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After NATO’s Romanian Coup, Where Next?

By Kit Klarenberg | Global Delinquents | December 29, 2024

On December 6th, Romania’s constitutional court made an extraordinary decision to inexplicably overturn first round results of the country’s November 24th presidential election. Conveniently, the ruling was made mere days before a runoff that, according to polls, would’ve seen upstart outsider Calin Georgescu win via landslide. In the process, citizens of all NATO member states were provided with a particularly pitiless, real-time crash course on what could now happen in their own countries, should the ‘wrong’ candidates be elected fair and square.

Georgescu’s stunning victory in the first round caught Romania’s political elite and their Western sponsors off guard, while leaving him the most popular political figure in the country. Campaigning on a traditionalist, nationalist platform, he extolled views some might consider unsavoury, but also advocated nationalisation, and state investment in local industry. Perhaps predictably, the Western media has universally smeared him as “far-right”, “pro-Putin” and a “conspiracy theorist”, among other now-familiar sobriquets commonly levelled at political dissidents.

Georgescu’s greatest crime is to determinedly oppose continued Romanian involvement in and backing for the Ukraine proxy war. As Kiev’s Black Sea-facing neighbour, Bucharest has offered significant financial, material and political succour since February 2022, all along running the risk of getting caught in the crossfire. But in interviews with Western news outlets, Georgescu boldly proclaimed any and all “military or political support” would be reduced to “zero” under his watch:

“I have to take care of my people. I don’t want to involve my people… Everything stops. I have to take care just about my people. We have a lot of problems ourselves.”

No official reason has been given for Romania’s constitutional court voiding November’s vote, despite days earlier signing off on the results. Nonetheless, in the intervening time, Bucharest’s security apparatus released declassified reports intimating – without making direct accusations or providing any evidence whatsoever – Georgescu’s victory may have resulted from a wide-ranging, Moscow-sponsored influence campaign, delivered via TikTok. Details provided instead pointed to a rather mundane – albeit successful – social media marketing effort.

The plot further thickened in late December, when it was revealed the TikTok campaign that purportedly boosted Georgescu was in fact financed by Romania’s National Liberal party. This backing helped propel the hitherto obscure candidate to national prominence, the objective potentially being to harm the National Liberal party’s arch nemesis Social Democrats. No evidence of Muscovite funding, let alone support, for Georgescu has ever emerged. Nonetheless, despite these disclosures, the narrative of Russian destabilisation catapulting him into power has since been invincibly minted.

NATO’s grand and ever-expanding military base in Romania

Bucharest’s sprawling territory is home to multiple US missile facilities, and a giant NATO military base, scheduled to soon be greatly expanded, explicitly in service of decisively changing the region’s “balance of power” in the West’s favour. Meanwhile, Romanian presidents wield significant clout in domestic and international affairs. They dictate foreign policy, serve as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and appoint prime ministers. All of which points to a far more likely rationale for the presidential election’s abrogation than “Russian meddling”.

‘Without Hope’

On December 10th, the BBC published a striking report on how Romanians were “stunned by the eleventh-hour cancellation of their presidential election.” The British state broadcaster was at pains throughout to justify the vote’s unprecedented, despotic annulment as proper, reasonably motivated by a “massive” and “aggressive” malign meddling campaign on TikTok – whether of Russian origin or not – improperly skewing the result. However, the BBC evidently had little choice but to admit Georgescu was enormously, and organically, popular.

For example, NATO veteran Mircea Geoana, Bucharest’s former foreign affairs minister who ran for president in November and finished sixth, was quoted as saying “Romania dodged a bullet” and “came very close” to an all-out coup. “If Moscow can do this in Romania, which is profoundly anti-Russian, it means they can do it anywhere,” he ominously cautioned. Still, Geoana conceded there was “a whole cocktail of grievances in our society,” and it would be “hugely mistaken to believe” Georgescu’s success “was just because of Russia.”

The BBC acknowledged immense “fatigue” with Romania’s doggedly pro-Western political establishment widely abounds among the local population, who harbour an ever-growing number of completely legitimate grievances, entirely unaddressed in the mainstream. By contrast, the British state broadcaster recorded, Georgescu not only spoke openly and passionately about these manifold problems, but offered tangible solutions for tackling them. And a great many average citizens “liked what he said.” Several Georgescu supporters were duly quoted in the article, issuing effusive praise. One evangelised:

“He’s like a preacher, with a Bible in his hand, and I thought he spoke only the truth… He talks about rights and dignity. Romanians go to other countries for work, but we have so many resources here. Wood, grain – and our soil is very rich. Why should we be vagrants in Italy?”

The BBC further noted Georgescu’s “pledge to Make Romania Great Again helped him perform particularly strongly among the vast Romanian diaspora.” Given Bucharest’s mass depopulation in recent years, significantly assisted by EU membership, this is hardly surprising. “Many who left because life was so tough are now getting by abroad rather than prospering,” the British state broadcaster observed. Meanwhile, in Bucharest, costs of basic goods are “climbing at the fastest rate in Europe.” An expat supporter of Georgescu forcefully declared:

“He’s corrupt? He’s with Putin? No, he’s not. He’s with the people. With Romania. Georgescu is a patriot. He wants peace, not war, and we want that too. Someone wants something good for his country and they won’t allow him to do that… Maybe he’ll be in prison in months and for what? For nothing… We feel lost right now, without hope.”

