The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO, celebrated its 70th Anniversary on April 4, 2019. Some of us don’t see anything worth celebrating about an incredibly expensive, dangerous and harmful alliance which should have been closed down exactly 30 years ago. Why 30 years ago? Because in 1989, the First Cold War in the Western sphere – Europe – between the […]
And why I am switching balances from the most noble and important – but momentarily meaningless – job to something more rewarding… February 1, 2019 Just yesterday, I posted this extremely important and modest appeal – the Basel Appeal – on our foundation’s homepage, The Transnational, here. It was disseminated to social media, among others, my FB profile, TFF’s and […]
Verdensbanken har netop udsendt en rapport om uddannelsen i Østen længst væk fra os – for dem er det jo et ret så nært Østen. Regionen har 7 af de 10 bedste uddannelsessystemer i verden og ”bedste” betyder at uddannelsessystemet når ud til flest muligt fra grundskolen og opad, satser på lighed og giver de socialt mindre velstilledes børn en […]
Jan Oberg comments on NATO and the need for a much larger citizens-taxpayers movement against militarism since, for almost 70 years since 1949, NATO has failed miserably in creating the peace it says it aims at. In addition it is systematically violating its Treaty.
Does the U.S. have anything constructive and benign to offer the world anymore? In this comment on PressTV I list a series of arguments against these new sanctions which were passed by the US Senate two days later.
Det er klart der i dag skrives smukke og på mange måder rigtige nekrologer. Hér et et eksempel fra Danmarks Radio med overskriften at Helveg Petersen var indbegrebet af det Radikale Venstre. Men den anti-militarisme, som engang var et grundlæggende element i de Radikales program og politik, var ikke så “indbegrebet” i hans tænkning. Niels Helveg Petersen blev 78 år […]
“The Debate” with Jim Walsh, MIT and Jan Oberg, TFF Lund, Sweden – May 30, 2017 Last night “The Debate” on PressTV was devoted to the future of European-US relations in the wake of the NATO Summit, President Trump’s words and omissions and the – historic – words, in particular, of Chancellor Angela Merkel immediately after. Undoubtedly, we are at a turning point in these relations in general and for the NATO alliance in particular. To discuss these issues – past, present and future perspectives – were Jim Walsh, senior research associate at MIT’s Security Studies Program, Massachusetts, and Jan Oberg, director of TFF, Lund. Thanks to PressTV’s excellently structured program and interviewer we touched upon a series of aspects and dimensions around which we found both agreements and slight disagreements – all in a sober tone fit for public education and personal reflection. We hope this debate will stimulate your own thoughts about the future of war, security and peace. We’d be grateful for your sharing it to media people, students and other academics as well as to decision-makers in the field that you may know. See it here – The Debate
Here I am with my friends Donald, Bibi, Sara and Melania… And speak a little about the stupidity of scapegoating Iran for everything, of giving Saudi Arabia even more weapons – and being bribed by it – of creating the preconditions for more warfare and about the fact that NATO is setting up shop in Kuwait and there are plans to have a Gulf NATO – something you can read much more about in my analysis Trump in Riyadh – A Gulf NATO to gang up against Iran and Syria. It’s a TFF PressInfo and you can subscribe to them too so they wing into your mailbox – very irregularly and not too often… write to PI@transnational.org – and they are free of course and many of the best things in life.
Försvarsminister Peter Hultqvist och ÖB Micael Bydén skriver på DN Debatt om “Risk för desinformation om militärövningen Aurora” Och det är då just vad de själva sysslar med. Inte ett ord om att det krävs två till att konflikta med varandra. Inte ett ord om NATO:s expansion stick i stäv med givna löften till Gorbachev. Inte ett ord om den […]
By Jan Oberg Proud to join “Middle East With Naskah Zada” at her program in New York and talking about the reasons that peace has become so ‘unpopular’. Touching also upon international law, the new Cold War and the increasing U.S. involvement in Syria.
TFF Live April 12, 2017 The secretaries of state, Tillerson and Lavrov meet today. We seem to enter a stage of what must appropriately be perceived as a frosty new Cold War. In the worst of cases this can lead to a new Cuban Missile Crisis. God forbid!
