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Why Most of the World Isn’t on Board with the NATO-Russia War

By Weimin Chen | Mises Wire | March 28, 2023

As the war in Ukraine drags on into its second year, protest demonstrations have been taking place in major European cities. They express the growing sentiment that the people are tired of the protracted conflict and fearful of what could come should the war continue even longer. Memories of the catastrophic world wars that ravaged Europe in the first half of the last century and the terrible threat of nuclear annihilation that divided the continent in the second half of the century form the traumatic foundation from which Europeans are voicing their aversion to this conflict, which has the potential to spiral out of control and bring a major war to Europe and the world again.

Broad Opposition to War

There have been protest demonstrations occurring in Germany, France, the Czech Republic, Greece, Spain, Great Britain, Belgium, Austria, Italy, Albania, Moldova, and others. European protests surrounding the anniversary of the start of the conflict notably span the Left-Right spectrum in opposing US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) imperialism as well as the economic hardships that have befallen ordinary Europeans against the backdrop of sanctions on Russia and the funding of Ukraine.

Italian port workers aligned with the Left protested in Genoa specifically to resist the use of Italian ports to supply arms deliveries to Ukraine. Meanwhile in France, demonstrations organized by the right-wing Les Patriotes party in various locations across the country called for France’s withdrawal from both NATO and the European Union.

In all cases, the people on the streets at these events identify involvement in the war as harmful to general economic well-being and have been expressing frustration with their countries’ acquiescence to these intergovernmental and supranational organizations in fueling the violence while simultaneously discouraging dialogue. Feelings of skepticism toward NATO, the European Union, and the United States have become increasingly vocal in Europe due to the way that western countries are handling the war. In the minds of many Europeans, their governments are recklessly following the will of Washington, which could lead them into a serious escalation to a wider war.

German Memory

Germany suffered tremendously during the two World Wars and continued to endure the pressures of division and foreign occupation during the Cold War. A century of pain and turmoil brought about by militarism and intervention still informs the collective consciousness of the country. As part of the anniversary protests, thousands of people gathered around the iconic Brandenburg Gate in Berlin for an event called the “Uprising for Peace,” organized by prominent Left party member Sahra Wagenknecht and the feminist journalist Alice Schwarzer. The rally was a show of support for a “manifesto for peace,” which had already received well over half a million signatures by the time of the rally. It calls for the end of military exports to Ukraine and for negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow. Demonstrations have also taken place in Nuremberg (in response to the German government’s plan to send tanks to Ukraine), in Munich (during the Munich Security Conference), and outside of the prominent US air base in Ramstein where important matters regarding the Ukraine conflict are discussed among Western leaders.

At the rally in Nuremberg, one demonstrator recalled the historical record, explaining that if Germany gets involved in another war with Russia, then “based on history, it is the worst sign that we can send.” He emphasized that “no war must go through Germany, neither with arms deliveries nor anything else, because otherwise, Germany will be in the middle of it again.”

The last time war broke out in Europe between the two countries, it was one of the most catastrophic events in human history. This view echoes the glimmer of hope from just a few months before the start of Russia’s invasion that the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline could have strengthened ties and prevented conflict in Europe, especially with regard to Russia and Germany. Of course, the mysterious destruction of Nord Stream a year later and the report by Seymour Hersh identifying US and allied hands in the sabotage mission completely turned that hope on its head. Those who strive for peace and an end to the bloodshed are understandably disheartened, yet they are motivated to vocally speak out to European leaders to push for peace.

Across the Atlantic and Beyond

These gatherings have run parallel to the Rage Against the War Machine rally in Washington, DC, where Americans protested against the US’s funding and arming of Ukraine as well as the diplomatic negligence in preventing the negotiation of an end to the fighting. Those speaking and demonstrating against US involvement in Ukraine have parallel grievances toward their government and echo those in Europe.

Voices spanning the political spectrum from socialists to libertarians have found common ground in opposing the many rounds of weapons packages and financial aid to Ukraine, as well as the lack of diplomatic responsibility on the part of Secretary of State Antony Blinken in communicating with his counterpart, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. Since the rally, President Joe Biden has included $6 billion in Ukraine and NATO funding as part of his $842 billion defense-budget request for 2024. Meanwhile, Blinken met briefly with Lavrov on the sidelines of a G20 meeting in New Delhi with no tangible progress on the subject of ending hostilities in Ukraine. While hopes from the American side remain dim, perhaps the protests in Europe may influence decisions at the levels of leadership in their respective countries.

The West’s commitment to Ukraine has also struck opposition from other regions. At this year’s Munich Security Conference, leaders from non-Western countries expressed the necessity of finding peaceful solutions. Brazil’s foreign minister Mauro Viera called upon the world to “build the possibility of a solution,” while Colombia’s vice president Francia Marquez said, “We don’t want to go on discussing who will be the winner or the loser of a war. We are all losers, and, in the end, it is humankind that loses everything.”

Namibia’s prime minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila stressed the waste of money and resources in the name of hostility which “could be better utilized to promote development in Ukraine, in Africa, in Asia, in other places, in Europe itself, where many people are experiencing hardships.” China went so far as to outline a political settlement to the Ukraine crisis on the anniversary of the invasion.

These statements and efforts show their acknowledgment of the much poorer state of affairs the world finds itself in as the war drags on. The Russian war in Ukraine must come to an end one day, and more people around the world are demanding a solution now.

April 6, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

F-35 readiness rates get in way of NATO war planning

By Drago Bosnic | April 6, 2023

Last year, NATO officially declared that Russia is its primary adversary, officially restarting the Cold War. Since then, the belligerent alliance’s war machine has started revamping its strategic posturing towards Moscow, but after decades of numerous wars of aggression against relatively helpless opponents, NATO’s conventional fighting capabilities have atrophied significantly. This seems to be affecting all branches of major NATO militaries, including their air forces, particularly those operating the deeply troubled F-35 JSF (Joint Strike Fighter), a pan-Western effort to unify all NATO and NATO-aligned countries into “a well-oiled joint fighting force with near flawless coordination and battlefield information sharing”. At least that was the original idea.

