Jan Oberg February 20, 2026 What a thrill to be interviewed by former British diplomat Ian Proud! Don’t waste a minute: acquaint yourself with him here on his homepage, which he elegantly calls “Proud Diplomat.” Notice also his book, A Misfit In Moscow. Ian is, of course, also on Substack, where he calls himself The Peace Monger, and recently he set up his own PeaceMonger Channel on YouTube. For once, I was … Continue reading 1052 – Ordinary people want peace: Can citizen diplomacy build a safer future for everyone?
I. Fire principper for en ny arktisk vision Arktis fremstilles ofte som en kold arena for rivalisering — et sted, hvor stormagter tester hinandens vilje. Men dette verdensbillede er forældet, fantasiløst og i sidste ende selvdestruktivt. Arktis er ikke et tomrum, der venter på at blive militariseret; det er en levende region, en klimastabilisator og et kulturelt hjemland, hvis fremtid vil forme menneskehedens fremtid. Hvis … Continue reading 1051 – Et nyt perspektiv og en plan for et afmilitariseret Arktis til det fælles bedste – og hvorfor dét er rationelt
I was delighted to be on London-based Anthony Fatseas’s WTFinance Channel on YouTube a couple of days ago. And below a nice little story about Google/YouTube’s surely innocent algorithm… Shortly after Anthony uploaded it and told me he had done so, viewers were met with the black-screen message below . It was never a private video. I mean, he has almost 50,000 subscribers. So what … Continue reading 1047 – How to stop the Trump regime before we militarise ourselves to bankruptcy
Mostly concerning Greenland, Europe’s irreparable crisis, Trump’s MAGAlomanic Empire and world order change and alternatives – only during the first couple of weeks of this year Al Jazeera Arabic. China’s YouTube – Bilibili, Zephyr’s Channel with over 5 million subscribers. RT’s Rick Sanchez “Effect.” RainTV, Holland – exile Russian. Zeitgeist in Sweden. China’s National TV CCTV. Soon Al Mayadeen, South Africa, Hong Kong and… And … Continue reading 1039 – Recent media conversations in the non-Western world
This is the first and second of five TFF-created idea portfolios designed to curb the global reach of the United States and, in both the short and long term, help catalyse a worldwide nonviolent resistance to what many observers describe as the Trump administration’s uniquely confrontational, destructive and world-threatening policies. These portfolios outline what governments and citizens across the world can do through dynamic diplomacy, creative initiatives, … Continue reading 1038 – Resist and Build Alternatives to the Trump Regime Now – Part 1 & 2/5
Antikrigs-Initiativet (AKI) og Internasjonal Kvinneliga for Fred og Frihet, IKFF, i Bergen havde arrangeret en flot daglang konference den 29. november 2025 med temaet “En langtidsplan for fred.” Jeg var meget glad for at være indbudt som foredragsholder sammen med Ingeborg Breines og Jeffrey Sachs. Du kan nu følge hvad der skete dagen igennem og tillige opleve to fremragende musikindslag. ◩ Continue reading 1027 – En langtidsplan for fred: Breines, Sachs og Øberg
Peace will not result from any “peace” plan circulated to date. Neither will it emerge from warfare – as the elites of NATO, EU, Russia, and Ukraine seem to finally recognise after avoidable, unspeakable losses of people, trust and physical, socio-economic destruction. And horse-trading based on military ‘security’ guarantees reveals only peace and conflict illiteracy. TFF is critical of the widespread and severe misuse of the word peace – as … Continue reading 1025 – TFF Portfolio for true peace in Ukraine: UNITE trust, DREAM prosperity and other constructive components.
August 21, 2025 People’s criticism without offering any solutions and their focus on the past and present, but almost never on the future, are the two biggest obstacles to real change. And to making peace… Jan Oberg August 21, 2025 This conversation is not about Endless Militarism. The real title of Pascal Nottaz’ and my conversation is the one on top – “If You Want Peace, … Continue reading 1009 – “If You Want Peace, Be Creative and Focus on The Future.”
