1 February 2014 — Strategic Culture Foundation
Europeans about Ukraine: Wide Range of Opinions
01.02.2014 | 11:46 | Natalia MEDEN
The dramatic events in Ukraine cause sorrow and pain. The concessions on the part of the government have not become a turning point to move the situation away from crisis. Could the spiral of violence unleashed by rebels be stopped and what is the price for ending the escalation?.. Eckhard Cordes, President, Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations, clearly formulated the position of German business on Ukraine. He stressed that Russia’s factor is to be taken into account while assessing the Ukrainian situation. Eckhard Cordes is calling for three-party (Ukraine – the European Union – Russia) talks… No matter the wide range of opinions among German politicians, this realistic look gives a hope that Berlin will keep away from confrontational approach on Ukraine…
Geneva-2: Look from Tehran
01.02.2014 | 00:00 | Nikolai BOBKIN
As is known, the United States’ policy on Iranian nuclear program has come under harsh criticism on the part of Saudi Arabia and Israel. It was harsh enough to make John Kerry say on NBC’s «Meet the Press», «We are not blind, and I don’t think we’re stupid. I think we have a pretty strong sense of how to measure whether or not we are acting in the interests of our country and of the globe». Kerry assures that the most serious, capable and competent people in the US government with great experience of dealing with Iran tackle the nuclear program issue. Is it so? By the end of the summer in 2013 the US experts on Iran pushed the United States to the brink of unleashing a perilous military adventure against Syria…
Ukraine is a Neo-Con Testing Ground for Russia
31.01.2014 | 14:14 | Wayne MADSEN
Make no mistake about it, Ukraine’s troubles, engineered from outside of the country… is a template for what the West has planned for Russia… Just as U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul has thrown open the doors of the U.S. embassy in Moscow to political provocateurs opposed to the government, the U.S. ambassador in Kyiv, Geoffrey Pyatt, has done the same with so-called Maidan protesters. Pyatt, who is accredited to the government of Ukraine, promised his full support to the protesters, a hostile act, which in the past would have had any American ambassador expelled from any country to which he or she were accredited for gross interference in the domestic affairs of the host nation…
Obama’s Feisty Proclamations are Subliminal
31.01.2014 | 00:00 | Melkulangara BHADRAKUMAR
The US President Barack Obama’s one hour, sixteen-minute State of the Union address in Washington on Tuesday was largely devoted to illustrating a single point, namely, that 2014 can be a «breakthrough year» for the American economy… Unsurprisingly, foreign policy issues took a back seat. Although Obama pointedly touched on the Iran problem and the Middle East, US’s ‘rebalance’ to Asia and the turmoil in Ukraine, the details were skimpy… A question arises: Is the Obama administration considering a revving up of the support for the rebel fighters in Syria following the impasse at Geneva 2?..
The International Drug Trade and Money Laundering
31.01.2014 | 00:00 | Valentin KATASONOV
The Fight between David and Goliath: Edward Snowden vs. the White House
30.01.2014 | 00:00 | Dmitry MININ
Presidential Policy Directive No. 28 (PPD-28), «Signals Intelligence Activities» (1, signed by President Obama after Snowden’s revelations, has only glossed over U.S. espionage activities. In essence the new directive does not change anything. This is especially noticeable after the appearance several days ago of a report from the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent U.S. government agency. The report, which examines the issue from both sides and is addressed to the President, among others, says that the collection and storage of telephone data by the U.S. National Security Agency only help in the war on terrorism to a small degree, are illegal and should be ended. It seems that the rules for protecting human rights which Washington loves so much to talk about were not written for it…
Manmohan Singh’s Foreign Policy Legacy
30.01.2014 | 00:00 | Melkulangara BHADRAKUMAR
With the visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which ended last Sunday, the curtain is coming down on Part II of the Manmohan Singh era (2009-2014) in India’s foreign policy… There can be no two opinions that Manmohan Singh has been an unabashedly «pro-American» prime minister who chose to view Indian foreign-policy directions at any given time on any conceivable issue paramountly through the prism of the country’s relations with the United States… Today the Manmohan Singh government has entered the «lame duck» period. An era is ending in Indian politics and another is struggling to be born…
Speaker Boehner Gets Personal: Insults as Sign of Weakness
29.01.2014 | 00:00 | Andrei AKULOV
US House Speaker John Boehner called the President of the Russian Federation «a thug» and urged the Obama administration to do more to safeguard the interests of the U.S. and its allies in Europe… The comment was an obvious attempt to influence the administration’s foreign policy made just five days before President Obama’s annual State of the Union address from the House chamber on January 28… Getting personal is a sigh of weakness. Normally it is done by people who face problems with watching their manners. They lose control lacking arguments. The US role in the world is gradually waning. Russia is an important global player. That the way it is and there is no way to escape from obvious facts, calling names solves no problems and brings no gains. It won’t help politicians in the countries paying a high price for committed mistakes…