However, the reality is much different. Publicly, the Pentagon is quite happy with “the best fighter jet ever made”. Privately, the situation is starkly different. For at least a decade, numerous reports on the F-35’s countless flaws have turned out to be not only true, but even overoptimistic, as the actual scale of issues plaguing the program is much worse. This has resulted in repeated delays in deliveries, as well as serious issues with modernization efforts. By the time many of the reported issues are resolved, the US Air Force already has new mission requirements that essentially nullify all the previous work and force the developers “back to the drawing board”. In short, the F-35 has proven to be unable to adapt to new threats despite being devised (and marketed) to do exactly that.

According to various sources, over 900 F-35s have been completed and delivered by April this year, but the fleet is still suffering from many of the same issues as when the jet was inducted into service nearly a decade ago. A plethora of maintenance issues and performance defects are causing disastrous availability rates. Back in February, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) revealed that the F-35 fleet not only failed to meet the requirements for improving readiness, but has even managed to make them a lot worse than in previous years. Availability rates for both the conventional F-35A and STOVL (short take-off, vertical landing) F-35B fell by 11% in 2022, with only the naval F-35C variant making small improvements in this category.

“Between 2021 and 2022, F-35As’ availability fell by 11 percentage points, from 65 to 54”, CBO stated in a report, adding: “F-35Bs’ availability also fell, by 7 percentage points, from 61 to 54, while F-35Cs’ availability rose by 5 percentage points to 58.”

And yet, even these reports turned out to be overoptimistic as Lockheed Martin once again resorted to using semantics to make the performance of its products seem better than they actually are. According to Bloomberg, the percentage of F-35s capable of flying any mission at any given moment, otherwise known as full mission-capable rates, was just over 29%, manager of the program Air Force Lieutenant General Michael Schmidt said in written testimony for the March 29 hearing of the House Armed Service Committee’s aviation subcommittee. This is nearly 10% less than the full mission-capable readiness in 2020, which stood at 39% at the time. Such a drop effectively nullified possible advantages provided by deliveries of new jets.

“This is unacceptable and maximizing readiness is my top priority,” Schmidt said in his prepared remarks, adding: “[Our] goal is to increase readiness rates by at least 10% in the next 12 months.”

This is just the latest in a series of now well over a hundred scathing reports issued over the years by both military and civilian US officials. As there are currently close to 540 F-35s in service with the US military, the latest readiness figures indicate that no more than 160 are fully mission-capable, meaning it’s among the very lowest, “bested” only by the F-22 “Raptor” jets and the atrociously maintenance-heavy B-2 strategic bombers. Ironically, F-35s were designed to have low maintenance requirements and operational costs to replace F-16s and A-10s for USAF, F-18s for USN (Navy) and AV-8Bs for USMC (Marines). The jet’s many issues resulted in a spending “death spiral”, as the program’s overall cost is getting ever closer to the staggering $2 trillion.

A major issue with the F-35 is its troubled F135 engine prone to overheating, resulting in issues with its ability to fly supersonic, a feat considered standard practice for fighter jets ever since WWII. Defense Secretary under the Trump administration, Christopher C. Miller, was so frustrated with the jet that he referred to it as “a monster” and “a piece of… (well , you get the idea)”.  Even the late John McCain, well known for anything but enmity towards the US MIC (Military Industrial Complex), called it “a textbook example of our broken defense acquisition system”, stating in one of his Senate briefings that “the F-35 program’s record has been both a scandal and a tragedy with respect to cost, schedule and performance”.

US vassals and satellite states have also found numerous issues with the F-35. For instance, during 18 months of operational testing (from January 2021 to June 2022), South Korea reported findings about nearly 250 critical flaws in the jets it acquired from the US in 2019. As late as December, Israel (one of the first F-35 operators) had to ground its entire fleet during preparations for a possible war with Iran. Others, such as Japan and the UK, have also suffered similar issues, even resulting in crashes and deaths. However, while the F-35 has certainly been a disaster, it might prove to be a major contributor to improving global security, as diminishing the political West’s ability to wage war is by far the best way to preserve peace across the world.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

April 6, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

France prepares to take militarization measures

By Lucas Leiroz | April 6, 2023

France is preparing for a conflict in the near future. The country is about to implement a new measure to raise the age of military reservists. The expansion of the number of active troops is also supposed to be announced at any moment. The declarations come amid a serious moment of internal crisis in France, with protests and police violence being reported every day due to the unpopular and authoritarian policies of the Macron government. At the same time that Paris could be seeking to improve its defense capacity in the midst of a world in tensions, the action could also be aimed at resolving the effects of the critical domestic scenario.

According to Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu, Paris will raise the maximum age for military reservists to 70 years. He also told an important French media outlet that “certain specialists” will be allowed to remain as reservists until the age of 72 – without, however, specifying in detail which would be such particular cases. The measure represents a radical change, since more than ten years are added to the current age limits. Lecornu believes that the current law is an unnecessary limit and that it prevents qualified professionals from contributing to the French forces for a longer time.

“A lot of people of quality find themselves ejected because of this age limit, which makes no sense (…) We will increase the age limits (…) People will be able to be a reservist in the French military until they are 70 years old and until they are 72 years old for certain specialists”, he told RTL during an interview.

Currently, professionals up to 60 years old can be reservists, with some special authorizations for people up to 65 years old. As we can see, it is therefore a large-scale reform, which will have a wide impact, as ten years are added to the age limit. It is estimated that with this it will be possible to double the number of reservists, jumping from 40 thousand soldiers to more than 80 thousand ones. However, this is just one of the militarization measures involved in an apparent interest on the part of Paris to focus on military matters at the current time.

New substantial defense spending is expected for the future. As previously announced by President Emmanuel Macron himself, the government plans to raise the military fund to 69 billion euros a year by 2030 – currently such spending is estimated at an amount of 43 billion euros a year. Lecornu believes that these actions are essential for his country to deal efficiently and effectively with the “threats” and “challenges” of the contemporary world.

