Peace and War: Whatever happened to peace? Arms, oil and war by proxy- by Jonas Ecke

When will the killing stop to finance weapons industry

The end of the Cold War was one of the few historical moments in which people around the world looked forward to a future that promised to be more just and peaceful for everyone. The Berlin Wall was finally torn down, following years of tireless civil society activism in one of the world’s few peaceful revolutions. Liberal democratic systems seemed to be spreading everywhere, compelling Francis Fukuyama to craft the (nowadays often-scorned) argument that “The End of History” – and consequently the cessation of constant conflict – had finally arrived with the falling of the Iron Curtain.

The promising world 'peace dividend', a term initially coined by US president George H.W. Bush and UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher, was on everyone’s lips. Hope was in the air. The Soviet Union and United States vowed to work together to further cut down on a nuclear arsenal that could have blown up the world many times over. And they also seemed to be hard at work getting rid of another major – and often underestimated – impediment to peace: proxy wars, the type of war waged in the developing world for most of the Cold War, from Latin America to Central Asia to the Horn of Africa. 

These were wars in which the Soviet Union and US did not directly fight, but paid and favored local fighters, often through highly classified operations and byzantine financial networks that have inspired generations of spy novelists. Before the Cold War, colonial regimes paid local proxies to advance their agendas and “divide and conquer”.

As the Cold War finally came to a close, it was hoped and anticipated that weapon donations would be replaced by UN Peacekeepers and a new generation of NGO activists. Indeed, the new crop of peacemakers seemed to be more liberated. Free from the stifling imperatives of geopolitics, they could implement deals that had previously died prematurely at the conference tables of diplomats, anxious over the advances of an enemy superpower. The tit-for-tat strategies that would reap destruction seemed to be a thing of yesteryear.  

The “War to End all Wars” is a coinage that stems from the First World War. In the global public imagination: the Cold War would be the real “War to End all Wars.” Following its conclusion, an era of enduring peace was within immediate reach. Or so it seemed.

Fast forward 28 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and few such promised realities seem to have materialized. On the contrary, we have entered a new era of proxy wars.

Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria,Yemen, Somalia etc.

To bring these complex wars to a halt, we have to be very precise about what keeps them going. Saudi Arabia and Iran, probably the two main players in proxy wars in a destabilizaion of the Middle Eastern region that is steadily increasing, fund proxy forces to bolster their versions of Islam—Sunni and Shiite Islam, respectively. It is safe to assume that from the perspective of Riyadh and Teheran, furthering sectarian interests, inextricably intertwined with access to resources and geopolitical influence, are of more importance than peace in the region.

But it is not only sectarian strife—often highlighted in the western media—but also global unregulated capitalism that pours kerosene on a Middle East that is already in flames. 

Western weapon companies see the newly emerging proxy wars as momentous opportunities for increased revenues. During a 2015 conference of Lockheed Martin in Palm Beach Florida, its executive vice president Bruce Tanner predicted “indirect benefits” from the war in Syria. Similarly, as the Intercept reports, Raytheon chief executive Tom Kennedy spoke of “a significant uptick” for “defense solutions across the board in multiple countries in the Middle East.” Referring to Saudi Arabia, Kennedy elaborates, “It’s all the turmoil they have going on, whether the turmoil is occurring in Yemen, whether it’s with the Houthis, whether it’s occurring in Syria or Iraq, with ISIS.” And sure enough, stocks for arms have soared in recent years.

But it is not only weapons but also oil which disincentivizes policy makers from de-escalating proxy wars. As Christopher Davidson, who the Economist called “one of the most knowledgeable academics” writing about the Middle East, shows in his 688-page long tome “Shadow Wars: The Secret Struggle for the Middle East,” how many covert operations in the Middle East were historically supported to advance the explicit geopolitical or economic interests of the funders. 

According to Davidson, the emergence of the US as a major oil producer has motivated US policy makers (Trump included) to let Saudi forces engage in exhausting proxy wars throughout the region so that a weakened Saudi Arabia is forced to sell its state assets.

Whatever the precise motivations, aside from the publicly touted humanitarian rationales, oil and weapons play a role in the decisions made by states, even when lives are at stake.

But whatever the argument, the evidence in support of proxy wars as an effective means in the interest of peace is scarce. At least this is the case if one follows the analysis coming from the proverbial mouth of the horse, the CIA. The spy agency has funded proxy fighters for most of its history. 

Reportedly president Obama, at least an initial skeptic in the use of proxies, was interested in finding out if funding insurgents generally accomplish the stated strategic goals and commissioned an internal study.

The report concluded that conflicts were not decided in the interest of the US following the funding of proxy actors, unless, according to the report, US personnel were on the ground along with the proxies. The notable exception—according to the study—was the support for the Mujahidin against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. However, although the Mujahidin did ultimately chase the illegally invading Soviet forces out of the country, Afghanistan did not regain stability. One thing to come out of this instability was the merging of the Mujahidin into Al Qaida: the very same enemy the US fights in the current global 'War on Terror'. 