In December 2021, I was invited to become a regular contributor of opinion pieces to China Daily. It has more than 52 million clicks online daily and about 40 million followers on social media – according to the latest (2016) data. It serves more than 330 million readers all over the world and is a default choice for people who read about China in English. … Continue reading Analyses, comments and opinion pieces in various Chinese media
February 17, 2025 So happy again to be on a show at Pascal’s Neutrality Studies and meet Ulrike Guérot. I’m advancing the idea – and not for the first time – that humanity, all of us, think far too much about the past and the present – so much so that there is no space and interest in how to define and search for a … Continue reading What to do pro-peace – and with Eutopia thinking
Keynote speech delivered on October 3, 2024, at the Global Changes Centre’s conference in Skopje, Macedonia. Despite the video’s title, this is not mainly about the decline and fall of the United States’ Empire. That will happen without my predictions… Instead, at this truly amazing conference, I present some major points for what I believe will be a much better world – a multipolar or … Continue reading Points for the better – future – world
Panel discussion on CGTN’s Dialogue with Xu Qinduo July 4, 2024 Of course, you have heard nothing about these globally important Five Principles in the Western mainstream press – whereas it will fill you with NATO propaganda around July 9-11, 2024, when the alliance celebrates its 75th Anniversary. TFF’s director, Jan Oberg, was honoured to participate in CGTN’s discussion of them on the same day, … Continue reading Why does the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence stand stronger today?
TFF Associates Lund, Sverige – 17. december 2023 Linket til den engelsk-sprogede udtalelse på TFF’s hjemmeside. Mens den brutale nedslagtning i Gaza udfolder sig i stadig mere forfærdende omfang, føler vi, som en erfaren forskningsstiftelse for fredelig konfliktløsning og fredsskabelse siden 1986, trang til at bidrage med vores analytiske pointer, synspunkter og konstruktive ideer til konfliktløsning. TFF ønsker desuden at stå frem med denne erklæring, … Continue reading TFF – Den Transnationale Stiftelse for Freds- og Fremtidsforsknings udtalelse om folkedrabet i Gaza
A major peace publishing event across cultures: The cover story of the esteemed “China Investment” Magazine’s July 2023 edition. And now also an opinion piece in China’s Global Times: The world’s taxpayers pay US $ 2240 billion annually to their national military defence. That is the highest ever and more than 600 times the regular budget of the United Nations, 3 times the total trade … Continue reading ❗Towards a new peace and security thinking for the multi-polar, cooperative and peaceful world
Get to know a few things you did not know about Jan Oberg. This is extraordinary: Some serious people contact you and say: “We have found that what you do is so interesting that we want to have a long conversation with you – who you are, what you do, how you do it, what motivates you and how you see the world – and … Continue reading Featured Business: A very personal portrait conversation of 1 h & 50 min
The Nobel Committee should include a member of the US or another NATO country – alternatively, it should be transferred to State Department or NATO. That would be more honest than playing these games which repeatedly and blatantly violate Alfred Nobel’s will. Our media ought to be able to read three lines about his intentions, but no research is done to reveal the fraud. It … Continue reading The 2022 NATO Nobel Human Rights Prize – Updated
I recently had the joy and honour to speak with the newly established Perspective South which does stories, narratives and perspectives from developing countries of the Global South and which, interestingly enough, uses Instagram and YouTube as its main platforms. Here is what the interview with me looks like on Instagram. Here are just a couple of minutes of a much longer conversation with J. … Continue reading Why are we moving away from dialogue & diplomacy?
I am happy to inform you about my latest column in China’s leading Global Times – with the title above. Read it here and when you are anyhow there, look around: Many different subjects from the Western media and many different angles from a country we all need to know more about. Not the least now when the pluralism and scope have been reduced ad … Continue reading Ukraine crisis: Time for some peace diplomacy, visions of a better future
Jan Oberg Written on January 7, 2022, as Op-Ed for China Daily * One description of the contemporary world is more accurate and ominous than any other, namely that we live in the nuclear age or the age of nuclearism, i.e. the weapons plus the thinking and power structures that surround these doomsday weapons. In 1946, Albert Einstein stated that “the unleashed power of the … Continue reading Nuclear weapons abolition requires more than the five nuclear-weapon states’ recent joint statement
Humanity faces huge challenges to its survival – climate change, development of a sustainable post-capitalism-development, militarism and nuclear weapons abolition, poverty eradication, democratising democracy, etc. Therefore, the world must protest now at the prospect of a new unilaterally driven anti-China campaign orchestrated by the declining United States and NATO members. No matter what you may think or know about China, there are other responsible ways … Continue reading STOP this Cold War on China !