“There are several objectives with this unprecedented budget package: to continue to repair what has been damaged, a certain number of budget cuts have affected our army model (…) and we have a succession of threats that are all adding up,” he told media.

In fact, there are a series of factors to be analyzed in order to understand the decisions being taken by the French government. First, the measure meets NATO’s recent demands for combat readiness in the entire alliance. France is one of the most relevant military powers of the bloc and its combat strength is extremely important for the alliance to have its objectives achieved in a conflict scenario. So, in a way, it is possible to say that Paris is fulfilling Western war plans when it implements militarization measures.

But this is certainly insufficient to entirely understand the case. On the domestic scenario, France is absolutely chaotic. Recently, a social security reform that increases the retirement age in the country was illegally implemented, which generated a serious crisis of legitimacy. By ordinary procedure, the reform should not have taken place, as it did not receive sufficient legislative support, however it was adopted with the government resorting to legal maneuvers and distorted interpretations of the national constitution in what appeared to be a kind of “internal lawfare”.

The popular reaction to these maneuvers is being manifest through mass protests in main French cities. The country’s chaos can be easily seen in the newspapers as well as with videos circulating on the internet showing clashes between demonstrators and police. Law enforcement forces have acted repressively and abusively against ordinary citizens, who are simply protesting against the government’s illegal actions.

What few analysts seem to understand is that these measures also serve NATO’s war interests. France has already sent large sums of money and arms packages to Kiev since the beginning of the special military operation, both on its own initiative and through the European fund, to which the country actively contributes. Obviously, the more money that is used to support NATO’s war machine, the more money the public reserves will lack to pay its own pensioners, which create the demands for reforms. Hence, not just in France but throughout the entire West, the trend is for neoliberal reforms against pension systems to become even more common.

The case thus reflects the contemporary Western inclination of neoliberal militarization. The aim is to reduce labor and social guarantees and increase military spending to make the Atlantic alliance an anti-Russian war machine, prepared for a world conflict, while ignoring the necessities of ordinary citizens. Specifically with regard to France, there is also the rhetorical use of the narrative about the security “threats” to try to distract the population and convince citizens to accept that their rights are diminished.

It remains to be seen whether the French will really adhere to the official rhetoric and abdicate their claims for social rights, or whether they will continue to protest in the streets.

Lucas Leiroz is a journalist and researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.

You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

April 6, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

NATO expansionism in Scandinavia helps America, but puts Finland in line of fire

By Drago Bosnic | April 5, 2023

It’s quite obvious that NATO has always been an auxiliary extension of the United States. This has been the case since the unfortunate inception of the belligerent alliance 74 years ago. Thus, NATO’s crawling aggression should always be observed from the perspective of US expansionism, as the bellicose thalassocracy keeps moving its military infrastructure ever closer to the borders of its geopolitical adversaries. This has been the case in the (First) Cold War and it’s no different nowadays when the US is pushing one European country after another into a broader anti-Russian coalition that now includes the entire European Union. Washington DC is attempting to do the same by constituting a near carbon copy of NATO in the Pacific in a virtually identical step, only aimed against China.

US State Secretary Antony Blinken and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg attended the admission ceremony with Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto. The Office of the President of Finland said in a statement: “Finland has today become a member of the defense alliance NATO. The era of military non-alignment in our history has come to an end. A new era begins. Each country maximizes its own security. So does Finland. At the same time, NATO membership strengthens our international position and room for maneuver. As a partner, we have long actively participated in NATO activities. In the future, Finland will make a contribution to NATO’s collective deterrence and defense.”

The formal admission of Finland is the latest move in the process of “globalizing” NATO. The buzzword in this particular case is “formal”, not “(NATO) admission” and the reason is quite simple. Finland was never truly neutral, not even during the (First) Cold War and particularly not since it entered the EU. It has always been packed with US/NATO intelligence assets, although this has escalated significantly in the last several decades. Since then, the country has essentially become a NATO member in all but name. Yesterday, this was merely formalized. Although NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg dubbed it “a historic event”, this was just PR and optics aimed to “coincide” with NATO’s 74th anniversary. As for Sweden, it will probably have to wait another year, since publicity is everything for NATO.

Although Stoltenberg told reporters on Monday he was hopeful that Sweden would be joining in the following months, this is highly unlikely if Stockholm keeps meddling in Ankara’s internal affairs. Still, he insisted that Finland’s NATO membership “will be good for [its] security, for Nordic security, and for NATO as a whole.” How exactly this is “good for Finland’s security” is yet to be explained by either Brussels or Helsinki. Russia and Finland share a very long border (over 1,300 km), meaning the move has nearly tripled the line of direct contact between NATO and Russia, as the combined border between them has previously been approximately 700 km. Now being well over 2,000 km long, the border could be a major source of tensions.

Considering that Moscow previously never saw Finland as a potential threat, its membership in NATO, a hostile and extremely aggressive military alliance that openly declared and targeted Russia as its primary enemy, Helsinki has unilaterally changed this, prompting Moscow to completely revamp its strategic posturing towards Helsinki. In an interview with RIA Novosti, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko stated that “[Russia] will strengthen [its] military potential in the western and northwestern direction” and that “[Moscow] will take additional steps to reliably ensure Russia’s military security in the event that the forces and resources of other NATO members are deployed in Finland”.

During a briefing at the Kremlin, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov dubbed the move “an aggravation of the situation” and reiterated Grushko’s warning that Russia will be forced to take countermeasures to maintain its security. “The Kremlin believes that this is another aggravation of the situation. The expansion of NATO is an infringement on our security and Russia’s national interests,” he stated. However, Peskov did acknowledge that the situation certainly wasn’t as bad as with the Kiev regime, which the West has long tried to turn into a springboard for active aggression against Russia.

“The situation with Finland, of course, is radically different from the situation with Ukraine, because, firstly, Finland has never had anti-Russian rhetoric, and we have had no disputes with Finland. With Ukraine, the situation is the opposite and potentially much more dangerous,” Peskov added.

