Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

NATO States Embrace Conscription, Eyeing Future War with Russia

By Connor Freeman | The Libertarian Institute | July 22, 2024

As NATO escalates its proxy war in Ukraine and inches closer to fighting directly with Russia, the Washington-led bloc is embracing mandatory military service. Many European members of NATO have expanded or reintroduced conscription as part of large-scale preparations for such a war, CNN reports.

Already outpaced in terms of military industrial capacity by Russia, the alliance’s new battleplans will see an attempt to beef up weapons production and form 35-50 brigades of 3,000-7,000 battle ready troops.

Outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has insisted, “Today, we have 500,000 troops on high readiness, combat-ready battlegroups in the eastern part of the Alliance for the first time.” But the bloc is struggling to meet its goals of assembling 300,000 soldiers prepared to be activated within a month and another half a million in six months. There is also a question of whether the bloc can filed a military fit for a protracted war akin to the Ukraine conflict.

Following the end of the Cold War, several European states ceased conscripting their citizens. Although increasing numbers of NATO member countries have resorted to the draconian practice during recent years, especially in the Baltics and Scandinavia. Roughly a third of the NATO alliance practices some form of compulsory military service.

This year, for the first time since it was abolished in 2006, Latvia reimplemented its draft. Male citizens are subject to conscription within a year of turning 18 years old. Additionally, Norway has unveiled a long-term plan to increase its ranks of mandatorily conscripted troops, employees, and reservists by 20,000 as well as double the military budget. In 2015, Oslo became the first NATO government to establish a gender-neutral draft.

Lithuania brought back mandatory military service in 2015, each year drafting 3,500 to 4,000 men between the ages of 18-26 for a nine-month period. Although the Finnish Defense Forces employ only 13,000 people during peacetime, Helsinki claims it has the ability to activate over 900,000 reservists  with 280,000 combat-ready troops. Sweden conscripts both men and women, Stockholm drafted 7,000 its citizens and the military expects to conscript 8,000 next year. The Swedes have had conscription since 1901.

Citing the supposed Russian threat to Europe, Robert Hamilton, the head of Eurasia Research at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said “It is tragically true that here we are, in 2024, and we are grappling with the questions of how to mobilize millions of people to be thrown into a meatgrinder of a war potentially.” For 30 years, Hamiliton served as a US Army officer. “Meatgrinder” is a term often used by frontline troops in Ukraine, particularly during the battle of Bakhmut where the average life span of such a soldier was only a few hours.

In the United Kingdom, conscription is currently being pushed by Conservative MPs. The 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, the annual military spending bill, may include provisions which inter alia will seek to automatically register all eligible men and women for Selective Service, a form of conscripted labor, which could inevitably include military service.

Former Supreme Allied Commander of Europe General Wesley Clark echoed Hamilton’s hawkish sentiments, emphasizing “whether this is a new Cold War or an emerging hot war is unclear.” He added that NATO “must rebuild our defenses,” including with mandatory military drafts.

“I think young people in Europe and the US will come to realize that this generation, like the generation that fought WWII, it didn’t ask to be the ‘Greatest Generation’ but the circumstances thrust that burden on them,” Clark added.

The risk of direct war with Russia is growing by the day amidst the Ukraine proxy war, as the alliance has largely approved NATO missiles to be used for attacks against the Russian mainland. The bloc will soon provide Kiev with F-16s and an explicit green light for the warplanes to carry out direct strikes against Russian territory as well. Without irony, Stoltenberg claimed this should not be viewed by Russia as an escalation.

As NATO considers increasing its nuclear weapons deployments, the US is also planning to deploy previously banned, medium-range, nuclear capable missiles in Germany which has caused Russia to hint it could similarly retaliate. Pointing to the massive US-led buildup for war with China, President Vladimir Putin accused NATO of creating major security threats for Russia in Asia.

NATO set its sights on China four years ago, identifying Beijing as a military threat to European security. China maintains a “no limits” partnership with Russia. “NATO is already ‘moving’ there (to Asia) as if to a permanent place of residence. This, of course, creates a threat to all countries in the region, including the Russian Federation. We are obliged to respond to this and will do it,” Putin vowed earlier this year. That same month, Stoltenberg cited China as a reason the bloc is considering an “adaptation” of its nuclear arsenal.

July 23, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

The West is Learning the Wrong Lessons about Airpower in Ukraine

By Brian Berletic – New Eastern Outlook – 23.07.2024

A recent article appearing in the US-based Business Insider titled, “Russia’s showing NATO its hand in the air war over Ukraine,” would provide a showcase of the deep deficit in military expertise driving increasingly unsustainable, unachievable foreign policy objectives. The article summarizes a number of interviews conducted with Western “airpower experts,” exhibiting a profound misunderstanding of modern military aviation, air defenses, and their role on and above the battlefield.

The article claims:

Russia botched the initial invasion by failing to establish air superiority from the start, and it has been unable to synchronize its air and ground forces.

This is based on the assumption that Russia could somehow establish air superiority over the battlefield and infers that had the United States and the rest of NATO been in Russia’s place, air superiority would have been established. But this is false.

Fundamental Misconceptions 

At the onset of the Russian Special Military Operation (SMO) Ukraine possessed a formidable Soviet-made integrated air defense network consisting of some of the most successful and effective air defense systems in the world. This included long-range air defense systems like the S-300 as well as mobile systems like Buk, Strela, and Osa, as well as a large number of Soviet-made man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS).

The United States and its allies have not operated in airspace as contested as Ukraine’s since the Vietnam War. Over the skies of Vietnam the US would lose over 10,000 fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters to Soviet-made air defenses employed by Vietnam’s armed forces.

In subsequent conflicts, including Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, US-led forces would face either no significant air defenses at all, or air defenses consisting of old equipment operated by poorly organized, poorly trained, and poorly motivated troops, as was the case in Iraq.

Amid the US proxy war against Damascus and the US occupation of eastern Syria, US military aviation has been confined by Syria’s relatively modern air defense network, forcing both US and Israeli warplanes to conduct the same types of stand-off strikes Russian military aviation is conducting in Ukraine.
The article would claim:

Russia has demonstrated that it’s unable to suppress or destroy enemy air defenses, fly effective counterair missions, or run complex composite air operations like those the US Air Force pulled off in the opening days of Desert Storm in 1991 and then in the Iraq invasion in 2003.

