Scholars, advocates, and activists seeking to make the U.S. a more responsible global partner.
NATO
Libya and the New Warmongering

Libya and the New Warmongering

by | Jan 12, 2012

The NATO intervention in Libya is likely to produce a more militarized and insecure world, and this will be its most enduring legacy. The military “success”in Libya has increased the possibility of new wars. There is a widespread perception that NATO has achieved an easy victory against Gaddafi, and the resulting sense of hubris augments the risk of future military actions against Iran, Syria, and other possible targets. Politicians in NATO countries surely welcome the public distraction that war provides, especially in the context of the world-wide economic slump, and this may prove an additional motivation for new military action.

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Time to Disband NATO: A Rogue Alliance

by | Sep 7, 2011

When the Cold War ended, many believed there would be a peace dividend, nuclear disarmament, and dismantling of the war machine with industrial conversion to peaceful technology. Instead, we’ve witnessed the aggressive expansion of NATO, to include the former Soviet Republics, right up to the Russian border, which should be a wake-up call to many living in the American Empire. Many people still labor under the apparently false impression that the US is exemplary in holding up the rule of law, the sanctity of the United Nations, and human rights. After all, Americans were the good guys who defeated Hitler and made the world safe for democracy. The NATO expansion took place despite promises made to Gorbachev after the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union with the fall of the Berlin Wall that if he dropped his objections to the admission of a unified Germany as a full-fledged, fully armed member of NATO, the western states would freeze NATO membership and not expand any further east. Russia lost 20 million people in World War II to the Nazi onslaught, and Russian wariness of a strengthened reunited Germany participating with their former NATO foe was certainly understandable.

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Why Are Some Progressives Gloating over Libya?

Why Are Some Progressives Gloating over Libya?

by | Aug 25, 2011

One hopes this chapter ends happily for the Libyan people, and certainly the taunts of Libya hawks will be endurable if it does. But no progressive should celebrate yet another circumvention – this one by a Nobel Peace Prize winner, no less – of the mechanisms intended to prevent the wanton and unaccountable waging o­f war.

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Gaddafi’s Whereabouts Unknown — But Is It Too Soon to Declare Victory in Libya?

Gaddafi’s Whereabouts Unknown — But Is It Too Soon to Declare Victory in Libya?

by | Aug 23, 2011

The success of Libya’s uprising will have a great deal to do with the willingness of its leadership to break its dependency on the U.S. and NATO. In what might or might not be a positive sign in that direction, TNC officials have said they intend to call for United Nations assistance in holding new elections within eight months of taking power. But more immediately, if the U.S. and European countries turn over the billions in frozen Libyan assets directly to the TNC, the question of the breadth of its representation and its legitimacy become even more crucial. Will the TNC, eager to claim the billions of oil money being held by European and U.S. banks, demand that NATO and the U.S. pull back and allow Libya to sort out its own problems and develop its own trajectory for an independent future?

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