Majority of Finns would not like Finland to join NATO even after a presidential recommendation to support such a move, a fresh poll commissioned by news agency Lannen Media said on Sunday.

The poll indicated that an application to join NATO would attain a 35 percent support, if backed publicly by the president. A half of the nation remains opposed. Finnish supporters of a would-be NATO membership have said earlier the backing of joining NATO would be essentially higher, if the president would endorse it. […]

President Sauli Niinisto has said NATO is ”an open possibility,” but would need a referendum.

Leading Finnish politicians have said they trust that Sweden would not go alone and apply for NATO membership. Läs artikel

Den påstått humanitära interventionen i Libyen 2011 har varken lett till fred eller demokrati, utan till blodigt kaos. Det erkänns i dag av de flesta, utom de västmakter som övertolkade ett FN-beslut om flygförbudszon, som klartecken till militärattack (som även Sverige medverkade i).

En som nu offentligt redovisar sin ”ågren” är folkrättsjuristen Richard Falk som i egenskap av medlem i den Oberoende Internationella kommissionen om Kosovo, påverkad av massakern i Srebrenica, myntade begreppet ”olagligt, men legitimt”, ett begrepp som öppnat slussarna för militärinterventioner utan folkrättsligt stöd. Nu gör han avbön och erkänner att han blir sömnlös när han inser att han skapat ett ”Sesam öppna dig för brott mot FN-stadgan” (Third World Resurgence nr 328).

Inrikespolitiskt brukar det anses självklart att ingen någonsin får ta lagen i egna händer, hur behjärtansvärt ändamålet än kan tyckas. FN-stadgan bygger på den rättsprincipen. Men internationellt tas lagen allt oftare i egna händer (Syrien, Ukraina), reellt av maktpolitiska skäl, men rättfärdigat av Falks ödesdigra formulering.

Fler än upphovsmannen borde drabbas av eftertankens kranka blekhet, om inte drömmen om en folkrättsbaserad värld skall kollapsa helt. Läs artikel

En tredjedel av finländarna stöder ett medlemskap i Nato, om president Sauli Niinistö skulle föreslå ett sådant.

Iran fired a short range anti-ship missile last week as part of the short notice naval exercise it held near the Strait of Hormuz, according to two U.S. officials. Earlier this week the top U.S. commander in the Middle East said the Iranian naval exercise was intended to send a message to the U.S. about the resumption of economic sanctions against Iran.

According to a U.S. official an anti-ship version of the Fatah-110 short range ballistic missile was fired from land in the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz and landed in the waters of the Persian Gulf. The Fatah-110 missile has a maximum range of 125 miles. […]

About 75 small boats participated in the exercise practicing ”swarm” maneuvers that could be carried out against commercial or military warships transiting through the Strait of Hormuz. Between 20 to 30 percent of the world’s oil transits out of the Persian Gulf through the vital waterway. Läs artikel

Enligt en färsk opinionsundersökning vill 55,6 procent av tyskarna ha tillbaka värnplikten.

– Utgångspunkten är att säkerhetsläget har förändrats sedan 2011, då värnplikten pausades. Därför behövs en plikt igen. Hur den sedan utformas är vad vi nu bör diskutera, säger kristdemokraten Patrik Sensberg.[…]

Bland gräsrötterna finns ett starkt önskemål om att återgå till värnplikten, något som en färsk opinionsundersökning bekräftar, 55,6 procent av tyskarna vill ha tillbaka värnplikten. […]

Förslaget går ut på att man eventuellt, enligt svensk modell, ger försvaret en möjlighet att genom mönstring välja ut lämpliga kandidater till regelrätt militärtjänst. För att det inte ska bli orättvist skulle resten av årskullen sedan uppfylla sin tjänsteplikt i vård och omsorg och därmed lösa personalproblem som finns där. Kritikerna menar att det upplägget inte är möjligt, eftersom den tyska grundlagen förbjuder tvångsarbete, med ett undantag och det är just militärtjänstgöring.

Försvaret vill inte ha tillbaka en värnpliktsarmé. Man har precis avvecklat den utbildningsorganisation som behövs för en sådan och man är orolig att en återuppbyggnad skulle sluka alla pengar som nu är tänkta till mycket nödvändiga investeringar i materiel. Läs artikel

U.S. sanctions against Iran that have an exterritorial effect violate international law and Germany expects Washington to consider European interests when coming up with such sanctions, spokespeople for the German government said on Wednesday.

