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China’s Global Civilization Initiative & Restoring the Westphalian World Order

By Professor Glenn Diesen | November 28, 2024

The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 laid the foundation for the modern world order, which is based on a balance of power between sovereign equals to obstruct hegemonic ambitions. The Westphalian balance of power could reduce zero-sum rivalries by championing the principle of indivisible security, as enhancing the security of adversaries would also improve one’s own security.

Since the end of the Cold War, the US has been promoting a revisionist world order based on US hegemony and sovereign inequality, which is legitimized under the banner of universal liberal values. The hegemonic world order aimed to transcend international anarchy, yet it was inevitably temporary and unstable as its durability depended on obstructing the rise of potential rivals and promoting a system of sovereign inequality. The era of hegemony is already over as the world transitioned to a multipolar balance of power, and there is subsequently a need to rediscover the principle of indivisible security.

China’s Global Civilisational Initiative can contribute to restoring and improving a stable Westphalian world order based on a balance of power among sovereign equals. China’s Global Civilizational Initiative, organized around the principle of “the diversity of civilizations”, can be interpreted as a rejection of universalism and thus support for sovereign equality. By rejecting the right to represent the values of other people, the Global Civilizational Initiative reassures the world that an intrusive US hegemony will not be replaced by an intrusive Chinese hegemony. The Global Civilization Initiative complements China’s economic and security initiatives around the world, which are also organized around the principle that stability requires a multipolar world order.

World order: Hegemony or balance of power?

World order refers to the arrangement of power and authority that provides the foundation for the rules of the game in terms of how world politics should be conducted. The modern world order is primarily based on the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, in which a hegemonic order was replaced with a balance of power between sovereign equals. While the Peace of Westphalia was a European order, it laid the foundation for the modern world order due to 500 years of Western dominance.

The European order had previously been organized under the hegemony of the Holy Roman Empire. However, power began to fragment and the Reformation undermined the universalism of the Catholic Church as a legitimacy for its rule. The collapse of the hegemonic order led to the brutal Thirty Years War (1618-48) in which none of the conflicting sides were able to claim a decisive victory and reassert hegemonic control, while the universal legitimacy of the Catholic Church had collapsed. While the Thirty Years’ War initially began as a religious dispute between the Catholics and the Protestants, the primacy of power politics became evident as even Catholic France aligned itself with Protestant Sweden to balance the excessive power of the Catholic Hapsburg Empire. The Europeans were killing each other at a horrific rate, yet none would be able to restore a European order based on one centre of power.

The war ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which laid the foundation for the modern world order. The Westphalian peace outlined a new European order based on a balance of power among sovereign equals. The Peace of Westphalia eliminated the overlapping authorities by asserting the sovereignty of princes, which in time led to the concept of national sovereignty. In a system of sovereign states, peace was ensured by a balance of power as a nation or group of nations defended itself by matching the power of the other side.

In the absence of a hegemon, Europe had to address the subsequent international anarchy as the state became the highest sovereign. International anarchy refers to a state of international relations where there is no centralized authority or governing body to regulate the interactions and behaviour of nation-states. In other words, it is a situation where each country is sovereign and independent, with no superior authority to enforce rules or resolve disputes. Conflicts thus derive from security competition, as the efforts by one state to increase its security may undermine the security of others.

A key principle of the Peace of Westphalia was thus the principle of indivisible security as ensuring the security of opponents was a critical step toward achieving lasting peace and stability in Europe. To ensure stability, it is required to guarantee the security of all states participating in the order. This principle was a departure from the traditional approach to international security in which the victors in a conflict could punish and subjugate the defeated side. Thus, the order aimed to replace conquest and domination with constraints and cooperation. This principle was largely embraced with the establishment of the Concert of Europe in 1815 as France was included as an equal participant, despite being defeated in the Napoleonic War.

However, Westphalia was a European order and sovereign equality was limited to the Europeans as the representatives of advanced and “civilized states”. However, the gradual diffusion of power and weakening of European dominance resulted in the incremental dismantlement of colonial empires, which entailed extending sovereign equality to all states. The Westphalian world order subsequently laid the foundation for international law in accordance with the UN Charter and the concept of colonial trusteeship was gradually eliminated. Yet, the bloc politics of the Cold War and the security dependencies recreated limited sovereignty.

At the end of the Cold War, there was an opportunity to establish a truly reformed Peace of Westphalia based on the principle of indivisible security within a global balance of power between sovereign equals. Yet, the collapse of the Soviet Union resulted in an immense concentration of power in the West, under the leadership of the US. Furthermore, the ideological victory of the Cold War fuelled hubris and the conviction that liberal democratic values were universal and should lay the foundation for sovereign inequality. Subsequently, an international balance of power was rejected in favour of what was envisioned to be hegemonic stability.

The Rise and Fall of Pax-Americana

For the first time in history, there was a prospect of establishing a truly global hegemon under US rule. The desire to establish a new world order based on US hegemony was legitimized by claims of representing universal values – liberal democracy.

The benign theory was that hegemony and liberal democratic values would ensure a more durable peace than a balance of power. The peaceful coexistence in the West during the Cold War was to be extended to the entire world in the post-Cold War era. One month after the Soviet Union ceased to exist, President Bush triumphantly declared at the State of the Union address in January 1992: “We are the United States of America, the leader of the West that has become the leader of the world”.

The concept of Pax-Americana derives from “Pax-Romana”, a period of peace and stability that existed under the hegemonic rule of the Roman Empire during the first and second centuries AD. The 200-year-long period ensured relative peace and exceptional levels of economic prosperity and cultural development. While Pax-Romana was characterized by relative peace and stability, it was also marked by the suppression of dissent and the imposition of Roman culture and values on conquered peoples. The US ambition of advancing its global primacy to spread liberal values had many benign intentions, yet hegemony requires suppressing rising powers and denying sovereign equality. President John F. Kennedy had cautioned against a hegemonic peace in 1963 when he stated: “What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave”.

Hegemonic peace can only be sustained by preventing the rise of rival powers. Less than two months after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Wolfowitz doctrine of global dominance was revealed in a leaked draft of the Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) of February 1992. The document asserted that the “first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival”, which included the rise of allies such as Germany and Japan. Furthermore, under the rule of a hegemon, the principle of sovereign equality is abandoned as the hegemon claims the right to represent and defend other peoples. Thus, international law per the UN was undermined and replaced with what Washington refers to as the “international rules-based order”, which is a hegemonic system based on sovereign inequality. To some extent, this replicates the same authority the Catholic Church previously had in Europe to claim universal sovereignty over all peoples.

Under a balance of power international law is designed to promote mutual constraints, when there is a hegemon the new rules of the game will remove constraints on the hegemon. Under the collective hegemony of the West during the unipolar era, the world was subsequently artificially redivided into liberal democracies with full sovereignty versus authoritarian states with limited sovereignty. Irrespective of benign intentions, the common denominator of democracy promotion, humanitarian intervention, and the global war on terror was full sovereignty for Western liberal democracies and limited sovereignty for the rest. Liberal democracy thus became a new indicator of civilized states worthy of full sovereignty, and the West could again reassert its virtue in a new civilizing mission – recreating the ideas of the garden versus the jungle.

In 1999, NATO invaded Yugoslavia in a breach of international law in accordance with the UN Charter. However, it was argued that the war was illegal but legitimate. This was an extraordinary framing as legitimacy was decoupled from legality. Liberal democracy and human rights were argued to be the alternative source of legitimacy. Implicitly, the reference to liberal values as a non-legal source of legitimacy was the sole prerogative of the West and its allies. Liberal values thus become a clause of exceptionalism in international law for the US and its allies. Following the illegal invasion of Iraq, British Prime Minister Tony Blair dismissed the relevance of Westphalia in the era of liberal hegemony:

“I was already reaching for a different philosophy in international relations from a traditional one that has held sway since the treaty of Westphalia in 1648; namely that a country’s internal affairs are for it and you don’t interfere unless it threatens you, or breaches a treaty, or triggers an obligation of alliance. I did not consider Iraq fitted into this philosophy, though I could see the horrible injustice done to its people by Saddam”.