Still, from a military standpoint, the situation can hardly be considered optimistic. Finland directly broke from its neutrality when it decided to acquire F-35 fighter jets from the US in late 2021. The Pentagon has direct access to everything the F-35’s sensors can detect, meaning that Finland would be sharing key military data with the US regardless of whether it was a NATO member or not. On the other hand, being a member also means that it’s more likely to see the deployment of US offensive weapons in close proximity to St. Petersburg, Russia’s second most important city.

Restored DC-2 plane shows the wartime insignia of the Finnish air force

In this regard, Stoltenberg was right to say that the admission of Finland is truly historic, but only in the sense that Helsinki is essentially repeating the same mistake as over 80 years ago when it joined the Axis led by Nazi Germany. Now when it’s among “old friends” once again, maybe Finland should dust off the history books and pay very close attention to how this ended the last time.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

April 5, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

NATO’s Enlargement Targets Not Only Moscow, But Ankara as Well, Turkish Media Says

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 05.04.2023

Turkiye’s parliament approved Finland’s bid to join the Western alliance last week, citing Helsinki’s “authentic and concrete steps” to allay Ankara’s security concerns. However, one Turkish outlet fears the nod to membership may prove a strategic mistake, and that the bloc is directed as much against Turkiye as it is against Russia.

Finland officially joined NATO on Tuesday, becoming the 31st nation to join the alliance, with its accession constituting the Western military bloc’s ninth wave of expansion since its creation in 1949. Russia, which shares a 1,300+ km frontier with its Nordic neighbor, warned that Moscow would take the necessary “countermeasures” to ensure its tactical and strategic security.

Turkiye’s Defense Ministry used the occasion, which coincides with the 74th anniversary of the founding of NATO, to post a congratulatory tweet. “We have been a distinguished member of NATO since 1952. Happy 74th anniversary. Together we are stronger,” the ministry wrote, adding the hashtag “#WeAreNATO.”

But the celebration may be premature, writes Turkish newspaper Aydinlik.

“Although NATO’s enlargement has been seen as a policy of containing Russia, it is now obvious that Turkiye is being similarly besieged. In the past, the Atlantic [powers] attempted to establish global hegemony by hemming the Eurasian continent in on land, in accordance with Spykman’s Rimland theory, therefore including countries such as Turkiye, Iran, Afghanistan and China in its geopolitical axis,” the newspaper, affiliated with Turkiye’s Vatan Partisi, a left Kemalist party, wrote in an analysis published Tuesday.

From the 1970s on, the geopolitical situation began to shift, Aydinlik noted. “Among the trusted countries, Iran escaped America’s control in 1979, China after 1990, Turkiye on July 15, 2016 [the day of the attempted coup against Erdogan, ed.] and Afghanistan in 2021, becoming target countries. Therefore, the geopolitical axis was broken, and shifted to Greece, southern Cyprus and Israel. Thus, Turkiye was cut off from the Atlantic [axis], and pushed toward the Heartland, and is now besieged from Alexandropoulos to Crete, and from there to the eastern Mediterranean and northern Syria.”

Turkiye vs NATO

Aydinlik’s analysis is in line with growing anti-NATO and anti-Western sentiment in Turkiye. A 2019 poll found that only 21 percent of Turks had a positive view of the alliance. A 2021 survey discovered that a whopping 90.3 percent didn’t believe that the bloc would come to the country’s assistance in a crisis, while 51.7 percent said the bloc “exploits” Turkiye for its own interests. Another poll in early 2022 found that 39.4 percent of Turks would prefer it if their country would “give priority to Russia and China” in foreign policy, compared to 37.5 percent for the EU and the US.

Turkish grievances with the West are numerous, starting with Turkiye’s shabby treatment by Brussels – which has dangled the prospect of EU membership before the country for more than 30 years, but consistently refused to allow it to enter, ostensibly for failing to “meet membership criteria.” (Meanwhile, much less developed countries in Eastern Europe have been allowed in, and even Ukraine, which is engulfed in a NATO-Russia proxy conflict and mired in corruption and poverty, is now being considered for membership.)
NATO’s role in the 2016 coup attempt is another issue on many Turks’ minds. Some have accused NATO of direct involvement in the coup plot, and the Turkish government’s purge of NATO staff after the attempted putsch indicates that Ankara also suspects them.

America’s sheltering of Fethullah Gulen, the Muslim cleric President Erdogan suspects of masterminding the coup attempt, has served to further fray ties. As has the scandal over the F-35 fighter program. After pumping more than a billion dollars in R&D funds into the fighter and organizing the manufacture of dozens of key components, Turkiye was unceremoniously booted out of the program in 2019 and slapped with sanctions in 2020 over its purchase of advanced Russian missile defense systems.

Turkiye and NATO’s de facto leader, the United States, have also found themselves on opposite sides in Syria, where US forces have allied themselves to and shielded Kurdish militia forces which Ankara classifies as terrorists. At the same time, the ongoing standoff between Turkiye and Greece in a maritime dispute in the Mediterranean (which France, another NATO member, has joined on Athens’ side) has served to further heighten Ankara’s security concerns.

Even as Turkiye prepares for presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for May, Ankara has accused the US of meddling in the country’s internal affairs after US Ambassador Jeff Flake met with Kemal Kilicdaroglu, Erdogan’s main rival.

“Joe Biden’s ambassador visits Kemal. Shame on you, think with your head. You are an ambassador. Your interlocutor here is the president. How will you stand up after that and ask for a rendezvous with the president? Our doors are closed to him, he can no longer come in. Why? He needs to know his place,” Erdogan said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks to the media during a joint press conference with Finland’s President Sauli Niinisto, at the presidential palace in Ankara,

With NATO’s latest expansion, the real question worth asking, Aydinlik seems to intimate, is about Turkiye’s place in the Western alliance.

April 5, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

NATO member blasts Ukraine invitation

RT | April 4, 2023

Inviting Kiev to Brussels over Budapest’s explicit objections violates NATO’s principles, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Tuesday. He took part in the meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Committee anyway, to raise the issue of ethnic Hungarian minority rights.

