EDITOR—Geoanalyst Mark Sleboda finds it hard to believe that Trump can deliver on his ultrafast peace promises in Ukraine. Trump—and maybe his advisors, too— betraying a great deal of typical American imperialist arrogance and ignorance on this subject—are in for a rude awakening, he warns. As well, Trump’s promise that he won’t start any wars is liable to be affirmed or falsified by the Deep State surrounding all US presidents, representing the ruling class that actually controls America’s course. Brutally put, it is Trump’s intellectual laziness and massive ignorance about international affairs and history that makes him unable to play a more assertive role in domestic and foreign policy. Whether this is good or bad depends on the observer’s viewpoint.
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OLIVER BOYD-BARRETT—Israel says it will strike back. I find this game of telling your oppenent you are going to attack – giving him plenty of time to prepare for your attack and then attacking, but maybe not so much as you said you would, and then waiting for the retaliation – somewhat quaint, to say the least.
It is reminiscent of seventeenth century style war-by-the-square tactics of bright uniforms, gleaming bayonets, chess-board moves and a death toll accounted for almost solely by civilians (unless you were Cromwell beseiging, starving and burning Irish towns, or European imperialists putting down the revolting natives).
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ERIC ZUESSE—Ever since 25 July 1945, the U.S. Government has had, as its #1 objective, to take control ultimately over all other countries (“hegemony”); and its main targets to conquer have been the world’s largest country, which is Russia, and then the world’s most populous country, which has been China. In order to do this, the U.S. regime needed to deceive their public to believe that ‘freedom and democracy’ were what they spread around the world by their coups and invasions, but most of their successful “regime-changes” actually replaced popularly elected democraticGovernments, such as Mossadegh in Iran, Arbenz in Guatemala, and Allende in Chile, by imposing there instead decades-long murderous military dictatorships such as The Shah in Iran, a long succession of brutal juntas in Guatemala, and the fascist (Milton Friedman acolyte and propagandist for ‘freedom’) Pinochet in Chile. The deceits by the U.S. regime and its colonies, have enabled the U.S. regime to impoverish, torture, and murder, millions of people throughout the world, extracting wealth from the conquered countries for America’s billionaires, all the while pretending to be “a force for good in the world.”
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RET. ADM. CEM GURDENIZ—The US and its allies continue to pay the price of the rapid downsizing at sea and in the region after the Cold War. They are falling behind in both the number of icebreakers and the number of troops ready for war in winter conditions.
In addition, Russia has advantages in the field of submarine warfare and hypersonic anti-ship missiles. However, despite its limited naval power, the US challenges Russia’s geographical superiority in these critical waterways through its allies. As the only NATO country with a permanent military headquarters north of the Arctic Circle (66°33’N latitude), Norway gives its most important security and defense priority to the protection of US interests in this region due to the newly developing Arctic geopolitics. NATO also uses Norway’s situation as a battering ram against Russia, putting it forward for the interests of the US in this region. Norway, one of the calmest, richest and most prosperous countries in the world, has now joined the group of risky countries that have to maintain high military vigilance and readiness at all times.
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CHARLES McKELVEY—The United States, either through war with Iran to contain China, or through unconventional war to weaken all anti-imperialist states, or both, is seeking to stop the dialectical march of modern history. The United States can do so only through destruction, which also could lead to its own demise. It would be far more dignified for the American republic to participate positively in the second stage of the modern synthesis, in which cooperation and mutually beneficial trade are established as an international norm. In doing so, the United States would once again be one of the world’s leading nations, and it could interpret its enlightened turn as the fulfillment of the promise of democracy contained in the founding of the American republic.