There was a desire to institutionalize the clause of exceptionalism to legitimize liberal hegemony. Discussions began to advocate for an “alliance of democracies” as an alternative source of legitimacy to the UN, as the West should not be constrained by authoritarian states. This idea was reformed as the proposal for a “Concert of Democracies”, which “could become an alternative forum for the approval of the use of force in cases where the use of the veto at the Security Council prevented free nations from keeping faith with the aims of the U.N. Charter”. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate in 2008, likewise promised to establish a “League of Democracies” if he won the presidency to reduce the constraints on Western democracies under US leadership.

Decoupling legitimacy from legality eventually resulted in the so-called “rules-based international order” based on sovereign inequality, which replaces international law with its foundation in sovereign equality. The rules-based international order allegedly builds on international law by supplementing democratic values and humanitarian law, although in reality, it is instrumental in legitimizing hegemony. When conflicting principles such as territorial integrity or self-determination emerge, the “rules” are always power interests. In the case of Kosovo and increasingly Taiwan, the US leans towards self-determination. In Crimea, the US insists on the principle of territorial integrity. The West’s deliberate dismantlement of international law thus resulted in what was interpreted by much of the world as a hypocritical condemnation of Russia.

Liberal hegemony predictably came to an end as the US exhausted its resources and legitimacy to dominate the world, while other centres of power such as China, India and Russia began to collectively balance the excesses of the US and create alternatives. The international system subsequently gravitates towards equilibrium, which is the “natural state” of the international system.

China’s Multipolar Balance of Power

China has been the leading state among the “rise of the rest”, which develops a multipolar balance of power based on sovereign equality. To ensure that a new balance of power is benign, China is seemingly reviving the principle of indivisible security by arguing that no state can have proper security unless the other states in the international system also have security. China’s support for a multipolar distribution of power, legitimized by civilizational diversity, signifies powerful efforts to restore the Westphalian world order – although as a world order rather than a European order.

China has to some extent replicated the three-pillared American System of the early 19^th century, in which the US developed a manufacturing base, physical transportation infrastructure, and a national bank to counter British economic hegemony and subsequent intrusive political influence. China has similarly decentralized the international economic infrastructure by developing leading technological ecosystems, launched the impressive Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, and developed new financial instruments of power.

A natural “balance of dependence” has emerged, which replicated the geopolitical balance of power logic. All economic interdependent partnerships are defined by asymmetries, as one side will always be more dependent than the other. In an asymmetrical interdependent partnership, the more powerful and less reliant side in a dyad can convert economic dependence into political power. The more dependent side, therefore, has systemic incentives to restore a balance of dependence by enhancing strategic autonomy and diversifying economic partnerships to reduce reliance on the more powerful actor. The international system thus moves toward a natural equilibrium in which no states can extract unwarranted political influence over other states.

China has not displayed hegemonic intentions in which it would seek to prevent diversification and multipolarity, rather it has signalled to be content with merely being the leading economy as the “first among equals”. Case in point, Russian efforts to diversify its economic connectivity in Greater Eurasia have not been opposed by Beijing, which has made Moscow more positive to China’s economic leadership in the region. This represents a very different approach from the hegemonic model of Washington, in which the US attempts to decouple Russia from Germany, China, India, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and other economic partners.

China has avoided imposing dilemmas on other countries to choose between “us” and “them” and has even been reluctant to join formal military alliances that advance a zero-sum approach to international security. The development of BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation as economic institutions are similarly pursuing the seeking of security with member states rather than security against non-members, which is evident as membership in these institutions is extended to rivals such as India. The Global Development Initiative and the Global Security Initiative are attempts to create new platforms for global economic and security cooperation.

The Global Civilisational Initiative

More recently, China built further on the initiatives for a multipolar distribution of power by launching the Global Civilizational Initiative. Xi Jinping’s call for a diversity of civilizations is very significant as it translates into support for sovereign equality, and rejecting universalist ideals that can legitimize interference in domestic affairs. The anti-hegemonic rhetoric was made apparent by China’s President Xi Jinping in his argument for civilizational distinctiveness:

“A single flower does not make spring, while one hundred flowers in full blossom bring spring to the garden… We advocate the respect for the diversity of civilizations. Countries need to uphold the principles of equality, mutual learning, dialogue and inclusiveness among civilizations, and let cultural exchanges transcend estrangement, mutual learning transcend clashes, and coexistence transcend feelings of superiority”.

Xi Jinping’s vision of constructing a benign Westphalian peace was also indicated by reiterating the need to replace zero-sum calculations with the recognition that security is inherently indivisible:

“Humanity lives in a community with a shared future where we rise and fall together. For any country to achieve modernization, it should pursue common development through solidarity and cooperation and follow the principles of joint contribution, shared benefits and win-win outcome”.

The ideas of Xi Jinping reflect those of the 18^th-century German philosopher Johann Gottfried von Herder, who argued that preserving national distinctiveness builds international diversity and strength when it does not disparage other nations or claim cultural superiority. Translated to the current era, preserving civilization distinctiveness requires avoidance of concepts such as a “clash of civilizations” and “superiority of civilizations”.

The proposal for Xi Jinping enjoys support from Russia, as President Putin previously argued that each nation must have the freedom to develop on its own path and that “primitive simplification and prohibition can be replaced with the flourishing complexity of culture and tradition”. These words are based on the ideas of Nikolai Danilevsky who argued in the 19^th century that pursuing a single path of modernization prevented nations from contributing to universal civilization:

“The danger consists not of the political domination of a single state, but of the cultural domination of one cultural-historical type… The issue is not whether there will be a universal state, either a republic or a monarchy, but whether one civilization, one culture, will dominate, since this would deprive humanity of one of the necessary conditions for success and perfection – the element of diversity”.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky similarly argued in 1873 that Russia would not be able to be independent or contribute much to the world if it merely emulated the West:

“Embarrassed and afraid that we have fallen so far behind Europe in our intellectual and scientific development, we have forgotten that we ourselves, in the depth and tasks of the Russian soul, contain in ourselves as Russians the capacity perhaps to bring new light to the world, on the condition that our development is independent”.

Civilizational diversity is imperative as it, much like biodiversity, makes the world more capable of absorbing shocks and handling crises: “Universalism, if realized, would result in a sharp decline of the complexity of the global society as a whole and the international system in particular. Reducing complexity, in turn, would dramatically increase the level of systemic risks and challenges”.

The objection to intrusive claims of universalism is also fundamental to Western civilization. In ancient Greece, the cradle of Western civilization, it was recognized that universalism and uniformity weakened the vigour and resilience that defined the Hellenic idea. The benign cooperation and competition between various Greek city-states created a diversity of ideas and a vitality that elevated Greek civilization. Integration into one political system would entail losing the diversity of philosophy, wisdom, and leadership that incentivized experimentation and advancement.

The first world order that truly encompasses the entire world

It can be concluded that restoring a Westphalian world order does not only require a multipolar distribution of economic power, it also demands respect for civilizational diversity to ensure that the principle of indivisible security is preserved. The international order should counteract nefarious claims of civilizational superiority clothed in the benign rhetoric of universal values and development models. Through this prism, the US efforts to divide the world into democracy versus authoritarianism can be considered a strategy to restore hegemony and a system of sovereign inequality by defeating adversaries, rather than building an international system based on harmony and human progress. Xi Jinping has thus repudiated the US hegemonic model, and instead advanced the Westphalian argument that states must “refrain from imposing their own values or models on others”.

