The Unknown War is a landmark documentary series about the Soviet struggle against the Nazi war machine. Hosted and narrated by Burt Lancaster, it features stunning footage recorded by Soviet camera crews on the front lines, most of it unseen for years.
RUSSIAN MIGHT
-
-
Biden’s Two-Step Geneva Waltz Simply Buys Him Space
21 minutes readALASTAIR CROOKE—Well, the NATO statement represented something of a Faustian Bargain. West Europeans (Macron and Merkel essentially) were resigned to the fact that they needed to give Biden some ‘China Threat’ language in the final communiqué to bring him – and America – back aboard the multilateral Eurobus. The Europeans have pressing trade ‘bones’ (steel and aluminium tariffs), that they wish to pick with Washington. So they didn’t want China entirely demonised; they need it too much. They wanted it instead, ‘differentiated’. That is to say, they argue that China presents differential threats – military, trade, tech and cultural – each of which should be treated differently. Macron says this approach represents the spirit of his Euro strategic-autonomy campaign.
But on Russia, it was an easy outcome. The NATO dog was allowed to be ‘wagged’ by a ‘tail’ of East European Russophobes and everyone emerged from NATO happy. Russia was mentioned unfavourably 63 times, to China’s only 10 times. China emerged differentiated. We will have to see how successful Europe is castigating China roundly over Xingjian and Hong Kong human rights, and egging on Taiwanese autonomy, whilst at the same time, begging Xi to put his hand in his pocket to help save Europe’s disintegrating economy.
-
Biden, Putin restore talks as DC hawks promote New Cold War
9 minutes readAt the Geneva summit, President Biden of the US and President Putin of Russia announced the restoration of their ambassadors and agreed to new talks on vital issues. Meanwhile in Washington and major US media outlets, Russiagate-addled hawks promoted increased confrontation. James Carden analyzes the talks and the bellicose US media response. “US media outlets seem to be egging Biden on to take a harder line than than the President wanted to,” Carden says. “It’s a product of the last several years of Russiagate hysteria. But it also shows who make up the American press really don’t know that much about Russia or foreign policy.”
-
Between the lines of the Biden-Putin summit
16 minutes readPEPE ESCOBAR—In Geneva, the US and Russia issued a joint statement where “we reaffirm the principle that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” Assorted Dr. Strangeloves will cringe – but at least the world has it in writing, and may breathe a sigh of relief with this breakthrough of sorts. That doesn’t mean that a “non-agreement capable” US industrial-military complex will abide. Moscow and Washington also committed to engage in an “integrated bilateral Strategic Stability Dialogue in the near future that will be deliberate and robust.” The devil in the details is in which “near future” the dialogue will progress. A first step is that ambassadors are returning to both capitals. Putin confirmed that the Russian Foreign Ministry and the State Department will “start consultations” following the new START-3 treaty extension for five years.
-
The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) was launched last Friday by legislators of eight parliaments. In the meantime, it includes politicians of twelve parliaments – eleven national [1] and the EU parliament. States, which recently have shown a particularly aggressive attitude toward China, are also involved: the USA, Australia and Japan. US Senators Marco Rubio (Republican) and Bob Menendez (Democrat), who, since some time, have distinguished themselves as anti-China hardliners, are playing a leading role in IPAC. Two politicians from the German Green Party, Margarete Bause, as member of the German Bundestag and Reinhard Bütikofer, as member of the EU parliament are among the Alliance’s Co-Chairs. Likewise, Michael Brand, Spokesperson for Human Rights in the CDU/CSU Bundestag group is also involved.