‘Allied Solidarity’

To date, no concrete evidence directly implicating NATO powers in the invalidation of Romania’s presidential election has emerged. We do not – and may never – know what might have been said behind closed doors to members of Bucharest’s Western-bought political, judicial, security and military establishment, and by whom. But there is a clear precedent for such backroom conniving. In the final months of 1989, Communism across the Warsaw Pact, the Cold War-era constellation of Central and Eastern European Soviet satellite states.

The sole exception was Romania, then led by Nicolae Ceausescu. On December 4th that year, he privately met with then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, to discuss the fall of longstanding Communist governments in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Poland. Gorbachev, to all intents and purposes a Western puppet, assured Ceausescu his position was secure, he would “survive”, and they would meet again in mere weeks. That summit never came to pass though, as on December 25th, Ceausescu was executed by military firing squad.

The 1989 Romanian revolution

This followed violent mass protests across Romania. Years later, it was revealed high-ranking US officials secretly met with Gorbachev that month, imploring him to deploy the Red Army to oust Ceausescu. These entreaties were apparently rebuffed. Yet, subsequent research indicates that throughout December 1989, a profusion of KGB operatives were conducting uncertain, covert missions across the country, in coordination with Ion Iliescu, who succeeded Ceausescu. Suspicions he personally ordered the very security service crackdowns that ignited the insurrectionary anti-Ceausescu demonstrations endure to this day.

Whatever the truth of the matter, Romania’s outsized geopolitical importance to the Empire then and now couldn’t be clearer. In the weeks since Georgescu’s victory was vetoed, it has been announced that further scores of foreign NATO troops will be dispatched to Bucharest, in explicit response to “the evolution of the security situation in the Black Sea region.” Meanwhile, Romanian officials talk a big game on “allied solidarity”, and look forward to “extensive joint training exercises” over the year ahead.

Furthermore, on December 12th, the Romanian government abruptly greenlit long-mooted, highly controversial legislation providing for the country’s military and all its “weapons, military devices and ammunition” to come under total foreign control and direction at any time, without a formal state declaration of emergency, siege, or war. In other words, NATO would have unilateral power to commandeer Bucharest’s armed forces, at its behest. A useful capability indeed, as the nearby Ukraine proxy war careens towards total collapse, and overt foreign involvement is openly mulled.

The aforementioned BBC article reported that local “suspicion” about whether unseen foreign forces may have swayed “the judges’ ruling to cancel the vote” is such, “even those who feared a president Georgescu – and believe Russia was backing him – now worry about the precedent just set for Romanian democracy.” We are left to ponder where next an illiberal coup of the kind that just went down in Bucharest might be replicated, as the Empire’s surging contempt for democracy and public will becomes writ ever-larger.

Nonetheless, one might draw some solace from the fact that even those who endorsed Romania’s autocratic putsch are well-aware it was a blunt-force, short-term solution to a panoply of deeply complex, likely intractable socioeconomic and political problems. Former NATO high-ranker Mircea Geoana told the British state broadcaster that nullification of Georgescu’s victory had delivered at best transitory reprieve to Western powers, and their chosen puppets in Romania. Moreover, he feared the move could spectacularly boomerang, should elites continue to ignore citizens’ concerns:

“We bought ourselves some time. But there is real fury here. And if we don’t do something, we might have a repeat.”

December 29, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Ex-NATO boss made head of Bilderberg Group

Former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg © Getty Images / Omar Havana
RT | December 27, 2024

Former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who was at the helm the bloc for the past decade, has officially joined the secretive Bilderberg Group as co-chairman of the annual closed-door meetings involving the world’s most powerful and wealthy individuals.

The elite club was founded in 1954, officially to improve dialogue between Europe and the US. Every year, some 130 political leaders and experts from industry, finance, intelligence, labor, academia and the media are invited to the gathering.

The forums are generally not announced in advance and are held beneath a veil of secrecy, with attendees forbidden from disclosing any information derived from discussions. This has sparked a number of conspiracy theories as to the nature of the group’s activities and its influence on global events.

According to an update on the group’s website, Stoltenberg, who attended his first Bilderberg summit in 2002, has now been made the head of the group’s “steering committee,” which decides the agenda and who gets to participate.

Media outlets, including the Daily Mail, have speculated that the move could be a sign the group is undergoing a leadership transformation ahead of the presidency of Donald Trump, who has frequently criticized NATO and has hinted at cutting US funding of foreign conflicts after he enters office next month.

As head of NATO, Stoltenberg played a key role in the bloc’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict, which first started not long after he took office in 2014. He has proudly noted that during his tenure he oversaw “the largest reinforcement of our collective defence in a generation,” and that “defence spending is on an upward trajectory across the alliance.”

The Daily Mail reported that many of Stoltenberg’s friends at Bilderberg have directly benefited from this uptick.

The Guardian has hailed Stoltenberg’s appointment, saying it “cements the group’s role at the heart of transatlantic strategy,” particularly as the former NATO chief is also set to take over as chairman of the Munich Security Conference, which has also played a key role in shaping Western defense policy and diplomacy.

“Combined with the Munich Security Conference, this is a good platform for collaborating with leaders from politics, business, and academia. It is also an important meeting place for strengthening ties between Europe and the US. I look forward to contributing to Bilderberg’s work,” Stoltenberg told the DN.no news outlet.

December 27, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | | Leave a comment

Russia shot down Ukrainian F-16 – official

RT | December 26, 2024

One of the F-16 jets donated to Ukraine by NATO has reportedly been downed while attempting to launch missiles at Russia’s Zaporozhye Region.