Greta Thunberg has an impressive following – on Instagram alone, over 11 million. A post in which she just holds her now classical sign “Skolstrejk” can hundreds of thousands of Likes. (I am of course green with envy! 😉 ) On May 5, Greta posted a very important dimension of the problems, a chart from the UNEP that shows that the highest income groups are … Continue reading It’s time leading climate activists address militarism as a major problem
On December 10 – which marks both the Nobel Peace Prize and Human Rights Day – the Transnational Foundation launched a campaign – perhaps unusual for a research outfit think tank rather than a movement. But we feel this is so urgent! Its main thrust is easy to grasp – indeed common sense. We argue that all countries in the world should – ASAP – … Continue reading The Global Conversion Campaign – Statement from The Transnational Foundation
November 23 and 24, 2020, marked an important event in the international academic/university history of peace and conflict research. The reason is that the Faculty of World Studies at Tehran University held a large – online – conference – “International Conference on Peace and Conflict Resolution (ICPCR)”. My colleague and friend there, associate professor Ali Akbar Alikhani, is the dynamic pioneer of this important endeavour … Continue reading Keynote speech for academic peace research in Iran
August 27, 2020 What change toward a New Necessary Normal will have to look like I thought my readers here might be interested in an editorial I wrote recently for one of the leading peace research and policy platforms, Transcend. Below please find parts of the intro and the four solutions I believe we must discuss in relation to the Coronavirus as a security political … Continue reading The Corona as an opportunity: Reboot humanity and change security thinking and policies
We send out TFF PressInfo – alerts about new posts on The Transnational – once or twice a week – or when something urgently important happens in the world. They are in English and, of course, free and you can subscribe to them here or by sending an email to PressInfo@transnational.org Here’s a typical example – a short, pointed text that introduces the links to … Continue reading A typical PressInfo from The Transnational Foundation
17. maj 2020 I dag holder Det Nødvendige Seminarium, DNS, i Tvind sin årlige fred og retfærdigheds-konference. Som et par gange før bad de mig om at indlede en diskussion – i år dog på video. Debatten om forelæsningen fandt sted kl 15 online via Zoom. Takket være Coronaen så kunne det hele ses af mange mange flere end dem der befandt sig på DNS … Continue reading “The New World Rises In The East And…”
3. marts 2020 Hvad vil der ske hvis al ind- og udvandring blev givet fri – worldwide? I posten med den overskrift skrev jeg om den århusianske kunster, Gudrun Steen-Andersens, fascinerende kreative Perpetuum Mobile-projekt tilbage i juli 2019. Det er en video-essay baseret installation hvor hun har bedt en række forskellige eksperter om at reagere på hendes spørgsmål. Alle links og informationer findes dér. Mens … Continue reading What if? Talks on migration. A series of video essays
December 30, 2019 Each and every problem humanity faces is rooted in violence. Why do so many continue believing in violence, the most counter-productive, unintelligent and expensive means of all? Violence invariably makes a problem between conflicting parties deeper and broader and every solution more difficult. It make the original problem ten times bigger. All problems in this world are tied to one thing: Violence … Continue reading A happier, less violent 2020
August 22, 2019 Dr. Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, yesterday spoke at SIPRI – the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. (At the moment of writing nothing comes up on its homepage when searching his name). I was asked by Iran’s PressTV to comment on a couple of selected points made by Zarif – which I gladly did: Continue reading Iran’s foreign minister is right about weapons preventing peace
August 21, 2019 I have long wanted to produce something like a magazine – a daily, diverse drumbeat – that is also easy and fast to curate and edit. Because… I’ve been grappling with this: The world is to rich and diverse: Why are mainstream media so predictable/boring, narrowly focused, uniform – I mean, buy your country’s five largest newspapers one morning and see how … Continue reading TFF’s Transnational Peace Affairs – A new magazine
“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 … Continue reading The future of U.S.-Europe relations
“The Debate” of April 16, 2017 on Iran’s PressTV between Richard Millett and myself is important to me. I think it will be for you too in the sense of clarifying two approaches and positions on Syria. Its focus is on the difference in media coverage of the terrible events in Khan Seykhoun and al-Rashideen but there is much more to it. I’ll keep on … Continue reading Syria – two perspectives illustrated
TFF LiveApril 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! Continue reading The US/NATO confrontation with Russia is dangerous
Here my 6th photo series from Aleppo – hashtag #keepfocusonaleppo.
Lund, Sweden – March 24, 2017
Can the almost total destruction of Eastern Aleppo be used constructively?
