Länkar

The Afghan peace process should continue to be “Afghan-led, Afghan-owned” and the international community should help Afghanistan achieve security and stability as soon as possible, said Ambassador Zhang Jun, China’s permanent representative to the United Nations, at the Security Council teleconferencing in connection with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) on March 23.

Regarding the current security situation in Afghanistan, the Chinese ambassador said that the peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan is at a critical juncture. Achieving lasting peace in Afghanistan through political means is the only right way and the common goal of all parties. China has always maintained that the Afghan peace and reconciliation process must adhere to the Afghan-led and Afghan-owned principle. The future of Afghanistan should be in the hands of the Afghan people themselves. The country’s future political arrangement should be decided independently by the Afghans, and no solutions should be imposed from the outside. […]

Consideration should be given to the impact of the withdrawal of foreign forces on peace and security in Afghanistan. Foreign troops cannot come and leave as they wish. Withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan should be orderly and responsible for avoiding leaving a security vacuum that will undermine the security and stability of Afghanistan and other countries in the region, said Zhang. Läs artikel

Repeating the tired old anti-China rhetoric of the Asian giant threatening Western values, stealing US jobs and technology, committing “genocide” against its ethnic minorities, reneging on its commitment to the “one country, two systems” stance in Hong Kong, threatening Taiwan and a host of other “evil” deeds, the newly installed US administration held an inaugural head-of-state meeting with its Quadrilateral Security Dialogue partners – Australia, India and Japan – a couple of weeks ago.

Many analysts interpreted the meeting as the first step toward forming an “Asian NATO,” a formal military alliance to counter China’s growing influence in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.

The four members of the Quad are the US, Japan, India and Australia.

Japan has no economic or geopolitical reasons to confront China. On the contrary, it actually needs China to pull its economy out of the decades-long deflationary spiral now made worse by the Covid-19 pandemic and an aging and declining population. Indeed, it is the Chinese market, serving both as the maker and consumer of Japanese products, that has been largely responsible for preventing Japan from sinking deeper into the hole.

Indeed, it could be argued that the US was largely responsible for Japan’s economic and geopolitical malaise. Forcing Japan to sign the Plaza Accord in 1985, under which the country had to appreciate the yen and agree to restrict exports, caused the Japanese economy to decline, because it was hugely export-dependent.

Japan’s economic demise accelerated, in part, because of crippling US tariffs of up to 100% and flawed financial policies that allowed banks to make risky real-estate loans. Läs artikel

[…] Oberstløynant Tormod Heier, som er professor ved Forsvarets høgskole, sier at konsekvensene av at Norge ikke prioriterer eget forsvar, og ikke holder orden i eget bo, er at nasjonale forsvarsoppgaver outsources.

Han mener at NATO kommer med oppsiktsvekkende kritikk av Norge.

– Det er oppsiktsvekkende at NATO kritiserer manglende samsvar mellom norske og allierte forsvarsprioriteringer. Særlig fordi norske myndigheter har valgt å knytte seg tettere opp til NATO og det allierte forsvarssamarbeidet enn tidligere år. Utfordringene er spesielt store på landsiden, men også på sjøsiden der Norge må ta et særlig ansvar som frontlinjestat overfor Russland på nordflanken, sier Heier til TV 2. […]

– Vekten legges på såkalte «strategiske kapasiteter» fremfor et bredere og mer utholdende forsvar som kan vise vedvarende synlighet og tilstedeværelse over tid. Dette kan bety at Norge fortsatt må ha hjelp fra allierte styrker i fredstid, som fra baser og støttepunkter på norsk territorium, må ut og gjøre jobben i de norsk-russiske grenseområdene, forklarer Heier.

Han tror at dette naturlig nok vil medføre russiske mottiltak.

– Ikke fordi Russland frykter Norge, men fordi Russland frykter at Norge blir brukt som springbrett for operasjoner der USA ønsker å komme tettere på de strategiske undervannsbåtene på Kolahalvøya, fortsetter Heier. Läs artikel

U.S. refiners have turned to Russian oil and petroleum products to fill the gap that sanctioned Venezuelan crude and drastically reduced OPEC shipments have left in U.S. imports, despite the energy standoff between the United States and Russia.

In 2020, the U.S. imported more oil and refined products from Russian than from Saudi Arabia, with Russia’s share of American oil exports at a record-high 7 percent, Bloomberg News has estimated based on customs and EIA data.

Russia mostly displaced the market previously held by Venezuela—now unable to sell its heavy oil to U.S. refiners because of the American sanctions on Nicolas Maduro’s regime.Läs artikel

Serbia marked on Wednesday 22 years since NATO’s 11-week-long bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, in which, according to unofficial sources, around 2,500 civilians and 1,000 soldiers and police were killed.

The NATO campaign came in the wake of the failed negotiations on the resolution of the Kosovo crisis in Rambouillet and Paris, France, in February and March 1999.

The bombing of Yugoslavia ended on June 10, 1999, with the adoption of Resolution 1244 by the UN Security Council, after which the Serbian military and police began withdrawing from Kosovo and international military troops began deploying there.

The 78 days of bombing left the country’s civilian and military infrastructure and economy severely damaged. According to the UNHCR, around 230,000 Serbs and Roma left Kosovo following the arrival of the international forces, while some 800,000 ethnic Albanian refugees returned.

