Redaktionen

Dr Henry Kissinger warns that the turbulent relationship between the United States  and China carries the seeds of war.

President Joe Biden describes ties between the two as ”extreme competition”, not conflict. The latest US intelligence report casts China as America’s top national security threat. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says there are three aspects of the relationship with China – adversarial, competitive and cooperative. […]

Limits are also imposed by the unenthusiastic response from countries Washington is wooing for its anti-China alliance.

Even close European allies, with economic equities in ties with China, are reluctant to be drawn into such a coalition. Mr Biden told the Munich conference in April that the US and its allies faced ”long-term strategic competition” with China and needed to stand up to its ”economic abuses and coercion”.

But Europe, much less the rest of the world, does not see it the same way. German Chancellor Angela Merkel says so openly, Japan is reluctant to sanction Beijing and other Asian countries are even less willing to join any contain-China coalition. Whether this reality urges the US towards a conciliatory policy is to be seen. Läs artikel

Europe’s biggest and most complex air and missile exercise gets underway on Saturday (15 May 2021) with ships and aircraft from across NATO defending against a variety of missiles. Exercise “At-Sea-Demo/Formidable Shield” is held primarily at the Hebrides range off Scotland, and also at the Andoya training site off Norway, involving 15 ships and dozens of aircraft from ten NATO nations. […]

Held every two years, Formidable Shield will run until 3 June and is led by Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO on behalf of the US Sixth Fleet. The exercise will involve around 3,300 personnel from Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The Spanish Navy’s frigate ESPS Cristobal Colon is the flagship of the exercise. Läs artikel

The current instability in the Sahel has attracted a heavy international security presence to the region which has taken on a logic of its own. Yet there is a need to reflect on how the international presence and local power dynamics mutually shape each other to gain a more comprehensive understanding of why current efforts to stabilise the situation have fallen short. […]

For European states in particular, contributing troops to larger allies’ initiatives in the region has also become an important political means to show loyalty and commitment. While a collective NATO engagement in the region is unlikely to see the light, given the many bilateral and multilateral operations already underway, NATO members’ support for French initiatives should be interpreted as a means to reinforce solidarity between member states. US, Danish, Estonian and British support to the French-led operation Barkhane in the shape of troops, equipment and logistics is a case in point here. Macron’s call for the Europeanisation of the fight against terrorism in the Sahel has more recently been exemplified by the call for partner nations to support a French-led joint Special Task Force called Takuba in the region. While the new initiative has received a lukewarm response from EU member states, it is another platform for European states to back up France, improve European interoperability and add broader legitimacy to French initiatives in the region.

The less than enthusiastic support for Takuba is likely to, in part, be driven by a reluctance to collaborate with a former colonial power whose presence in the region is contested. Läs artikel

[…] The Biden administration’s inability to set priorities heightens the risks to America. In particular, Washington’s strategic myopia is driving Russia and China together, increasing their diplomatic, economic, and military cooperation to resist U.S. pressure. Given the lengthy border between Russia and China and the inherent jockeying of the two countries for a dominant position in Central Asia, Moscow and Beijing should have more to fear from each other than either would from the United States. It requires extraordinarily clumsy, abrasive behavior on Washington’s part to forfeit that advantage.

Ideally, U.S. policymakers should seek ways to reduce tensions with both powers. At a minimum, Washington needs to make a choice—pursuing a rapprochement with one country in order to focus on effectively waging a strategic rivalry with the other. A sober assessment would indicate that the wiser course would be to repair relations with Russia. Russia’s $1.5 trillion economy ranks eleventh in the world, just ahead of Australia’s $1.48 trillion. Conversely, China’s $16.8 trillion makes that country the world’s second-largest economic power. Those figures mean that Russia is a second-tier economic player, while China is a strong peer competitor that is closing fast on the United States. Moreover, Beijing has assiduously used its financial capabilities to cultivate influence around the world. Läs artikel

The United States claims it wants to safeguard the progress made in the past two decades but it also wants to evade any responsibility toward Afghanistan, as per President Joe Biden’s latest remarks and his decision to withdraw troops from the country. Biden stated that the reason the US and its allies came to Afghanistan could not justify their presence there now. The president ignored the fact that the United States chose to frame the intervention as a liberating mission. Therefore, at such a critical juncture of history, we must ask: Was progress truly made in the past twenty years? And can the post-settlement Afghanistan sustain such progress?

It was imperative to show the Afghan people what democracy could achieve for them and the power they held within this new order, yet the same old story of elites amassing riches and power continued, this time exponentialy. The United States always kept the government of Afghanistan on the hinge of collapse and at the height of dependency lest it forget who was at the helm. Läs artikel

[…] US nuclear-powered submarines have over the last few years increased sailings in the north. Crew change and supply arrangements have until now been arranged in the fjords outside Troms in northern Norway.

On Monday, however, the first docking took place, as the “USS New Mexico” came to Tønsnes municipal harbor some 10 kilometers north of Tromsø city center.

Security is tight. A no-fly zone is established over the port, and access to the harbor area is strictly guarded by the Norwegian Armed Forces. The military guarding of the port will only last for as long as the submarine stays. Normally, the port in Tønsnes serves civilian vessels in Tromsø, including the oil and gas supply activities offshore northern Norway. Läs artikel

Peter Ford er tidligere britisk ambassadør til Syria (2003-2006) og har offentlig fordømt Storbritannias og andre NATO-medskyldiges terrorkrig ved stedfortreder for å skape et regimeskifte i den arabiske nasjonen. Han er en erfaren diplomat med grad i arabiskstudier fra universitetet i Oxford og var diplomat i flere land i Midtøsten. […]

Spørsmål: Hvordan tolker du avgjørelsen i forrige uke fra Organisasjonen for forbud mot kjemiske våpen (OPCW) om å ta fra Syria dets medlemsrettigheter basert på påstander om at den syriske regjeringens militære styrker gjentatte ganger har brukt kjemiske våpen under den ti år lange krigen? Det synes som om at OPCW har blitt ekstremt politisert av USA og deres vestlige allierte. Ser du mye press mot medlemslandene av vestlige makter for å få til OPCW-sanksjoner mot Syria?

Peter Ford: Vestmaktene er som hunder med et gammelt bein når det gjelder den angivelige bruken av kjemiske våpen i Syria. Det er ikke noe kjøtt på beinet, men de fortsetter å gnage ivei. Hvorfor? Fordi den gjentatte påstanden om at “Assad gasser sitt eget folk” har blitt en hjørnestein i hele den vestlige propagandafortellingen om Syria. Uten den ville det være vanskeligere å rettferdiggjøre den grusomme økonomiske krigen mot Syria, i stor grad ved innføring av sanksjoner. Og siden den militære innsatsen for regimeskifte mislyktes, er økonomisk krigføring nå det siste håpet de vestlige maktene har for å destabilisere Syria tilstrekkelig til å velte regjeringen. For at denne strategien skal fungere, er Vestmaktene meget beredt til å undergrave OPCWs troverdighet ved å misbruke sine evner til å manipulere organisasjonen når det gjelder Syra. Läs artikel

[…] Present-day U.S. practice combines elements of a disastrous Bush Doctrine and a deeply flawed Obama Doctrine. The former, conceived in the wake of 9/11, asserts a prerogative of waging preventive war to overthrow regimes that the United States deems intolerable. The latter finds expression in a campaign of assassinations planned, authorized, and executed in secret.