Only if we are willing to ask and dialogue about this:
• Why does the world go on investing US$ 2000 billion annually in warfare and US$ 30 in all the UN does – only to create destruction of people, places, past and future?
• How absurd, how meaningless – indeed how far must it go to destroy the West itself – before we learn to conflict intelligently?
•
I’ve see much destruction during my work in conflict zones the last 25 years. But nothingcompares with Aleppo and the destruction of Syria and its people.
Videoinspelning av Jan Öbergs föredrag i Stockholm februari 2017 Inspelningen är uppdelad i två delar: Del 1: Vittnesrapport från Aleppo60 min. Del 2: Debatt och vägar till fred i Syrien45 min. Bakgrund10-14:e december 2016 vistades Jan Öberg i Aleppo. Med sin unika erfarenhet från staden ifrågasätter han den gängse massmediarapporteringen, argumenterar för ett nytt sätt att se på konflikter på och ger förslag till den … Continue reading “Vittnesrapport från Aleppo, en annorlunda konfliktanalys och vägar till fred i Syrien”
TFF PressInfo # 405 Lund, Sweden – February 24, 2017Failed conflict analysis To analyse a conflict is as necessary as the diagnosis for the doctor: You either get to a solution/treatment or you don’t. If the diagnosis is deficient, you don’t. You instead risk killing the patient. And it’s deficient of you stare only at “evil” cells and blame the patient for a life … Continue reading Keep focus on Aleppo and global dimensions of Syria
There are strong reasons to be sceptical; there has been no interest in peaceful solutions to Syria’s problems since the violence broke out in 2011. Hard to see what a trilateral monitoring can do without a UN or similar presence on the ground. What if you monitor a ceasefire violation and can do nothing about it? That said, this is a new constellation with Russia, Iran … Continue reading On the Syria ceasefire talks in Astana
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 of 2017 doesn’t look good or kind to me.
Neither do the next ten or so years.
Beyond that the world will become a better place. If, that is, if we survive and don’t destroy it all.
The thing that has too pass – or pass away – is the United States Empire.
In a few years it will go the way Rome and all the rest plus the Ottoman, British and Soviet empires did. No empire lasts forever.
But before we go for it – a video from Beirut, December 2016:
Some indicators of Empire dissolution
The indicators, the cracks, in the Empire are there for all to see – the Americans and other Westernes will be the last and remain in denial for some time until the discrepancy between the self-image and the reality, the self-delusion, has grown too big. Like East Germany or Russia at in the early 1980s.
The rest of the world, the non-West sees some of these cracks quite clearly:
During the last two weeks I have received almost 800 friend requests on Facebook and about 1000 new followers. It’s overwhelming and warms my heart beyond words.
Many many thanks for your trust and support – and for not only thinking it but taking time to tell it.
I can only assume that it is all because of my visit to Damascus and Aleppo. Literally thousands have thanked me for my short texts and photos from there – and for taking the risk going there.
Lots of people go to difficult places, be they humanitarian workers, journalists, photographers, UN people, other diplomats or civil society organisations. But – regrettably, I would say – it is not often I’ve met other researchers in war zones.
Those of us who go, go because we feel we have a duty, because we are curious and must see for ourselves and because a visit opens doors to people, to the suffering and to natural human solidarity.
Media focus on all those with weapons in their hands – the warlords. I’ve always felt enriched and grateful to all the others one can meet, wonderful people who stand up and stand together, struggle, help their neighbours – and survive the other main type of people present, the murderers who get all the fame.
I’m no hero. Just that you know. Many (more) could do what I do.
But back to the social media boom, I’ve just experienced.
Here a few comments on Erdogan’s recent attack on the West for supplying arms to the Kurds. Funny that Turkey’s president should accuse someone else for weaponizing a conflict. At the same time as Turkey does it and is also involved in two wars outside itself – Iraq and Syria – and one inside against the Kurds. In this short interview I seek to raise … Continue reading Imagine a Middle East with no weapons!
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 … Continue reading NATO-Russia games
Last night I had the opportunity to discuss nuclear weapons with an experienced, high-ranking security analyst who has been both a military, a scholar, an assistant secretary of defence, presidential adviser, a corporate man and now a think tank member, Lawrence J. Korb. We were discussing the issues touched upon in this and this article. I would assume that the debate – facilitated by Iran’s PressTV in … Continue reading U.S. nuclear policies – two world views