The new Westphalia can for the first time truly be a world order by including non-Western nations as sovereign equals. One should therefore not be surprised by the positive response from the majority of the world to the proposal of replacing conflict and dominance with cooperation based on equality and mutual respect.

November 29, 2024 Posted by aletho | Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | China, Russia, United States | Leave a comment

Seoul: Lawmakers decry defense cost sharing with Washington

Press TV – November 28, 2024

South Korean lawmakers and activists are opposing the Special Measures Agreement on defense cost sharing with the US, criticizing it as secretive and detrimental to South Korean sovereignty.

The agreement, which includes an 8.3% increase in South Korea’s payment to the US, is seen as setting a precedent for unequal relations.

Lawmakers, joined by activists on the steps of South Korea’s National Assembly, blasted the agreement on cost sharing for US troops deployed in South Korea.

With incoming US President Donald Trump saying he wants even more money from Seoul, Progressive Party members want the deal nullified.

“If Trump calls us a money machine, let’s say this Special Measures Agreement on defense cost sharing is a robbery.

Let’s scrap the agreement and renegotiate it from the beginning.

This is what we should do as we approach the Trump era.”

Jung Hye-Kyung, South Korean Lawmaker

Those opposed to the deal argue that negotiations were secret, that it increases the public’s financial burden, undermines South Korean sovereignty, and, sets the tone for further unequal relations with the United States of America.

This 12th defense cost sharing Special Measures Agreement stipulates an 8.3% increase in South Korea’s payment to the US for the deployment of American forces at bases across the country.

During his presidential campaign, US President Elect Donald Trump called South Korea a wealthy nation that should pay more for US forces stationed in South Korea.

American forces have been deployed in South Korea since the end of the 1950 to 53 Korean War.

But the mission of the 28,500 US troops here has shifted with US strategic interests to contain China.

“The nature of the United States Forces Korea is changing a lot on the Korean peninsula; the USFK is playing a role in keeping China in check.

If that is the case, the US also needs to pay for the use of the bases on the Korean peninsula or pay for the cost of stationing troops here.”

Kang Hye-Jin, Peace Activist

Each round of the closed door talks faced intense opposition.

This week, South Korean lawmakers shall debate the US troop cost sharing deal in committees, likely to include dissenting opinions, before potentially ratifying the agreement.

November 29, 2024 Posted by aletho | Militarism, Sinophobia | Korea, United States | Leave a comment

Is the US Fueling a New Nuclear Arms Race?

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 29.11.2024

The pace of US nuclear weapons modernization is accelerating, meaning Washington has de facto launched an arms race against Russia and China, the Roscongress Foundation warned in its recent report obtained by Sputnik.

The report outlined key developments:

The US is planning to spend about $138 billion on the modernization of nuclear warheads until FY 2049.
Another $500 billion will be spent on stockpile management, including dismantling and disposal of components of warheads removed from armaments, as well as research, development, testing and evaluation, other weapons activities and, finally, infrastructure operations.
Over 67,000 employees have been involved in the implementation of the US nuclear weapons modernization program. Their number has increased by more than 70% over the past ten years.
The US National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has fast-tracked plutonium pit production, with a 2018 plan to produce 80 pits annually for nuclear warheads.
In addition, the US is modernizing most of the nuclear weapons storage bases in Europe. Presently, the US stores its tactical nuclear weapons at six bases in five NATO member countries, Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkiye.
In 2023, the Pentagon received over 200 updated nuclear munitions, which was the largest annual delivery since the end of the Cold War.

According to Federation of American Scientists, the total inventory of US nuclear warheads amounts to 5,044 including 1,770 deployed warheads, 1,938 reserved for operational forces, and 1,336 retired warheads.

The State Department estimates that the US had roughly 1,420 warheads deployed on 662 missiles and bombers as of March 1, 2023, including:

Minuteman III ICBM 396 warheads
Trident (D-5) SLBM 981 warheads
B-52 bombers 33 warheads
B-2 bombers 10 warheads

According to US Congressional Budget Office 2023 estimates, US programs to operate and modernize nuclear forces would cost $756 billion over the next 10 years.

November 29, 2024 Posted by aletho | Militarism | United States | Leave a comment

Washington’s War in Ukraine: Narrowing Options, Growing Consequences

By Brian Berletic – New Eastern Outlook – November 29, 2024

Russia’s use of its Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile in eastern Ukraine represents an unprecedented escalation in what began as a US proxy war against Russia in 2014.

The missile’s capabilities represent a serious non-nuclear means of striking targets anywhere in Europe without the collective West’s ability to sufficiently defend against it.
The possibility of the West now facing direct consequences for what has so far been a proxy war, may reintroduce rational thought across the West otherwise not required when spending the lives of others. It may, however, cause Western policymakers to double down, confident in the belief that they remain decoupled from any possible consequences despite unprecedented escalation.

The missile’s use is only the latest demonstration of Russia’s military and escalatory dominance amid the ongoing proxy war. It alone would be unable to significantly impact the fighting, but because the Russian Federation over the last two decades has invested deeply in the fundamentals of national defense, it compliments a range of other capabilities serving as a deterrence against continued Western encroachment.

Before the deployment of the Oreshnik, the progress of Russian forces along the line of contact in Ukraine had been accelerating, triggering panic across the capitals of Western nations. This was not achieved through any single “wonder weapon,” but through Russia’s post-Cold War strategy of preparing its military forces and its military industrial capacity to wage a large-scale, prolonged, and intense conflict against Western-backed forces building up along Russia’s borders.

This included the development and large-scale production of both simple and advanced weapons ranging from main battle tanks and other armored vehicles, to drones, cruise missiles, air defense systems, and electronic warfare capabilities.

Because Russia’s arms industry operates under state-owned enterprises prioritizing state needs over generating profit, the systems required in terms of both quality and quantity were made available. This was possible because surplus production capacity had been maintained across a large number of Russian arms production facilities. Excess labor and equipment that would have been slashed by private enterprise across the West to maximize profits was maintained if and when needed. Come February 2022, this excess capacity was utilized and has since been the central factor contributing to Russia’s growing success against NATO-backed forces in Ukraine.

The West, on the other hand, is suffering a growing military industrial crisis. Excess production capacity needs to be built from scratch, taking years or longer. Across the collective West, skilled labor shortages prevent assembly lines from being expanded significantly, even if the will and resources exist to do so. In all areas of production, from air defense missiles to artillery shells, the collective West is struggling to meet even the most meager production targets.

Washington, determined to prevail in Ukraine either outright or through severely overextending Russia amid this proxy war, has steadily escalated the conflict from 2014 when the US overthrew the elected government of Ukraine, to 2019 when the US began arming Ukrainian forces already being trained by NATO, to full-spectrum sanctions on Russia from 2022 onward, to the transfer of artillery, tanks, aircraft, and long-range missiles the US has now finally authorized strikes into Russia itself with.

Each escalation represents an attempt by Washington and its European proxies to inflict prohibitive costs on Russia. As each escalation falls far short of doing so, additional escalations are devised.

Recently, France and the UK have discussed the possibility of sending their own troops into Ukraine as yet another serious escalation of a war the collective West is already all but fighting against Russia directly.

It should be remembered that the US is also engineering crises elsewhere along Russia’s periphery, including Georgia as well as Syria, to similarly overextend Russia. Recent military operations carried out by US-backed extremists in Syria were likely prepared months in advance and launched as a substitute for the Westn’s own inability to overpower Russia in Ukraine.

Narrowing Options, Growing Consequences

Even without the Oreshnik’s appearance amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, it is clear that the West’s attempts to escalate versus Russia have fallen far short of extending Russia in the manner many Western analysts, politicians, and military leaders have hoped.

The wider geopolitical effect appears to be bolstering rather than undermining the shift from US-led unipolarism toward multipolarism.