The European Union vowed on Monday to counter U.S. President Donald Trump’s renewal of sanctions on Iran. Washington’s so-called ”snapback” sanctions reach beyond U.S. borders. Läs artikel

A NATO fighter guarding its nervous northern states accidentally fired a secret air-to-air missile near the border with Russia yesterday. NATO still can’t find it.

The Spanish Eurofighter Typhoon was policing the border of Estonia to deter Russian incursions and keeping an eye on Russia’s activity over the Baltic Sea.

While taking part in a routine training maneuver over the southeast Estonian town of Pangodi, the Typhoon accidentally triggered an AMRAAM — an advanced medium range air-to-air missile. It was engaged in a mock dogfight involving another Spanish Typhoon and two French Mirage 2000 fighters. It was an area 60 miles from Russia’s border. But the missile is capable of flying between 45 and 75 miles. It carries an explosive warhead. Läs artikel

For the first time in the history of the UN, the United States – a permanent member of the security council with veto power – is engaging in penalising nations across the entire world; not for violating a security council resolution, rather, for abiding by it. The resolution in question, UN security council resolution 2231, was authored (including by the US itself) and passed unanimously by the council.[…]

The US withdrawal from JCPOA and reimposition of its sanctions is a serious breach of its legal obligations under the UN charter, which entails its international responsibility. The international community must act in the face of this international intimidation and affront towards the international legal order. […]

The spectre of extreme unilateralism, terminal intransigence and the unwinding of vital global institutions is a threat not just to my country, but to every nation. It may be tempting to hope for the proverbial passing of the storm, but at this point in time that is clearly no longer a sustainable approach. It is our true belief that each and every member of the community of nations has a duty to stand up to lawlessness and contempt for the rule of law in international relations; in particular, by refusing to give effect to irresponsible acts and by holding any law-breaking party accountable for the consequences of its acts. Läs artikel

[…] I do believe that NATO needs to think of the Black Sea as a security region, not as a body of water surrounded by different countries. We need to think about the Black Sea in a regional way recognizing that the Russians are using the Black Sea as a power projection base into the Middle East and Mediterranean. We must recognize that we have allies and very close friends (Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova) that are constantly under pressure from Russia. The Alliance needs to encourage collaboration between the member countries and the partner countries to share intelligence, to do more maritime exercises, to improve missile defense in the region and more exercises where we move across the Black Sea into Georgia or Turkey to make sure we have freedom of movement in the Black Sea and on the ground around it. The Black Sea region is just as important as the Baltic Sea. We’ve done a lot in the Baltic region. I believe the Black Sea region is going to be the key area where Russia will challenge the Alliance over the next 10-15 years and we’ve got to ensure credible deterrence there as well as provide support for our partners in the region.[…]

The US troops in Germany are not there to protect Germany…they are part of our contribution to the overall collective security and it is also because Germany gives us an access and a power projection platform to do what we must do in Africa and Middle East. Americans need to understand that much of what we get from Germany and Italy doesn’t necessarily fit neatly inside the 2%. Allies should do more, without a doubt – but at the end of the day, firm and positive US leadership is essential to help insure cohesion. Läs artikel

[…] Unequal burden-sharing is the product of a dilemma wherein the United States must choose between keeping its partners dependent and susceptible to U.S. influence and encouraging them to become stronger but at the cost of becoming more autonomous.

Like Trump, previous presidents at times viewed the cost of defending allies as a burden. Even Dwight Eisenhower, in the earliest years of the transatlantic alliance and at the height of the Cold War, remarked that if U.S. forces remained in Europe for longer than ten years, “then this whole project will have failed.” As part of his “New Look” policy in an effort to cut costs after the Korean War, Eisenhower sought to reduce America’s military presence abroad and rein in defense spending. Eisenhower preferred to rely on nuclear weapons to deter Communist expansion, calculating that they offered more “bang for the buck.” Part of this entailed a tacit or even explicit acceptance of allied nuclear proliferation. Indeed, under Eisenhower many NATO allies — including West Germany — had de facto control over U.S. nuclear weapons stationed on their territory. Läs artikel