Serbian parliament speaker Ivica Dačić said on Wednesday the resolution that ended the bombing “had to be accepted,” but “whatever was good about it has never been implemented.”

Daćić, the leader of the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia, the party of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević, said Serbia “defended its territorial integrity” in 1999 while Albanians “orchestrated a humanitarian catastrophe to serve their own political agenda, and succeeded in doing so.”

He said Serbia could not accept the terms offered to it during internationally mediated negotiations with Albanians in Kosovo, explaining that “even today, no one would accept those terms,” which would enable Kosovo Albanians to hold an independence referendum after two years. Läs artikel

– Vi har fortalt dem igjen at Tyrkia allerede har kjøpt S-400, og at saken er ferdig, sa Cavusoglu etter et møte i Brussel i forbindelse med Natos utenriksministermøte. Han la imidlertid til at han hadde fortalt Blinken at Tyrkia vil jobbe med å sikre at framtidige forsvarskjøp kommer fra USA eller andre Nato-allierte.

De to Nato-landene har kranglet om flere temaer den siste tiden, men uenigheten har vært særlig stor i forbindelse med at Tyrkia kjøpte det russiske luftvernsystemet S-400. Läs artikel

Berlin calls on the EU to modify its policy toward Russia with the objective of cooperating in the use of hydrogen power.

In the run-up to next week’s EU summit, Berlin is calling on the EU to modify its policy toward Russia. This was indicated in a report on an internal meeting in Brussels and a ”non-paper” from Germany circulating within the EU. […]

Saathoff not only pointed out that, alongside its natural gas deposits, Russia also has excellent conditions for the use of wind energy. ”The technical capacity for onshore wind energy is at least a thousand times greater than the wind energy currently installed in Germany.” Berlin’s government coordinator also recalled that – unlike the case of Morocco – ”the delivery infrastructure already exists” for supplying Germany with hydrogen. ”The pipelines bringing us oil and gas, today, can be converted to bring hydrogen.” Therefore, the German-Russian plans for cooperation in the field of hydrogen correspond to the German government’s insistence on the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Recently, the German Foreign Ministry’s State Secretary, Miguel Berger, insisted in his virtual address to the German Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations’ annual kick-off event that ”we have no interest in this [Nord Stream 2] project becoming a failed investment.” He said that while we are willing to negotiate certain concessions with the Biden administration, it is clear that ”the finalization of this pipeline must be the conclusion of this dialog.” Previously, Foreign Minister Maas had made the same commitment. Läs artikel

Det förändrade säkerhetspolitiska läget i Östersjön har fått den ryska Östersjömarinen att förstärka stridskrafterna i Kaliningrad. Det visar en rapport från FOI.
– De senaste fem åren är det primärt landbaserade förmågor som Östersjömarinen har moderniserat. Det är anmärkningsvärt att uppgiften att försvara Kaliningrad är så stor, säger Jonas Kjellén, forskare på FOI som skrivit rapporten The Russian Baltic Fleet.

Efter Sovjetunionens fall förändrades de geografiska förutsättningarna för Östersjömarinen. Baltikum blev självständigt och Kaliningrad, inbäddat mellan Polen och Baltikum, fick ett mer utsatt läge. År 2012 började Ryssland ombeväpna luftförsvaret runt Kaliningrad med bland annat luftvärnsrobotsystemet S-400.

– Ur ett ryskt perspektiv är det från luften det kvalificerade hotet från väst kommer och luftförsvaret av Kaliningrad har blivit prioriterat. Ryssland är mer räddhågset över sin position i Östersjön idag jämfört med under Sovjet-åren. Kan man inte försvara Kaliningrad så kan man heller inte försvara baseringen av fartygen, säger Jonas Kjellén. Läs artikel

Libyens nyligen utsedda interimsregering krävde på torsdagen att samtliga utländska stridande och inhyrda legoknektar ska lämna landet ”omedelbart”.

Kravet framfördes under ett besök av toppdiplomater från Frankrike, Tyskland och Italien.

Strider, på flera olika fronter, har pågått i praktiken sedan diktatorn Muammar Gaddafi störtades och dödades 2011 i ett uppror som hade stöd av försvarsalliansen Nato. För närvarande beräknar bedömare att det finns omkring 20 000 utländska stridande i Libyen. Dessa utgör ett direkt hot mot det val som är beräknat att hållas den 24 december, enligt Libyens nytillträdde utrikesminister Najla al-Mangoush.

En fransk diplomat uppgav för nyhetsbyrån AFP att en syrisk militant grupp stödd av Turkiet har börjat att lämna libyskt territorium. Läs artikel

Sveriges försvarsminister Peter Hultqvist och riksdagsledamot Erkki Tuomioja diskuterade säkerhets- och försvarspolitik i ett webbinarium på Nordens dag den 23 mars som arrangerades av Arena Idé, ABF Stockholm, Olof Palmes Internationella Center och ABL. Historikern Anders Björnsson fungerade som samtalsledare

[…] Tuomioja betonade att det råder bred nationell konsensus i Finland om försvars- och säkerhetspolitiken. Värnpliktsarmén och möjligheten att mobilisera en reserv är viktiga delar i Finlands strategi. Öppenheten om försvarsmaktens internationella övningar är ytterligare en viktig del av hur Finland agerar.

– Vår politik är en aktiv stabiliseringspolitik som syftar till att förebygga militära hot, berättade Tuomioja. Läs referatet