“We came here in hope that no one will question the validity of our earlier joint decision that NATO is not a part of the war taking place in our neighbor [Ukraine] and that everything must be done to prevent a direct NATO-Russia conflict,” Szijjarto said on Facebook, posting from the foreign minister conference of bloc members.

Inviting Ukraine “violates the principle of the unity of the allies within NATO, but in the spirit of constructiveness we will participate in the meeting,” he added. “I will also make it clear that Hungary will support any integration efforts of Ukraine only if the Ukrainians restore to Transcarpathian Hungarians the rights they had before 2015.”

Around 150,000 ethnic Hungarians live in modern Ukraine, mainly in the Transcarpathian Region. Budapest has vowed not to give up on them “under any circumstances,” even though there has been pressure from “both sides of the Atlantic” to do so, Szijjarto had said earlier this month.

Hungary will not support Ukraine’s applications to either the EU or NATO so long as Kiev’s laws threaten Hungarian-language schools, the minister repeated last week.

Ukraine’s crackdown on Russian-speakers, begun by the government installed by the US-backed coup in 2014, has also affected Hungarian, Romanian, and Polish minorities. Romania had previously joined Hungary in demanding linguistic protections for around 400,000 ethnic Romanians and Moldovans, but Bucharest has been silent as of late.

According to Szijjarto, Ukraine had made promises to Hungary for years, but did nothing to address the matter. Despite criticism from the Council of Europe, Kiev has only doubled down on legislation mandating the use of Ukrainian at all levels of education.

NATO procedures require a consensus of members, but the joint commission with Ukraine was set up over Hungary’s objections. The US-led bloc has given Kiev billions of dollars worth of military aid over the past year, but continues to insist it is not actually involved in the conflict with Russia.

April 5, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , | Leave a comment

US Scientist Sounds Alarm About Incident Involving American Nuke at Dutch Air Base

US troops examine a damaged nuclear bomb at a Dutch military base. © Photo : Los Alamos National Laboratory / Federation of American Scientists
Sputnik – 03.04.2023

The Netherlands is one of a handful of European nations hosting nuclear weapons. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons estimates that about 20 American B61 nukes are held at the Volkel Air Base in the country’s south.

The US and Dutch militaries may have suffered a recent nuclear weapons-related incident at Volkel Air Base and failed to inform the public about it, the Federation of American Scientists has reported, citing photographic evidence of a damaged B61 nuclear bomb being examined by troops.

The photo, featured in a 2022 briefing at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Shows three US servicemen, including two members of the military’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit, looking at a B61 bomb strapped into a trolley that’s somehow been misshapen and missing one of its tail stabilizer fins. A fourth soldier is seen holding a folder dotted with red edge markings similar to those typically used to indicate “secret” clearance.

It’s not clear when the photograph was taken, and a cursory examination of media reports shows no recent admissions by the US or Dutch governments about any accidents involving American nuclear weapons at Volkel Air Base.

FAS researcher Hans M. Kristensen, director of the non-profit’s Nuclear Information Project, indicated that if it was confirmed that the image comes from Volkel, and that the misshapen B61 is a real bomb, and not just a dummy trainer, this “would constitute the first publicly known case of a recent nuclear weapons accident at an airbase in Europe.”

The researcher noted that judging by the image, the bomb appears to have been hit with “significant force,” speculating that it may have been hit by a vehicle during transit, “or bent out of shape by the weapons elevator of the underground storage vault.”

The background details of the photo lead Kristensen to believe that the photo was taken in one of the protective aircraft shelters at the base, which have been featured in press photos put out by the Dutch military.

The 312th Squadron of the Dutch Air Force’s 1st Wing operates nuclear-capable F-16 fighters, with their US nuclear payloads placed under US control during peacetime, but made available to Amsterdam and NATO in the event of a war.

Kristensen noted that if the photo is genuine, the US would likely classify it as an “incident,” which involves “evident damage to a nuclear weapon or nuclear component that requires major rework, replacement, or examination or re-certification by the Department of Energy,” rather than an “accident,” which is reserved by the Air Force to refer to incidents involving a nuke’s destruction or loss.

The scientist noted that although security features built into the B61 make the chance of accidental detonation extremely minute, the detonation of high explosives in the bomb could spread plutonium and other radioactive materials throughout the surrounding environment.

A Pentagon spokesperson assured that the US “maintains the highest level of standards for personnel and equipment supporting the strategic arsenal,” and said US policy forbids the military from either confirming or denying “the presence or absence of nuclear weapons at any general or specific locations.” The spokesperson did not comment on the photograph.

Washington did not follow in Moscow’s footsteps in removing its nuclear weapons from European soil after the Cold War, and is believed to maintain such weapons at about half a dozen bases across Western and Central Europe and Turkiye. NATO conducts annual “nuclear-sharing” drills known as “Steadfast Noon,” and simulates the use of American nuclear weapons by allies.

The B61 thermonuclear gravity bomb began to be produced in the 1960s, and since that time over 3,000 B61s of 13 different variants have been built. The bomb has a blast yield of between 0.3 and 340 kilotons (for comparison, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 had a yield of about 15 kilotons of TNT). The bomb’s newest variant, the B61-12, completed flight testing in 2020, and began production in late 2021. US media reported last October that the Pentagon wanted to accelerate the weapon’s deployment to Europe.

April 3, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Simultaneous US aggression in Black Sea and Mediterranean as multipolarity accelerates

By Drago Bosnic | April 3, 2023

Following the recent engagements between illegal American occupation forces in northeastern Syria and what the Pentagon called “pro-Iranian forces”, leaving dead and wounded on both sides, the United States has decided to further escalate tensions in Syria and the Middle East as a whole. As the multipolar, or should we say the actual world, is engaging in real and masterful diplomacy (in stark contrast to the US), reconciling archrivals such as Iran and Saudi Arabia and slowly but surely normalizing relations between Syria and Turkey, the stabilization of the globe seems like an unstoppable process. This is deeply alarming to the political West, the only entity on the planet in constant need of widespread death, destruction and chaos so it can maintain the illusion of the “garden-jungle” geopolitical framework.