This is not just one war, but multiple new proxy wars that cause immense suffering and which have, according to the Global Terrorism Index, contributed to an almost nine-fold increase in deaths caused by terrorism between 2000 and 2016. If we consider the entire historical context, the Afghanistan example serves, at best, as a very cautionary tale. 

Tthe Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), demonstrates that 2014 saw an increase in the number of active conflicts and also the casualties from battle. Forty armed conflicts were active in 2014, whereas in 2013 34 conflicts were designated active. The increase in conflicts since 1999 stood at 18 percent. Whatever gains were brought about by the 'peace dividend', they have been reversed, with people all over the world paying the greatest price.

President Donald Trump, by contrast, initially critical of Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy, has stepped up military activities since he took office. For example, drone strikes, an important component in the theater of war in Yemen, have gone up by 432 percent and his $ 110 billion weapons sale to Saudi Arabia also won't help in getting hostilities slowed down.

A new type of vigorous and principled peace movement must be formed in this time of crisis. Peace movements in rich countries should join Middle Eastern peace movements that rally for more democratic and less sectarian governance. Social movements can become stronger by integrating divergent points of view, histories and ideologies, which inform interpretations of complex conflicts. It necessarily has to look at the various internal roots of conflict, and also at how foreign governments, from Moscow and Washington to Riyadh and Teheran, fuel conflicts.

Supporting and holding political platforms accountable will be key to demilitarizing political ideologies and stopping the world in its “ruinous race” to global war, to use the words of Gorbachev. More often than not, a call to arm a party to a conflict prolongs said conflict. 

The public’s immediate question with regards to conflicts probably shouldn’t be “Whom should we support militarily?” Instead, we should more seriously consider questions such as “Who keeps a conflict going?” and “How can we de-escalate it?”

Somehow we the people—who, against all odds, want to raise our children in a more peaceful world—have to let our politicians know that arms should be removed from most regions of conflict.

Far from being out of touch with reality, the global peace movement—though worryingly weakened—in fact holds the most realistic solutions to conflict. Given the data, it is clear that negotiation with the actors in a conflict is the best route to peace. De-escalation is the only framework in tune with the realities of the contemporary world as well as the lessons of recent history. 

We the people have to compel and force if necessary regional and global political forces to work towards de-escalating conflicts. Challenging the financial conglomerates that bring weapons into the hand of proxies may be one of the most effective ways to do so.

Please get out of your comfort zone and act- the future of your children and grand-children are at stake. 

EU-Digest

Eastern Europe and irresponsible journalism: In Europe and Russia, There’s Talk of War - by Jill Dougherty

"Recently, I grabbed a taxi in Moscow. When the driver asked me where I was from, I told him the United States. “I went there once,” he said, “to Chicago. I really liked it.”

“But tell me something,” he added. “When are we going to war?”

Atomic War: often result of irresponsible Politicians and Journalists

The question, put so starkly, so honestly, shocked me. “Well, I hope never,” I replied. “No one wants war.”

At the office, I ask a Russian employee about the mood in his working class Moscow neighborhood. The old people are buying salt, matches and gretchka [buckwheat], he tells me—the time-worn refuge for Russians stocking up on essentials in case of war.

In the past two months, I’ve traveled to the Baltic region, to Georgia, and to Russia. Talk of war is everywhere.

In Estonia, at the Lennart Meri security conference, we take a bus two and a half hours to the east of Tallinn, to Narva, a city on the border with Russia, for a discussion: “What is Narva Afraid of?” a variant on the geo-political debate: “Is Narva Next?”

In an interview widely quoted in the Russian media, a foreign affairs expert and a member of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Foreign Policy and Defense Council, Sergei Karaganov, told the German magazine Der Spiegel that Western propaganda against Russia “is reminiscent of the period preceding a new war.”

“The help offered by NATO is not symbolic help for the Baltic states,” he said. “It is a provocation. If NATO initiates an encroachment--against a nuclear power like ourselves--it will be punished.”

President Vladimir Putin himself plays both sides against the middle, warning the West that Russia will have to “strengthen the potential of its strategic nuclear forces” in order to counter the United States’ missile shield, while at the same time insisting it’s the West, not Russia, that’s destroying the balance that kept the world from nuclear conflict during the Cold War.

During the St. Petersburg Economic Forum in June, he tells the heads of international news agencies that the U.S. is lying when it claims its missile defense system will not threaten Russia:

As I browse in a Moscow gift shop, a t-shirt catches my eye: a buff-looking Vladimir Putin dressed in a black turtleneck and tight black pants, with the words “SAVE THE WORLD” in white letters across his image.

How? There’s no answer on this t-shirt and, in the real world, no magic prescription.
But all the talk of war isn’t as crazy as it seems, several Russians tell me. “They may not love us,” they say, “but they fear us.”

Note EU-Digest: This quoted article by Jill Dougherty is a perfect example of pro-NATO propaganda, support of the weapons industry and irresponsible journalism. It is packed with scary comments, refueling cold war fears and whipping up peoples emotions. 