Beyond the factually incorrect nature of this statement, the obvious differences between Iraq and Ukraine appear entirely lost among the “airpower experts” interviewed by Business Insider.

The Business Insider, citing these same “airpower experts,” also claims:

On the battlefield, effective airpower should aid the advance of armored combat vehicles and infantry by striking an enemy’s strongpoints, as well as the reinforcements and supplies they depend on.

Because of the vast differences between previous US conflicts around the globe and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine now, the type of rapid maneuver warfare utilized by US-led forces in Iraq would not only be inappropriate in Ukraine, it would be disastrous. The 2023 Ukrainian offensive before which NATO trained, armed, and directed Ukrainian forces, ended in catastrophic failure, comprehensively defeated by Russian defenses utilizing land mines, artillery, multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS), long-range ballistic missiles, a wide variety of drones, and both infantry and attack helicopters utilizing anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) – all elements absent among the armed forces of the various nations the US has invaded and occupied since Vietnam.

Because Ukraine also possesses significant defense capabilities, including well-protected fortifications, minefields, artillery, and FPV (first-person-view) drones, NATO-style maneuver warfare would likewise result in catastrophic failure for Russian forces.

Russia has instead adopted a strategy of attrition. Instead of overwhelming Ukrainian positions with rapid maneuver warfare, it is grinding them down with huge amounts of artillery, MLRS, missiles, drones, and military aviation carrying out stand-off strikes using a variety of glide bombs ranging from 250 to 3,000 kilograms. While progress is slower than NATO-style maneuver warfare, it has allowed Russia to avoid the staggering losses Ukraine suffered last year during its offensive.

Ukraine is a different kind of war; thus Russia utilizes a different approach to military aviation.

The conclusion that events unfolding in Ukraine demonstrate the capabilities of Russian military aviation have been “significantly overstated,” as one expert interviewed by Business Insider put it, is a dangerous misconception. US-NATO military aviation would (and already has in Syria) demonstrated it suffers from the same limitations in airspace as contested as Ukraine’s.

Admitted Russian Advantages  

Business Insider’s article concedes there are aspects of Russian military aviation that constitute success. It mentions Russia’s extensive use of stand-off weapons – both air-launched cruise missiles as well as glide bombs (just as the US and its allies are using in Syria to avoid Syrian air defenses). The article also acknowledges Russia’s significant air defense and electronic warfare capabilities, constructing an “umbrella” protecting Russian forces, infrastructure, bases, and civilian centers.

There is one significant difference, however, between Russian and Western stand-off capabilities. Russia’s military industrial base allows it to produce missiles and glide bombs in quantities the collective West cannot match. Russia’s air defense capabilities also exist on a scale the collective West is unable to replicate.

After first claiming Russia is, “unable to suppress or destroy enemy air defenses,” Business Insider eventually admits the depleted air defense arsenals of the collective West and the inability to replenish them in any meaningful manner precisely because Russia has been able to not only “suppress” and “destroy enemy air defenses,” but also because of Russia’s ability to saturate and deplete Ukraine’s supply of interceptor missiles.  

Claims in the article that Lockheed Martin is expanding Patriot missile production to 550 a year are made without explaining that Russia is firing 4,000+ missiles at targets across Ukraine over the same period of time, meaning that 550, 650, or even 750 interceptors manufactured a year represent an entirely inadequate quantity.

And despite this fact, the article would even claim:

In Ukraine, the world has seen that Western air defenses can shoot down incoming drones and missiles when they have sufficient coverage and enough ammo, and the performance has quelled doubts about the Patriot.

This is doubtful.

The US and its allies transferred Western air defense systems to Ukraine, in part, to protect Ukraine’s power grid. In April 2024, CNN would admit that up to 80% of Ukraine’s non-nuclear power production has been destroyed. This means that Ukraine has either run out of Patriot missile interceptors, or the interceptors they have are failing to protect Ukraine’s power grid. It should be noted that the efficacy of an air defense system lies now only in its ability to intercept incoming targets, but also to be produced in large enough quantities to continue intercepting incoming targets.

The high cost of the Patriot missile system inhibits larger-scale production to meet the requirements of a large-scale and/or protracted conflict, meaning that despite its supposed performance in combat, it is still a fundamentally ineffective means of air defense.

Even before Russia’s SMO began in February 2022, the previous month Saudi Arabia’s Patriot systems had exhausted their supply of interceptors amid its ongoing conflict with neighboring Yemen. The United States’ inability to increase production forced Saudi Arabia to “borrow” missiles from neighboring nations.

The limited number of Patriot systems and interceptors being manufactured represent a metric of the system’s overall “success” and, despite the Business Insider’s conclusion, should  continue to drive “doubts” regarding it.

NATO vs. Russia 

The Business Insider article admits that in a conflict between NATO and Russia, NATO military aviation would face serious challenges that simply did not exist in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and even Syria.

The article cites US Air Force (USAF) General David Allvin who noted, “in future fights, it may be possible for the US to achieve air superiority only in bursts — small windows in a specific time, place, and location where air defenses are missing, destroyed, or out of ammo.” 

USAF General James Hecker would tell Business Insider, “if we can’t get air superiority, we’re going to be doing the fight that’s going on in Russia and Ukraine right now, and we know how many casualties that are coming out of that fight.” 

Considering the advantages Russia also enjoys in land warfare capabilities, including the production of up to 3 times more artillery ammunition than the collective West, the outcome of that fight would likely mirror the same incremental defeat Ukraine itself is now suffering.

Western Failures in the Skies of Ukraine, a Microcosm of Wider, Irreversible Decline 

The same blind pursuit of profits and power that compelled the collective West to expand NATO up to Russia’s border in the first place, and deliberately create a national security threat forcing Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, has also created the crisis facing the collective West’s military industrial base making it impossible to achieve the geopolitical objectives this proxy war in Ukraine is a part of.

In order for the collective West to “succeed,” it should first reevaluate what it is even trying to achieve.