Afghanistan: A Test for Durability
29.01.2014 | 00:00 | Nikolai BOBKIN
The presidential elections which are to be held in Afghanistan in April 2014 will be a serious test for Kabul and the states which support the current Afghan regime. 80% of Afghans believe that it is simply dangerous to go to the polls… The Afghan government and the Taliban remain irreconcilable. The main demand of the Taliban is the complete liberation of Afghanistan from foreign occupation. Taliban leaders do not even see Karzai’s government as a party to be negotiated with and have already announced that they will not recognize the results of the presidential elections and will continue to bear arms against Afghan and international forces…
Transcarpathia under Threat of Imminent Invasion
28.01.2014 | 00:00 | Vladislav GULEVICH
According to Romanian media reports, Bucharest will have to guarantee security for Romanians in Bukovina and Odessa. If the situation in Ukraine gets worse, it will have to deploy troops in the areas of their residence. The Transcarpathian Hungarians also raise the issue of their security. It is reported that Budapest keeps the option of bringing troops into the Transcarpathian region (Zakarpatie) on the table… Carpathian Rusyns will not stay idle, they have always remembered their Russian roots, and they see their chance of survival only as part of common Russian civilization. If Hungarians swing over to Budapest, then the majority of Rusyns will move to Moscow and Kiev hoping for an alliance. There are already voices raised among them saying Transcarpathia choose Kiev in case West Ukraine gets separated…
The Resurgence of European Separatism
28.01.2014 | 00:00 | Vladimir NESTEROV
A 1.5-million-person demonstration in Barcelona in support of Catalonian independence and the fact that the Catalonian parliament is controlled by two separatist parties are the most noticeable signs of the new blossoming of separatism in Europe. Earlier, in October 2012, British Prime Minister Cameron and First Minister of Scotland Salmond signed an agreement on the holding of a referendum in 2014 on the independence of this part of the United Kingdom. At the same time, the Flemish separatists from the New Flemish Alliance won the local elections in Belgium. Nationalists have also come to power in the Basque Country in Spain. The examples cited are only the tip of the enormous separatist iceberg of Europe…
US Marine Corps Reshapes to Meet Contingencies
27.01.2014 | 00:00 | Andrei AKULOV
The Marine Corps is developing new units across the globe as it shifts from fighting in Afghanistan to responding to a variety of crises and hostilities in other regions of the globe. The United States has asked Spain for permission to expand its 500-strong Marine rapid-reaction force for Africa by at least 50 percent and extend its presence at the Morón de la Frontera base by one more year, Spanish government sources said… In total 1,100 marines plus their families will be installed in the Cádiz base. The main part of the mission is to patrol the Eastern Mediterranean and to intercept, with the help of radars in Turkey and Poland, a hypothetical attack from countries like Iran…
Europe Indecisive
27.01.2014 | 00:00 | Natalia MEDEN
…There have been attempts to get the European Union closer to the United States before as Washington started to ponder the creation of economic NATO. Americans want Europe subjugated to prolong the age of US global hegemony. Does it meet the European interests, especially Germany? Today German economists do their best to purposefully avoid the term «economic NATO»: they would not like other foreign partners, first of all China, be under the impression that the Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement will damage their trade links with Germany. As Edward Snowden’s disclosures showed, Germany – China trade ties are an object of special importance for United States special services intelligence gathering efforts…
Ukraine: Destabilization Know-How Put into Practice
26.01.2014 | 00:18 | Nikolai MALISHEVSKI
The sudden intensification of Ukraine’s extremists appears to be spurred by Americans who cannot lose time and wait till the date of presidential election in 2015. The main task is to prevent the rapprochement between Ukraine and Russia, no way should they let Kiev sway to the East under the influence of what they call the «Putin’s economic expansion» meaning the December 17 bilateral Russia-Ukraine accords. Washington and Brussels are in haste because the choice for Ukraine’s closer cooperation with the Customs Union will automatically swing public support to Viktor Yanukovych making him the winner in 2015…
Turkmen Gas and the Pipeline Politics
26.01.2014 | 00:00 | Nikolai BOBKIN
…American taxpayers, who last year were paying USD 12 million a day for their troops to stay in Afghanistan, are now going to have to put their hands in their pockets again for the TAPI project, the cost of which is estimated to be USD 8 billion. The economic inviability of the TAPI project for the Americans has become particularly evident at the present time. China has made this project useless to the Americans, having become the main decision maker regarding Central Asia’s gas resources. The expropriation of Washington’s plans came about as a result of a contract between the state gas company Turkmengaz and the Chinese company CNPC for the sale of 25 billion cubic metres of gas per year…
Republishing is welcomed with reference to Strategic Culture Foundation on-line journal www.strategic-culture.org.
The New Dark Age 