC
...the situation in the country remains precarious. Ukraine's leaders, in the executive branch and the parliament, know they are in a race against time to clean up the country and enact the difficult and socially painful reforms required to kick start the economy, and meet their commitments to their people, the IMF and the international community. The package of reforms already put forward by the government, and enacted by the Rada, is impressive in its scope and political courage.
Just last week:
- They passed budget reform expected to slash the deficit this year, and strengthen decentralization by giving more fiscal control to local communities;
- They made tough choices to reduce and cap pension benefits, increase work requirements and phase in a higher retirement age;
- They created a new banking provision to stiffen penalties for financiers for stripping assets from banks at the public's expense, a common practice among oligarchs;
- And, they passed laws cutting wasteful gas subsidies and closing the space for corrupt middlemen that buy low, sell high and rip off the Ukrainian people. These laws will also enhance corporate efficiency, incentivize domestic production, and use $400 million in increased revenue from state-owned gas companies to help care for the poor including some of the 1.7 million people driven from their homes by the conflict.
With U.S. support-including a $1 billion loan guarantee last year and $355 million in foreign assistance and technical advisors-the Ukrainian government is:
- helping insulate vulnerable Ukrainians from the impact of necessary economic reforms;
- improving energy efficiency in homes and factories with metering, consumer incentives and infrastructure improvement;
- building e-governance platforms to make procurement transparent and basic government services cleaner and publicly accessible;
- putting a newly trained force of beat cops on the streets of Kyiv who will protect, not shake down, the citizens;
- reforming the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) - supported by U.S. law enforcement and criminal justice advisors - and helping energize law enforcement and just prosecutions;
- moving to bring economic activity out of the shadows;
- supporting new agriculture laws-with the help of USAID experts-to deregulate the sector and allow family farms to sell their produce in local, regional and wholesale markets; and
- helping those forced to flee Donetsk and Luhansk with USAID jobs and skills training programs in places like Kharkiv.
And there's more support on the way. The President's budget includes an FY16 request of $513.5 million-almost six times more than our FY14 request-to build on these efforts.
To turn the page, Ukraine's hard work must continue. Between now and the summer, we must see budget discipline maintained and tax collection enforced across the country-notably including on some of Ukraine's richest citizens who have enjoyed impunity for too long. We need to see continued reforms at Naftogaz and across the energy sector; final passage of agriculture legislation; full and impartial implementation of anti-corruption measures, including a commitment to break the oligarchic, kleptocratic culture have has decimated the country.
... ... ...
Throughout this conflict, the United States and the EU have worked in lock-step to impose successive rounds of tough sanctions-including sectoral sanctions-on Russia and its separatist cronies as the costs for their actions. In Crimea, we have shown through our investment sanctions that if you bite off a piece of another country, it will dry up in your mouth. Our unity with Europe remains the cornerstone of our policy toward this crisis.
And it is in that spirit that we salute the efforts of German Chancellor Merkel and French President Hollande in Minsk on February 12th to try again to end the fighting in Ukraine's East. The Minsk Package of Agreements-September 5th, September 19th and the February 12th implementing agreement-offer a real opportunity for peace, disarmament, political normalization and decentralization in eastern Ukraine, and the return of Ukrainian state sovereignty and control of its territory and borders. Russia agreed to it; Ukraine agreed to it; the separatists agreed to it. And the international community stands behind it.
For some eastern Ukrainians, conditions have begun to improve. Along long areas of the line of contact, particularly in Luhansk Oblast, the cease-fire has taken hold; the guns have quieted in some towns and villages; some weapons have been withdrawn; some hostages have been released.
But the picture is very mixed. Since the February 15th cease-fire, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission has recorded hundreds of violations. Debaltseve, a key rail hub beyond the cease-fire lines, fell to the separatists and Russian forces six days after Minsk was signed and three days after the cease-fire was to come into effect. In Shchastya, in villages near the Donetsk Airport, in Shyrokyne and other towns around Mariupol the shelling continues, as verified by OSCE Special Monitor Authority.
In the coming days, not weeks or months-here is what we need to see:
- A complete cease-fire in all parts of eastern Ukraine;
- Full, unfettered access to the whole conflict zone including all separatist-held territory, for OSCE monitors; and
- A full pull-back of all heavy weapons-Ukrainian, Russian and separatist-as stipulated in the agreements, under OSCE monitoring and verification.
... ... ...
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Mar 10, 2015 | Zero Hedge via Club Orlovb blog,
The term "chaos" has been popping up a lot lately in the increasingly collapse-prone world in which we find ourselves. Pepe Escobar has even published a book on it. Titled Empire of Chaos, it describes a scenario "where an American] plutocracy progressively projects its own internal disintegration upon the whole world." Escobar's chaos is tailor-made; its purpose is "to prevent an economic integration of Eurasia that would leave the U.S. a non-hegemon, or worse still, an outsider."Escobar is not the only one thinking along these lines; here is Vladimir Putin speaking at the Valdai Conference in 2014:
A unilateral diktat and imposing one's own models produces the opposite result. Instead of settling conflicts it leads to their escalation, instead of sovereign and stable states we see the growing spread of chaos, and instead of democracy there is support for a very dubious public ranging from open neo-fascists to Islamic radicals.
Why do they support such people? They do this because they decide to use them as instruments along the way in achieving their goals but then burn their fingers and recoil. I never cease to be amazed by the way that our partners just keep stepping on the same rake, as we say here in Russia, that is to say, make the same mistake over and over.
Indeed, Escobar's chaos doesn't seem to be working too well. Eurasian integration is very much on track, with China and Russia now acting as an economic, military and political unit, and with other Eurasian states eager to play a role. The European Union is, for the moment, being excluded from Eurasia because it is effectively under American occupation, but this state of affairs is unlikely to last due to budgetary problems. (To be precise, we have to say that it is under NATO occupation, but if we dig just a little, we find that NATO is really just the US military with a European façade hammered onto it Potemkin village-style.)
And so the term "empire" seems rather misplaced. Empires are ambitious undertakings that seek to exert control over their domain, and what sort of an empire is it if its main activity is stepping on the same rake over and over again? A silly one? Then why not just call it "The Silly Empire"? Indeed, there are lots of fun silly imperial activities to choose from. For example: arm and train moderate opposition to a regime you want to overthrow; find out that it isn't moderate at all; try to bomb them into submission and fail at that too.
Some people raise the criticism that the empire does in fact function because somebody somewhere is profiting from all this chaos. Indeed they are, but taking this as a sign of imperial success is tantamount to regarding getting mugged on the way to the supermarket as a sign of economic success. Success has nothing to do with it, but Escobar's "internal disintegration" does seem apt: the disintegrating empire's internal chaos is leaking out and causing chaos everywhere.
Still, the US makes every effort to exert control, mainly by exerting pressure on friends and enemies alike, and by demanding unquestioning obedience. Some might call this "controlled chaos."
But what is "controlled chaos"? How does one control chaos, and is it even possible? Let's delve.