This blind pursuit of profits and power is not unlike a tropism in nature – like a tree, for example – reaching downward with its roots and upward with its branches and leaves to grow as large and as fast as possible. In the ideal environment, such a tropism can thrive. In times of drought, the means of sustaining the vast proportions that the tree took could jeopardize its own very survival.

Until the 21st century, the global “environment” was ideal for Western hegemony. The disparity in military and economic power between the West and the rest of the world favored the blind pursuit of profits and power, often in the form of empire. The West grew to gargantuan proportions. Today, the environment has changed – this disparity no longer exists – and now the West is collapsing under the unsustainable size of its own overreach.

While Western policymakers search for game-changing strategies and technologies to maintain generations of global primacy, the unsustainable nature of this pursuit becomes more precarious all while Russia, China, and the rest of the world continue to grow stronger relative to the collective West. Only a policy of shifting away from coercion and control over the rest of the world, toward constructive cooperation with the rest of the world, can avert the inevitable collapse all other stubborn empires have faced throughout history.

For the rest of the world, including Russia and its Chinese allies, the goal continues to be defending their individual and collective sovereignty from Western hegemony while carefully avoiding the triggering of a much larger conflict borne of Western desperation.

In the meantime, in the airspace above Ukraine, a microcosm of the wider failure of Western foreign policy continues to play out, not only lacking any possibility of reversing in Ukraine or its Western sponsors’ favor, but almost certainly to continue accelerating to their detriment.

July 23, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

France Unbowed Leader Melenchon Calls for Withdrawal From NATO

Sputnik – 21.07.2024

Jean-Luc Melenchon, founder of the left-wing France Unbowed party, told Spanish newspaper El Pais in an interview out Sunday that he would pull France out of NATO if elected the country’s president.

“I choose the logic of disarmament and appeasement … If I were at the Elysee Palace, I would certainly systematically and in an organized manner withdraw from the joint military command, from NATO. Especially during the war, to avoid seeing the country involved in this story,” Melenchon told the newspaper.

The politician said he wanted France out of NATO because the military alliance “sticks to the war logic.”

In late June, Florian Philippot, the leader of French euroskeptic party The Patriots, called for France’s withdrawal from NATO after Ukraine launched a deadly missile strike on a crowded beach in Crimea. He called this an escalation and accused NATO of seeking a total war. ​

July 21, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Could Trump’s election end NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine against Russia?

Strategic Culture Foundation | July 19, 2024

The presidential nomination of Donald Trump and Senator JD Vance as his running mate raises the prospect of a peaceful settlement to the conflict in Ukraine. Both have been vociferous critics of the NATO proxy war and the arming of the Kiev regime. Vance has even proposed a peace settlement that is close to Moscow’s demands.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is recently pushing peace diplomacy, has voiced optimism that the omens are good for a settlement later this year to the worst war in Europe since the Second World War – if Trump and Vance are elected.

Only days after Donald Trump narrowly survived an assassination attempt, he was officially nominated as the Republican presidential candidate amid ecstatic scenes at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

After the tumult and drama over the last week – a long time in politics, as the saying goes – the Trump election campaign is in the driving seat. His vice presidential running mate is 39 years of age and gives the Republican Party a youthful zest. Both men are very much singing from the same hymn sheet regarding their “Make America Great Again” vision.

Trump has united the GOP under his leadership. All former party rivals lined up this week in Milwaukee to endorse the former real estate magnate in his bid to seek re-election to the White House in November. That helps to solidify his manifesto, which bodes well for diplomacy in Ukraine.

By contrast, the election campaign of Democrat incumbent President Joe Biden has run into a ditch. This week he was self-isolating in Delaware having reportedly incurred a third-time Covid infection. Biden increasingly looks toast. His apparent mental decline – the latest gaffe this week was not remembering the name of his Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, referring to him haltingly as “a black man” – has provoked a crisis in the Democratic Party and the largely favorable U.S. corporate news media. Senior figures including former President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are reportedly urging Biden to stand down and pass the torch to a younger candidate. Panic is in the air.

There are reports that Biden may throw in the towel within the next few days as the Democrats head into their National Convention to officially nominate their presidential candidate. The trouble for the Democrats is they do not have a viable alternative candidate at this late stage in the campaign – with less than four months to election day on November 7.

That means there is now a serious chance that Trump could return to the White House after he lost the election in 2020, which MAGA loyalists hotly disputed as “stolen”.

That election outcome turns attention to one issue in particular: the war in Ukraine. The conflict erupted in February 2022 and has cost the lives of over 500,000 Ukrainian soldiers. Under the Biden administration and aligned European NATO members, there is no sign of the war coming to an end. Biden and European allies have pledged to keep sending weapons to Ukraine and tens of billions of dollars to prop up a hopelessly corrupt NeoNazi regime in Kiev.

Trump and Vance have pitched a diametrically opposite policy on the U.S.-led NATO proxy war in Ukraine.

That stance is causing the Deep State and its military-industrial complex acute anxiety. The Ukraine war racket has been a bonanza that vested interests in the U.S. ruling class do not want to end. That tension provides a plausible explanation for the attempted assassination of Trump during an open-air rally at Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. Salient questions remain about how the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old student, gained access to such a high-security position to fire his rifle at Trump.

The Republican candidates have warned that the Ukraine conflict is in danger of spiraling into a nuclear world war. Trump has said that he would end the war immediately by cutting off the military aid spigot and forcing the Kiev regime to begin negotiations with Russia.

Tantalizingly, JD Vance (R-Ohio) has been even more explicit in proposing that the warring parties should accept the territorial gains made by Russia – including Crimea, Donbass, Zaporozhye and Kherson provinces – and that Ukraine must accept Moscow’s demand that it remain neutral and outside of the NATO alliance.

Such a position is a breath of fresh air for its rationality. Many respected American scholars and diplomats have also recommended this historically coherent position as a solution, including Professors John Mearsheimer and Jeffrey Sachs. At least Trump and Vance seem to be cognizant of this reality, unlike the Biden administration and the rest of the Democrat Party, along with the Western media establishment and European minions who insanely push a fraudulent war to the last Ukrainian.

Moreover, polls show that the majority of American citizens (and Europeans) would prefer to see a diplomatic solution to the worst war in Europe since 1945.