Preliminary information from the front line was reported on Thursday by Vladimir Rogov, the co-chair of Russia’s Coordinating Council for the Integration of New Regions.

“The F-16 aircraft was in position to launch a missile strike on the region, and it was shot down,” Rogov wrote on Telegram.

Several European NATO members delivered a “small number” of the US-made fighters to Ukraine in July. Advertised by Kiev as a game-changer in challenging Russian air superiority, the planes ended up never being used in air-to-air combat.

A number of F-16s were reportedly used to defend against incoming Russian missiles in August, but one of the jets was lost. A Ukrainian lawmaker later revealed that it had been shot down by a Patriot air defense battery, which was also donated by NATO.

Private Russian company Fores has offered a reward of 15 million rubles ($170,000) to whoever shoots down the first Ukrainian F-16.

Zaporozhye is one of the four former regions of Ukraine that joined Russia after a referendum in September 2022. Around 70% of the region is under Russian control and was the target of Kiev’s 2023 “summer counteroffensive.”

December 26, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

McCarthyism, European style: The elite crackdown on Ukraine dissent

Experts lambasted as Kremlin mouthpieces turned out to be right 

By Eldar Mamedov | Responsible Statecraft | December 12, 2024

As the war between Russia and Ukraine is framed by the ruling politicians and commentators in Europe and America as part of a purported global struggle between democracies and autocracies, the quality of democracy in the West itself has taken a hit.

The dominant voices advocating for Ukraine’s victory and Russia’s defeat, both defined in maximalist and increasingly unattainable terms, are intent on snuffing out more thoughtful and nuanced perspectives, thus depriving the public of a democratic debate on the existential questions of war and peace.

In a familiar pattern throughout the West, respected academics who correctly predicted the quagmire Ukraine and the West now find themselves in have been smeared and delegitimized as Kremlin mouthpieces, subjected to harassment, marginalization and ostracism.

The situation is particularly alarming in Europe. While the Ukraine debate in the U.S. is, to a worrying extent, shaped by pro-militarist think tanks, such as the Atlantic Council, hawkish politicians and neoconservative pundits, a countervailing movement consisting of pro-restraint voices has been growing. They include Defense Priorities, the CATO Institute, publications like The Nation on the left, and The American Conservative on the right, and academics like Stephen Walt, John Mearsheimer, and Jeffrey Sachs, among others. There is more space for alternative voices in American discourse.

In Europe, by contrast, foreign policy debates tend to simply echo the most hawkish voices inside Washington’s Beltway.

Sweden is a particularly telling illustration of that trend. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Swedish government and political class swiftly moved to join NATO. Yet, as one of the leading Swedish international relations scholars Frida Stranne told me in an interview, “No proper debate was held on the key questions, like whether Russia’s aggression against Ukraine indeed was such an immediate security threat for Sweden that it had to ditch the neutral status it enjoyed even during the Cold War?” (I can testify myself, from my work as a senior foreign policy adviser in the European Parliament in early 2022, that even some members of the then-ruling Swedish social-democratic party were aghast at the government running roughshod over alternative views on NATO).

Further, in a conversation with me, Stranne, while acknowledging that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was “an egregious breach of international law,” pointed to U.S. policies since 2001, such as the invasion of Iraq, noting that they “have helped to undermine international legal principles and set the precedent for other countries acting ‘preemptively’ against perceived threats.”

In the same interview, she also warned that “a refusal to countenance a negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine is leading the world perilously close to the brink of a major military conflict between NATO and Russia.”

While such points are routinely made by fairly mainstream scholars in the U.S., in Sweden they triggered a vicious campaign against Stranne and made her nearly untouchable by the media and in foreign policy circles. Leading media outlets vilified her as a U.S. hater and a “Putinist.”

Germany is another example of how enforced groupthink led to a marginalization of dissenting perspectives in political debates. What is particularly noteworthy is the speed and radicalism with which the hawks in think tanks, media, and political parties managed to redefine the debate in a country previously known for its now-defunct Ostpolitik, a policy of pragmatic engagement with the Soviet Union and later Russia.

One of Germany’s most prominent foreign policy experts, Johannes Varwick of the University Halle-Wittenberg, has long defied the trend and advocated for diplomacy. In December 2021, together with a number of high-ranking former military officers, diplomats and academics, he warned that a massive deterioration in relations with Russia could lead to war — due, in part, to the West’s refusal to take seriously Russia’s security concerns, chiefly related to the prospects of NATO’s eastward expansion.

Yet such views earned Varwick accusations of “serving Russian interests.” As a result, as he told me in an interview, his “ties with the political parties and ministries responsible for conducting Germany’s foreign and security policy were severed.”

Experts in neutral countries were not spared marginalization as well. Austrian Prof. Gerhard Mangott, one of the most eminent experts on Russia in the German-speaking world, pointed to a “shared responsibility” of Russia, Ukraine, and Western countries for the failure to resolve the post-2014 Ukrainian conflict peacefully. Such analysis, as Mangott told me, led to his “prompt excommunication by the German-speaking scientific community which turned quickly to political activism and became party to the war.”

The tragic irony, of course, is that these ostracized voices have proved to be correct in most respects about this war.

When, despite his warnings, the Russian invasion of Ukraine did occur, Varwick, who condemned it as illegal and unacceptable, called for further efforts to find a realistic negotiated solution to the conflict. As he told me, this should “firstly include a neutral status for Ukraine with strong security guarantees for the country. Secondly, there would be territorial changes in Ukraine that would not be recognized under international law but must be accepted as a temporary modus vivendi, and thirdly, the prospect of suspension of some sanctions in the event of a change in Russia’s behavior must be on offer.”