Using the recent clashes as an excuse, Washington DC announced an extension of the CSG (carrier strike group) deployment led by USS “George H.W. Bush” Nimitz-class supercarrier, over 9.000 km away from its home port of Norfolk in Virginia. On Friday, US CENTCOM (Central Command) spokesman Colonel Joe Buccino stated that the extension of the “George H.W. Bush” CSG, inclusive of the “USS Leyte Gulf”, the “USS Delbert D. Black” and the “USNS Arctic” allows options to “potentially bolster the capabilities of CENTCOM to respond to a range of contingencies in the Middle East”. At the time of the announcement, the CSG was near Sicily. Apparently, the deployment will also include “a scheduled, expedited deployment of a squadron of A-10 attack aircraft to the region.”

According to Reuters, at least one US official, “speaking on the condition of anonymity”, confirmed that the George H.W. Bush CSG was “expected to remain in the European Command area of responsibility”, most likely until further notice, meaning that the US wants to keep tensions as high as possible for as long as possible. For the mainstream propaganda machine, the conflict in Syria is still called the “Syrian Civil War”, although it is anything but. Washington DC and its numerous satellite states in the region have been attacking the unfortunate country for over a decade now, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dead and millions of refugees. In addition, the US maintains an illegal occupation of northeastern Syria, where it’s supposedly “guarding” (i.e. stealing) the country’s oil reserves.

However, US militancy in Syria (and the wider Middle East) is only a fraction of the belligerent thalassocracy’s aggression against the world. Concurrently, Washington DC and its numerous NATO satellite states also conducted naval drills off the coast of Romania’s Tulcea County on the country’s Black Sea coast. The region borders the Odessa Oblast (an area currently occupied by the Kiev regime). Apparently, the war games included a scenario where thousands of NATO soldiers simulated coastal defense against a large-scale attack by an “unnamed aggressor” (obviously referring to Russia). Dubbed “Sea Shield 23”, the naval drills started on March 20 and were concluded on Sunday, April 2.

In total, close to 3,500 servicemen from the US and eleven other NATO vassals took part, including at least 30 naval ships, 14 aircraft and 15 other “fast intervention” boats. The live-fire drills were conducted both in the Black Sea and the Danube Delta, approximately 30 km from the border with Odessa Oblast. Since Russia started the special military operation (SMO), the US has conducted a number of large-scale military exercises in Eastern Europe to simulate a potential conflict with Moscow. This includes a recent simulated nuclear attack on Saint Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city with close to six million inhabitants. A USAF B-52H “Stratofortress” flying in Estonian airspace circled in an area barely 100 km from the Russian border.

To put that into perspective, we should imagine a Russian Tu-95MS “Bear” strategic bomber/missile carrier flying just 60 miles off Manhattan, simulating a thermonuclear strike on New York City, one of the most important urban areas in the US. Still, that doesn’t prevent the US from doing everything in its power to provoke Russia. Considering that the “deep diving pro-Ukrainian group” that conducted the Nord Stream terrorist attacks has now also been dangerously close to the Turk (formerly South) Stream pipelines, the Russian Black Sea Fleet will need to be as vigilant as ever. The pipeline is the only major energy hub supplying natural gas to Turkey and Southeast Europe.

In the meantime, the world is working towards creating conditions for peaceful coexistence and cooperation of the globe’s numerous civilizations. Organizations such as BRICS and SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) are rapidly expanding by admitting new members, with Iran being the most recent constituent of SCO. Saudi Arabia also became a dialogue partner on March 29, marking an important milestone in the organization’s history, which now includes all major oil producers in Eurasia and the Middle East. This also marks a crucial step toward eliminating Western currency dominance, the key provision to limiting the belligerent power pole’s ability to conduct military and economic aggression against the world.

Drago Bosnic, independent geopolitical and military analyst.

April 3, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

US proxy attrition war in Ukraine backfiring, says US diplomat

By Uriel Araujo | April 3, 2023

Former US ambassador to Finland, Earle Mack has visited Ukraine several times, on humanitarian missions. He claims, in a March 29 piece for The Hill, that, during his last visit, he could see a lack of morale firsthand, in the voice of the leaders to whom he talked. More importantly, Mack states matter-of-factly that the West has been “propping up Ukraine to fight a proxy war”, which is, in itself, a very important admission from a former US diplomat. He adds, however, that Kiev desperately needs “modern fighting hardware”, and claims that, by the time American Abrams tanks reach the country, in eight to ten months, the conflict could be over already with a defeated Ukraine.

To the general public, this reasoning might appear strange. After all, everyone knows that the US and its allies have been sending tons of weapons, ammunition and lots of cash to Ukraine. The constant sending of aid to Kiev has even caused Washington and European powers to have a hard time replenishing their own stocks of weapons.

It is true that American weapons manufacturers profit tremendously from today’s conflict. Much the same way portions of the sums sent to Ukraine (Europe’s most corrupt nation) are being diverted to shady schemes, the Pentagon, as a matter of fact, cannot account for billions worth of weaponry. Many such weapons appeared in the Middle East and Africa, trafficked through black markets. This however is only part of the story.

When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Washington, during a 21 December 2022 joint press conference, his American counterpart, Joe Biden, provided a clearer picture. Regarding the insistent calls  for more powerful weaponry being sent to Kiev, the US President said that providing Ukrainians with long-distance missiles “would have a prospect of breaking up NATO”, and “breaking up the EU and the rest of the world.” He added that his NATO allies were “not looking to go to war with Russia. They’re not looking for a third world war.” After saying that much, Biden “reassured” the Ukrainian leader standing next to him, by telling Zelensky this: “as I said, Mr. President, you don’t have to worry — we are staying with Ukraine as long as Ukraine is there.”