Hungary’s Orban has admirably advocated peaceful diplomacy and for his troubles, his government has been sanctioned by the European Union establishment. Slovakia’s Robert Fico has also called for an end to the war in Ukraine, which many believe led to an assassination attempt on his life in May.

The conflict in Ukraine is a senseless, bloody slaughter that should never have escalated if Russia’s peace proposals in December 2021 had been accepted instead of dismissed out of hand by the Biden administration and its NATO lackeys in Europe. Also, a peace deal was possible in April 2022 but again was scuppered by malicious U.S. and British intervention.

If an American presidential candidate is proposing a diplomatic end to the conflict then that should be welcomed. It seems that common sense is prevailing.

Having said that, however, there are caveats. The Trump-Vance rhetoric could be empty pre-election canvassing for votes.

Trump’s record is one of hyping expectations and not delivering. When he ran for the presidency in 2016, he promised to normalize relations with Russia – and did not deliver.

He also boasted about solving the conflict in the Middle East with a “deal of the century” – only to embolden Israeli aggression towards Palestinians and Iran.

A reality check is strongly advised on what Trump and Vance can achieve.

While both men express skepticism about “endless wars” and NATO, it should be borne in mind that the conflicts the U.S. empire is fueling have a systematic cause. The United States is desperately fighting to maintain its failing hegemony against the rise of a multipolar and more democratic global order.

Washington and its European vassals are unleashing wars as a matter of necessity for preserving their erstwhile global dominance. History teaches that wars are always the refuge of the Western imperialist ruling classes.

It is notable that while Trump and Vance talk about ending conflict in Ukraine, they are at the same time talking belligerently about confronting China and Iran.

Trump and the MAGA Republicans are deprecated by the U.S. establishment as being “isolationists” in their vision of pursuing “America First”.

But the notion of “isolationalism” is an oxymoron when one considers the objective reality of U.S. imperialism. Foreign wars are an insatiable appetite for Western dominance.

American relations with the rest of the world are all about power projection, dominance and ultimately using violence to assert its “might is right” presumed national privileges. That applies whether the incumbent in the White House is a Democrat or Republican.

Trump may sound more reasonable on the issue of conflict in Ukraine with Russia. That alone makes him a more plausible candidate compared with the reckless warmongering of Biden and the Democrat-Deep State nexus.

The war in Ukraine must be stopped as soon as possible and a more reasonable security arrangement for Europe must be negotiated as Russia has long been consistently advocating.

Any diplomatic opening towards achieving peace and ending the killing must be welcomed.

Trump and Vance might just deliver on ending the hostilities in Ukraine which in itself would be a huge step forward away from the abyss of all-out war with Russia. On that score alone, their election might bring about an improvement.

But alas there is a contradiction. Don’t expect world peace to break out in other parts of the globe, because U.S. imperialism is cranking up its war machine. Trump and Vance are hawkish in their policy towards China and Iran.

A comprehensive solution to ending U.S. aggression and militarism is not a change of personnel at the White House. A profound, systematic change in American politics and economics is required.

Is partial peace sufficient? Maybe it is for now.

July 20, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Australia uses ‘illegal surveillance’ against pro-Palestinian student protesters: Activist

Press TV – July 20, 2024

Authorities at a top university in Australia have used illegal surveillance methods against pro-Palestinian demonstrators, who have for several months been protesting against Israel’s atrocities in the Gaza Strip.

Students at the University of Melbourne staged encampment protests and sit-in strikes to force the university to cut ties with weapons manufacturers, divest from Israeli firms, and “end its complicity in the genocide in Gaza,” said protest organizer Dana Alshaer.

Alshaer, one of the main organizers of UniMelb for Palestine, told Turkish news agency Anadolu that along with 20 other students, she is now facing “extremely baseless” allegations of misconduct from the university and the threat of expulsion.

“They targeted five main organizers of UniMelb for Palestine, and they also targeted some prominent students who have been very visibly present during rallies and protests on campus,” said Alshaer.

“In the misconduct allegations,” she said, “the university included CCTV footage and Wi-Fi location tracking as evidence … so there’s been a use of surveillance technologies against students.”

Alshaer said the university clarified in 2016 that “their Wi-Fi tracking cannot and will not be used to identify students.”

“However, what we saw in the misconduct allegations and documents that were sent to us is that Wi-Fi tracking has been used to track students.”

Alshaer also raised concern “over the university’s possible and potential use of facial recognition programs.”

She said the university is using these misconduct allegations as a punishment “for students who defied the university’s ties with weapons manufacturers … and challenged the university’s ongoing complicity in the genocide in Gaza.”

She said that that university “is punishing students for standing up against [Israel’s] genocide” in Gaza.

Alshaer said that after their month-long Gaza solidarity encampment protests, they managed to push the university to disclose in June its links with US weapons manufacturers Lockheed Martin, Boeing and BAE Systems, as well as over $15 million in research partnerships and investments with the US Department of Defense.

Despite being targeted by the university, she said, the students are determined to continue their activities for Palestine.

Pro-Palestine encampment protests that began at Columbia University in the United States in April and spread across campuses nationwide and worldwide, have faced harsh police crackdown and led to hundreds of arrests.

The protesters have been calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies that support the regime’s atrocities in the Gaza Strip.

July 20, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism, Solidarity and Activism | , | Leave a comment

Retro Israel panel defies ‘America First’ foreign policy

By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos | Responsible Statecraft | July 10, 2024

The National Conservatism Conference, which professes to represent a new conservatism to “understand that the past and future of conservatism are inextricably tied to the idea of the nation, to the principle of national independence, and to the revival of the unique national traditions that alone have the power to bind a people together and bring about their flourishing,” has a foreign policy problem.

On the one hand the organizers and proponents rail against a globalism dominated by supranational neo-liberal institutions, and progressive litmus tests and ideas, but on the other they want borderless solidarity with other like minded nationalists across the globe. And for some reason this precludes them from talking too much about the biggest U.S. foreign policy issue in years, the Ukraine war, for which there is no panel scheduled over the course of the event, Monday through today.