The EU must speak out that it does not want another cold or God forbid a hot war war with Russia, and that it does not support NATO troop movements on Russia's borders, regardless of what the  US or the usually "short sighted" Eastern European EU members are saying.The NATO, being perfectly honest, is also an organization,  whose time has come and gone, and for the past 20 years certainly has not achieved any positive track record    

Read more:  In  Europe and Russia, There’s Talk of War

The Wall: 25 Years After Berlin, Do We Still Need Walls? - by Peter Schurman

The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago this week. People on both sides filled the streets in celebration, cheered on by virtually everyone around the world. For all of us who were alive then, it remains one of the most hopeful historical moments we've ever experienced.

Now that 25 years have passed, it's an appropriate time to take stock. Have we seized our historic opportunity to create, at last, a more peaceful world?

Sadly, we have not:

• By Wikipedia's count, the US has engaged in 10 wars since then, and we now live in a surveillance state the East German secret police would have envied.

• Russia has reasserted regional military dominance, annexing Crimea, threatening other parts of Ukraine, and re-conquering Chechnya.

• The Middle East is a boiling cauldron of warfare, much of it touched off by the American invasions of Iraq in 1991 and 2003.

• China is building a potentially formidable Navy and picking fights with its neighbors.

How can it be that we've made so little progress, following such a breakthrough?

As global citizens, we largely left the job of converting the end of the Cold War into a lasting peace in the hands of our national governments.

We had little alternative at first: in 1989, the Internet had not yet been
widely adopted, so people worldwide had no way to band together at scale.

The arrival of the Internet has upended virtually every major system on earth, revolutionizing our economy and breathing new life into grassroots politics.

Yet our governance structures remain stubbornly anachronistic. And they're failing us, not only on the great question of war or peace, but also on many other front-burner issues today, including global warming, economic inequality, disease response, immigration, human trafficking, and financial crimes.

Although we seldom consider it, one key factor that ties all these failures together is our fragmented system of nation-states, separated by militarized borders.

Almere-Digest Note: After the wall went down in Berlin many new walls went up. There is now a wall built by Israel which will eventually stretch for 750 km's between Palestine and Israel. There is also a new wall between the US and Mexico and China has built an electronic wall around China to curb what the Chinese citizens can see on the Internet .   

Read more: 25 Years After Berlin, Do We Still Need Walls? | Peter Schurman

Ukraine: Obama and Putin Playing Chess With New Cold War At Stake - by RM

It's amazing to hear US Senator McCaine calling for force to solve the Ukraine crises while President Obama and President Putin are playing a complicated game of chess in trying  to solve the problem without militarily involvement.

How can President Obama and his European allies counter Putin's opening gambit of this chess game? And how can the United States and the EU roll back what Putin has pulled off so far?

The US Obama Administration and the EU can-not and must-not confront Russia militarily -- it would be suicide in today's nuclear age.

At this point it looks like actions from the West against Russia, over the long term, will come in a form where it will hurt Russia and President Putin's popularity at home the most - economics.

But not everyone agrees that this scenario is the best course of action - certainly not the Republicans in the US, or for that matter, the conservative right-wingers in Britain.

US Republican Sen. John McCain - presently one of the the least popular senators in the US of those surveyed by the Public Policy Polling, with low marks from members of his own party, independents and Democrats, is among the Republican's loudest critics of the Obama Administration foreign policy.

He directly blamed President Obama's "incompetent" foreign policy for inviting the crisis in Ukraine and  recently told a pro-Israel group that the president has repeatedly failed to demonstrate American strength in the face of adversaries.

McCain was not the only Republican to criticize the Administration's handling of the crisis.Many other GOP critics just about tripped over each others feet to attack Obama.

On Sunday March 2, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., even went as far as to tell CNN in an interview, "we have a weak and indecisive president whom invites aggression.".

As an independent congressman remarked afterwards, "this kind of rhetoric by the Republicans can basically be qualified as that of five year old's playing with marbles and one suddenly throwing a tantrum."

To put some perspective as to the causes of what is happening in Ukraine, and why Obama and Putin are now having to negotiate and play a game of chess,  requires us to turn back the clock to when the Soviet Union (USSR) formally ceased to exist on 26 December 1991. 

From that date onward,  the United States has relentlessly pursued a strategy of encircling Russia, just as it has with other perceived enemies like China and Iran.

At the same time, the US also increased its military capability in Europe after it brought an additional 12 countries from central Europe, all of them formerly allied with Moscow, into the already existing NATO alliance. This in fact has now brought US military power and might directly on Russia’s borders.

Apart from facing the issue of encirclement President Putin probably also had a few other sleepless nights after he compared US military spending, which is 40% of the worlds total military spending,  to that of his own country, which is only 5.5% of the total global military spending.

Let's face it and be realistic, Russia is now basically between "a rock and a hard place" and  that is not a good place for them or anyone else to be in.

Obviously there are no angels on either side -  but for this issue is to be resolved everyone has to take a step back, look at the bigger picture, calm down and reach a negotiated diplomatic solution.

EU-Digest