Options for escalating are narrowing for the West. The deployment of Western forces in Ukraine would lead to the same problems Ukrainian troops themselves face – a lack of artillery shells, armored vehicles, and air defense systems to protect their forces from the 4,000+ missiles Russia has fired on Ukraine each year.

The Oreshnik itself represents a non-nuclear means of striking at any target either in Ukraine or across the rest of Europe. It would be a means by which to inflict serious damage on European and American military targets in the region, further reducing the West’s already dwindling military power. The missile, like many others in Russia’s growing arsenal, would be able to overcome Western air and missile defenses both because of fundamental flaws in their performance and because Western stockpiles of interceptors have been exhausted with no means of readily replenishing them.

Because the collective West’s military industrial capacity is so limited versus its overreaching pursuit of global primacy, the use of its military aviation, cruise missiles, and other existing capabilities can only be committed in one of at least three primary regions of focus – Europe, the Middle East, or the Asia-Pacific.

Were the US and Europe to commit significant forces to a direct conflict with Russia in Ukraine, even if it fell short of nuclear war, it would exhaust military power the West sought to preserve for potential war with either Iran and/or China. While there would be no guarantee that these capabilities would tilt the conflict in Ukraine back in their favor, it would guarantee that US-European ambitions in the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific would be forfeited indefinitely.

It could be that the US seeks to extend its proxy war against Russia in Ukraine across the rest of Europe, with the US itself preserving its military capabilities for its continued involvement in the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific. But the conflict in Ukraine has exposed fundamental flaws in the collective West’s system overall. A system incapable of collectively overpowering Russia, having exhausted itself in the process of trying, will have less fortune still overpowering a much larger and more capable China.

While the US may believe it improves its chances by shifting the burden of intervention in Ukraine to its European proxies, the US still suffers from a fundamental inability itself to produce the number of arms and ammunition required to fight a similar conflict in the Asia-Pacific.

The introduction of the Oreshnik, a capability China will also almost certainly be capable of producing if it does not already possess it – represents a further means of deterring the US and its proxies – a promise of non-nuclear consequences in a missile exchange the US and Europe would enter at a disadvantage. This, on top of a large and growing disparity in terms of military industrial capacity, confines US and European options to resorting to nuclear weapons or reformulating a more realistic and constructive foreign policy in the first place.

Because Russia and China possess their own large and growing stockpiles of nuclear weapons – the West’s use of such weapons really isn’t an option. But because the current circles of power in the West lack the military strength, intelligence, and moral fortitude to reformulate their foreign policy, from their point of view, they may believe in the possibility of a limited nuclear war they could emerge from with an advantage, believing this may be their only option. Thus, the notion of mutually assured destruction must be fully impressed upon the West now as it was during the Cold War, reintroducing the fear of personal consequences for policymakers so rational thought unnecessary when spending the lives of others can be reintroduced into the equation.

Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer.

November 29, 2024 Posted by aletho | Militarism | China, NATO, Russia, United States | Leave a comment

US mercenary firms compete for ‘huge contracts’ to control security in north Gaza: Report

The Cradle | November 28, 2024

Israel is examining the launch of a “pilot program” that could see US private security firms replace the army in northern Gaza to “accompany food and medicine convoys” for Palestinians who remain in the devastated region, according to a report by Israeli daily Globes.

Among the top competitors for the multi-million dollar contract are Constellis, the direct successor to infamous mercenary company Blackwater, and Orbis, a little-known South Carolina company run by former generals that has worked with the Pentagon for 20 years.

Officials say the pilot program for north Gaza aims to “prevent Hamas or other gangs from taking over the aid trucks and free the IDF soldiers from the dangerous mission.”

In recent weeks, Gaza’s interior ministry established a new police force to deal with groups of bandits and gangs that have been raiding humanitarian aid shipments and blackmailing international organizations in the southern Gaza Strip.

The UN has said these gangs are likely “benefiting from a passive if not active benevolence” or “protection” from the Israeli army.

In October, a third US security firm – Global Delivery Company (GDC) – which describes itself as “Uber for warzones” – claimed to be working with another firm to create and manage “humanitarian bubbles” in Gaza.

GDC is run by Mordechai Kahane, an Israeli businessman who worked with Israeli intelligence during the war on Syria to arm extremist groups seeking to topple the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Although no official figure exists about the size of the contracts being offered by Tel Aviv for these mercenary firms, Globes cites Lt. Col. Yochanan Zoraf, a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and former advisor on Arab affairs in the Israeli army, as saying the figure will likely reach “billions of shekels per year.”

“These are not companies that will manage the daily lives of the residents,” Zoraf claims, adding that “peripheral responsibility for the defense of [north Gaza] as well as the civil responsibility itself” falls at Israel’s feet.

The former army officer also says Tel Aviv will likely “ask that the US – or an outside party – finance the program.”

On Tuesday, Israel Hayom reported that the pilot program has yet to receive approval from the security cabinet “due to legal difficulties in defining the occupation” based on international law.

“In order to circumvent the legal obstacles, the security services are examining bringing in external funding from humanitarian aid organizations or foreign countries for the [mercenary firms], which costs tens of millions of dollars to operate,” the report adds.

Since the start of the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, the Israeli government has turned to mercenaries to overcome an enlistment crisis. This includes cooperation with German intelligence to recruit asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria.

“Over the past seven months, the Values Initiative Association and the German–Israeli Association (DIG) have worked to enlist these refugees from war-torn Muslim-majority countries as mercenaries for Israel. Offered monthly salaries ranging between €4,000 to €5,000 and fast-tracked German citizenship, many have joined the fight. Reports suggest that around 4,000 immigrants were naturalized between September and October alone,” writes The Cradle columnist Mohamed Nader al-Omari.

November 28, 2024 Posted by aletho | Wars for Israel | Gaza, Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

A ‘position of strength’ for the West and Ukraine doesn’t exist anymore

As long as Kiev’s backers keep deluding themselves that Russia can be defeated or forced to accept unfavorable terms, the war will not end

By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | November 28, 2024

“To negotiate from a position of strength” is a favorite cliché of the West. And understandably so, as that short phrase is quite handy: It serves to cover up the opposite of a genuine negotiation, namely vulgar blackmail and crude imposition of fait-accompli terms, backed up by force and threats of force.

The expansion of NATO after the end of the Cold War, for instance, was handled in that manner: “Oh, but we are willing to talk,” the West kept saying to Russia, “and, meanwhile, we will do exactly as we please, and your objections, interests, and security be damned.”

This approach seemed to “work” – very much for want of a better term – as long as Russia was weakened by the unusually deep political, economic, social, military, and, indeed, spiritual crisis that accompanied the end of the Soviet Union and outlasted it for roughly a decade.

When, finally, Moscow tried to put the West on notice that Russia had recovered sufficiently to demand a healthier style of interaction, Western media informed their publics only in a biased and superficial manner. And Western elites reacted with irritation, while also failing to at least take seriously what irritated them. That is what happened, for instance, after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s now famous speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007. Yes, that long ago already.

In other words, Western elites obstinately kept insisting on believing in their own rhetoric, even while it was quickly losing whatever tenuous link to reality it had, for a short moment that was historically anomalous. While Russia’s (and not only Russia’s) “strength” was clearly increasing and that of the West decreasing, non-”negotiating” by force and fait accompli remained a Western addiction. That, obviously, is a large part of the very sad story of how Ukraine was turned into rubble.