It also means talking about Israel from a predominantly Israeli nationalist perspective. And talking about the Gaza war purely in the frame of Islamic extremism and the “mullocracy” of Iran. In other words, this is only an American interest insofar as, according to the speakers on Tuesday, U.S. presidents are accused of going too easy on Iran, which in part led to the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. And now Washington has to help fix it.

Moreover, American political elites have allowed the “Islamosupremacists” to influence college campuses and Democratic administrations and turn Americans (in this case, Democrats) against not just Israel, but all Jews.

As Ben Weingarten charged in the one Israel panel — “Islam, Israel & the West” — the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas have had a grip on Washington since the George W. Bush administration, where the then-president had the temerity to declare that “Islam is peace.”

If that sounds familiar it is because the same people in the room today, 20 years older and graying at the ears, said the same exact thing after 9/11. But the difference here is that Israel is fighting its own war and making it an American war on terrorism and Islam is not going to work this time. What this national conservatism conference was missing was a true conversation about what is in America’s interest as it pursues policies with Israel, Iran, and the greater Middle East.

Instead we got old chestnuts from Weingarten, an “investigative reporter” for the Federalist, talking about “the troubling views held by large percentages of American Muslims (who) are or subscribe to the same worldview as Islamic supremacists who seek to impose… a theopolitical, Sharia-based ideology on America, wholly antithetical to our constitutional republic; while leftists and Islamic supremacists are in some ways polar opposites, traditional patriotic Americans are the chief stumbling block to each side achieving its objectives.”

To him, American protests against Israel’s military operations in Gaza, which have resulted in at 38,000 (or more) dead, the vast majority of the population displaced and hungry, most of the Strip’s civilian infrastructure (homes, electricity, hospitals, schools) damaged if not destroyed by American-made bombs, is merely the “the predictable consequence of an unholy alliance between progressives and Islamic supremacists that has for several years been fundamentally transforming not only the Democratic Party but America.”

Eugene Kontorovich, an Israeli legal scholar who now teaches at George Mason University’s Anton Scalia Law School, spent his time on the panel railing against international institutions including the United Nations, which he said were dominated by anti-Jewish, pro-Islamist ideologues that were in essence working for Hamas. This conveniently renders, at least to his mind, International Criminal Court charges against Israel, including the deliberate starvation of the Palestinian population, absolutely meaningless (plus, as he has suggested, the U.S. military does it too, a favorite justification among Israeli military apologists since Oct. 7).

Instead he calls the Israel operation in Gaza “clearly the most restrained war in modern times, with the lowest proportion of civilian casualties of any war in modern times.” Again, no conversation about whether the current U.S.-backed strategy will actually protect Israel in the long-term or destroy it from within, or whether it is in America’s interest to push it along.

No doubt, the discussion appealed to the paranoia among this retro crowd that Islamists have more power than they actually have in Washington (which is why Netanyahu is getting a red carpet on Capitol Hill this month, weapons and money slushing to Tel Aviv, and votes sailing through Congress cutting off aid to Palestinians and the very institutions Kontorovich abhors?).

But the National Conservatism conference, founded by the Edmund Burke Foundation under the tutelage of Israeli nationalist Yoram Hazony, should not be confused with the America First foreign policy now being debated in conservative circles today. After three days of programming, that much is clear.

There were a few counterbalances — a thoughtful discussion about the future of NATO, which included realist Sumantra Maitra, and remarks from Elbridge Colby, a self-described conservative realist. During a plenary speech, he said U.S. foreign policy must be rooted in the goals of preserving fundamental American interests of freedom, security, and prosperity, and cast in the lens of prioritization and power balancing. While North Korea, Russia, and Iran pose threats, he contended, they are regional threats to traditional U.S. allies and partners but not existential threats to those aforementioned American core interests. Therefore, he said, they are not foreign policy or security priorities for which the U.S. needs to militarize.

He does suggest, however, that China is a threat to the U.S. economy and the security of our allies in the region, and that requires priority. “Strategy and conservative realism would call for balance of manifest strength in Asia, but also openness to a modus vivendi in China. We must be laser focused on the rightful conservative goal here, to preserve peace, if at all possible, but decent peace, one that ensures Americans are safe, free, and prosperous, and most high necessity prevents China from dominating Asians.”

While not all realists and restrainers agree with Colby’s China perspective here, his brief against the primacist foreign policy of the last 70 years sits well with a growing faction of conservative foreign policy (American interest-focused) today, much to the contrast of the Israel panel dominated by the throw-back ideological rhetoric of the past.

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is Editorial Director of Responsible Statecraft and Senior Advisor at the Quincy Institute.

July 20, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Islamophobia, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

US Missiles in Germany Again: Why Is Berlin Betraying Its National Interests?

By Dmitry Babich – Sputnik – 19.07.2024

The decision of Washington to start in 2026 the deployment in Germany of US missiles aimed at Russia was not even discussed in Berlin. The public was forced to face a fait accompli. This is a clear degradation of Germany’s standing vis-a-vis the US, compared to the ’80s. Then, a similar deployment was met with protests of West Germany’s citizens.

The governments of both the US and Germany confirmed that in 2026, the American side will begin deploying long-range missiles in Germany. This dangerous move, reminiscent of the worst years of the Cold War, is officially explained by the need to contain “resurgent Russia.”

Gunnar Beck, an expert on European law and former vice president of Identity and Democracy group in the European Parliament, notes that there was no public discussion of this dangerous development in Germany, specifically no discussion in the Bundestag. No details of the deal have been revealed.

“It’s a fait accompli,” Beck told Sputnik. “The German and the US governments have announced they were considering this… But all of the talk of an imminent Russian threat to Europe, in my view, is just a pretext for justifying further military and financial assistance to Ukraine. And, of course, it is a pretext for intimidating the European population and forcing them to accept even larger amounts of military spending.”

Beck notes the few dissenting voices still audible in Germany belong to the parties, which the European Union and especially the European Commission’s chairwoman Ursula von der Leyen try to marginalize:

“There are people on the right and on the far-left which have been criticizing [the deployment]. The German public, by and large, is not war loving. But, of course, there is a lot of propaganda emphasizing that any attack against Ukraine is an attack against Europe as a whole – it is the position of the EU and German government,” Beck told Sputnik.