Inadvertently, Biden’s December remarks almost paraphrased the cruel joke about Americans being willing to fight “to the last Ukrainian”. More importantly, his blunt answer amounted to an indirect admission that Washington keeps arming and aiding Kiev as part of a proxy protracted war. It would thus appear the West’s strategy is not about giving Ukrainians victory but rather about wearing down Moscow. The conflict, however, is wearing out Ukraine itself – and even the West.

It is not just Ukraine that is in a bad shape, though: de-industrialized Europe is in fact more dependent than ever on the US for security, its military being in an “appalling state”, according to experts. The EU’s defense base lacks a common defense market, as well as the necessary production capacities and supply chains. Moreover, whenever the EU tries to articulate an industrial policy, Washington steps in. This is so because American interests benefit not only from the defense industry, but also from the continent’s own energy crisis and deindustrialization. Washington’s goal of a NATOized Europe is made impossible by the US own economic and industrial policies against Europe, as exemplified by Biden’s subsidies package.

Earle Mack describes the current conflict as attrition warfare, that is one which seeks military victory by wearing down the enemy. On a larger scale, also including the realms of financial and economic warfare, one could very well argue that the political West has indeed been trying to “wear down” the Russian Federation in all manners, by arming Kiev plus imposing unprecedented sanctions on Moscow. The sanctions have boosted Eurasian integration and largely backfired. Alas, the same could be said about Washington’s military attrition strategy, which normally aims for the long run. If this is an attrition war, it seems Ukraine is bound to tire out first – and is tiring out already. Hence, Earle Mack’s sense of urgency.

With that in mind, the former diplomat writes that the US and its allies should urgently send Kiev “military modern weaponry, including more Patriot missiles and many more Leopard 2 and Abrams tanks.”

In his piece, Earl Mack, also rightly reminds readers that although the current Russian military campaign in Ukraine is just a year old, that nation “has been in almost continuous conflict” since 2014 – this, one might add, is a situation that has been largely promoted and fueled by the West and by NATO’s expansion. During these years, Kiev’s human rights violations against the Donbass population have been covered-up by Western press, to the point of, more recently, whitewashing the Azov Regiment’s neonazism. In a July 2020 piece, I described the then Donbass combat as Europe’s forgotten war – and in a way it remains so, because the large public still thinks of military conflict in Ukraine as being only a year old phenomenon.

Ukranians are thus approaching “a decade of death and chaos”, in Earle Mack’s words. Over 10 million Ukrainians left their country. Interestingly, over 5.5 million, from Ukraine and Donbass, have fled to Russia. The loss of populations plus badly damaged infrastructure is exhausting the country.

Good diplomacy and lots of table talks are needed more than ever. Instead, Mack claims that to obtain victory, “Ukraine needs everything, everywhere, all at once” – and urgently. In any case, one can only give so much. It remains to be seen how much the US-led West is willing to give, while the Washington world system collapses.

Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.

April 3, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

US troops should leave Germany – MP

RT | April 1, 2023

Berlin must break with the existing “relationship of extreme subservience” to America and its foreign policies “marked by breaches of international law,” Sevim Dagdelen, the deputy head of the Left Party’s faction in the Bundestag, said on Friday. Germany must demand that US forces stationed on its territory be withdrawn, along with America’s nuclear weapons, the MP insisted.

“After 78 years, it is now time for the US soldiers to go home,” Dagdelen said at a parliamentary event marking the 75th anniversary of the Marshall Plan. The US military bases act “like extraterrestrial zones where the [German] constitution does not apply,” the MP, who is also a member of the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, said.

Washington uses its bases on German soil to wage wars abroad and launch “lethal drone strikes,” Dagdelen said, adding that some of these actions are “in breach of international law.”

She also criticized the regular NATO meetings at the US Ramstein base in Germany, where military aid to Kiev is discussed. Washington hosts these conferences “as if the Occupation Statute were still in force,” the MP said, adding that Berlin also allowed the US to put it “in the line of fire” with the German-made Leopard tank deliveries to Ukraine.

The German lawmakers took a decision on the withdrawal of America’s nuclear weapons from the nation’s territory as early as 2010, but these arms are still in place, Dagdelen said. “We stand by our position: the US nuclear weapons must go,” she added.

“The US administration gives the impression that they do not want allies, just loyal vassals,” the MP said, pointing to America’s negligence toward its partners’ interests and demands. According to Dagdelen, “fewer and fewer countries around the world are prepared to accept this.” A true “friendship” should be based on mutual respect for human rights and international law, the MP added.

Germany hosts by far the largest number of US military personnel out of all European nations. Over 35,000 American troops were stationed on its soil as of 2022. Italy, which hosts the second-largest number of American soldiers, trails far behind, as some 12,000 US military personnel were stationed there at the same time.

April 1, 2023 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

No More Double Standards and Impunity. West Provokes Russia. Result: Nukes in Belarus on NATO’s Borders

Strategic Culture Foundation | March 31, 2023

The historic – and unacceptable – deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons in several European NATO states as well as the recent announcement by Britain of supplying depleted uranium weapons to Ukraine is the prologue to Russia’s decision to place tactical nukes in Belarus. The Western outcry following Russia’s decision is absurd and hypocritical.

The pattern is familiar and speaks of incorrigible arrogance. The United States and its NATO allies make reckless escalatory moves that are unprecedented in their aggression toward Russia; then Moscow makes a reciprocal move, and yet the Western governments and their dutiful news media become apoplectic with rage over Russia’s “threatening conduct” and nuclear blackmail.

Maybe one day, Western leaders will eventually choke on their own illogical apoplexy.

This week there was frothing and fuming in the West about Moscow’s decision to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, despite the move being fully in accord with the Minsk government, a longtime ally of Russia and fellow member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. The CSTO is organically comparable with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), having a shared defense commitment between allied states that were formerly members of the Soviet Union.

In ratifying the deployment, Russian President Vladimir Putin was accused by Western powers of jeopardizing international security, threatening European neighbors and violating the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Belarus borders three NATO members: Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.