Which brings us to the present. At this point, it takes clinical-grade delusion not to notice that “strength” is on Moscow’s side in the war in and over Ukraine. Russian troops are “advancing at the fastest rate” since early 2022, the gung-ho, pro-NATO British Telegraph admits. Ukraine’s forces remain over-aged, over-matched, over-burdened, and stretched thin. Units designed to hold a 5-kilometer line are frequently assigned to 10 or 15 kilometers. Russia has clear, even crushing superiority in artillery and sheer manpower as well: ordinary soldiers, NCOs, and officers – all are scarce on the Ukrainian side. Ukraine’s predictably wasteful August incursion into the Kursk Region of Russia, meanwhile, faces an intense Russian counterattack that, as the Wall Street Journal admits coyly, “appears to be working.” Russia’s pressure in an air war waged with various missiles and drones is relentless.

Unsurprisingly, the mood of Ukraine’s population is reflecting these difficulties. The Economist – only slightly more refined than the Telegraph in its stoutly Russophobic bellicosity – reports Gallup polls showing that a majority of Ukrainians want negotiations to end the war. Within a year, their share has risen from 27% to 52%, while those claiming that they would prefer to go on to the bitter end (misnaming that option as “victory” ) has declined from 63% to 38%. If those false “friends of Ukraine,” who apparently believe friendship consists in burning up your buddies in a proxy war, were serious about their once so fashionable rhetoric about Ukrainians’ “agency,” they would now be helping the Ukrainians to make peace by concessions.

All the more as Ukrainian pollsters confirm the Gallup data, according to Ukrainian semi-dissident news site Strana.ua. They found that almost two thirds of Ukrainians (64%) are ready for “freezing” the war along the current front lines, that is by giving up on all territories under de facto Russian control. Well over half (56%) think that “victory” should not be defined as retaking all territories within Ukraine’s 1991 borders. Meaning they, too, explicitly disagree with the long-held, if now perhaps quietly eroding, official position of the Zelensky regime and are prepared to concede territory for peace. And while reading such poll figures, always keep in mind that Ukraine is now a de facto authoritarian, media-streamlined, and oppressive country where voicing doubt takes special courage – or despair.

And then, there is Trump. Despite his campaign promises to rapidly shut down the proxy war, it remains impossible to predict what exactly president-elect Donald Trump will do once he is inaugurated in January. It would be imprudent to simply assume that he will force the Zelensky regime into a peace Moscow can agree to. Trump has chosen retired General Keith Kellogg as his special envoy for Ukraine. Kellogg, at this stage, represents the ambiguity of the Trumpist approach: He is the co-author of a think-tank paper published before the elections under the title “America First, Russia, & Ukraine.” While its policy proposals provide more reasons to worry for Kiev than Moscow, the paper also displays unrealistic assumptions, such as that Russia can still be coerced by threats of further escalation or will settle for a mere postponing – instead of complete elimination – of Ukraine’s NATO perspective.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, for one, has just articulated a certain skepticism, declaring that a settlement is still far off, in essence, because the West is not yet ready to face reality. This, again, is all the more likely as Moscow insists not only on territorial changes but also real neutrality for Ukraine, taking NATO membership – whether official or by stealth – off the table forever.

And yet, there can be no doubt that from Kiev’s perspective, Trump and at least part of his team look and very well could be dangerous. Not, really, for Ukraine and ordinary Ukrainians, who need this initially avoidable war to end, but for the Zelensky regime and the often corrupt, war-profiteering elites tied to it. In addition, reports are emerging that Trump’s team is also considering opening direct contact with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un. That as well could be a sign that Trump’s inauguration may really be followed by a political turn against continuing the proxy war, insofar as claims that North Korean combat troops have entered the war on Russia’s side have served to justify the Western escalation of helping Ukraine fire Western missiles into Russia.

In short, the West and Ukraine’s Zelensky regime are on the back foot, militarily, geopolitically, and in terms of popular support inside Ukraine as well. And what is their reaction? This is where there’s another perverse twist as only Western elites can come up with: With its proxy war project of using Ukraine to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia in tatters, instead of signaling a willingness to change course, the West – whether sincerely or as a bluff – is outdoing itself in militant rhetoric and some serious escalatory action, too.

In Washington, the outgoing Biden administration’s decision not simply to permit but to assist in the launching of Western missiles into Russia is only the tip of the iceberg. Crushingly defeated in the elections and clearly without a real mandate, the Democrats are doing everything they can to heap up more combustible material between the West and Russia: Moscow is facing yet more sanctions affecting its banking and energy sector, the delivery of US land mines to Ukraine, and Washington’s official lifting of restrictions on US mercenaries getting active in Ukraine (not that that makes much of a real-life difference; they are, of course, already there). US secretary of state Antony Blinken has been explicit that the aim is to release a maximum amount of aid before Trump comes into office with the intention – unrealistic yet destructive – of making Ukraine fit to fight next year.

In Europe, the UK has already rapidly followed the US lead – as is its wont – and also helped Ukraine fire missiles into Russia. With France, things seem a little murkier in that regard, but that may only be due to Paris preferring to do things a little more quietly. In any case, London and Paris have come together, if in a haphazard way, in once again publicly toying with the harebrained notion of bringing Western ground forces – including officially, not black-ops/mercenary style as of now – into the war. The ideas reported are vague and contradictory, it is true: the spectrum of potential deployment seems to reach from sending NATO-Europeans – for instance, French, British, or Polish troops – to die on the frontlines in a direct clash with a battle-hardened, well-equipped, and highly motivated Russian army to much more modest schemes, involving stationing them in what will be left of Ukraine after the fighting ends.

It is also unclear whether the reports of such plans – if that is the word – first surfacing in the French newspaper Le Monde are to be taken seriously at all. We may be looking at another hapless attempt to produce “strategic ambiguity,” i.e. to try to impress Moscow with things Moscow knows the West cannot really do. If so, the West can’t even keep up a poker face: British Foreign Secretary David Lammy has already come out to reassure the British public that his country will not send ground troops. Even tiny Estonia felt a need to chime in: Its defense minister Hanno Pevkur has publicly argued against sending ground troops, too. Instead, he suggested, the West should ramp up its financial and military-industrial support for Ukraine.

And that, it seems, may be where things are really going. Or, at least, where the West’s most stubborn bellicists want to take them. In the case of the UK and France as well, not all discussions have focused on troops. Instead, the military enterprises DCI (in France) and Babcock (in Britain) are a key part of the debates. In addition, there are, of course, ongoing training efforts. The UK has by now pre-processed over 40,000 Ukrainian troops for the proxy war meat grinder. France is setting up a whole brigade.

It is a wide-open question if European NATO members, economically squeezed and soon to be at least semi-abandoned by the US, will be able to afford such a strategy. Most likely, not. And yet, what matters for now are elite illusions that it could. Trying alone will be extremely destructive, for the people of Europe as well as of Ukraine.

If I were Ukrainian, I would look at all of this with dread, because if that is the NATO-European approach to keeping the war going – boosting equipment and training – then it, of course, means that even more Ukrainians will have to be mobilized and sacrificed. Indeed, the Biden desperados have just put fresh pressure on Kiev to lower the conscription age to 18 and sacrifice even more Ukrainians in a lost war. Their prospects are grim, and by now, they are openly told so, by no one less than Ukraine’s former commander-in-chief. Speaking to Ukrainian troops training in Britain, Valery Zaluzhny has just stressed that dying is their most likely fate. The West and its Ukrainian servants have reached the “Banzai!” charge stage of the war. But then, Zaluzhny also believes that World War Three has already started. So, nothing to lose, it seems.

Yet here is the final irony of this bleak picture: In the US, Joe Biden is the lamest of ducks, discredited in every way conceivable, including his de facto participation in Israel’s Gaza genocide. Emmanuel Macron in France must be the least popular president since the Fifth Republic started in the late 1950s, kept in office by constitutional mis-design and manipulation; Britain’s Keir Starmer has alienated his people to such an extent that an unprecedented de facto plebiscite is on its way to get rid of him. It won’t be able to actually push him out, but it certainly signals the depth of the public’s contempt. And Valery Zaluzhny, from Ukraine, but currently a misfit of an ambassador in London? He may actually have quite a future in Ukrainian politics, which is precisely why he was exiled to Britain. But for now, he, too, is a marginalized, sometimes slightly comical figure.