The situation is reminiscent of the early 1980s, when the US deployed Pershing missiles in West Germany – presumably countering a possible aggression by the Soviet Union. The only difference is that this time Americans promise not to put nuclear warheads on SM-6 missiles, Tomahawks and even some “hypersonic weapons.” These missiles will be carrying conventional warheads that will still make Germany a target for a Russian retaliation starting from 2026.

Beck indicated that American and West German propaganda of that epoch used the same arguments as now. It was said the ability of NATO allies to protect themselves was the best guarantee for peace, etc., but in both cases it was misleading propaganda based on fears and not facts:

“Up to 1987 the propaganda in West Germany evoked the specter of millions of Soviet soldiers stationed in East Germany … that they would all flood into West Germany and occupy the country within three days,” Beck told Sputnik. “The kind of propaganda we are exposed to now is very reminiscent of this. We know today, and we have known for some time already that everything we were told in the 1980s was a great deal of nonsense. There was no evidence whatsoever of a consistently aggressive strategy by the Soviet Union.”

Indeed, Moscow acquiesced to the reunification of Germany in 1990 and withdrew its troops from East Germany in 1994 without a single shot fired. Unfortunately, it is often forgotten now that these concessions were part of the “Two plus four” agreement, whose terms Germany and three other signatories are breaching now.

It was signed on September 12, 1990, by the two (East Germany and West Germany) plus four (the Soviet Union, USA, the UK and France, former members of the anti-Hitler coalition).

Moscow then obliged itself not to prevent the reunification of Germany and to withdraw its troops by 1994 from the territory of the late German Democratic Republic. Both obligations were fulfilled. Now, here is how the obligations of Western powers were breached, in the words of Beck:

“No foreign weapons could be deployed in East Germany… And both German states then agreed that the united Germany would only deploy weapons on its territory if it is done in accordance with Germany’s constitution and the Charter of the United Nations. So, unless there is a UN Security Council resolution, it is a very debatable issue whether Germany can allow the deployment of new weapons that increase the risk of war.”

It should be noted that the German constitution prohibits the supplies of German weapons to the zones of armed conflict. However, Berlin is officially “pumping up” Volodymyr Zelensky’s regime with weapons worth tens of billions of euros.

Beck states the subsequent events showed the deceitful nature of the Western propaganda of the 1980s: Moscow indeed had no intention of invading Europe and withdrew from Germany at the first opportunity. Unfortunately, its goodwill was abused by Western allies.

Now, many Germans suspect a “remake” of the that deceitful intimidation: a poll conducted by Forsa Institute revealed 47% of Germans think the planned deployment of US weapons will only increase the possibility of a Russia-NATO conflict.

However, Beck notes this substantial part of German public opinion is not organized and its will has no chance of influencing the European Commission – or even the government of Germany.

July 19, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News, Deception, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Yemen has ‘very large stock’ of UAV used in unprecedented Tel Aviv attack

The Cradle | July 19, 2024

The Yemeni drone that successfully targeted Tel Aviv early on 19 July was locally produced, according to a source who spoke with Al Mayadeen.

The Yafa drone, named after the Palestinian city of Jaffa over which Tel Aviv was built, was “locally manufactured and developed [during the war], after Arab countries intercepted Yemeni [drones] that were targeting Umm al-Rashrash (Eilat), after 7 October,” the Yemeni source told Al Mayadeen on Friday.

The Armed Forces of Yemen’s Sanaa government has a “very large” stock of this type of drone, the source added.

“This is not the last weapon … [This drone] covers a distance of more than 2,000 km, and is equipped with modern jamming and infiltration systems … [The operation] coincides with ongoing naval operations, in accordance with the objectives announced by the Yemeni army. The operations will not stop,” the source went on to say.

“The target bank in Jaffa [Tel Aviv] is diverse … it will never be safe again … the operation is considered an advanced military success.”

The Israeli army identified the drone as an Iranian-made Samad-3, which was modified to have extended range, Israeli media reported.

The Yemeni Armed Forces – which are aligned with the Ansarallah resistance movement – announced the drone attack that struck Tel Aviv early on 19 July. At least one Israeli was killed and several others injured in the attack, which failed to trigger alarms.

In the statement, Yemeni army spokesman Yahya Saree declared Tel Aviv an “unsafe zone and a primary target within our weapon range.” He revealed that Sanaa holds “a bank of targets in occupied Palestine, including sensitive military and security targets, and will, with Allah’s help, continue to strike these targets in response to the enemy’s massacres and daily crimes against our brothers in Gaza.”

The Yafa drone did not set off any alarms as it entered Israeli airspace from the south before hitting a building near the US consulate in Tel Aviv.

According to Israeli media, the army has blamed its failure in intercepting the drone on a “human error.” The air force is also examining why the drone did not trigger sirens after entering Israeli air space from the south.

Israeli Army Radio reported on Friday morning that a preliminary investigation from the army showed that air defense systems detected the drone, but it was not classified as an aerial threat. Therefore, no alarm was activated, and the target was not shot down.

The successful drone attack “shouldn’t have happened,” the Israeli Air Force said. The Israeli army said fighter jets would increase patrols over Tel Aviv’s skies.

July 19, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Odessa Leads Violent Resistance to Mobilization as Poll Shows Ukrainians’ Sympathy for Draft Dodgers

© AFP 2023 / SERGEI SUPINSKY
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 18.07.2024

The southwestern Black Sea port city of Odessa is rapidly becoming the center of resistance to Kiev’s increasingly chaotic efforts to scoop up more souls for the war effort. Meanwhile, new polling and statistics released this week reveal that support for draft dodgers is growing across Ukraine, particularly its western regions.

On the night of July 16 alone, a wave of arson attacks targeting the service and personal vehicles of Odessa’s territorial recruitment center employees left five cars burned to a crisp. Similar incidents were reported in Vinnitsa, Rovno, Dnepropetrovsk, and Kharkov the same night. Two more cars were burned in Odessa the next night, with the weekly total approaching a dozen.

The situation has gotten so bad in some cities that servicemen have reportedly resorted to putting “Not Territorial Recruitment Center” signs on their vehicles to avoid being targeted.