Chaos TheoryThere is a branch of mathematics called chaos theory. It deals with dynamic systems that exhibit a certain set of behaviors:
- For any causal relationship that can be observed, tiny differences in initial conditions cause large differences in outcome. The hackneyed example is the "butterfly effect" where the hypothetical flapping of the wings of a butterfly influences the course of a hurricane some weeks later. Or, to pick a more meaningful example, if the stock market were a chaotic system, then investing a million dollars in an index fund might result in a portfolio of about a million dollars a few months later; whereas investing a million and one dollars might result in a portfolio of minus a trillion dollars and change.
- Unpredictability beyond a short time-period: given finite initial information about a system, its behavior beyond a short period of time becomes impossible to predict. Since information about a real-world system is always finite, being limited by what can be observed and measured, chaotic systems are by their nature unpredictable.
- Topological mixing: any given region of a chaotic system's phase space will eventually overlap with every other region. Chaotic systems can have several distinct states, but eventually these states will mix. For example, if a certain bank were a chaotic system, with two distinct states-solvent and bankrupt-then these states would eventually mix.
Mathematicians like to play with models of chaos, which are deterministic and time-invariant: they can run a simulation over and over again with slightly different inputs, and observe the result. But real-world chaotic systems are non-deterministic and non-time-invariant: not only do they produce wildly different outputs based on very slightly different inputs, but they produce different outputs every time. What's more, even if deterministic chaotic systems did exist in nature, they would be indistinguishable from so-called "stochastic" systems-ones that exhibit randomness.
Control TheoryAnother branch of mathematics deals with ways of controlling dynamic processes. A typical example is a thermostat: it maintains constant temperature by turning a heat source on if the temperature drops below a certain threshold, and off again if it rises above a certain other threshold. (The difference between the two thresholds is called "hysteresis.") Another typical example is the autopilot: it is a device that computes the difference between the programmed course and the actual course (called an "error signal" and applies that error signal to a control mechanism to keep the boat or the plane on course. There are many variations on this theme, but the overall scheme is always the same: measure system output, compare to reference, compute error signal, and apply it as negative feedback to the system.
In order to apply control theory to a system, that system must obey certain principles. One is the superposition principle: output must be proportional to the input. Left rudder always causes the boat to turn left; more left rudder causes it to boat to turn left faster. Another is time-invariance: the boat reacts to changes in rudder angle the same way every time. These are necessities; but most applications of control theory make an additional assumption of linearity: that changes in system behavior are linearly proportional to changes in control input. Since all real-world systems are non-linear, an effort is usually made to endow them with a relatively linear flat spot in the middle of their useful range. Turn a boat's rudder a little bit, and the boat turns as expected; turn it too far, and it stalls and no longer works.
Applying control theory to chaotic systems is tricky, because of the issue of "controllability": is it possible to put a system in a particular state by applying particular control signals? In a chaotic system, very small error signals can produce very large differences in system output. Therefore, a chaotic system cannot be controlled. However, an uncontrollable system can sometimes be stabilized and made to cycle around within a particular, useful, or at least non-lethal, part of its phase space. Generally, to stabilize the system, it must be observable: it must be possible to measure the output of the system and use it to issue corrections. However, even an an unobservable system can still be stabilized, by detecting its state periodically and applying a control signal to push it incrementally in the right direction.
Here is a real-world example. Suppose you are hurtling along a slush-covered highway in a subcompact car with bald summer tires. At some point a very minor perturbation of some sort will transform this controllable system into an uncontrollable one: the car will start spinning. Since it can no longer be steered, it will slide toward the barrier on one side of the highway or the other. It will also become unobservable: with the driver spinning along with the car, it will become impossible to observe the car's trajectory based on short glimpses of the roadway spinning past. Can this situation be stabilized?
Yes, it turns out that it can be. This is a trick I learned from a jet fighter pilot, which I was then able to apply to the exact scenario I just described. If a jet starts tumbling out of control, the pilot's job is to get it to stop tumbling and to get it back to level flight. This is done by twisting one's head back and forth in rhythm with the spin, catching glimpses of the horizon, and working the yoke, also in rhythm to the spin, to slow it down, and to make the horizon go horizontal.
In a car, the driver's job is to get the car to stop spinning without hitting the barrier on either side of the highway. This is done by twisting one's head in rhythm to the spin, catching glimpses of the barriers on each side of the road, and working the steering wheel, also in rhythm to get the car to stop spinning while keeping it away from either barrier. If the car is spinning clockwise, then a clockwise twist to the steering wheel will move it forward, a counterclockwise twist will move it backward, and a stomp on the brakes will slow down its forward or backward motion somewhat.
This is typically the best that can be done in controlling chaos: using small perturbations to keep the system within a certain range of safe, useful states, keeping it out of any number of useless or dangerous ones. But there is one more caveat: such applications of control theory to chaotic systems require finding out the properties of the chaotic system ahead of time. That's rather tricky to do if a system evolves continuously in response to these small perturbations. In situations that involve politics or military matters, applying the same control measure twice is about as effective as telling the same joke twice to the same audience: you become the joke.
* * *
The moral of this story should be obvious by now: as with the car on a slush-covered highway, any fool can get it to spin out, but that same fool is then unlikely to have the presence of mind, the skill and the steel nerves to keep it from hitting one of the barriers. Same goes for the would-be builders of an "empire of controlled chaos": sure, they can generate chaos, but controlling it in a manner that allows them to derive some benefit from it is rather out of the question, and even their ability to stabilize it, so that they are not themselves hurt by it, is in grave doubt.
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February 09, 2014 | Information Clearing House
What is it about America's women diplomats? They seem so hard and cloned - bereft of any humanity or intelligence. Presumably, these women are supposed to represent social advance for the female gender. But, far from displaying female independence, they are just a pathetic copy of the worst traits in American male politicians - aggressive, arrogant and completely arrant in their views.
Take Victoria Nuland - the US Assistant Secretary of State - who was caught using obscene language in a phone call about the European Union and the political affairs of Ukraine. In her previous posting as a spokeswoman for the US State Department, Nuland had the demeanor of a robotic matron with a swivel eye.
Now in her new role of covertly rallying anti-government protesters in Ukraine, Nuland has emerged to sound like a bubblegum-chewing Mafia doll. In her leaked private conversation with the US ambassador to Kiev, the American female diplomat is heard laying down in imperious tones how a new government in Ukraine should be constituted. Nuland talks about "gluing together" a sovereign country as if it is a mere plaything, and she stipulates which members of the US-backed street rabble in Kiev should or should not be included in any Washington-approved new government in the former Soviet republic.
We don't know who actually tapped and leaked Nuland's private call to the US ambassador in Kiev, Geoffrey Pyatt. It could have been the Ukrainian or Russian secret services, but, regardless, it was an inspired move to reveal it. For the disclosure, which has been posted on the internet, lays bare the subversive meddling agenda of Washington in Ukrainian internal affairs. Up to now, the Americans have been piously pretending that their involvement is one of a bystander supporting democracy from afar.
But, thanks to the Nuland's foul-mouthed indiscretion, the truth is out. Washington, from her own admission, is acting like an agent provocateur in Ukraine's political turmoil. That is an illegal breach of international rules of sovereignty. Nuland finishes her phone call like a gangster ordering a hit on a rival, referring to incompetent European interference in Ukraine with disdain - "F...k the EU."