A 30 min debate about NATO, Ukraine, Crimea, Yugoslavia, Syria the eternal enemy images and the – obsolete – philosophy on which NATO builds. Time for something new, I argue in the debate with former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defence under Reagon, Mr. Lawrence J. Korb who at the time was in command of 70% of Pentagon’s budget. Here in TFF PressInfo # 403 is a little longer text about this debate and there is also a little about my experience and policy vis-a-vis the media.
Commenting with David Swanson, leading and sharp peace intellectual, on the inauguration of Trump – also about the legacy of Barrack Obama. For Iran’s international PressTV. Posted on TFF’s blog.
The old years went – in as little a time as it takes to turn around and see who is tapping you on your shoulder. And it is the new, the next year. I hope it will pass too – in as little time as it takes for me to turn my head and look forward again – because the face […]
I’ve felt deeply touched by Johan Grimonprez’ brilliant and frightening documentary “Shadow World” which is based on Andrew Feinstein’s book with the same name. I want to share it with my readers and here is all about the book and the movie. It was shown in November 2016 by Swedish Television with Swedish text but is due to be taken down a couple […]
October 26, 2016 Yet another example of how tension build up in this New Cold War situation – instead of doing what we did during the first Cold War: trying confidence-building measures. Today too BBC announced that the US will deploy – permanently – 300 US soldiers to norther Norway, a break with Norway’s policies since it became a NATO member. And Reuters brought the news that NATO will deploy thousands of new soldiers in the Baltic countries and in Poland and, next year, planes to Romania – on top of the reinforcements already made. The above short interview contains comments on these dangerous steps too.
Hillary Rodham Clinton was nominated last night by the Democratic Party as its candidate for the U.S. Presidency. She may well win on November 8. What a tragedy for Western democracy that the leader of what is still called the free, democratic world cannot produce better candidates than Trump and Clinton through a disgustingly commercialized and corrupt political process where […]
Here is my take on the July 15 coup in Turkey – why it happened the way it did and what is the least unlikely hypothesis – followed by some examples of regional and international consequences this coup is bound to have. And it ends: NATO comes across as a very tired alliance that should have been closed down or re-invented itself 25 years ago when its raison d’etre – the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact – disappeared. (That was always false because the Warsaw Pact was created 6 years after NATO had been established). And, then, now this coup too – and rapid decent into instability, extreme authoritarianism, chaos and possible violence or civil war in Turkey. One may wonder what the Western press and politicians would have made of such purges had they happened in Russia or Iran? Now we hear mainly vague ’worries’ or full endorsements of a dictator. Self-censorship because of Turkey’s NATO status, or what? Why? One crack in the Empire after the other. Indeed, we are living in interesting – and dangerous – times.
22. juli 2016, publiceret i Ræson NATO er en gennemtræt alliance. Og den konfliktfyldte fremtid for den store allierede Tyrkiet øger problemerne både for NATO og EU, når det gælder flygtningene og krigen mod IS. Kommentar af Jan Øberg Kuppet i Tyrkiet er noget af en gåde, en begivenhed fuld af paradokser. Det vil have enorm indflydelse på mange ting. Var det bare en gruppe amatører i det tyrkiske militær, der troede at de vidste hvordan man laver et kup? Var hjernen bag kupforsøget den 75-årige Gülen, i eksil i Pennsylvania, der som Erdogan hævder er terrorist med mange følgere i Tyrkiet? Var det måske USA? State Department og CIA, der var blevet trætte af Erdogans politik i forhold til ISIS og Rusland? Der er mange mere eller mindre sandsynlige og konspiratoriske hypoteser. Selv hælder jeg – uden mindste ekspertise eller adgang til efterretningsinformation – til den teori at det hele var iscenesat af Erdogan selv. Det er af flere grunde den mindst usandsynlige hypotese. Hvorfor? 1. I et halvtimelangt interview Erdogan gav Aljazeera er hans egen fremstilling distanceret, usammenhængende og lidet troværdigt for en mand, der efter sigende var objekt for både et kup og et mordkomplot. 2. Kupforsøget var for dilettantisk til at være udført af USA/CIA’. Også mærkeligt at sikkerhedsapparatet ikke har opsnappet kupmagernes planer. 3. Gülen tror jeg ikke på. Selvom han skulle være en ulv i fåreklæder – hans gerninger og skrifter er udpræget moderate og […]