Acting “from a position of strength”? It is striking: Not only is the West in general no longer in that position. The most belligerent figures in the West now often are the ones with the weakest popular mandates at home. Compensatory behavior? A desperate attempt to distract from or to overcome that weakness? Sheer arrogance reaching delusional loss-of-reality level? Who knows? What is certain is that as long as the West is under this kind of management, Lavrov will be right and peace will remain remote.

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.

November 28, 2024 Posted by aletho | Militarism | NATO, Russia, Ukraine, United States | Leave a comment

The Russian General Staff Prepares Retaliation Friday Night-Saturday Morning

Gorilla Radio Reviews the Coming Russian Message for the Trump Warfighters

By John Helmer | Dances With Bears | November 27, 2024

On Tuesday afternoon, November 26, the Russian Defense Ministry issued an unusual bulletin revealing that since the Oreshnik strike on November 21, the US had launched two ATACMS attacks across the Ukrainian border on Russian military targets in the Kursk region. The first of these on an S-400 air defence unit on November 23 had not been disclosed before. Both the November 23 and November 25 ATACMS strikes, totalling 13 missiles in all, had been partially intercepted. Russian casualties were suffered, including several fatalities.

The Defense Ministry also telegraphed its punch. “Retaliatory actions are being prepared,” the bulletin concluded.

Earlier that same morning, November 26, the airspace around the Oreshnik launch site at Kapustin Yar — east of Volgograd in the north of Astrakhan region — was identified for closure to civilian flights by an international notice to airmen (NOTAM). The notice said the no-flight zone would start at 04:00 on Thursday, November 27, and continue until 20:00 on Saturday, November 30. Kapustin Yar was the launch pad for the first Oreshnik strike on the Yuzhmash plant at Dniepropetrovsk on November 21.

The flight distance for that Russian missile from launch to target was 800 kilometers. If a second Oreshnik strike is being prepared at Kapustin Yar, the range to US and Ukrainian military bunkers at Kiev is within 1,100 kms; to the comparable military targets in Lvov, 1,600 kms; to the US-Ukrainian base at Rzeszów, on the Polish side of the border, 1,750 kms. The Oreshnik can strike targets at up to 5,000 kms, making it an “intermediate range”, not an “intercontinental range” missile.

On the afternoon of Wednesday, November 27, President Vladimir Putin arrived in Astana, Kazakhastan, for two days of talks. He is due to return from Kazakhstan on the evening of Thursday, November 28.

Once the president is in Moscow, he will be in position to order, direct, and follow a retaliation strike by the General Staff against US and Ukrainian targets. If the strike flies at Oreshnik speed of Mach 10 to Mach 12, the operation will run from 5 to 9 minutes. If a 30-minute advance warning is sent to the US, and if a civilian evacuation warning is also issued, as Putin has foreshadowed, then one hour on Friday or Saturday will be what Putin has called the “danger zone”.

“In case of an escalation of aggressive actions,” Putin has said, “we will respond decisively and in mirror-like manner… It goes without saying that when choosing, if necessary and as a retaliatory measure, targets to be hit by systems such as Oreshnik on Ukrainian territory, we will in advance suggest that civilians and citizens of friendly countries residing in those areas leave danger zones. We will do so for humanitarian reasons, openly and publicly, without fear of counter-moves coming from the enemy, who will also be receiving this information.”

The Defense Ministry has now confirmed the escalation by the US on November 23 and 25. Putin will decide his retaliation before Saturday evening.

***

Led by Chris Cook on Gorilla Radio, listen to the discussion of what is about to happen, and of the Trump officials to whom the Kremlin and the General Staff are sending their message.

Click to play: https://gradio.substack.com/
The discussion begins at Minute 32.

The warning issued by Russia’s Deputy UN Representative Dmitry Polyansky, quoted partially in the broadcast, was this: “We believe it is our right to use our weapons against military facilities in those countries which allow their weapons to be used against our facilities. We’ve warned you about this, but you’ve made your choice.” Note that Polyansky’s warning identifies the target of retaliatory action to be “military facilities”.

November 28, 2024 Posted by aletho | Audio program, Militarism | NATO, Russia, United States | Leave a comment

Atlanticists mobilise to salvage NATO as Russia toughens its stance

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | November 28, 2024

The American film maker and philanthropist who created the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises, George Lucas, once said, “Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” Within a week of Russia “testing” the Oreshnik hypersonic missile in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, against which the NATO has no defence, the Western alliance is already transiting through the Dark Side from fear to hatred and hurtling toward unspeakable suffering.

The Russian Defence Ministry has disclosed that since the Oreshnik’s appearance in the war zone, Ukraine carried out two more attacks on Russian territory with ATACMS missiles. In the first attack on November 23, five ATACMS missiles were fired at an S-400 anti-aircraft missile division near the village of Lotarevka in Kursk Region. The Pantsir missile defense system, which provided cover for this division, destroyed three of them while two missiles reached the target damaging the radar. There are casualties among the personnel.

In the second attack by 8 ATACMS missiles at the Kursk-Vostochny airfield on Monday, seven were shot down while one missile reached the target. The falling debris slightly damaged the infrastructure facilities and two servicemen suffered minor injuries. The Russian MOD stated that “retaliatory actions are being prepared.”

The Russian military experts estimate that the attacks were planned for some time and the Americans handled the targeting. On November 25, the White House acknowledged for the first time the shift in policy allowing the use of ATACMS to attack Russian territory. Admiral John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications at the White House National Security Council, revealed during a press gaggle on Monday, inter alia, saying that “well, obviously we did change the guidance and gave them [Kiev] guidance that they could use them, you know, to strike these particular types of targets.”

Following the attack on Monday, Ukraine sought an emergency meeting of the NATO–Ukraine Council in Brussels at the level of permanent representatives. Oreshnik was the main topic, and the need to strengthen the air defence system. The NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said later, “Our support for Ukraine helps it fight, but we need to go further to change the trajectory of this conflict.”

No doubt, NATO is very concerned about the emergent situation but still won’t accept a Russian victory. Hotheads in the West are once again talking about the deployment of troops by NATO countries to Ukraine for combat operations, which was originally mooted by French President Emmanuel Macron in February.

But plainly put, unless the US is willing to put boots on the ground, the rest of NATO will simply run around like a headless chicken. The UK with an 80,000-strong army has very few combat units; the 175,000-strong German army has forgotten how to fight; and France is in deep political and economic crisis. As for the US, public opinion opposes wars and president-elect Donald Trump cannot ignore it.

However, petrified that Trump may turn his back on the war, there is a school of thought in Europe that they could offer something interesting to incentivise him other than the carrot of Ukraine’s vast stores of critical minerals that Americans lack — eg., more trading incentives for America; greater spending on NATO; more pressure on Iran; “peacekeeping boots on the ground” inside Ukraine; help in Trump’s upcoming economic skirmishes with China and so on. Meanwhile, much brainstorming is going on in the US too as to how to save NATO from Trump’s scalpel.

A Guardian columnist wrote, “If the EU and UK seize the $300bn of Russian state assets sitting in Euroclear, money Putin has long written off, we can bring serious funding to the table. Trump does not need to spend any more money on Ukraine – we can buy the weapons. America can even make a profit while securing peace in Europe. Trump would be able to show how he got those parasitic Europeans to cough up, prove his detractors wrong by rebooting America’s most traditional alliances – all while putting “America first”.”

All this testifies to the angst in the European mind that Oreshnik has forced a paradigm shift in the Ukraine war. The triumphalist betting that Russia would be bluffing on nuclear deterrence has given way to fear, since Russia now may not need nuclear weapons to retaliate against attacks on its territory. Oreshnik is a non-nuclear weapon, it is by no means a weapon of mass destruction but is a high-precision weapon of immense destructive power that annihilates its targets — and Europeans have no means to defend against it.