What we are witnessing here is the real, ugly face of American government and its uncouth contempt for international law and norms.
Next up is Wendy Sherman, the Under Secretary for Political Affairs, who is also Washington's top negotiator in the P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran. Sherman is another flinty-eyed female specimen of the American political class, who, like Nuland, seems to have a block of ice for a heart and a frozen Popsicle for a brain.
Again, like Nuland, Sherman aims to excel in her political career by sounding even more macho, morose and moronic than her male American peers.
Last week, Sherman was giving testimony before the US Senate foreign affairs committee on the upcoming negotiations with Iran over the interim nuclear agreement. The panel was chaired by the warmongering Democrat Senator Robert Menendez, who wants to immediately ramp up more sanctions on Iran, as well as back the Israeli regime in any preemptive military strike on the Islamic Republic.
Sherman's performance was a craven display of someone who has been brainwashed to mouth a mantra of falsehoods with no apparent ability to think for herself. It's scary that such people comprise the government of the most nuclear-armed-and-dangerous state in the world.
Programmed Sherman accused Iran of harboring ambitions to build nuclear weapons. "We share the same goal [as the warmonger Menendez] to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon." And she went on to repeat threadbare, risible allegations that Iran is supporting international terrorism. That is a disturbing indication of the low level of political intelligence possessed by the US chief negotiator.
"Iran also continues to arm and train militants in Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Bahrain. And Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah continue," asserted Sherman without citing an iota of proof and instead relying on a stale-old propaganda narrative.
The number three in the US State Department went on to say of the interim nuclear deal with Iran: "What is also important to understand is that we remain in control over whether to accept the terms of a final deal or not. We have made it clear to Iran that, if it fails to live up to its commitments, or if we are unable to reach agreement on a comprehensive solution, we would ask the Congress to ramp up new sanctions."
Remember that Sherman and her State Department boss John Kerry are considered "soft on Iran" by the likes of Menendez, John McCain, Lyndsey Graham, Mark Kirk, and the other political psychopaths in Washington. So, we can tell from Sherman's callous words and mean-minded logic that the scope for genuine rapprochement between the US and Iran is extremely limited.
Sherman finished her performance before the Senate panel with the obligatory illegal threat of war that Washington continually issues against Iran: "We retain all options to ensure that Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon."
In the goldfish-bowl environment of Washington politics, perhaps such female officials are to be even more feared. The uniform monopoly of America's political class is dictated by militarism – weapons manufacturers, oil companies and Zionist lobbyists. The only way to "succeed" in this cesspool is to be even more aggressive and imperialist than your peers.
Nuland and Sherman illustrate the cold-hearted logic at work in American robotic politics: it's a system programmed for imperialism and war, and it doesn't matter whether the officials are Democrat, Republic, male or female. They are all clones of a war criminal state.
Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Master's graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in journalism.
This article was originally published at Press TV
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Feb 18, 2015 | Asia Times Online
Since the Soviet collapse - as Moscow had feared - [the NATO] alliance has spread eastward, expanding along a line from Estonia in the north to Romania and Bulgaria in the south. The Kremlin claims it had Western assurances that would not happen. Now, Moscow's only buffers to a complete NATO encirclement on its western border are Finland, Belarus and Ukraine. The Kremlin would not have to be paranoid to look at that map with concern. - Stars and Stripes (US Armed Forces newspaper), February 13, 2015.
The Minsk Agreement of February 12, 2015, was arranged by the leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine and contained important provisions concerning future treatment of citizens in the Russian-speaking, Russia-cultured eastern districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in Ukraine where there has been vicious fighting between separatist forces and government troops supported by militias.
Most Western media did not report that the accord was signed by the leaders of the provinces (oblasts) of Donetsk and Luhansk as well as representatives of Russia and Ukraine, but the former two matter greatly in implementation of its provisions.
To the disappointment of much of the West, and especially the United States, it appears that the great majority of the inhabitants of these regions are to be granted much of what they have been seeking (with robust support by Russia), which includes the right to speak and receive education in their birth-language; restitution of pension payments and other central revenue moneys that were stopped by the Kiev government; constitutional reform of Ukraine including "approval of permanent legislation on the special status of particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk"; and free local elections in the oblasts.
The way to peace will not be easy but the substance of the accord will go far to convincing the people of the eastern oblasts that they will not in future be treated as second-class citizens. They will be permitted an appropriate degree of decision-making in their regions, and if there is goodwill on the part of the Kiev government there is reason to believe that fair governance could apply. A major problem, however, is the attitude of the United States and Britain concerning Russia and Ukraine.
Neither the US nor the UK was privy to discussions between participants in the Minsk talks except through technical intercept by their intelligence agencies and more intimate but necessarily partial description by Kiev's President Petro Poroshenko, whose subordinates reported through US and British conduits.
London and Washington were excluded from negotiations because neither wishes a solution that could be agreeable to Russia and the Russian-cultured regions of east Ukraine.
Both are uncompromisingly intent on humiliating Moscow, and although Britain is verging on irrelevance in world affairs except as a decayed and limited associate of the US in whatever martial venture may be embarked upon by Washington, the US Congress and White House are for once in agreement and are determined to destroy Russia's economy and topple its president and are being provocatively challenging in pursuit of that aim.
There hasn't been such deliberate squaring-up politically and militarily since the height of the last Cold War. President Barack Obama's speeches about Russia and President Vladimir Putin have been bellicose, abusive and personally insolent to the point of immature mindlessness. He does not realize that his contempt and threats will not be forgiven by the Russian people who, it is only too often overlooked, are proud of being Russian and understandably resent being insulted.
Obama claimed last year that the US "is and will remain the one indispensable nation in the world", which was regarded with mild derision by many nations; but now Russians are realizing what he meant by his chest-pounding, because America has fostered the Ukraine mess in attempting to justify its stance of uncompromising aggression against them.
But Ukraine has nothing to do with the United States. It is on the border of Russia, not the US. It is not a member of NATO. It is not a member of the European Union. It has no defense or political treaty of any sort with the US. It is 5,000 miles - 8,000 kilometers - from Washington to Kiev and it is doubtful if more than a handful of members of Congress could find Ukraine on a map.
In March 2014, the province of Crimea declared itself to be separate from Ukraine. There was a referendum on sovereignty by its 2.4 million inhabitants. The Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe was asked to monitor and report on the referendum, but refused to do so. Both referendum and declaration were strongly condemned by the United States.
Some 60% of the inhabitants of Crimea are Russian-speaking, Russian-cultured and Russian-educated, and they voted to rejoin Russia from which they had been separated by the diktat of Soviet chairman Nikita Khrushchev - a Ukrainian. It would be strange if they did not wish to accede to a country that welcomes their kinship and is economically benevolent concerning their future.
Russia's support for the people of eastern Ukraine - and there is indubitably a great deal of assistance, both political and military, similar to that of the US-NATO alliance for the people of the breakaway Kosovo region of Serbia in 2008 - is based on the fact that the great majority of people there are Russian-speaking, Russian-cultured and discriminated against by the Ukrainian government, just as Kosovans were persecuted by Serbs.
So it is not surprising that the majority of inhabitants of the eastern areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts want to "dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another" and be granted a large degree of autonomy - or even join Russia. The US refuses to admit that they might have even the slightest justification for their case.
There has been a US-led media campaign attempting to persuade the public, in the words of John Herbst, former US ambassador to Ukraine, that President Putin's "provocations against the Baltic states, against Kazakhstan, indicate his goals are greater than Ukraine. If we don't stop Mr Putin in Ukraine we may be dealing with him in Estonia."
This is nonsense, because there is no economic, political or military point in Russia trying to invade the Baltic States or any other country on its borders. There has been no indication of any such move - other than in bizarre statements by such as Mr Herbst and twisted reports in Western news media. It is absurd and intellectually demeaning and deceitful to suggest otherwise, and it is regrettable that someone of the superior intelligence of Mr Herbst could lower himself to say such a thing.
But it makes good propaganda.
In similar vein, President Putin's statement to Ukraine's President Poroshenko that "If I wanted, in two days I could have Russian troops not only in Kiev, but also in Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn, Warsaw and Bucharest" was reported by Britain's Daily Telegraph as "President Vladimir Putin privately threatened to invade Poland, Romania and the Baltic states" - which was malicious misrepresentation of what he said.
Putin was making the point that Russia's armed forces could easily have taken successful military action against neighboring countries had they been ordered to do so - but he has no intention of doing anything so rash and stupid. What he and the Russian people want is justice and political choice for the ethnically Russian people in eastern Ukraine, as well as increasing bilaterally lucrative trade arrangements with adjoining countries. It would be insane for Moscow to hazard commercial links with any of its neighbors. Washington, on the other hand, is trying to break them.
Following the Minsk agreement, Canada, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, (together with France and Germany, the Group of Seven) mildly welcomed it - for of course they had no public alternative - but took the opportunity, according to the White House, to "again condemn Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea which is in violation of international law".
It appears that the US-stimulated nations of the G-7 demand that Crimea, with its 60% ethnic Russian population, should be in some fashion taken over by the Kiev government against the will of the majority of the people of that longtime Russian region.
This would satisfy the aim of the US-NATO alliance, which wished and still wishes Ukraine to become a member of that organization, joining those already positioned on Russia's border. For US-NATO, the problem, now, is that the massive seaport at Sevastopol is independent of Kiev and will therefore be denied to US-NATO as a base from which to dominate the Black Sea.
The US-led anti-Russia alliance continues to extend its influence along Russia's borders, and it is obvious that no matter what happens in Ukraine's eastern oblasts there will be continuing confrontation with Russia, led by Washington.
Mikhail Gorbachev - the man whose empathy with president Ronald Reagan so helped to end the first Cold War - observed about the stance of US-NATO that "I cannot be sure that the [new] Cold War will not bring about a 'hot' one. I'm afraid they might take the risk."
Given the intemperate and increasingly confrontational posture of the US and some of its NATO alliance supporters, the risk seems high. They are hazarding the lives of us all.
Brian Cloughley is a former soldier who writes on military and political affairs, mainly concerning the sub-continent. The fourth edition of his book A History of the Pakistan Army was published last year.
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Freezerbox Magazine
Lest We Forget: Neo-conservatives and Republican Foreign Policy, 1976-2000
BY ALEXANDER ZAITCHIK
04.06.2000 | POLITICSOne cold winter day in 1981, a high ranking Pentagon official in the Reagan Administration was called before a Senate subcommittee to explain some comments he had made in an interview with Los Angeles Times reporter Robert Scheer. In the interview, Thomas K. Jones asserted that the United States would recover from a full-scale nuclear war in two to four years. He also advocated a civil defense program centered around the digging of holes to be covered with doors and a layer of dirt. "If there are enough shovels around," he said, "everybody's going to make it."
When he made these remarks, Thomas K. Jones was Deputy Under Secretary for Research and Engineering, Strategic and Theater Nuclear Forces.
Glib ignorance about the effects of nuclear war was not located on the fringes of the Reagan Administration. It was the conventional wisdom, up to and including the President himself. Virulent in their opposition to the SALT II Treaty and fanatical in their hatred of the Soviet Union, the hawks that succeeded Jimmy Carter in 1980 commenced upon active planning for nuclear war. Reversing longstanding American doctrine, they argued that a nuclear war could be "won," that a limited exchange was possible without further escalation, and that a first-strike capability was morally and strategically desirable. As was then said by Eugene Rostow, Reagan's chair for the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, "We are living in a pre-war, not a post-war, period." Such thinking fueled the largest and most dangerous arms build-up in history. Eager to fulfill their own prophecies, Reagan's team led the Soviets in a dance of arms racing and brinkmanship. In the Administration's official language, the principle of co-existence was to be dropped in favor of a "full-court press"--a basketball strategy that usually involves rough bodily contact in the opponents territory.
Most of the super-hawks that populated Reagan's cabinet were culled from the ranks of the advocacy group Committee on the Present Danger. The Committee, formed in 1976, was organized by fanatically anti-communist neo-conservatives with little patience for the give-and-take of Nixon/Carter diplomacy. Once viewed as extremists with minimal influence on policy debates, Reagan's victory brought the Committee to the center of power, the reigns of policy delivered into its lap. The arms control process was hijacked, beheaded and left to rot besides the discarded corpse of detente.
Once in power, these men geared US policy toward forcing the Soviets to accept US strategic superiority, if not humiliating defeat. Outraged by the fact of Soviet nuclear parity as enshrined in the ABM accord of 1972, they sought to move beyond the stabilizing strictures of Mutual Assured Destruction into a brave new world of effective first-strikes and laser defenses. In a series of extremely destabilizing public statements, they described nukes as effective offensive weapons. Rather than seeing the Soviet build-up of the 1970s as a rational and belated response to the American build up of the 1960s, they argued that the Soviets were preparing to use nuclear blackmail against the US and takeover the world. That this was roundly rejected as absurd by nearly every major academic and foreign policy analyst had little effect on Reagan's Defense and State Departments, where closed system intellectual incestuousness and a religious intensity kept everyone happily immune to rational criticism.
In retrospect, given the scale of recklessness in the policies and statements of the first Reagan Administration--from medium-range missiles in Europe to civil defense to SDI to "winnable nuclear war"--it is remarkable that disaster was avoided. During the early 1980s, US leaders sounded less like educated and serious men with the fate of the earth in their palms than did General Buck Turgidson of Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove: "I'm not saying we won't get our hair muffed. Ten to twenty million casualties tops -- depending on the breaks."
The full story makes for fascinating history. Unfortunately it is a history we may be doomed to repeat.
The crusading--what one might call "madman"--school of right-wing foreign policy did not die with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Despite something of a drift in Republican strategy in the post-Cold War period, hawkish instincts remain alive and well at the heart of the Party in 2000. Reincarnated in a new generation of neo-conservatives these instincts are reasserting themselves amidst George W. Bush's drive to the White House. Hints of what would be found in a GOP executive are currently on display in Congress.
Along with pushing for a multi-billion dollar national missile defense system, the GOP is seeking budget cuts that would eliminate funding for the dismantling of Russian nuclear weapons. They are also urging the abandonment of a project to construct detection sensors crucial to the implementation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The Republican dominated Senate rejected the Test Ban, of course, a move that more thoughtful conservatives have described as "gratuitously blunt."
Not far from Capitol Hill, neo-conservative strategists are currently pushing to make foreign policy a front-burner issue again, and the scripted ideas being put forward by Bush on the trail manifest a disturbing nostalgia for the brashness and imagined simplicity of the Reagan era. Many prominent neo-conservatives clearly yearn for the good old days, when imagined "windows of vulnerability" won them the White House and The Day After was on the tube. "Assertive internationalism" and "Robust Nationalism" are the hot keywords of the new old thinking. Needless to say, arms control does not fit into the future being projected. For it is a future of absolute American technological mastery, and no artificial limits on the national megatonnage will be tolerated.
Infused with the righteousness of the true believer, neo-conservatives are terrifyingly fanciful when it comes to international affairs. Robert Kagan and William Kristol, two neo-con architects of GOP policy, recently penned an essay in the conservative National Review entitled "The Present Danger" in which they explicitly held up the Cold War era Reagan model as appropriate for the next president. While the authors admit that the new Present Danger is not incarnate in any adversary--"it has no name"--they nonetheless recommend that the US spend an extra $60-100 billion per year above current defense budgets to combat it. This money would be devoted to enhancing America's ability to project force abroad and the pursuance of "regime change," i.e., the invasion of foreign countries and the overthrow of leaders unpalatable to Mr. Kagan and Mr. Kristol. Flagrant disregard for international law and arms racing is to make the world safe for democracy--again.
The flagship neo-con journal, The Weekly Standard, offers an analysis of the present international scene that can only be described as paranoid delusional, claiming in a recent editorial that "it's hard to think of a time when America's international standing has been so low, when Washington's credibility was in such disrepair." The piece goes on to compare Clinton's foreign policy "drift" to Carter's "weakness"; the implication being that what America needs is another maniacal spread-eagle cowboy like Ronald Reagan. There's no Soviet bogeymen to rally behind and no charismatic leader this time around, but apparently certain unnamed mortal threats and Bush Jr. will have to do. We are surrounded and our freedom in grave peril, and apparently only The Weekly Standard has the vantage point needed to see this.
Connections between propagandists for the new Present Danger and the original Committee of the 1970s are not limited to nostalgia and borrowed catchphrases. A list of current advisors to George W. Bush reveals former members of the old Committee, most notably Richard Perle, who served as Reagan's Assistant Secretary of Defense. Along with Harvard Sovietologist Richard Pipes, Perle was the most vocal proponent of "winnable nuclear war" in Reagan's first Administration. Known as a hawk's hawk, he once famously described the European peace movement as an expression of mere "protestant angst." The millions that marched against US policy weren't really worried about getting fried in a nuclear war, you see, they were just reading too much Kierkegaard.
That Richard Perle, an advocate of nuclear superiority and manageable nuclear exchange, is one election away from getting his corner office at the Pentagon back doesn't only worry liberals. Republicans of a less ideological bent fear that the neo-conservatives will pull a Bush White House in an extremist direction, thus keeping responsible voices away from policy formation. Moderate "realists" like Alexander Haig either resigned or were forced out of the cold war circus of the 1980s for lack of passion, and the silencing of rational perspectives could again occur in a Bush Administration dominated by neo-conservative thinking.
Such worries have led Gideon Rose of the Council on Foreign Relations to doubt that the Republicans are ready to "exercise power responsibly." He sees recent statements by influential neo-conservative strategists as "cause for alarm" and says that their eerily familiar ideological passion "remains constant and dangerous." Mr. Rose is no dove, and for him to caution that the current constellation of forces in the GOP is incapable of producing a foreign policy of mature adults should stop us in our tracks.
The lessons of 1980 are loud and they are clear. Militarists and loose cannons can capture the White House and hold the world hostage. It must not be allowed to happen again.
About the Author
Alexander Zaitchik co-founded Freezerbox in 1998. He has reported from more than a dozen countries for publications such as the International Herald Tribune, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Wired, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Believer, and many others. He lives in New York City.
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Feb 03, 2015 | Observer
At first glance, Lee Camp, Thom Hartmann and Larry King don't seem to have a lot in common. Mr. Camp is a comedian who seeks to fuse progressive politics with humor. He is perhaps best known for his "Moment of Clarity" rants, where he colorfully, and occasionally profanely, analyzes an issue from the news. Mr. Hartmann is a progressive radio host, author and pundit who has written numerous books, articles and blogs. Larry King is legendary talk show host and erstwhile Little League coach. He has interviewed presidents, actors, musicians and even Oprah.
All three of these media personalities, however, share a link to RT (formerly Russia Today), the English-language arm of the Russian government's media operation. In less diplomatic terms, it is a Kremlin propaganda machine. RT's coverage of Russia, the conflict in Ukraine and other issues having direct bearing on Moscow's role in the world, include headlines that sound like they could have been written by Russian President Vladimir Putin himself. Mother Russia is portrayed as a force for only good and peace in the world. It's anchors and "reporters" have enthusiasm for euphemisms such as "stabilizing force" ("invading army") and "humanitarian aid" ("military intervention"). RT's coverage of Russian politics is heavy-handed, unsubtle and, in the U.S., not particularly effective. Despite RT's best efforts to gin up sympathy for Russia in the current Ukraine conflict, most mainstream politicians and media outlets continue to compete with each other to see who can demonize Putin most.
RT's coverage of the U.S., however, is different. While it certainly has an political agenda, one that is not of the left or the right, but simply to portray an image of the US as a deeply flawed country with a corrupt and ineffective political system, RT covers news, and offers perspectives that are not often seen American broadcast television. RT touts itself as offering a "second opinion," through its American media campaign, described by Ronn Torossian recently here at the Observer. RT is certainly neither objective or balanced, but it is at least as legitimate a representation of the realities of the U.S. and of American politics than, for example, Fox News, and generally offers considerably more depth than what is offered by how ABC, CBS or NBC present the news.
Recent RT headlines such as "Police Brutality Activists Angry Obama Glossed Over Ferguson 'Events' in SOTU" and "Majority of America's Public School Children are Living in Poverty," span a reasonably broad ideological range, but seek to consistently to portray the U.S. in a negative light. These are also stories that much of the media overlooks. This approach, and similar language can also be found in RT America's busy Twitter feed. If RT were funded through advertising or the largesse of a quirky American billionaire and only covered domestic politics here in the U.S., it would be viewed by many as a useful component of a diverse media environment. For these reasons, RT is now the most watched foreign news outlet in the U.S., with an audience that is estimated to be 6.5 times as large as its closest rival, Al Jazeera America.
In addition to its news coverage, RT has also become a clearinghouse for the opinions of American dissidents, including those on the far left like Noam Chomsky, the far, if twisted, right like Pat Buchanan, and increasingly fringe Libertarians like Ron Paul. While opinions like these are provocative, unpopular and often a little wacky, RT gives American audiences access to ideas and opinions that are considerably beyond the narrow bandwidth in which most debate in the media usually occurs. Clearly, these opinions are more extreme than the more genial progressive politics of Mr. Camp or Mr. Hartmann or of the generally politically neutral work of Mr. King, but taken as a whole, RT provides a very broad range of political outlooks.
Somebody who only watched RT would have an image of the U.S. as a place of radical economic inequality, widespread civil unrest, corrupt politicians, racial animus and a collapsing economy, committed to expanding its global influence through military might. Of course, somebody who watched only Fox News, would understand the U.S. to be a country that is in the throws of a socialist takeover where an oppressed minority of white, heavily Christian citizens, are now losing the country that was given to them by the almighty, to hordes of illegal immigrants, non-whites, homosexuals and atheists. Both Fox and RT are propaganda organs espousing very biased views of American politics. The major difference may be that Fox represents one extreme of the domestic political spectrum while RT is the propaganda arm of a foreign government. While RT draws more viewers than other foreign news networks like CCTV from China, Al Jazeera America or even the BBC, its viewership is dwarfed by major American news stations like Fox; RT America has 194,000 Twitter followers compared with Fox News has 4.83 million Twitter followers.
But dismissing RT's coverage as simply a Russian propaganda, however, is a mistake. The insights of people like Mr. Camp and Mr. Hartmann, while not universally agreed upon, certainly resonate with many Americans. It is significant that it is only on a Moscow-funded station that voices like those can be heard, reflecting how the major media outlets still only present a relatively narrow range of views on most topics. Second, providing a critical and resonant portrayal of American politics to American viewers will eventually make those viewers more open to RT's dubious presentation of foreign affairs and Russian politics. The Kremlin hopes that the same people who watch RT's US programming and wonder why stories about, for example, why the US is classifying information about aid to Afghanistan, will soon begin to question why so few voices on American media are critical of the Ukrainian government.
Consider RT's coverage of American politics as a bait and switch, from critical insight about the US to dishonest propaganda regarding Russia.
Lincoln Mitchell is national political correspondent at the Observer. Follow him on Twitter
Alfred Cossi Chodaton
RT does nothing different from what major media outlets do.
Ilya Nesterovich
Lie, lie and lie. That's all. RT show different opinion from official, and, of course, USA doesn't like it.
Mstislav Pavlov
In Russia there is no need for propaganda. Your media better than any propaganda. Kremlin even do not need anything :)
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Jan 07, 2015 | marknesop.wordpress.com
et Al , January 8, 2015 at 1:29 pmeuractiv: Latvia proposes 'alternative' to Russian TV propaganda
Latvia, which took over the rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU on 1 January, intends to launch a Russian-language TV channel to counter Kremlin propaganda, with EU support, a high ranking government official told journalists in Riga
Some 40% of Latvians are native Russian speakers and regularly watch several Russian TV channels, including RBK Ren TV, RTR Planeta, NTV Mir .
Makarovs regretted that the majority of Russian channels broadcasting for Latvia were registered in the UK and in Sweden, and that the regulators of those countries paid no attention to the content and put no pressure whatsoever on the broadcaster. He also argued that the procedure should be that if a media is targeted toward a specific country, it should be registered in that particular country .
###Firstly, the Balt states announced at various times over the last year or so that they would ban or block Russian channels. But they can't. They are EU member states, so this whole alternative programs is an actually an admission of defeat.
Secondly, if Russian propaganda is so absurd and unbelievable, then why would alternative programing be necessary? It is cognitive dissonance par excellence!
What is fairly clear is that the Pork Pie News Networks of 'Europe' and the US are facing much more skepticism than ever before, mostly through incompetence and simply repeating the same old tropes and propganda tactics they have been using for over twenty years now. It doesn't fool anyone any more.
As for Latvia's presidency of the EU, it is little more than spokesstate since the rotating Presidency was gutted a few years ago to make it much more efficient (i.e cheaper). With small countries, yes they choose certain aspects that they wish to promote for their six months of fame, but the logistics and heavy lifting is usually done (sponsored) by a larger EU state like UK, Nl, DE, Fr etc..). It's not that much different to Mogherini's job as spokeshole for the European External Action Service, aka the EU's foreign minister (and Katherine 'Gosh!' Ashton before her). They don't make policy, just vocalized the lowest common denominator position of 28 EU member states.
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Jan 01, 2015 | The Guardian
A widening rift between Moscow and Washington over cruise missiles and increasingly daring patrols by nuclear-capable Russian submarines threatens to end an era of arms control and bring back a dangerous rivalry between the world's two dominant nuclear arsenals.Tensions have been taken to a new level by US threats of retaliatory action for Russian development of a new cruise missile. Washington alleges it violates one of the key arms control treaties of the cold war, and has raised the prospect of redeploying its own cruise missiles in Europe after a 23-year absence.
On Boxing Day, in one of the more visible signs of the unease, the US military launched the first of two experimental "blimps" over Washington. The system, known as JLENS, is designed to detect incoming cruise missiles. The North American Aerospace Command (Norad) did not specify the nature of the threat, but the deployment comes nine months after the Norad commander, General Charles Jacoby, admitted the Pentagon faced "some significant challenges" in countering cruise missiles, referring in particular to the threat of Russian attack submarines.
Those submarines, which have been making forays across the Atlantic, routinely carry nuclear-capable cruise missiles. In the light of aggressive rhetoric from Moscow and the expiry of treaty-based restrictions, there is uncertainty over whether those missiles are now carrying nuclear warheads.
The rise in tension comes at a time when the arms control efforts of the post-cold-war era are losing momentum. The number of strategic nuclear warheads deployed by the US and Russia actually increased last year, and both countries are spending many billions of dollars a year modernising their arsenals. Against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine and a failing economy, Vladimir Putin is putting increasing emphasis on nuclear weapons as guarantors and symbols of Russian influence. In a speech primarily about the Ukrainian conflict last summer, Putin pointedly referred to his country's nuclear arsenal and declared other countries "should understand it's best not to mess with us".
The Russian press has taken up the gung-ho tone. Pravda, the former mouthpiece of the Soviet regime, published an article in November titled "Russian prepares a nuclear surprise for Nato", which boasted of Russian superiority over the west, particularly in tactical nuclear weapons.
"The Americans are well aware of this," the commentary said. "They were convinced before that Russia would never rise again. Now it's too late."
Some of the heightened rhetoric appears to be bluster. The new version of the Russian military doctrine, published on 25 December, left its policy on nuclear weapons unchanged from four years earlier. They are to be used only in the event of an attack using weapons of mass destruction or a conventional weapon onslaught which "would put in danger the very existence of the state". It did not envisage a pre-emptive strike, as some in the military had proposed.
However, the new aggressive tone coincides with an extensive upgrading of Russia's nuclear weapons, reflecting Moscow's renewed determination to keep pace with the US arsenal. It will involve a substantial increase in the number of warheads loaded on submarines, as a result of the development of the multi-warhead Bulava sea-launched ballistic missile.
The modernisation also involves new or revived delivery systems. Last month Russia announced it would re-introduce nuclear missile trains, allowing intercontinental ballistic missiles to be moved about the country by rail so they would be harder to target.
There is also mounting western anxiety over Russian marketing abroad of a cruise missile called the Club-K, which can be concealed, complete with launcher, inside an innocuous-looking shipping container until the moment it is fired.
However, the development that has most alarmed Washington is Russian testing of a medium-range cruise missile which the Obama administration claims is a clear violation of the 1987 intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) treaty, the agreement that brought to an end the dangerous standoff between US and Russian cruise missiles in Europe. By hugging the contours of the Earth, cruise missiles can evade radar defences and hit strategic targets with little or no notice, raising fears on both sides of surprise pre-emptive attacks.
At a contentious congressional hearing on 10 December, Republicans criticised two of the administration's leading arms control negotiators, Rose Gottemoeller of the State Department and Brian McKeon of the Pentagon, for not responding earlier to the alleged Russian violation and for continuing to observe the INF treaty.
Gottemoeller said she had raised US concerns over the new missile "about a dozen times" with her counterparts in Moscow and Obama had written to Putin on the matter. She said the new Russian cruise missile – which she did not identify but is reported to be the Iskander-K with a reach in the banned 500-5,500km range – appeared to be ready for deployment.
The Russians have denied the existence of the missile and have responded with counter-allegations about American infringements of the INF treaty that Washington rejects.
McKeon said the Pentagon was looking at a variety of military responses to the Russian missile, including the deployment of an American equivalent weapon.
"We have a broad range of options, some of which would be compliant with the INF treaty, some of which would not be, that we would be able to recommend to our leadership if it decided to go down that path," McKeon said. He later added: "We don't have ground-launched cruise missiles in Europe now, obviously, because they are prohibited by the treaty but that would obviously be one option to explore."
Reintroducing cruise missiles into Europe would be politically fraught and divisive, but the Republican majority in Congress is pushing for a much more robust American response to the Russian missile.
The US military has also been rattled by the resurgence of the Russian submarine fleet. Moscow is building new generations of giant ballistic missile submarines, known as "boomers", and attack submarines that are equal or superior to their US counterparts in performance and stealth. From a low point in 2002, when the Russian navy managed to send out no underwater patrols at all, it is steadily rebounding and reasserting its global reach.
There have been sporadic reports in the US press about Russian submarines reaching the American east coast, which have been denied by the US military. But last year Jacoby, the head of Norad and the US northern command at the time, admitted concerns about being able to counter new Russian investment in cruise missile technology and advanced submarines.
"They have just begun production of a new class of quiet nuclear submarines specifically designed to deliver cruise missiles," Jacoby told Congress.
Peter Roberts, who retired from the Royal Navy a year ago after serving as a commanding officer and senior UK liaison officer with the US navy and intelligence services, said the transatlantic forays by Akula-class Russian attack submarines had become a routine event, at least once or twice a year.
"The Russians usually put out a sortie with an Akula or an Akula II around Christmas It normally stops off Scotland, and then through the Bay of Biscay and out over the Atlantic. It will have nuclear-capable missiles on it," he said.
Roberts, who is now senior research fellow for sea power and maritime studies at the Royal United Services Institute, said the appearance of a periscope off the western coast of Scotland, which triggered a Nato submarine hunt last month, was a sign of the latest such Russian foray.
He said the Russian attack submarine was most likely heading for the US coast. "They go across to eastern seaboard, usually to watch the carrier battle groups work up [go on exercises].
"It's something the Americans have been trying to brush off but there is increasing concern about the American ability to track these subs. Their own anti-sub skills have declined, while we have all been focused on landlocked operations, in Afghanistan and so on."
The Akula is being superseded by an even stealthier submarine, the Yasen. Both are multipurpose: hunter-killers designed to track and destroy enemy submarine and carrier battle groups. Both are also armed with land-attack cruise missiles, currently the Granat, capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
On any given sortie, Roberts said, "it is completely unknown whether they are nuclear-tipped".
A Russian media report described the Akula as carrying Granat missiles with 200-kilotonne warheads, but the reliability of the report is hard to gauge.
The US and Russia removed cruise missiles from their submarines after the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction treaty (Start), but that expired at the end of 2009. Its successor, New Start, signed by Obama and the then Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, in 2010 does not include any such limitation, nor does it even allow for continued exchange of information about cruise missile numbers.
Pavel Podvig, a senior research fellow at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research and the leading independent analyst of Russian nuclear forces, said: "The bottom line is that we don't know, but it's safe to say that it's quite possible that Russian subs carry nuclear SLCMs [submarine-launched cruise missiles].
Jeffrey Lewis, an arms control expert at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and founding publisher of ArmsControlWonk.com, believes the JLENS blimps are primarily a response to a Russian move to start rearming attack submarines with nuclear weapons.
"For a long time, the Russians have been saying they would do this and now it looks like they have," Lewis said. He added that the fact that data exchange on cruise missiles was allowed to expire under the New Start treaty is a major failing that has increased uncertainty.
The Russian emphasis on cruise missiles is in line with Putin's strategy of "de-escalation", which involves countering Nato's overwhelming conventional superiority with the threat of a limited nuclear strike that would inflict "tailored damage" on an adversary.
Lewis argues that Putin's accentuation of Russia's nuclear capabilities is aimed at giving him room for manoeuvre in Ukraine and possibly other neighbouring states.
"The real reason he talks about how great they are is he saying: 'I'm going to go ahead and invade Ukraine and you're going to look the other way. As long as I don't call it an invasion, you're going to look at my nuclear weapons and say I don't want to push this,'" he said.
With both the US and Russia modernising their arsenals and Russia investing increasing importance its nuclear deterrent, Hans Kristensen, the director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said we are facing a period of "deepening military competition".
He added: "It will bring very little added security, but a lot more nervous people on both sides."
InvisibleOISA -> Ethelunready 4 Jan 2015 23:53
Just how many warheads have the Iranians lofted towards Europe in the past quarter century? Anyhow, the Yanqui ABM system is a pathetic blunderbuss. But extremely profitable for Boeing.
For instance:
US ABM test failure mars $1bn N. Korea defense plan
06.07.2013 10:03A $214-million test launch of the only US defense against long-range ballistic missile attacks failed to hit its target over the Pacific Ocean, according to the Missile Defense Agency. There have been no successful interceptor tests since 2008.
InvisibleOISA 4 Jan 2015 23:41
Hey Julian. What a wussy propaganda piece. How about a few facts to put things in perspective.
"All told, over the next decade, according to the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, the United States plans to spend $355 billion on the maintenance and modernization of its nuclear enterprise,[3] an increase of $142 billion from the $213 billion the Obama administration projected in 2011.[4] According to available information, it appears that the nuclear enterprise will cost at least $1 trillion over the next 30 years.[5]
Beyond these upgrades of existing weapons, work is under way to design new weapons to replace the current ones. The Navy is designing a new class of 12 SSBNs, the Air Force is examining whether to build a mobile ICBM or extend the service life of the existing Minuteman III, and the Air Force has begun development of a new, stealthy long-range bomber and a new nuclear-capable tactical fighter-bomber. Production of a new guided "standoff" nuclear bomb, which would be able to glide toward a target over a distance, is under way, and the Air Force is developing a new long-range nuclear cruise missile to replace the current one."
And what about NATO, the u$a poodle.
NATO
"The new B61-12 is scheduled for deployment in Europe around 2020. At first, the guided bomb, which has a modest standoff capability, will be backfitted onto existing F-15E, F-16, and Tornado NATO aircraft. From around 2024, nuclear-capable F-35A stealthy fighter-bombers are to be deployed in Europe and gradually take over the nuclear strike role from the F-16 and Tornado aircraft."
Source: Arms Control Association
VikingHiking -> Rudeboy1 4 Jan 2015 23:25
To sum up the results of the lend-lease program as a whole, the Soviet Union received, over the war years, 21,795 planes, 12,056 tanks, 4,158 armored personnel carriers, 7,570 tractor trucks, 8,000 antiaircraft and 5,000 antitank guns, 132,000 machine-guns, 472 million artillery shells, 9,351 transceivers customized to Soviet-made fighter planes, 2.8 million tons of petroleum products, 102 ocean-going dry cargo vessels, 29 tankers, 23 sea tugboats and icebreakers, 433 combat ships and gunboats, as well as mobile bridges, railroad equipment, aircraft radar equipment, and many other items."
"Imperialist Powers paid for the blood of Soviet soldiers with limited supplies of obsolete weapons, canned food and other war materiel which amounted to about 4% of total Soviet production during WarII".
During Cold War all traces of Lend Lease and after UNRRA help were meticulously sanitized and removed; photos of soviet soldiers riding Shermans, Universal Carriers or manning AAA guns were excluded from books and never appeared in magazines.
Five eights of the total German War effort was expended on the Russian front.
So it was a combination of allied arms and resources which kaputed the Nazi's, namely
1) The Russian Army
2) THE American Air Force
3) The British Navy and Merchant Marine
4) Hitler's StupidityBeckow -> StrategicVoice213 4 Jan 2015 23:03
Are you done with your boasting? By the way, you forgot Hollywood and GMO foods.
Leaving aside the one-side nature of your list (internet or web were also invented in CERN by a European team), technology or business are not the same as intelligence.
Most Americans simply don't understand the world, its history, other cultures, don't see others as having independent existence with other choices. They don't get it because they are isolated and frankly quite lazy intellectually. Thus the infamous "we won WW2 in Normandy" boast and similar bizarre claims.
Are other often similar? Yes, absolutely. But most of the others have no ability to provoke a nuclear Armageddon, so their ignorance is annoying, but not fatal. The article was about the worsening US-Russia confrontation and how it may end (or end everything). The fact that US has actively started and provoked this confrontation in the last few years, mostly out of blissful ignorance and endless selfishness. Thus we get "defensive missiles against Iran on Russia's border", coups in Ukraine, endless demonizations...well, I think you get the picture. If you don't, see the original post
irgun777 4 Jan 2015 22:59
" increasingly daring patrols by nuclear-capable Russian submarines "
What motivates the Cry Wolf tune of this article ?
Don't we also conduct nuclear and nuclear capable submarine patrols ? Even our allies
and friends operate routinely " nuclear capable submarines "Our military budget alone is 10 times the Russian , we have over 600 military bases around
the world , some around Russia. We still continue to use heavy , nuclear capable bombers
for patrol , something Russia stopped doing after the Cold War. Russia did not
support and financed a coup in our neighbors . Something Ron Paul and Kissinger warned us
not to do.
Georgeaussie 4 Jan 2015 22:55This is just US propaganda to get the increased military spending through congress. I think its interesting that Americans believe their military personal are defending there country when the United States is usually the aggressor. And that is my view,. And as for people saying Russian bots and Korean bots(which i don't know if they exist) you are sounding just as bad as them, every country has propaganda and everyone has a right to believe what they want, wether its western media or eastern media. People on here don't need people like you with you extreme biases, yes have an opinion, but don't put other peoples opinion down because you think your right, collectively there is no right or wrong, do you know whats going on around closed doors in your govt? Well sorry you probably know less then you think, i like to read different media reports and its interesting, do you "obama bots" know that Russia is helping look for the black box of the air asia flight? I just thought it was interesting not reading that in my "western media" reports over the weeks. So comment and tell me if you honestly think "western bot" are correct and "eastern bots" aren't b/c i would like too know how there i a right and and wrong. In my OPINION there isn't if anything you are both wrong.
Veritas Vicnit 5 Jan 2015 00:05p1. 'Russian General: We Are At War'
"Gen. Leonid Ivashov... issued a sharp warning about the nature of the strategic crisis unfolding in Ukraine: "Apparently they [US and EU officials] have dedicated themselves, and continue to do so, to deeply and thoroughly studying the doctrine of Dr. Goebbels. . . They present everything backwards from reality. It is one of the formulas which Nazi propaganda employed most successfully: . . . They accuse the party that is defending itself, of aggression. What is happening in Ukraine and Syria is a project of the West, a new type of war: ... wars today begin with psychological and information warfare operations. . . under the cover of information commotion, U.S. ships are entering the Black Sea, that is, near Ukraine. They are sending marines, and they have also begun to deploy more tanks in Europe. . . We see that on the heels of the disinformation operation a land-sea, and possibly air operation is being prepared." (Russian General: 'We Are At War', February 22, 2014)
"what David Petraeus has done for counter-insurgency warfare, Stuart Levey [later David Cohen] has done for economic warfare" [Sen. Joe Lieberman]
Russian military sources have disclosed their recognition that offensive operations (economic warfare, proxy warfare, regime change operations, etc.) are active as is the mobilisation of military architecture.
MattTruth 5 Jan 2015 00:05
Russia is not a threat to USA. The elite of USA just need a war and need it soon.
afewpiecesofsilver -> Continent 5 Jan 2015 00:00
That's exactly why the US/NATO is trying to 'wedge' Ukraine into their EU. Then they can develop military bases in traditionally, socially, culturally, verbally Russian Ukraine, right on Russia's border....After the well known, publicized and continuous international bullying and abuse of Russia and Putin over the last couple of years, and now the recent undermining of it's oil economy by US and NATO, anyone who is condemning Putin and Russia obviously can't read.
moosejaw12999 5 Jan 2015 00:00
Might give a few minute warning on cruise missiles but will do nothing against drones will it Barry ? When you start a game , you should think for a minute where it might end . Americas worst enemy is always her own disgruntled people . Drones will be the new weapon of choice in Americas upcoming civil war .
Ross Kramer 4 Jan 2015 23:58
"Russia is a regional power" - Obama said last year. Yeah, sure. Just by looking at the map I can see it is twice bigger than the US in territory. Its tails touches Alaska and its head lays on the border with Germany. How on Earth the biggest country in the world with the nuclear arsenal equal to that of the US can be "just a regional power"?
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