But the decision by Russia to install tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus (which Moscow would reportedly retain control over) was in response to the NATO move to supply its anti-Russian Kiev proxy with depleted uranium (DU) weapons. Britain announced last week that Challenger 2 battlefield tanks sent to Ukraine would be equipped with DU shells. It is understood that the United States is also ready to supply depleted uranium armor-piercing munitions to Ukraine with its Abrams tanks. Video footage from London’s Ministry of Defence shows Ukrainian troops being trained by British and American officers in handling DU shells.

Depleted uranium is a high-density metal – much denser than lead – which can penetrate modern armor. It ignites after penetration and turns into vapor at extreme temperature. While DU shells are not explosively fissile and do not cause nuclear blasts, they do release harmful radioactive contamination into the environment. Arguably, the munitions are therefore a form of nuclear weapon in the same manner as a low-yield “dirty bomb”.

The United States and Britain fired tonnes of depleted uranium shells during their decade-long illegal war in Iraq. NATO forces also used DU weapons in their war of aggression against former Yugoslavia. In both cases, the resultant radioactive contamination was correlated with high rates of cancer and birth defects in the civilian populations.

The Americans and British have never been held to account for their war crimes. That impunity partly explains their arrogance in regard to pumping weapons into Ukraine against Russia and in particular the latest iteration of radioactive uranium shells.

For the British regime to claim that DU weapons are “normal” munitions and acceptable to deploy potentially for hitting Russian territory is a demonstration of its depraved deception and utter lawlessness. It also shows that London and its NATO partners are willing to recklessly escalate the conflict in Ukraine against Russia by breaching a dangerous threshold regarding nuclear weapons.

Under Russia’s defense doctrine, it may use nuclear weapons if its national security is threatened by either nuclear forces or conventional forces. The U.S.-led NATO alliance is pushing the envelope in a way that is seemingly incorrigible, or tantamount to psychopathic behavior.

Perversely, this abysmal situation is distorted as somehow Russia taking a provocative step in placing tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.

What Moscow is demonstrating is that the Anglo-American-led NATO alliance has no longer the presumption of impunity. The decades of unchecked aggression from NATO expansionism and criminal Anglo-American subterfuges in foreign countries are over. Moscow offered a diplomatic channel to create a security treaty in Europe, but that was haughtily dismissed by the arrogant imperialist powers. The result was the military-technical measures that Russia undertook with its intervention in Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

Arguably, Russia could take additional reciprocal measures that go further. The involvement of NATO members in massively arming the NeoNazi Kiev regime should, it could be contended, be met with military defensive action to destroy supply chains entering Ukraine.

This is the perspective for a proper understanding of the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. It is not Russia upping the ante to jeopardize security and peace. It is NATO powers that are erasing the boundaries in a way that they are accustomed to doing for several decades.

Let’s recall that it is the United States that has rescinded several arms-control treaties including the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty, and the Open Skies treaty, and it is Washington that has chronically undermined the last-existing one, the New START governing strategic weapons.

There is also the existing anomaly of the United States storing nuclear weapons on the territory of five NATO members. They are Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Turkey. These countries are signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, so arguably the basing of nuclear weapons in these states is a gross violation of the NPT, which is what the West is accusing Russia of in regard to Belarus.

Last year, too, Poland offered to house American nuclear weapons on its soil. That offer was not taken up but is presumably still on the table. Why is there not an outcry over that egregious destabilizing of arms control?

As usual there is a surfeit of Western double-think to go along with rank hypocrisy. The illogical mentality is a product of arrogance and hubris.

Furthermore, two NATO members Britain and France have their own national nuclear arsenals supposedly separate from Washington’s command. These two powers are actively hostile toward Russia through their arming of the Kiev regime.

Additionally, all 30 members of the NATO alliance are committed to assisting the United States in deploying nuclear forces with their conventional militaries under the alliance’s provision called Support of Nuclear Operations With Conventional Air Tactics (SNOWCAT).

In sum, clearly, the issue of arms control and security is badly out of balance, but it is the conduct of the United States and its NATO partners that has led to the imbalance. The arrogant presumption of impunity held by Washington and London in particular is a destabilizing factor that creates double standards that are completely unacceptable in a world supposedly under the rule of international law and the United Nations Charter.

The conflict in Ukraine can be solved if Western powers were to abide by international law and halt the weaponizing of the Kiev regime. Going forward, Ukraine must be a neutral state and NATO must halt its aggressive expansion. A serious policy of nuclear arms control must involve the withdrawal of such weapons from European NATO member states and the inclusion of British and French arsenals as part of a wider detente framework. Note, however, that the conditionalities for peace are in large part an onus on Washington and its Western allies to do the right and reasonable things. The disturbing question is though, can Washington and its imperialist lackeys be reasonable?

Until enlightened conduct prevails, Russia is quite correct to be intolerant of any double standards that the Americans, British and their NATO minions presume. Every aggressive move must be boldly and smartly reciprocated. Without that countervailing action, there is impunity, which is even more dangerous.

Holding Western powers to account is a powerful weapon of attrition because it exposes their corruption and fraud, their duplicity, and their fatal arrogance. Increasingly, the Western public is seeing the endemic bankruptcy of their supposed rulers.

March 31, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Russia to Consider ‘NATO Peacekeepers’ as Targets if Deployed in Ukraine, Medvedev Says

Sputnik – 31.03.2023

MOSCOW – Russia will consider so-called NATO peacekeepers as legitimate targets if they get deployed in Ukraine on the front line, Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday.

“They will be a legitimate target for our armed forces if they are placed on the front line without the consent of Russia with weapons in their hands and directly threaten us,” Medvedev wrote on his Telegram channel.

According to the official, the West’s real goal is to establish a ceasefire on the front line that is favorable to them.

“It is clear that the so-called NATO peacekeepers are simply going to enter the conflict on the side of our enemies [Ukraine] … Unleash that very third world war, which they so fear when they talk,” Medvedev said.

Earlier in March, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban stated that the European Union is one step away from discussing sending military of some peacekeeping type in Ukraine.

March 31, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

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