Succinctly put, if Biden’s plan to “Trump-proof” the Ukraine war has put Europe and Ukraine in a royal fix making them a punch bag for Russia. Make no mistake, Oreshnik will soon make sure that there won’t even be a proxy regime in Ukraine for the West to “support”. It is humiliating to watch the proxy’s nose being rubbed in the dust.

A punishing Russian retaliation is imminent for the two latest ATACMS attacks. The sharp deterioration in Russia’s ties with the UK suggests a high probability that Britain could be in Moscow’s crosshairs. The station chief of the British intelligence in the embassy in Moscow has been expelled; western reports cite significant supplies of Storm Shadow missiles (numbering 150) to Ukraine lately after the election of Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

The top Russian military expert Alexei Leonkov told Izvestia newspaper, “Here is the fact of the US targeting, here are the fragments of the ATACMS missile, by which it can be clearly identified. We have the right to strike back. Where and how will be decided by the Ministry of Defence and the Supreme Commander—in-Chief. He [Putin] said that they would be warned about the impact. Our enemies must prepare for an answer.

The big question is at what point Russia may strike the NATO military hubs in Romania and Poland. The former Russian President and Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said yesterday that all bets are off. “If the conflict develops by the escalation scenario, it is impossible to rule out anything, because the NATO member states have effectively got fully involved in this conflict,” he said in an interview with Al Arabiya.

Medvedev added in chilling words, “The Western states must realise that they fight on Ukraine’s side… Meanwhile, they fight not only by shipping weapons and providing money. They fight directly, because they provide targets on Russian territory and control American and European missiles. They fight with the Russian Federation. And if this is the case, nothing could be ruled out… even the most difficult and sad scenario is possible.

“We would not want such scenario, we have all said that repeatedly. We want peace, but this peace must take Russia’s interest into consideration in full.”

Indeed, the only logical explanation for Biden’s brinkmanship in collusion with the Atlanticists in Europe in the lame duck phase of his presidency is that Oreshnik has upstaged his best-laid plans. Saner voices in Europe are speaking up. In a hugely symbolic act of defiance, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico disclosed on Wednesday that he has accepted an official invitation from Putin to the events in Moscow in May commemorating the 80th anniversary of Victory in World War II. Slovakia is a member country of both EU and NATO.

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer in a telephone conversation with Trump, reaffirmed Austria’s readiness to serve as a platform for international peace talks on Ukraine. During the conversation, Trump reportedly evinced interest in Nehammer’s previous exchanges with Putin on Ukraine.

November 28, 2024 Posted by aletho | Militarism | NATO, Russia, UK, Ukraine, United States | Leave a comment

Rumble Sues California Over Censorship Law That Impacts Satire

By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | November 27, 2024

A new legal challenge, spearheaded by Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys, has thrust the state of California into the spotlight once again over allegations of infringing on free speech rights. This federal lawsuit, lodged on behalf of video-sharing platform Rumble, argues that two new California statutes unconstitutionally restrict users’ ability to share political content online.

We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.

Under these controversial laws, specifically AB 2655, platforms like Rumble are coerced into policing and removing content that the state deems harmful. These regulations have been criticized for compelling platforms to censor speech, thereby becoming unwilling agents of government censorship. According to ADF Senior Counsel Phil Sechler, in a press release sent to Reclaim The Net, “California’s war against political speech is censorship, plain and simple. We can’t trust the government to decide what is true in our online political debates.” He emphasized the importance of platforms like Rumble, which resist governmental pressures to curtail free expression.

The complaint details the operational challenges: “The law forces Rumble to undertake the impossible task of training its team to recognize and then remove and label content based on inherently vague and subjective terms on which even pollsters and government officials cannot agree, such as what content may be ‘likely to harm’ electoral prospects or may likely undermine confidence in an election.”

Further, Rumble contends that AB 2655 oversteps by altering and compelling the speech of private entities, thus infringing upon their rights to free speech. It argues that neither the Constitution nor Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act allows California to “alter and compel Rumble’s speech while also mandating that it censor its users’ speech. As such, this Court should enjoin AB 2655 and declare it unlawful.”

The genesis of these laws can be traced back to July when a parody video targeting Vice President Kamala Harris spurred Gov. Gavin Newsom to advocate for making such content illegal. Subsequently, the California Legislature expedited the passage of these laws, which Gov. Newsom signed into action on September 17. AB 2839, in particular, imposes vague criteria to penalize individuals for sharing content related to elections, such as political memes and parodies.

In the detailed legal challenge, attorneys argue that AB 2655 forces Rumble to alter its own speech and police its users’ speech based on arbitrary criteria that even experts cannot uniformly interpret. The law imposes a duty on Rumble to train staff to identify and mitigate content that could potentially damage a politician’s reputation or undermine confidence in elections — criteria seen as inherently subjective.

This lawsuit follows a similar successful defense of free speech by ADF on behalf of The Babylon Bee and attorney Kelly Chang Rickert, leading to a temporary halt on enforcing AB 2839 against them while their legal battle continues.

November 28, 2024 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | California, Gavin Newsom, Human rights, United States | Leave a comment

US Republicans Condemn UK’s Online Censorship Law as a “Tsunami… Heading Towards America”

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | November 26, 2024

UK’s “censorship law” – Online Safety Act – has gained in notoriety, as it has now become the subject of interest of the US House Judiciary Committee, which has for years tried to shed light on the censorship on the internet, and its actors and factors.

So much so that the committee’s members have coined the expression, the Censorship Industrial Complex.

While most of the body’s activities are centered around US social media and allegations of the Biden-Harris administration’s involvement in pressuring them to censor speech, no “complex” is considered to be on an industrial scale for no reason.

A flurry of third parties – such as “fact-checkers” and “raters” – have been involved and investigated, including those based abroad – notably, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).

A member of the Republican-majority committee, Congressman Darrell Issa, now strongly criticized the trends concerning censorship-enabling legislation in the EU and in the UK, singling out the Online Safety Act, and warning that “a tsunami of censorship is heading towards America” from abroad.

And that’s just to add to what is already there – Issa called that situation, “malign actors here at home.” As for the UK law, the congressman is unimpressed by its authors and supporters promoting it as a way to protect against hate speech and other online ills.

According to Issa, what it does is give regulators a tool to censor free speech, and as such is viewed by Republicans as part of “a broader global push by the Censorship Industrial Complex.”

Issa in full, from The Spectator:

“The growing attacks on free speech in the US – as well as the UK and EU – pose a direct threat to free people on both sides of the Atlantic. We know that legislation like the Online Safety Act that is said to combat ‘hate speech’ empowers regulators to censor free speech.

“Congressional Republicans understand that these threats to free speech are part of a broader global push by the Censorship Industrial Complex, which includes not only the EU, UK, and other nations but also malign actors here at home. We are committed to confronting this growing threat alongside the incoming Trump Administration to fight against these assaults on free speech within our borders and around the world.”

The congressman had no problem counting the UK and the EU (with its Digital Services Act) among the places this push emanates from, while also vowing that the second Trump administration, alongside Congress Republicans, intends to “fight against these assaults on free speech within our borders and around the world.”

In the UK itself, there are those like Reform Party leader Nigel Farage who couldn’t agree more. Farage, who has close ties with Trump, has made comments about a free speech crackdown in his country.

The UK branch of the Alliance Defending Freedom advocacy group also agrees. Executive Director Paul Coleman said that the Judiciary Committee’s criticism and stance on a number of issues “shows that the UK is fast becoming notorious around the world for its censorious practices.”