In March 2022, both Ukraine and Russia were close to a deal broadly along these same parameters. It did not work, because, among other reasons, the West encouraged Ukraine to believe that a military “victory” was possible. The role of then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in undermining the talks is now generally acknowledged. What is, however, particularly striking is that Johnson recently himself admitted that he saw the war in Ukraine as a proxy war against Russia — a claim made by Stranne and the Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi in their 2023 book, in Swedish, “The Illusion of American Peace,” for which they were lambasted for purportedly pushing Russian narratives.

Fast forward to late 2024, and, faced with growing difficulties on the battlefield, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is now signaling that he could go along with some of the elements outlined by Varwick; namely, accepting some de facto territorial losses to prevent even bigger ones should the war continue.

Today, Ukraine is farther away from achieving anything remotely resembling a military victory than at any point since February 2022. Contrary to the expectations in the U.S. and EU, sanctions neither tanked Russia’s economy nor changed its policies in the ways the West sought.

In the West itself, political forces that urge negotiations to end the war are ascendant, as evidenced by the election of Donald Trump as president in the United States and the rise of anti-war parties in Germany, France and other EU countries. Public opinion surveys consistently show a preference of the majority of Europeans for a negotiated end to the war.

The reality is, irrespective of the outcome of the war in Ukraine, a modus vivendi between the West and Russia will have to be reestablished to ensure, in Varwick’s words, “their coexistence in a Cold War 2.0 without a permanent escalation.” Restoring an open democratic debate about this vital issue is long overdue.

Listening to the experts who have a proven track record of correct analysis would be a necessary first step.

Eldar Mamedov is a Brussels-based foreign policy expert.

December 26, 2024 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism, Russophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Case for Dismantling the Rules-Based International Order

By Professor Glenn Diesen | December 23, 2024

The so-called “rules-based international order” aims to facilitate a hegemonic world, which entails displacing international law. While international law is based on equal sovereignty for all states, the rules-based international order upholds hegemony on the principle of sovereign inequality.

The rules-based international order is commonly presented as international law plus international human rights law, which appears benign and progressive. However, this entails introducing contradictory principles and rules. The consequence is a system devoid of uniform rules, in which “might makes right”. International human rights law introduces a set of rules to elevate the rights of the individual, yet human-centric security often contradicts state-centric security as the foundation of international law.

The US as the hegemonic state can then choose between human-centric security and state-centric security, while adversaries must abide strictly by state-centric security due to their alleged lack of liberal democratic credentials. For example, state-centric security as the foundation of international law insists on the territorial integrity of states, while human-centric security allows for secession under the principle of self-determination. The US will thus insist on territorial integrity in allied countries such as Ukraine, Georgia or Spain, while supporting self-determination within adversarial states such as Serbia, China, Russia and Syria. The US can interfere in the domestic affairs of adversaries to promote liberal democratic values, yet the US adversaries do not have the right to interfere in the domestic affairs of the US. To facilitate a hegemonic international order, there cannot be equal sovereignty for all states.

Constructing the hegemonic rules-based international order

The process of constructing alternative sources of legitimacy to facilitate sovereign inequality began with NATO’s illegal invasion of Yugoslavia in 1999 without a UN mandate. The violation of international law was justified by liberal values. Even the legitimacy of the UN Security Council was contested by arguing it should be circumvented as Russia and China veto of humanitarian interventionism was allegedly caused by their lack of liberal democratic values.

The efforts to establish alternative sources of authority continued in 2003 to gain legitimacy for the illegal invasion of Iraq. Former US Ambassador to NATO, Ivo Daalder, called for establishing an “Alliance of Democracies” as a key element of US foreign policy.[1] A similar proposal suggested establishing a “Concert of Democracies”, in which liberal democracies could act in the spirit of the UN without being constrained by the veto power of authoritarian states.[2] During the 2008 presidential election, Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain argued in favour of establishing a “League of Democracies”. In December 2021, the US organised the first “Summit for Democracy” to divide the world into liberal democracies versus authoritarian states. The White House framed sovereign inequality in the language of democracy: Washington’s interference in the domestic affairs of other states was “support for democracy”, while upholding the West’s sovereignty entailed defending democracy.[3] The aforementioned initiatives became the “rules-based international order”. With an imperialist mindset, there would be one set of rules for the “garden” and another set for the “jungle”.

The rules-based international order created a two-tiered system of legitimate versus illegitimate states. The paradox of liberal internationalism is that liberal democracies often demand that they dominate international institutions to defend democratic values from the control of the majority. Yet, a durable and resilient international system capable of developing common rules is imperative for international governance and to resolve disputes among states.

International law in accordance with the UN Charter is based on the Westphalian principle of sovereign equality as “all states are equal”. In contrast, the rules-based international order is a hegemonic system based on sovereign inequality. Such a system of sovereign inequality follows the principle from George Orwell’s Animal Farm that stipulates “all animals [states] are equal but some animals [states] are more equal than others”. In Kosovo, the West promoted self-determination as a normative right of secession that had to be prioritised above territorial integrity. In South Ossetia and Crimea, the West insisted that the sanctity of territorial integrity, as stipulated in the UN Charter, must be prioritised over self-determination.

Uniform rules replaced with a tribunal of public opinion

Instead of resolving conflicts through diplomacy and uniform rules, there is an incentive to manipulate, moralise and propagandise as international disputes are decided by a tribunal of public opinion when there are competing principles. Deceit and extreme language have thus become commonplace. In 1999, the US and UK especially presented false accusations about war crimes to make interventionism legitimate. British Prime Minister Tony Blair told the world that Yugoslav authorities were “set on a Hitler-style genocide equivalent to the extermination of the Jews during the Second World War. It is no exaggeration to say that what is happening is racial genocide”.[4]

The rules-based international order fails to establish common unifying rules of how to govern international relations, which is the fundamental function of world order. Both China and Russia have denounced the rules-based international order as a dual system to facilitate double standards. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister, Xie Feng, asserted that the rules-based international order introduces the “law of the jungle” insofar as universally recognised international law is replaced by unilateralism.[5] Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov similarly criticised the rules-based international order for creating a parallel legal framework to legitimise unilateralism:

“The West has been coming up with multiple formats such as the French-German Alliance for Multilateralism, the International Partnership against Impunity for the Use of Chemical Weapons, the Global Partnership to Protect Media Freedom, the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, the Call for Action to Strengthen Respect for International Humanitarian Law—all these initiatives deal with subjects that are already on the agenda of the UN and its specialised agencies. These partnerships exist outside of the universally recognised structures so as to agree on what the West wants in a restricted circle without any opponents. After that they take their decisions to the UN and present them in a way that de facto amounts to an ultimatum. If the UN does not agree, since imposing anything on countries that do not share the same ‘values’ is never easy, they take unilateral action”.[6]

The rules-based international order does not consist of any specific rules, is not accepted internationally, and does not deliver order. The rules-based international order should be considered a failed experiment from the unipolar world order, which must be dismantled to restore international law as a requirement for stability and peace.

Article based on excerpts from my book: “The Ukraine War and the Eurasian World Order”

[1] I. Daalder and J. Lindsay, ‘An Alliance of Democracies’, The Washington Post, 23 May 2004.

[2] G.J. Ikenberry and A.M. Slaughter, ‘Forging a World of Liberty Under Law: U.S. National Security in the 21st Century’, Princeton, The Princeton Project on National Security, 2006.

[3] White House, ‘Summit for Democracy Summary of Proceedings’, The White House, 23 December 2021.

[4] N. Clark, ‘Fools no more’, The Guardian, 19 April 2008.

[5] Global Times, ‘US ‘rules-based intl order’ is ‘law of the jungle’ to contain others: Chinese vice FM tells US envoy’, Global Times, 26 July 2021.

[6] S. Lavrov, ‘Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks at the 29th Assembly of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy (CFDP)’, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, 2 October 2021.

December 24, 2024 Posted by | Book Review, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment

Pro-Western party funded anti-NATO candidate in EU state – media

RT | December 22, 2024

Allegations that Russia was behind a Romanian social media campaign that helped independent presidential candidate Calin Georgescu win a first round vote, and which contributed to the country’s constitutional court canceling the entire election, are false, an investigation has found.

Georgescu’s campaign was not funded by Russia but in fact by the pro-Western National Liberal Party (PNL), the media outlet Snoop has reported, citing the probe’s findings.

A critic of NATO and the EU and a staunch opponent of sending aid to Ukraine, Georgescu topped the first-round vote in Romania with 22.94%, beating other liberal leftist and democrat candidates.

Romania’s Constitutional Court promptly annulled the election ahead of the second-round vote, citing intelligence documents alleging ‘irregularities’ in Georgescu’s performance.

The documents claimed Georgescu’s candidacy was improperly promoted online, including on TikTok, by paid influencers and extremist right-wing groups, and that his campaign may have benefited from Russian interference – an allegation that Moscow has denied as “absolutely groundless.”

According to Snoop, Romania’s tax authorities analyzed financial flows and discovered that the campaign that promoted Georgescu on TikTok was in fact paid for by the PNL and run by Kensington Communication, a company which provides political marketing services, as well as online campaigns.

The briefs delivered to influencers were aimed at promoting “a responsible attitude and a mature choice” among Romanians that would help the country continue its “democratic path,” wrote Snoop.

Influencers were reportedly given a script to describe the qualities of a future president without giving a name. Some of them however left comments below the videos, providing Georgescu’s name.

“It is a shock to everyone that the public money that taxpayers had provided to the PNL was used to promote another candidate,” one expert involved in the investigation told the publication.

Kensington Communication has issued a statement alleging that its campaign had been “hijacked” or “cloned” and said it would file a criminal complaint.

The leak came on Friday, a day before the expiration of Romanian President Klaus Iohannis’ term, and just days before the supreme court is scheduled to hear the case initiated by Georgescu. Iohannis himself had earlier refused to leave office, citing the country’s legislation.

Georgescu, who was labelled “pro-Russian” by his critics, filed a lawsuit with the supreme court to challenge the annulment of the election results. The candidate’s lawyer described the situation as “a flagrant violation of the constitution” and “a coup d’état.” The first hearing is scheduled for December 23.

December 22, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

West pushing Russia beyond ‘red line’ – Putin

RT | December 16, 2024

The West’s support for Ukraine is pushing Russia to the point where it cannot help but retaliate, President Vladimir Putin has said, while warning the US against deploying medium-range missiles.

Speaking at a meeting of top Russian Defense Ministry officials on Monday, Putin accused the US of seeking “to weaken our country and inflict a strategic defeat” on Moscow by continuing “to pump a de facto illegitimate ruling regime in Kiev with weapons and money, sending mercenaries and military advisers, thereby encouraging further escalation of the conflict.”

Washington is instilling fear in Americans by resorting to “simple tactics,” Putin stated. “They push us to the red line… we begin to respond, and then they frighten their population,” he added, suggesting that the US used the same approach during its rivalry with the Soviet Union.

The Russian president also slammed the West for what he described as attempts to impose its own rules on the rest of the world while waging “hybrid wars” against anyone who resists, including Russia.

In this vein, NATO is boosting its defense spending and forming “strike groups” near Russia’s borders, he added. “The number of American service members in Europe has already exceeded 100,000 troops,” he noted.

NATO is ramping up its presence not only in Europe but also in regions that have never seen this type of military footprint, particularly the Asia-Pacific, Putin said, voicing particular concerns over US plans to deploy missile systems with a range of up to 5,500km.

Putin was referring to a type of weapon previously banned by the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. The US unilaterally pulled out of the treaty in 2018, citing Russian non-compliance – an allegation Moscow has denied.

The Russian president stressed that despite Washington’s withdrawal from the INF Treaty, Moscow made a unilateral and voluntary commitment not to deploy medium- and short-range missiles unless the US deploys such weapons anywhere in the world.

However, “if the United States begins to deploy such systems, then all our voluntary restrictions will be lifted,” Putin warned.

December 16, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Germany’s AfD leader questions NATO membership

RT | December 15, 2024

Germany must ask whether NATO membership “is still useful for us,” Alternative for Germany (AfD) co-leader Tino Chrupalla has said, arguing that the US-led military bloc forces Europe to act in America’s interests.

”Europe has been forced to implement America’s interests. We reject that,” Chrupalla told German daily Welt on Sunday.

”NATO is currently not a defense alliance,” he continued. “A defense community must accept and respect the interests of all European countries, including Russia’s interests. If NATO cannot ensure that, Germany must consider to what extent this alliance is still useful for us,” he explained.

West Germany joined NATO in 1955, at the height of the Cold War. Accession to the bloc meant that Bonn could focus its spending on post-WWII reconstruction and welfare while outsourcing defense to the US. However, NATO’s first secretary general, Britain’s Lord Ismay, reportedly remarked that the bloc’s purpose in Europe was to “keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”

While the AfD’s platform has never called for an outright withdrawal from NATO, Chrupalla has previously argued that the bloc’s confrontational stance toward Russia was “driving a wedge into the continent of Europe” and precluding reconciliation with Moscow, which, he said, would be vital “to ensure lasting peace and prosperity” on the continent.

With snap elections in February looming, the AfD is currently polling at around 18%, ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’ Social Democrats at 15% but behind the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) at 32%. However, even if the AfD were to emerge as the largest party after the vote, all of Germany’s other mainstream parties have ruled out entering a coalition with the right-wingers.

The AfD nominated co-leader Alice Weidel as its candidate for chancellor earlier this month, marking the first time in its 11-year history that the party has put a name forward for the position.

Speaking to reporters after the nomination, Weidel promised to introduce drastic immigration restrictions, to roll back Scholz’s climate policies, and to cut off military aid to Ukraine.

“We want peace in Ukraine,” she said. “We do not want any arms supplies, we do not want any tanks, we do not want any missiles.”

Speaking to Welt, Chrupalla said that “Russia has won this war,” and that “reality has caught up with those who claim to want to enable Ukraine to win the war.”

December 15, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Trump is a nightmare for the EU in more ways than one

With its submissiveness to the US and contempt for its president-elect, the bloc’s set itself up for a perfect storm of punishment

By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | December 14, 2024

For a man his age, incoming US president Donald Trump has a knack for cultivating a bad-boy image. Refreshingly direct to the point of rude honesty, or dishonesty, as the case may be, he has no time for polite circumlocution. His threats are harsh, his demands unvarnished, including toward Washington’s so-called allies in Europe, which really are, at best, clients, and, more realistically, just vassals. In that spirit of candid, no-frills domination, Trump already has a long record of threatening NATO, which he sees – plausibly – as a scam in which European members fleece the US to free-ride on its insane (but that’s a different story…) military spending.

Or, in the genteel English still cultivated at The Economist, “through NATO, America is the guarantor of the continent’s security.” Yeah, right, by firing missiles at Russia… The problem with Trump is that he is uncouth enough to know the real relationship is much more like Don Corleone “protecting” your funeral parlor. And he behaves accordingly: Even during his first term in the White House between 2017 and 2021, he started scaring other NATO members into higher military spending, while never allowing them to feel safe about his commitment. Art of the tough deal: Keep ‘em guessing, keep ‘em on their toes. And it worked, too: the European spongers began to pay more. So, there will be more of that, rest assured. If, that is, there will be a NATO to speak of.

Even less noticed is the fact that the new old US president – and thus capo dei capi of the West – is not much kindlier disposed toward the EU. And yet there it is: Trump’s frank, open, and long-standing dislike for that strange bureaucratic behemoth that is about as democratic as the former Soviet Union, less efficient than the Habsburg Empire, and so full of its global “norm-setting” mission that even American “indispensability” looks oddly old-fashioned by comparison.