The ‘car-nage’ is no trifling matter for its perpetrators. On Tuesday, authorities in Rovno detained a 22-year-old suspect for the suspected arson of two military vehicles. He now faces up to 10 years in prison.

Arson is just one of the tools in the Ukrainian anti-war underground’s toolbelt. This week, unknown individuals attempted to blow up a territorial recruitment center in the town of Busk, Lvov region. Elsewhere in recent weeks, media have reported a stream of sabotage attacks targeting railway, electricity and other infrastructure, physical attacks on recruiters, and daily attempts by fighting-age men to escape Ukraine by crossing the border into neighboring Hungary, Poland, Romania or Moldova.

Ukrainian authorities have attempted to blame the unrest, including arson attacks on recruiters’ cars, on Russia, claiming suspects are being promised money or other rewards by the FSB via instant messengers.

But statistics and a fresh crop of sociological surveys suggest otherwise, indicating that Ukrainians are not only becoming increasingly tired of the conflict with Russia, but hostile to authorities, especially after the passage in May of a controversial law designed to strengthen mobilization, which obliges all men aged 18-60 to carry military ID with them at all times, allows summons to be served, and does not provide for demobilization. Combined with President Zelensky’s move this spring to lower the recruitment age from 27 to 25, the measures have proven a mental Molotov Cocktail encouraging resistance for Ukraine’s fighting age male population.

Punishments for dodging the draft are stiff. Earlier this month, the Kiev District Court in Kharkov sentenced a man with developmental disabilities to three years in prison for refusing to accept a summons after being deemed fit for service by a medical commission. Other men are grabbed in the streets, stuffed into vans, beaten and detained extrajudicially until they submit to conscription, reports have documented.

Ukrainians also have to worry about astronomical levels of corruption in recruitment offices, where bribe-taking has become the norm, rather than the exception. Shortfalls in recruitment rates resulting from wealthier Ukrainians being let off are inevitably made up by the poorer strata of society.

Western Ukraine Leading the Way in Dodging Draft, Stats Show

Unwillingness to fight has paralyzed much of the country, including –perhaps curiously, its most westernmost, anti-Russian, and pro-European regions.

Last week, Ukrainian media revealed, citing official government data, that enlistment offices had filed reports on over 417,000 draft dodgers since February 2022 (316,100 of them between 2023 and 2024), with western Ukraine lighting up bright red on the map among draft evader numbers despite being far more sparsely populated than the country’s center and east.

The figures show, for example, that while draft dodging in eastern, central and southern areas of the country range from as little as 200 people in the Ukrainian-controlled areas of Kherson, 4,500 in Kharkov and 14,300 in Kiev, in western areas, which include regions like Lvov, Zakarpatye, Ivano-Frankovsk, Rovno and Khmelnitsky, they total some 334,200 men.

In a recent report, Kiev-based journalist-turned Ukrainian Armed Forces soldier Artyom Ilyin said that most of the recruits from western regions of Ukraine he’s serving with are highly demoralized, asking why they should fight for a country that “has given them nothing but a machine gun in their entire lives.”

“Arguments about Putin and Moscow authorities do not work,” the journalist lamented, adding that “rumors” about the Kiev elite’s corrupt activities are rampant among the ranks.

Dodging the Draft Isn’t Shameful, Polling Says

Finally, shock polling this week by the Razumkov Center, generally regarded as one of Ukraine’s most respected public policy think tanks, revealed that a whopping 46% of Ukrainians do not consider it “shameful” to dodge mobilization, with 29.1% saying it is shameful, and 24.8% finding it difficult to answer. Among respondents aged 18-29, 50% said it is not shameful.

The same polling also found that 44% of respondents think the time has come peace talks with Russia, with 35% against the idea, and 21% undecided.

Draft Dodging Among Western Ukrainians Shows Local Fence-Sitter Mentality

Western Ukrainians had gotten “used to the fact that there was some kind of war going on in the east after the [2014] coup and before the start of Russia’s special military operation. The attitude was that ‘it doesn’t concern us, let the Donbass sort it out.’ They thought that the Ukrainian army’s terrorizing of the eastern regions would last forever,” Alexander Dudchak, a Ukrainian politics expert and leading researcher at the Institute of CIS Countries, told Sputnik, commenting on the unexpectedly high draft dodger rates among western Ukrainians.

When it came time to enlist for the current conflict, “they still prefer that the people from those [eastern] regions be sent to the front first,” Dudchak said. Today, the observer noted, the recruiters sent to major eastern and southeastern cities like Kharkov, Nikolayev and Odessa to collect fresh recruits often come from Ivano-Frankovsk, Lvov and other western regions.

As for the rising instances of arson and other acts of sabotage targeting recruiters, the military and infrastructure, Dudchak characterized the phenomenon as a fledgling form of popular resistance and guerilla warfare.

“This is the protest of the local population which in principle does not perceive this government as its own, or this military as their defenders. They act as best they can, using whatever capabilities they have,” he explained.

Ukrainian society today in general is in a state of apathy, and “doesn’t see any point any longer to continue the war,” according to the observer.

“Such tendencies are growing stronger. That’s what the sociological services are talking about, although they may also be preparing the population to accept the inevitable and the possibility of negotiations, and ceding territory. But of course, not under the current regime, not under Zelensky, most likely,” Dudchak summed up.

July 18, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Russia Ready for Ukraine Peace Talks With Focus on Clear Security Agreements

Sputnik – 17.07.2024

Russia is ready for negotiations on Ukraine and European security issues and will incorporate safeguards against dual interpretations in any future European security treaty said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

“We are ready for negotiations, but considering the sad experience of talks and consultations with the West and Ukrainians… I hope a treaty will be reached at some stage on European security, and in this context the Ukraine crisis will be resolved,” Lavrov stated during a press conference following a UN Security Council meeting.

“We will, of course, be very careful with the wording and will incorporate safeguards into this document against repeated unscrupulous, unreliable interpretations,” the foreign minister added.

Lavrov emphasized that, unlike China, the West does not address the root causes of the conflict in its initiatives on Ukraine.