November 28, 2024 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | European Union, Human rights, UK, United States | Leave a comment

UK, US intended to move Palestinians out of Palestine through UNRWA, British documents reveal

By Amer Sultan | MEMO | November 27, 2024

The UK and the US intended to resettle Palestinians in the neighbouring countries, after they were forced to flee their homes in Palestine in 1947 and 1948 due to the terrorist actions of Zionist forces, British documents reveal.

The documents, unearthed by MEMO in the British National Archives, also show that the British government viewed the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) as a tool to achieve this goal.

UNRWA was established by a UN General Assembly resolution on 8 December 1949, and officially began operations on 1 May 1950, with its headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon. Since its inception, the agency’s main mission was to transfer Palestinian refugees from direct relief to work programmes while awaiting a political solution to their plight. By mid-June 1950, the UN reiterated that the agency “has no mandate to deal with political settlement of the problem of the Palestinian refugees”.

In December 1949, the UN adopted Resolution 194, which recognised the Palestinian refugees’ right to return to their homes in Palestine. The resolution called for refugees who wished to return and live peacefully with their neighbours to “be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date.” It was adopted with 35 votes in favour, including from the United Kingdom and the United States, 15 votes against and 8 abstentions.

The resolution also stipulated that compensation should be provided to those “choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.”

However, in August 1949, 13 months after the announcement establishing Israel, the British government decided that the “final solution” of the problem lies in “resettlement not in relief”.

Prime Minister Clement Attlee, in a memo on the “Palestinian Arab refugees” problem, instructed his foreign, treasury and economic ministers to “discuss what further provision should be made” for addressing the problem. “The emphasis should lie heavily on resettlement,” he wrote.

When UNRWA’s operations began in 1950, the agency was assisting around 750,000 Palestinian refugees residing in 58 recognised refugee camps across Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Attlee’s memo further instructed that no financial support should be given to the governments of countries hosting the refugees unless they contributed to the resettlement effort. “Any further specific contributions from British funds should be conditional on the recognition by the local government concerned, to a greater extent than hitherto, of responsibilities in the matter,” the memo added.

This followed deliberations among various British governmental departments to establish an official British stance on the refugee problem. The ministers recommended that the governments of the neighbouring countries should “make a substantial contribution to the relief and resettlement” of the Palestinian refugees. They stressed that the British government should prioritise resettlement over relief efforts, and that “the major emphasis should be on the framing of the scheme for resettlement in preference to relief.”

At the time it was estimated that the combined costs of relief and resettlement efforts from both Western and non-Western governments amounted to around $24 million. The ministers recommended waiting to see what contributions other governments would make before committing further British funds. “We should also expect them to contribute a larger proportion to any future fund than their share,” they wrote.

In a letter to the prime minister, Lord Jay, the British economic minister, expressed his belief that “the only radical solution of the relief problem is by way of resettlement and not relief.”

“The prime responsibility for these Arab (Palestinian) refugees rests with the local governments concerned,” he wrote. While acknowledging that Britain had a “special position in the Middle East,” Lord Jay suggested that Britain had a “substantial interest” in the refugee question. However, he also argued that the British contribution to the relief fund was already “more than our appropriate share.”

Lord Jay’s letter was sent to the prime minister after a request from Ernest Bevin, the then foreign minister, who proposed that “further funds should be provided for relief and/or resettlement” of the Palestinian Arab refugees. In his response, Lord Jay again emphasised that the main focus “should be on resettlement”.

The British government viewed the refugee issue as “a direct responsibility” shared not only by Israel but also by the neighbouring Arab states and the international community.

In his letter, Lord Jay reminded his colleagues that the Arab states “inhabit an area so important from the political and strategic aspect” and noted that the Arabs “tend to consider that British policy over the last thirty years has been responsible for the setting up of a Jewish state and, in some degree, for the displacement of these Arab refugees.”

The documents also reveal that the UK and the US were in frequent contact to discuss how best to resettle the Palestinian refugees in host countries through ongoing relief activities.

The British “have been considering both in London and with the Americas how best to stimulate the local governments to continue the work of relief and turn it into resettlement,”Lord Joy’s letter explained. The British and the Americans believed that the resettlement “would provide the only long-term solution of the problem.”

The documents reveal that less than a year later, a number of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon appealed to Britain and human rights defenders for the right to return to Palestine, their homeland. In a letter to the British prime minister, sent through the British consul in Beirut, they wrote in Arabic: “We truly believe that you could send us back to our homes by using your powers if you wished.”

The letter was written by Ali Ahmed El-Abed, who had been forced to leave his village, Shafa Amr, in northern Palestine. He had to live as a refugee in the Wavel Camp, located in Baalbek, east of Beirut.

The letter placed the responsibility for the Palestinian refugees’ plight squarely on the UK. It reminded the British government that Palestinians had been under British protection for 30 years and noted: “As a result, we are scattered away far from our homes, our country, and our people.” The situation of the refugees was deteriorating, the letter explained, stating that “the situation goes from bad to worse,” and warning that “death is nearer to us than life.”

The letter, dated 21 June 1950, reminded the British government that the refugees still considered themselves “under British protection, and carry passports bearing the British crown.”

On 18 July, the British government rejected the petition. In its response, the government expressed “sympathy” for the refugees, but clarified that “it is not possible for His Majesty’s government to take any action in this matter except through the medium of the United Nations.” The response, sent to El-Abed, affirmed the British government’s “full and unqualified support” for the UN in addressing the issue.

A few weeks later, the former Soviet Union’s ambassador received a similar letter, signed by 10,000 refugees, requesting support for the Palestinians’ return to their homes. This letter rejected UNRWA as a project that “aimed to prevent the implementation of the decisions of the United Nations.” The signatories viewed this project as a “pursuit of an imperialist policy.”

The letter, written in Arabic with an English translation, was sent to the British government and insisted on the implementation of UN Resolution 194, which affirmed the Palestinians’ right to return to their homes in Palestine.

November 28, 2024 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Human rights, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, UK, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Can Europe Return to Reason & Reverse Its Decline?

Jeffrey Sachs, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

Glenn Diesen | Nov 27, 2024

I had a conversation with Jeffrey Sachs and Alexander Mercouris about the political changes in Europe. The optimism of the European project as a region of peace and prosperity is long gone. The objective had been to resolve conflicts on the continent peacefully and use collective bargaining power to establish greater economic and political independence. Instead, the continent is experiencing war, de-industrialisation, socio-economic and political instability, excessive dependence on the US, and growing irrelevance in the wider world. What went wrong and can the decline be reversed?

The rest of the world adjusts to the emerging multipolarity with a multivector foreign policy by diversifying economic connectivity to improve economic competitiveness and enhance political autonomy. In contrast, the Europeans have subordinated themselves completely to the US and thus suffer from economic decline and political subordination. Declining rationality is also a clear problem as the Europeans pursued policies towards Russia that they knew would put them on a collision course with Russia. Instead of pursuing course correction, the proxy war with Russia increased the security dependence on the US, which enabled Washington to impose bloc discipline. The recovery of Europe requires reversing the militarisation of dividing lines in Europe, and diversifying economic ties to avoid excessive dependence on any one state or region.

November 28, 2024 Posted by aletho | Economics, Video | China, European Union, NATO, United States | Leave a comment

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World War II Didn’t End The Great Depression

Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | April 4, 2024

A principal goal of Stark Realities is to “expose fundamental myths across the political spectrum” — and few myths are as universally embraced as the notion that US participation in World War II (1941-1945) lifted the American economy out of the Great Depression.

This myth is dangerous not only because it leads citizens and politicians to see a bright side of war that doesn’t really exist, but also because it helps foster a belief that government spending is essential to countering economic downturns. That belief, in turn, has helped propel us to a point where the national debt now exceeds $34.6 trillion, with interest payments alone on pace to reach $1 trillion a year in 2026, inviting financial catastrophe. … continue

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