As early as the beginning of 2017, when the great American bruiser gate-crashed the White House for the first time, The Economist warned its European readers to “be afraid” of Trump, a man harboring “indifference” and “contempt” for the EU. Really? How unheard of! The raunchy-tycoon-turned-peremptory-president, the British establishment Pravda of neoliberalism and Russophobia explained, would seek to shatter the EU by playing “bilateralism.” That, of course, is Euro-babble for respecting individual countries’ governments by taking their sovereignty more seriously than power-grabbing delusions of grandeur in Brussels. And – oh, horror! – he might even try to talk Russia. (Spoiler: back then he did not – big mistake.)

That, however, was 2017. Now, things have moved on. Even before Trump won his second presidential election by crushing his Democratic opponents, The Economist admitted that “’Trump-proving’ Europe” is a notion doomed to fail, which means EU leaders may well become “geopolitical roadkill.” How so, you may wonder?

Well, first of all there is Russia. Regarding Moscow, Trump seems ready to talk, and in a substantial manner we have not seen since the end of the Cold War: He has publicly signaled that he does not believe in trying to coerce Moscow by further escalation; his freshly appointed advisers Mike Waltz and Keith Kellogg, though known for ambiguous signals in the past, will fall into line, as they should as public servants. And if not, they’ll be fired, Trump-style, fast and without remorse.

To say the least, Trump no longer feels as restrained by Washington’s deep-state, deep-freeze Cold War re-enactors as during his first term. Sure, it’s the US: there is always the possibility someone might try to murder him, again. But if he stays among the living, which is likely, then it’s payback time: Talking to Russia now is one delicious way in which he will dish out well-deserved retribution for both the media-lawfare circus of Russia Rage (aka ‘Russiagate’) in which his opponents weaponized slander and disinformation against him. And, more importantly, Russia has been winning the war in Ukraine, not only against Kiev but also, in effect, against the West. In sum, Trump has less reason to be afraid of his own backstabbers at home, and Washington has more reason to be much more careful about Russia.

Moscow, meanwhile, has made it clear repeatedly that any new agreements would have to be mutually beneficial. The time of Gorbachevian naivete will never return. Yet, at the same time, Russia does seem open to – serious – talks: The Russian leadership does not merely carefully watch Trump, as you would expect. It also sends back calibrated pings that signal cautious appreciation of his overtures, as recently over his criticism of firing Western missiles at Russia.

Hence, nightmare number one for the EU: Trump is serious about ending US support for the failed project of inflicting a geopolitical demotion on Russia via a proxy war in Ukraine. That will leave not only the regime of Ukraine’s past-use-by-date leader Vladimir Zelensky high and dry but remaining fanatics in the EU as well. In the best-case scenario, the US will leave the European vassals with the cost of the postwar, whatever shape that may take. Trump has already said as much. In the worst-case scenario, EU elites could try going it alone. That is, worst-case for them, in every (un)imaginable way: economically, politically, and yes, militarily, too.

And behind Trump’s willingness to make good on his election promise to end the American cluster-fiasco in and over Ukraine, lurks the possibility of a much larger turn toward – wait for it! – diplomacy in the US-Russia relationship. Perhaps it is early days to mention that other long-forgotten D-word – and it would also take two to tango, of course – but a phase of détente cannot be excluded. If it were to take place, America’s European vassals would come to regret burning their bridges with Moscow to please Washington.

Then, nightmare number two, there is the economy. The US-EU relationship is the single largest trade connection in the world, worth about $11 trillion per year. That, you may think, constitutes a lot of common interest and thus reasons for treating each other if not gently then, at least, cautiously. Nope, that’s not how this works, because the relationship is lopsided, and Trump is furious about it. For him, the EU’s trade surplus with the US is yet another way in which shifty Europeans have been milking America. His weapon of choice to retaliate and rectify the situation are, of course, tariffs, the higher the better. Even before his re-election, Goldman Sachs warned that his rule could cost the EU as a whole a full percent of GDP. And yes, that’s a lot, especially for a continent already largely economically depressed, demographically declining, and with badly squeezed public finances.

What can EU leaders, those sadly submissive vassals about to be abused even worse than usual by their hegemon, do now? Frankly, not much. It’s already too late: They have made themselves dependent as never before on whoever happens to win the strange event Americans call “elections” and gets to mess with the world from the White House. And that is not at all Trump’s fault, by the way. (No, and not “the Russians!” either…).

Take, for instance, the EU’s wannabe despot Ursula von der Leyen. Building her own power grab – like Stalin, as it happens – on a mix of executive apparat overreach, crony networking, and ideological bigotry, she has made one serious mistake that may cost her dearly: She has cozied up so shamelessly to the outgoing Biden administration that, serious rumor has it, Trump cannot stand her. So, alternatives are in demand: Maybe he likes Italy’s Giorgia Meloni better? Or originally the Netherlands, now NATO’s Mark Rutte, who is constantly praised for his alleged “Trump-handling” skills?

But here is the problem with that, frankly, silly approach: Trump is not an idiot. Attempts to “handle” him are insultingly obvious and, if he tolerates them temporarily, then it’s only to handle his would-be handlers back. And then the irony is, of course, that the only EU leaders Trump respects, such as Viktor Orban of Hungary, are outcasts among their own: Good luck recruiting them now to make up for how much he disrespects all the others. Maybe they’ll even help, a little, Ursula, Olaf, and Emmanuel. But it’ll cost you, because they will – rightly – set their own conditions and gain great leverage.

What about Danegeld perhaps? Danegeld, you must know, was what the hapless inhabitants of the British Isles paid the seaborne Viking marauders in the Dark Ages. The system was simple: pay up or be plundered and slaughtered. You think that sounds a little primitive for today’s sophisticated Europeans? Never underestimate how low they will stoop. Ursula von der Leyen has already suggested that one way to mollify Trump might be to just buy even more perversely expensive LNG from the US. Christine Lagarde, head of the European Central Bank, has gone even further, pleading for a whole ‘Buy American’ program, including – surprise, surprise! – arms to assuage Trump’s ire.

Desperate? You bet. Humiliating? Obviously. Yet what’s worse, it’s not going to work. Here’s why: Even if Trump condescends to accepting such tributes from his European subjects, he will never lose sight of the one thing that really interests him (apart from his own money, power, and fame): American advantage. Whatever the Europeans will offer and however low they will kowtow, in the end, any deal will be good only for one side, the US. That’s ironic, because Russia, for one, and possibly China as well can expect the minimum of respect that makes mutual benefit at least possible. That’s because they have stood up to American bullying. For the Europeans, though, it’s a Catch 22 now. One way or the other, they will pay even more dearly than before for their historic failure after the Cold War: When they should obviously have emancipated themselves from the US, they sold out worse than ever. And without need. To paraphrase a past master of politics: It’s worse than a crime, it’s self-abuse.

Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.

December 14, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

NATO’s New Hub: Bulgaria Announces Military Base in Yambol Region

Sputnik – 14.12.2024

MOSCOW – Bulgaria is planning to build a complex of facilities to accommodate a multinational NATO brigade of 3,000 military personnel, the Bulgarian News Agency reported on Saturday, citing Defense Minister Atanas Zapryanov.

The complex, housing residential, educational and sports facilities, will be located in the Kabile military district near the southeastern city of Yambol, the news agency reported.

The report said that ammunition would be stored in warehouses at a distance from the residential settlements and barracks.

“Neither ammunition nor other dangerous materials are planned to be stored [in the complex],” Zapryanov was quoted as saying.

Bulgaria is currently in talks with the NATO Support and Procurement Agency to determine the cost of the construction, the report added.

In recent years, Russia has witnessed unprecedented NATO activity near its western borders. Moscow has repeatedly expressed concern about the bloc’s buildup of forces in Europe, especially since the bloc supported the Kiev regime amid its attacks on Donbass.

NATO has transformed its eastern flank from having no combat-ready troops in place in 2014 to tens of thousands now, former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg admitted earlier.

In February, Russian President Vladimir Putin explained in detail in an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson that Moscow is not going to attack NATO countries, there is no point in it. The Russian leader noted that Western politicians regularly intimidate their populations with an imaginary Russian threat in order to distract attention from domestic problems.

December 14, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Blinken Announces New $500Mln Military Aid Package for Ukraine

Sputnik – 13.12.2024

The US will provide Ukraine with an additional military aid package worth $500 million, State Secretary Antony Blinken said on Friday.

“As part of the surge in security assistance that President Biden announced on September 26, the United States is providing another significant package of urgently needed weapons and equipment to our Ukrainian partners… This additional assistance, provided under previous drawdowns from Department of Defense stocks, is valued at $500 million,” Blinken said in a statement.

The package will include artillery munition, Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems (c-UAS) munitions, ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), as well as protection equipment for chemical, biological, and nuclear threats, he added.

Russia believes that arms supplies to Ukraine hinder the settlement, directly involving NATO countries in the conflict. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted that any cargo containing weapons for Ukraine would be a legitimate target for Russia. According to lavrov, the US and NATO are directly involved in the conflict, including not only by supplying weapons, but also by training personnel in the UK, Germany, Italy, and other countries.

December 13, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Can Europe be saved?

Professor Glenn Diesen interviewed by Dimitri Lascaris
Glenn Diesen | December 11, 2024

I was interviewed by Dimitri Lascaris about the future of Europe. I argue that Europe’s decline derives from its inability to adjust to a multipolar international system. Europe can become one of several centres of power by pursuing collective bargaining power based on common interests, diversifying economic partnerships to avoid excessive dependence on the US, and overcoming the Cold War legacy of zero-sum bloc politics.

The Europeans have done the exact opposite. The European security architecture has been built on the premise that expanding a military alliance ever closer to Russian borders would create peace and stability. Relations with Russia have subsequently collapsed and Europe is losing a costly proxy war against the world’s largest nuclear power. Countries in the shared neighbourhood (Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova) are destabilised and their democracy undermined to ensure pro-West/anti-Russia governments take power. These deeply divided societies have become the battleground for drawing new dividing lines in the new Cold War.

European economies are deindustrialising as they cut themselves off from the Russian market, and are also pressured by the US to decouple from the Chinese market. The US Inflation Reduction Act offers subsidies to what remains of struggling European industries if they relocate to the US. Excessive reliance on the US means that Europe cannot even criticise the US for destroying its energy infrastructure after the attack on Nord Stream. After centuries of a Europe-centric international system, the Europeans have not realised that they have been demoted from a subject to an object of security.

Governments that do not represent national interests will eventually be swept away, yet the political elites become increasingly authoritarian to keep their power. In France and Germany, their political opposition is pushed aside with undemocratic means. Hungary and Slovakia are punished by the EU for failing to fall in line. The election results in Romania were overturned after the electorate did not vote for the right candidate.

The continent desperately needs course correction, yet power structure and ideology prevent necessary changes from being implemented. More aggressive means to control the narrative also result in declining freedom of speech.

December 12, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Russophobia | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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