“This already concerns the content of the dialogue; China has very clearly indicated in its first initiative the need to start with addressing the root causes of the current crisis in Europe and to work on agreements to eliminate these causes,” he said.

He noted that “no one at the Copenhagen or Burgenstock meetings even mentioned the root causes.”

Thus, the West is trying to push through Volodymyr Zelensky’s plan by all possible means.

“A course has been set to push through at any cost the so-called Zelensky plan, which has a clearly defined form of an ultimatum,” Lavrov emphasized.

Lavrov’s comments were in response to a question about Russia’s possible participation in the second summit on the Ukraine conflict and the outcomes of the recent conference in Switzerland.

On Russia-US Unofficial Contacts Regarding Ukraine

Russia and the United States have held unofficial and so-called “second level” expert level contacts to discuss issues related to the conflict in Ukraine, Minister Lavrov added.

“I will tell you in confidence — we have had unofficial contacts with the Americans involving political experts, political experts who know each other and understand the policies of their governments,” Lavrov told the press conference, adding that Ukraine was on the agenda of such contacts.

Despite the fact that the two countries are holding phone conversations from time to time, there is nothing significant in these talks, he noted.

On Russia’s Readiness to Work With a New US President

Russia will be ready to work with any elected president of the United States, the foreign minister claimed.

“Once again I want to say: we will work, we will be ready to work with any American leader that the American people elect and who … will be ready for an equal, mutually respectful dialogue,” Lavrov said at the press event.

On Israel Seeking to Involve the US in Regional Escalation

It appears that Israel’s goal is to involve the United States in the escalation of tensions with Iran, the minister observed.

“The sense is that they want to provoke them into full-scale involvement with Hezbollah. The purpose of such a provocation, analysts suggest, is to draw the United States directly into the involvement of its armed forces in this [regional] conflict,” Lavrov emphasized.

Russia hopes the West will do everything to ensure that such ideas, “if they exist in the Israeli leadership,” will remain only ideas.

Moscow is doing everything to “calm down the situation,” Lavrov added.

On the Nord Stream Explosions

Russia will continue seeking the truth regarding the explosions of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, Lavrov said.

“We will pursue the truth – since I’ve mentioned the Nord Streams, we’re going to seek the truth,” he highlighted.

July 17, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

China suspends arms control talks with Washington

RT | July 17, 2024

China has frozen arms control talks with the US in response to Washington’s continued weapons sales to Taiwan, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has said.

The US and China held a long-awaited round of nuclear non-proliferation talks in November, the first such meeting since 2018. While the talks produced no concrete results, they were seen as a crucial step in defusing tensions between the two superpowers, after Beijing severed almost all military communication with Washignton a year earlier, over then US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.

Speaking at a press conference in Beijing on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said that China would not discuss a new round of consultations with the US.

“The responsibility fully lies with the US,” Lin explained. “Over the past weeks and months, despite China’s firm opposition and repeated protest, the US has continued to sell arms to Taiwan and done things that severely undermine China’s core interests and the mutual trust between China and the US.”

“This has seriously compromised the political atmosphere for continuing the arms control consultations,” he said.

The US State Department has authorized more than a billion dollars worth of weapons sales to Taiwan since the last round of US-China arms control talks, according to figures from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. Most recently, the department approved the sale of hundreds of Altius-600M and Switchblade kamikaze drones to Taipei, prompting Beijing to impose sanctions on US arms giant Lockheed Martin.

China considers Taiwan a part of its sovereign territory, a position referred to as the ‘One China’ principle. The US recognizes, but does not endorse, this policy. Beijing views American arms sales to Taipei, expressions of support for Taiwanese independence, and pledges of military assistance to Taiwan as violations of the ‘One China’ principle.

China maintains that it will peacefully reunify Taiwan with the Chinese mainland, while reserving the right to use military force if necessary.

Lin did not rule out a return to nuclear negotiations in the future. “China stands ready to maintain communication with the US on international arms control… but the US must respect China’s core interests and create necessary conditions for dialogue and exchange,” he said at Wednesday’s briefing.

July 17, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Taiwan must pay for defense – Trump

RT | July 17, 2024

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has indicated he would be less willing to defend Taiwan from mainland China than his Democratic rival and incumbent US President Joe Biden.

It is “stupid” for Washington to offer protection to Taipei for free, Trump insisted in an interview with Bloomberg recorded on June 25 but published in full on Tuesday.

“I know the people very well, respect them greatly. They did take about 100% of our chip business. I think Taiwan should pay us for defense,” he said.

The self-governed island of Taiwan, which China views as part of its territory, produces an estimated 90% of the world’s super-advanced semiconductor chips.

“I don’t think we are any different from an insurance policy,” the former president stressed. “Taiwan doesn’t give us anything” despite being “immensely wealthy,” he added.

According to Trump, protecting Taipei would also be problematic for Washington due to purely geographical reasons. “Taiwan is 9,500 miles (around 15,000km) away [from the US]. It’s 68 miles (just under 110km) away from China,” he explained.

Taiwanese Premier Cho Jung-tai responded to Trump’s comments by saying that the island of 23.5 million is dedicated to boosting its defenses and “willing to take on more responsibility” for its own security.

“Taiwan has steadily strengthened its defense budget and demonstrated its responsibility to the international community,” he said during a press conference on Wednesday.

Cho expressed the belief that “as long as we continue to demonstrate [these efforts], we will receive support from more countries.”

The premier thanked the US several times for paying attention to the issue of Taiwanese security, stressing that Taipei and Washington have “good relations” despite the lack of any formal ties.

Officially, the US accepts the One China policy, which states that Taiwan is an integral part of Chinese territory. However, Washington has been backing Taiwanese pro-independence forces and supplying weapons to the island. Biden has pledged on several occasions that America would defend Taiwan militarily if it were attacked from the mainland.

Beijing vigorously opposes contacts between Washington and Taipei, repeatedly calling the Taiwanese issue its “red line.” The Chinese authorities have said that they would prefer peaceful reunification with the island, but have warned that a military scenario cannot be ruled out.

A poll published earlier this year by the Taiwanese National Chengchi University showed that more than 80% of the island’s population was not seeking independence, but wanted to maintain the status quo with mainland China.

July 17, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »