International Law: Wesphalian principles must be restored!

BACK TO WESTPHALIAN PRINCIPLES
By Bernard CHALUMEAU

The treaties of Westphalia and the genesis of International law.
http://laiglesforum.com/sovereignty-back-to-westphalian-principles/3133.htm

Like all French school children, we are aware that the Treaties of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years War, which began with the defenestration of Prague in 1618, giving France the Three Bishopricks of Metz, Toul and Verdun  of the Holy Roman Empire.
However, let us take a closer look because there was much more to it than this:
These treaties are constituted of several agreements signed between the parties to the various conflicts:
– On January 30th, 1648, in Münster, the treaty between Spain and the United Provinces ended the war of Eighty Years.
- On October the 24^th, in Münster, the treaty between France and the Holy Roman Empire ended the Thirty Years War, to which was added an act by which the Holy Empire gave to France the three Bishopricks of Alsace, Brisach and Pignerol, and another by which Emperor Ferdinand III, the archdukes of Austria, Charles, Ferdinand and Sigismund gave Alsace to France.
– On October 24, in Osnabrück, it also ended the 30 Years War.
-On July 2,1650, in Nuremberg, the two agreements between the Holy Empire and France and between the Holy Empire and Sweden relating to the enforcement of the peace.
These treaties were the bases for the organization of Germany up to the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806.
Unfortunately, most school texts fail to indicate that the principles of international law were born on the date these important treaties were signed.
The object of this article is not to describe the very complex progress of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) where many conflicts pitted the Hapsburg of Spain and the Holy German Empire, supported by the Roman Catholic Church, against the Protestant German States of the Holy Empire allied with the nearby European powers with Protestant majorities, United Provinces and Scandinavian countries, as well as France, which intended to reduce the power of the Hapsburgs on the European continent.
However, one must bear in mind that it was the most dreadful slaughter of the entire 17th century, which killed several million men, women and children.
Since the demography of Europe was seriously affected, the belligerents thus looked for ways and means to avoid a recurrence of such horrific massacres.
The negotiations of these treaties lasted a long time (from 1644 till 1648), because it was necessary to establish new modes of relations between States with a view to limiting wars and to strengthen “the law of nations.”
In his work “The six books of the Republic”, published in 1576, the famous French lawyer Jean BODIN (1529-1596), had published his thoughts on public law, “res publica,” and on the powers of the king, as the first legal principles of sovereignty: “Sovereignty is the absolute  and perpetual power of the State, which is the greatest power to command. The State in the person of the monarch is supreme inside its territories, independent of any high authority, and legally equal to the other States”
Further, the Dutchman Hugo Grotius published in 1623 a work entitled “De Jure Belli et Pacis,” which proposed the establishment of a “mutual association” between nations, that is to say an international organization, thereby laying the groundwork for a code of public international law. Their ideas were intended to guide the negotiators of these treaties in establishing what has conventionally been called since that time “the Westphalian system” as a guideline for the concept of modern international relations.
– The balance of powers, meaning that any State, large or small, has the same importance on the international scene (For example, see the Article CXXII of the Münster Treaty in Old French below)
– The inviolability of national sovereign power (See article CXII of the Treaty below).
– The principle of non-intervention in the affairs of others (see article LXIV of the Treaty below).
Since the treaties of Wesphalia, a new actor succeeds the division of the power between villages, duchies and counties, namely, the modern State.  The world is organized with States whose sovereignty must be respected by the bordering states by virtue of the Westphalian concept of the border. International relations become interstate and the respected borders guarantee the peace.

These treaties proclaim the absolute sovereignty of the State as the fundamental principle of international law.

Europe becomes a set of States, having precise borders, recognized by others, in which the prince or monarch exercises his full and complete sovereignty. The characteristics of these modern States include the constitution of permanent armies and the expression by the elites of the fact of national existence. In these States, language appears as a factor of unity.
The Westphalian principles subsequently contributed to the emergence of the idea of the Nation States in the 19^th century, as well as the principle of nationalities, where every National State enjoys, within its own borders, complete independence, being provided with the highest possible form of sovereign power with its own army, its own currency, its justice system, its police and an economy, allowing it to live as independently as possible of the other States.
Later the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, signed on December 26th 1933, would add four essential elements:

“To be sovereign, a State must have : –          a permanent population. –          a defined territory. –          an operational government. –          the capacity to enter directly in relation with other states.”

It added a fundamental clause:

The political existence of a state is independent of its recognition by other states.

The United Nations, undoubtedly horrified by this measure, which it considered too Westphalian for its taste — since it paved the way for the emergence of multiple large or small States — then hurried to add notions of “internal sovereignty” and “external sovereignty,” so that, to be sovereign, States must have, in addition to their capacity to exercise their power over the population inside their territory without any outside constraint, the need to be recognized as sovereign States by the other States of the international system.

The law of nations (Jus gentium ) or public international law:
Established under the Treaties of Westphalia, this law governs the relations between the subjects of this legal system, which are States and international organizations.
A subject of international law must comply with this law and must be able to benefit from it. In the beginning, the State was the only subject of international law. But this concept became obsolete, because, after1815, the States found it necessary to join together in international organizations, gradually acquiring the status of legal subjects. Thus, the United Nations became, like the EU and other international organizations, subjects of derived law (generally referred to in American English as case law).
Introduction of the right of intervention in international relations:
Unfortunately, since the end of World War II, the increase in the number of treaties between States of the western world tended to suppress Westphalian principles by considerably developing their military, economic and financial interdependence.
At the end of the Cold War, the United States of America, an enormous consumer of energy and raw materials, desiring to extend its hegemony throughout the planet and to get energy and raw material at the lowest possible prices, noticed that the Westphalian ban on intervention in other States thwarted its designs.
The United States of America felt obliged to find a way to by-pass Paragraph 7 of Article 2 of the UN Charter, which stated:
“Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any State,” summing up the very Westphalian-sounding article 8 of the Agreement of Montevideo, which banned intervention in the internal affairs of a State.
Based on the ideas of persons such as the philosopher Jean-François Revel in 1979 and of Bernard Kouchner, a new “right” called the “right of intervention,” was concocted, i.e., the recognition of a right of one or more States to violate the sovereignty of another State, within the framework of a mandate granted by a supranational authority.
It was a wondrous invention which allowed:
–          to abolish Westphalian principles,
–          to add the notion of supranationality,
–          to intervene on the territory of any State even against the will of that State,
–          to establish world governance under the aegis of ad hoc international organizations,
–          to subjugate the weakest States to one or more stronger States,
–          to establish the hegemony of the US government.
The precious Westphalian principles were thereby overturned and the whole world returned essentially to the monstrous situation of the Thirty Years War.
The desired ad hoc international organization in the hands of United States of America was found, namely, the UN. All that was needed was the pretexts for war.
No problem:
– The US oligarchy rushes to the target State to be destabilized, a CIA team, which will increasingly include, or be supplanted by, a Soros foundation, USAID or the like, providing camouflage in the form of “private” intervention.
– This team, relying on existing opposition or opposition to be created from whole cloth in the current regime, develops a “National Liberation Front” or the equivalent thereof.
– It equips it with the necessary weapons and bolsters it with troops, usually drawn from the Islamic sphere of influence.
– Thanks to mass media under its control, it floods public opinion with information and images, often doctored, that overwhelm the government in power.
– All that remains is for the UN to pass a “resolution” allowing the armed forces of several States, mainly of the EU and the US, to come to the aid of the young “National Liberation Front” and oust the current regime.
This system worked very well for the interventions in Romania, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Darfur, Ivory Coast, Libya, Syria, Nigeria, Ukraine, etc., spreading war throughout the planet.
The right of the bankers replaces the right of the people :
Thanks to the “legality” of the UN ad hoc resolution, the armed forces deployed in the target State destroy a maximum of infrastructure, such as power plants, factories, bridges, roads, railways, airports, runways, and so on…
Thus, when the target State is “pacified,” American companies share in the juicy reconstruction contracts. The new leader of the regime, set up by the “liberators,” is very helpful in awarding these contracts to said companies. At that point, the target State, its population and resources are under the control of the US oligarchs.
These operations are managed behind the scenes by bankers, generally US bankers. The bankers finance both belligerent parties, enjoining the winner to honor the loser’s debts. They finance the military-industrial lobbies committed in the conflict and manage the process in such a way that it is drawn out as long as possible.
So, the bankers win every time!
The superiority of the right of the bankers over the right of the people was established in Europe by the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 by the introduction of a single currency, the “euro,” controlled by the European Central Bank, completely independently of the Member States’ governments under Article 108 of that treaty.

ARTICLE 108 “When exercising the powers and carrying out the tasks and duties conferred upon them by this Treaty and the Statute of the ESCB, neither the ECB, nor a national central bank, nor any member of their decision-making bodies shall seek or take instructions from Community institutions or bodies, governments of the Member State or from any other body.”

All European treaties since then have reinforced those provisions, resulting in an impoverishment of populations subject to this single currency and complete submission to a new slavery for the benefit of bankers.

It is no longer states that control the banks, but the banks that control the states.

Evidence of this is on flagrant display throughout the world, notably in Cyprus where depositors were ruined by bankers with the support of the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission in Brussels and the Central Bank of the EU.

The objective of Mayer Amschel Rothschild, founder of the Rothschild banking dynasty, expressed below: “Let me produce and control the issue of currency of a state, and I do not care who can make laws” has been achieved! Having succeeded in removing Westphalian principles from international law, the bankers rule the planet, start wars wherever and whenever they want and enslave the people of the world.

Conlusion:
The Westphalian system described herein clearly shows that whoever advocates it, in France or elsewhere, i.e., patriots and the sovereignists, are peace activists! They are the future of nations. That is why the banker-controlled mass media are bent on either contradicting them with outright lies, or silencing them.

To secure peace in the world, Wesphalian principles must be restored!

History in fact shows that, as long as these principles were respected, the world (ie, Europe initially and then throughout the world from the 19th century onward) experienced overall stability, but when they were abandoned by a State or group of States, horrific conflict occurred again.
Many historians believe that the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 was responsible for World War II by violating Westphalian principles, substituting a collective security.

That is why I urge all patriots and French sovereigntists, particularly French youth, to enter into Resistance. I invite them to partner with the youth of Europe and the rest of the world to fight by all possible means to restore Westphalian principles everywhere based on respect for the inalienable sovereignty and independence of States. There is not only an absolute necessity to recover their freedom, their way of life, the kind of society they want to live in to escape this new slavery, but also and above all, the need to preserve their property, their lives and those of their descendants, who are, as we can see today, physically threatened. As for me, I remain at their disposal to help them while strength and breath shall last. French patriots! The wind of hope is rising! It is bringing back our France! It is bringing back our freedom! Bernard CHALUMEAU

Translation by Bernard Chalumeau, translation editing by Don Hank

L’intellighenzia d’Israele scappa all’estero

L’intellighenzia d’Israele adesso spegne la luce e scappa all’estero

http://www.kolot.it/2014/11/16/lintellighenzia-disraele-adesso-spegne-la-luce-e-scappa-allestero/

2014/11/16IsraeleTag:Amos Elon, Avraham Burg, David Grossman, Ilan Pappé, Sayed Kashua, Shlomo Sand

Le elite europee coccolano gli intellettuali israeliani che lasciano o hanno lasciato Israele
Giulio Meotti

David Grossman

Roma. Un paio di anni fa il suo libro “The invention of the Jewish people” suscitò dibattiti e polemiche senza fine, vendendo milioni di copie. Shlomo Sand, un famoso storico israeliano che insegna all’Università di Tel Aviv, sei giorni fa sul quotidiano inglese Guardian ha scritto: “How I stopped being a Jew”. Una dichiarazione di profonda abiura dell’ebraismo e del sionismo. “Durante la prima metà del XX secolo, mio padre ha abbandonato la scuola tal-mudica, ha smesso di andare in sinagoga, e ha espresso la sua avversione per i rabbini. A questo punto della mia vita, nei primi anni del XXI secolo, sento l’obbligo morale di rompere definitivamente con l’ebraismo”. Sand, che adesso passa più tempo in Inghilterra che in Israele, non è il primo intellettuale della sinistra israeliana a professare apostasia.
Dal 2008 vive in Inghilterra Ilan Pappé, già docente all’Università di Haifa, icona di quella “nuova storiografia” che vede lo stato ebraico come una mera colonizzazione ai danni del popolo arabo, autore Einaudi in Italia e firmatario di manifesti per il boicottaggio dei docenti ebrei. Assieme a lui, nel Regno Unito, vivono lo storico israeliano Avi Shlaim e il giurista Oren Ben-Dor della Southampton University.
Secondo il professor Steven Plaut, che insegna Business Administration all’Università di Haifa, questi intellettuali fanno parte di “gruppi di israeliani espatriati che si dedicano alla guerra contro la sopravvivenza di Israele”. Nella sua villa in Toscana, sulle colline di Ponte Buggione, a Pistoia, è morto Amos Elon, decano dei corrispondenti di Haaretz, dove divenne il protetto dell’austero editore Gershom Schocken, e poi l’autore di libri adottati nelle scuole d’Israele e del bestseller “Gerusalemme” (Rizzoli).
Anche la figlia, Danae Elon, apprezzata regista di sinistra, vive a New York. E pensare che Elon aveva scritto una delle più belle biografie di quell’uomo di teatro che nella Vienna di Freud e Mahler, nell’atmosfera fertile, nel bene e nel male, della mitteleuropa, diede una speranza agli ebrei: Theodor Herzl. Ha appena scelto Chicago lo scrittore israeliano Sayed Kashua, editorialista di giornali israeliani, romanziere popolarissimo, volto televisivo, che questa estate ha scritto un articolo dal titolo: “Why I leave Israel”, perché lascio Israele.
L’ex speaker della Knesset, Avraham Burg, che nel frattempo è diventato un saggista e un conferenziere blasonato e che si è professato “cittadino del mondo”, ha preso il passaporto francese e vive a Parigi. Ari Shavit di Haaretz lo ha chiamato “il profeta di Brussels”. Burg è l’autore di quel pamphlet antisionista intitolato “Sconfiggere Hitler”. In una intervista, alla domanda se “raccomandi a ogni israeliano di prendere un passaporto straniero”, Burg ha risposto: “A tutti quelli che possono”. C’è poi la nutrita comunità di scrittori israeliani che hanno scelto la Germania come nuova patria, tipo Boaz Arad, Tal Alon e Nati Oman, che va fiero che “ci sono oggi più artisti israeliani a Berlino che in Israele”.
Anche lo scrittore David Grossman, in una intervista alla tv inglese Canale 10, ha detto di valutare l’ipotesi dell’esilio: “Ho considerato l’idea di lasciare Israele”. Quest’estate, sull’Independent, la scrittrice e giornalista israeliana Mira Bar Hillel ha firmato invece un editoriale dal titolo: “Sto per bruciare il mio passaporto israeliano”. Nei 1967, durante la Guerra dei sei giorni, sui giornali e nei salotti degli scrittori israeliani circolava un’amara battuta. All’aeroporto di Tel Aviv un’insegna recita: “L’ultimo ad andarsene spenga la luce”. Allora fu un mugugno di sarcasmo. Oggi è ciò che fa l’intellighenzia israeliana coccolata dalle élite europee.
Il Foglio – 13.11.14

“EU sanctions against Russia are suicide” – Italian banker

November 14, 2014 10:30

Antonio Fallico

Download video (200.83 MB)

http://rt.com/shows/sophieco/205275-eu-trade-war-business/

The trade war between the EU and Russia is hurting business all over Europe. And while political gains from the standoff are debatable, business losses are as real as it gets. As the sanctions escalate tensions, bringing about the smell of war, entrepreneurs are piling pressure on their governments to stop the stand-off before it’s too late. Antonio Fallico, an Italian banker with extensive experience of doing business in Russia, shares the white-collar view on the economic conflict.
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SS: Mr. Fallico, thank you for coming to our program, we’re very glad to have you here today. You said that the sanctions imposed on Russia could start WWIII. But sanctions are a temporary measure, can they really destabilize the situation so much?
AF: It’s an undesirable prospect, but we can’t rule it out. It’s unclear why the United States, knowing that Russia isn’t some unimportant country, would resort to this sort of provocation. So Ukraine is undoubtedly just a pretext, it can’t be the real reason. Does the US believe that Ukraine means less to Russia than the Falkland Islands to Argentina? It’s really unclear, because either the US acts very irresponsibly, or it is fully aware of what it’s doing and willing to have a full-scale confrontation. Let’s not forget how WWI started: no one was expecting it, but it happened. So when I say we need to spare no effort in order to prevent WWIII, I mean it and I’m ready to work on it.

SS: Russian Economic Development Minister Aleksei Ulyukayev says foreign investors are apologizing to their Russian partners for the behavior of their politicians. Is it true? If so, what can be done about it? Can the business community influence the political elite?
AF: It’s true. He’s right, and I can confirm that most of the Italian entrepreneurs and also European and even American businessmen object to the sanctions policy. In short, we don’t deserve the political leaders who are reluctant to work for the benefit of their people unless the situation reaches a boiling point.
SS: Again, you say “we have to stop the sanctions,” and by “we” you mean Italian business people. Is this a widely supported opinion? Is anyone listening to what you’re saying?
AF: I assure you, all Italian businessmen share this opinion, and the measures taken by our government and the EU authorities drive them to despair. I should point out that the Italian government has its own stance. Our Prime Minister stated on several occasions that he was against sanctions, especially regarding the second round of sanctions.
SS: Yes, we’ll get to your Prime Minister in a minute. Since 60 percent of transactions between Russia and Italy go through your bank, you can really monitor all the developments in bilateral trade. So, which sectors of the economy, would you say, were hit hardest?
AF: Right now it’s high tech, that is, the civilian high tech. There was also a joint military project between Rostec and Italy’s Finmeccanica, but , of course, it is now out of the question. Actually, put together, all the high tech projects were worth ten times more than the losses suffered by agricultural and food industries that everyone talks about.
SS: When you said that the Italian government has its own stance on sanctions, I recalled that there are other countries like that too. For example, the Hungarian Prime Minister said that sanctions were like shooting yourself in the foot. So it seems that there’s no consensus on Russia among the European countries. Did I get that right?
AF: That’s right. There’s no consensus. Moreover, take Turkey, for example. Turkey refused to impose sanctions. Italy could have done the same thing.
SS: I was talking mainly about the EU. Is it possible for the EU to have an efficient policy if there’s no consensus?
AF: As long as Germany’s stance – which has changed dramatically after Chancellor Merkel’s last visit to President Obama – remains so anti-Russian, it will use its economic leverage to make Italy and France toe the line.
SS: If you think about it, the US economy isn’t really affected by these sanctions, but for the EU it’s a hefty sum. We’re talking about 40 bln euros. Germany is also part of the EU, so I’m just trying to understand why the EU would opt for something like that.
AF: I think the actual sum is much higher than 40 bln, since the EU-Russia trade amounted to 326 bln euros. In 2013 there was a 5% decrease in trade as compared to 2012, and the estimations show a 15% decrease for 2014. EU sanctions against Russia - it’s not a reasonable decision, it’s just suicide. This stance does not take into consideration economic conditions and ramifications. It’s based solely on geopolitical considerations which are, in fact, no longer relevant.
SS: You said that to resume political dialogue we should start with the economy, but how is that possible in the current situation?
AF: That’s right, the process aimed at lifting sanctions should originate at the grassroots and work its way up. It should start with economic actors, that is, businessmen. The problem is many businessmen are scared to go to the frontlines, so to speak.
SS: What is it they should do, exactly? Revolt against the government?
AF: You know perfectly well what the connection between the economy and politics is: politics is the façade of economic lobbies and their interests. That’s how it works both in the US and in the EU. Such politicians should be removed from office – through purely peaceful means, of course – and new ones should be elected in their place to work with the interests of the economy and their people in mind.
SS:To continue with this subject, I’d like to discuss South Stream. It would seem that implementing this project would ensure uninterrupted gas supply from Russia to Europe bypassing Ukraine. But the EU is blocking this project. Why? Do you believe the reason is economic or political?
AF: It’s 110% political.
SS: So it’s like unofficial sanctions against Russia?
AF: No doubt about it. Of course, if you ask this question directly you’ll hear calculations that prove this project is not cost-efficient anymore.
SS: Do you think it is?
AF: Yes, it’s a very cost-efficient project, because the energy demand will continue to grow. If we stop being near-sighted and stop considering only the near future, it’s clear that this project would prove very beneficial in the long term.
SS: Again, there’s no consensus on South Stream, either. For example, the Italian Prime Minister is in favor of it and he even managed to come to an agreement with Austria, if I’m not mistaken. However, Brussels is blocking the project. That means that Brussels is ignoring the interests of other countries.
AF: Let’s just say that Oettinger has always been against this pipeline and now he’s trying to persuade other EU members to side with him. Our government has in no way opposed this project.
SS: Quite the contrary, I think.
AF: However, Eni, the company responsible for 15% of the South Stream construction, is now putting the brakes on it. It’s fairly obvious that the reasons for that are not economic, but purely political.
SS: You said that in the long term the project would prove very cost-efficient, though assessments vary. Political squabbles will eventually die down, but are there any guarantees that the project will be implemented after that?
AF: The project is unquestionably cost-efficient, and the new European Commission will undoubtedly approach it with more objectivity. Even though changing the route means increasing the initial cost, surprisingly enough it actually makes South Stream more cost-efficient. And just like with Nord Stream, we are willing to finance this project.
SS: But, as far as I understand, Europe is still looking to diversify its energy sources….
AF: This is a fairy tale for children. At the moment shale oil production cost, even if we exclude logistics costs, is $65 a barrel. In order for the US shale oil to be competitive at the European market, they have to sell it at $110-115 a barrel. Today oil costs $85 a barrel. We have to thank the US and Saudi Arabia for this.
SS: So you are ruling out the prospects of shale gas and oil production in Europe as well as the prospects of the US supplying its energy resources to Europe, am I right?
AF: If you are a reasonable person, you cannot think differently.
SS: You are absolutely right when you say that European countries and Italy in particular are dependent on Russian natural gas very much. President Putin assured everyone that there won’t be any problem as far as Russia is concerned. Does Europe believe him?
AF: If we talk about European businessmen and ordinary people, they not only believe Putin, but truly appreciate what he has been doing since the crisis in Syria until now.
SS: Well, I believe the gas issue is more pressing right now. Ukraine claims that it cannot guarantee uninterrupted gas supply to Europe and asks the EU to sign a new transit agreement. Will the EU agree to do so?
AF: It seems that some people in Europe think Russia wants Europe to pay for the gas it supplies to Ukraine. Europeans say, we are poor, we cannot afford it. The US say: this is not our problem. So now Russia has to supply gas to Ukraine at its own expense despite the fact that Ukraine already owes Russia $4 billion. The agreements reached in Milan at the ASEM summit look like a joke to me. They say: we have agreed on the $385 gas price. Very good! Then they say: we are going to ratify the agreement within a few days. But we haven’t agreed on who is going to pay for it. The IMF says: this is not our responsibility. Europeans say they have no money.
SS: Actually, Putin offered the EU to pay for Ukraine.
AF: This is a reasonable offer.
SS:Is Europe ready to pay for Ukraine? Is Italy, for example, ready to pay for Ukraine?
AF:Not only Italy is not ready to pay for Ukrainian gas – Italy cannot even pay for its own gas. Just think about it: we have signed a long-term agreement which will be valid until 2026, and now Eni is planning to go to court over take-or-pay pricing. They are arguing that Russian gas is more expensive than the Algerian gas and demand a reduced price. This is not a reasonable demand because we have a long-term agreement until 2026, so the prices are all set until the agreements expire in 2026. And actually this agreement is beneficial to Italy.
SS:Let’s talk about the outcomes of the crisis. What will happen if Russia won’t be able to supply gas to Europe through Ukraine this winter? The EU claims it’s able to meet its own energy needs. But others say that countries like Serbia, Poland and Greece will get up to 60 percent less gas than they need. What will happen to those countries if worst comes to worst?
AF: I’m absolutely sure that Gazprom is going to meet its obligations on gas deliveries to Europe. Russia has always done so, even during the Cold War. The only reason the above-mentioned countries may be undersupplied is that Ukraine may siphon off some of the gas intended for Europe. In that case it will be Ukraine’s fault, not Russia’s.
SS: I’m not asking whose fault it is; I’m just asking what will happen to those countries if they don’t receive Russian gas for whatever reason, possibly for the reason you’ve just mentioned.
AF: Of course, their economies will suffer, and people who live in northern countries will suffer. They will be freezing.
SS: I heard that EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger encourages countries to share their energy resources in case of a crisis. Do you think this is realistic? Do you think EU countries will agree to do so?
AF: This is another fairy tale for children.
SS: I have also heard that Brussels suggested a European company to become a mediator, that is to buy gas from Russia and then to sell this gas to Ukraine. How will the EU benefit from this?
AF: First, you have to find a company which will agree to become such a good Samaritan. Probably, it’s just that the outgoing Energy Commissioner wants to leave with his head held high.
SS: Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin has suggested moving away from the dollar in oil transactions. How will this influence the market?
AF: The idea is not new. Igor Sechin mentioned this several years ago. This may actually be a good option for Russia because it will benefit from transactions in national currencies. Also, Russia has to reconsider its exchange rate policy. I personally cannot understand why the Russian currency basket is 55 percent US dollar and 45 percent euro.
SS: How will this affect the industry in general?
AF: Do you mean the Russian industry or the global industry?
SS: I mean the global oil industry.
AF: Naturally, global currency trends won’t change overnight. Of course, it will take a lot of effort to put an end to dollar’s supremacy. This is similar to moving away from the unipolar world order.
SS: I would like to ask you another question concerning sanctions, particularly the sanctions targeting Putin’s close associates. I know that Italy has always been supporting Russian investments in Italy, including wealthy Russians who invest in real estate and Italian businesses. Suddenly all those people became Europe’s enemies. How come before they were welcome to invest, and now their bank accounts are frozen and their property is seized. Let’s take Mr. Rotenberg for example.
AF: If you want to create a scandal, it’s always more effective to target your enemy’s close associates. Even though the man you mentioned had only small stakes in two Italian hotels, this was enough to arrest those hotels and to freeze the accounts of certain companies, not individuals, mind you, just because the authorities suspect that this person may control those companies. Well-informed sources think this is abuse of authority and will discourage Russians from investing in Europe.
SS: Now I would like us to talk about the EU’s internal issues. Italy and France recently approved their budgets, which contradict the austerity policy pursued by Berlin and Brussels. Does this mean that austerity is over?
AF: You are talking about the Stability Law. Our government wants to exceed the budget by 3,5%. A preliminary agreement has been achieved regarding 3%. So the 0,5% budget deficit is the reason why Brussels did not approve Italy’s Stability Law, which proves once again that the EU is ruled by Germany, not by the European Commission.
SS: I understand that, but how can the EU overcome the crisis if it does not agree on a common economic policy?
AF: We have been asking the same question. The thing is that the EU not only has no economic policy, it has no industrial policy, no development strategy. The fact that the EU countries have a common currency doesn’t mean there’s financial unity. It simply means that we have a common currency.
SS: Do you expect this currency to survive in a situation where, as you just said, there’s no financial, political or strategic unity?
AF: I regret to say the answer is yes, because unfortunately there is no way out of this situation, there is no going back on euro. What we need urgently is a common fiscal policy and a common industrial policy. And I would also say that we need a common Constitution. To this day, Europe does not have a constitution.
SS: It’s been my recent observation that a lot of Chinese capital has come to Italy – in investment banks, in large business projects. Does that mean that Italy and Europe possibly see Beijing as their rescue?
AF: I wouldn’t call these investments particularly large. Indeed, there are some investments, but they are not that significant.
SS: Is it a backup plan? Have you turned to China because you’re going down without Russia? Or is there another reason?
AF: Frankly, Italy is not in love with China at all. Italy is in love with the Arab world – but that’s so only because Italy was told so by the United States.
SS: Would you rather be in love with China?
AF: My personal choice would be for Italy to go along with Russia. I don’t have anything against China. It would be only fair to keep the Chinese presence that is already there. But Europe and Russia go back together for centuries, back to the times of the Grand Duchy of Moscow.So I would be happier if it were Russia.
SS: And the last question. Given the situation, do you plan to participate in the next Economic Forum in St. Petersburg or rather not?
AF:I certainly do hope and plan to attend – especially since we have recently signed a cooperation agreement between the St. Petersburg Economic Forum and our modest International Forum in Verona.

NATO 1949: The Origin of an Offensive

NATO 1949: The Origin of an Offensive, Expansionist, Imperialist Military Alliance

By Mike Faulkner

Global Research, November 13, 2014

The Greanville Post 12 November 2014

http://www.globalresearch.ca/nato-1949-the-origin-of-an-offensive-expansionist-imperialist-military-alliance/5413844

US troops in Lithuania, NATO’s way of showing support for the Baltics against an imaginary Russian “aggression.”
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, was launched sixty five years ago following the signature of the Atlantic Pact in 1949. The original member states that came together under US tutelage claimed that their alliance was dedicated to the preservation of peace and to the defence of Western Europe against the supposed threat of military aggression. It is noteworthy that the launch of NATO coincided with the intensification of the Cold War, the political division of Germany and the first tentative steps by the US and Britain to rearm the new West German state.

In his memoirs published in 1989, Andrei Gromyko, who was Soviet Foreign Minister from the mid-1950s when he succeeded Molotov, to 1985, recounts an episode from his long career that has received scant attention in the West. It concerns the Soviet response to the establishment of NATO. It is worth quoting in full:

“In 1955 a meeting of the heads of government of the USSR, USA, Britain and France took place in Geneva. Sharp exchanges occurred revealing serious differences between the former allies. Eisenhower, Eden and Edgar Faure fiercely argued that NATO was a force for peace, especially in Europe, whereas in fact their plan was aimed at swallowing up East Germany into West Germany, and whitewashing the remilitarisation of West Germany in peace-loving propaganda.
In an effort to deprive the three Western powers of their notion that the Soviet Union was not doing its part in consolidating peace, the Soviet delegation, consisting of Khrushchev, Bulganin, Molotov, Marshal Zhukov and myself, announced that the Soviet Union was willing to join NATO.  We argued that, since NATO was dedicated to the cause of peace, it could not but agree to include the USSR.   It is hard to describe the effect this announcement had on the Western delegations when it was made by Bulganin, as President of the Council of Ministers. They were so stunned that for several minutes none of them said a word. Eisenhower’s usual vote-winning smile vanished from his face. He leaned over for a private consultation with Dulles; but we were not given a reply to our proposal.
After the meeting, Dulles caught up with me in the corridor and asked, ‘Was the Soviet Union really being serious?’ I replied, ‘The Soviet Union does not make unserious proposals, especially at such an important forum as this.’
Dulles was about to add something, when Eisenhower came up. Now a smile did appear on his face, as he said: ‘We must tell you Mr. Gromyko, that the Soviet proposal will be carefully examined by us, as it is a very serious matter.’  At later meetings of the four powers, however, it was evident the Western delegations did not wish to discuss our proposal further and they simply steered clear of it, giving mysterious, oracular smiles whenever it was mentioned. The fact is NATO simply did not know how to deal with it and so they simply hushed it up. Often I have mentioned our proposal to US officials of later generations and very few of them have ever heard of it.”

Russian military long range bomber aircraft photographed by an intercepting RAF quick reaction Typhoon (QRA) as it flies in international airspace. Russia’s defense minister says the military will conduct regular long-range bomber patrols, ranging from the Arctic Ocean to the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. Sergei Shoigu’s statement comes as NATO has reported a spike in Russian military flights over the Black, Baltic and North seas as well as the Atlantic Ocean. It reflects Moscow’s increasingly tough posture amid tensions triggered by the West over Ukraine. (AP Photo/Royal AIr Force)

Although obvious to everyone at the time of its formation in 1949 that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was a military alliance directed against the Soviet Union, its raison d’etre as such was never explicitly stated by its founders. Instead it was presented in the Western Cold War generalities common at the time as an alliance dedicated to the defence of the “Free World”, more particularly Western Europe, which faced a supposed threat of aggression by an unnamed totalitarian power or powers. NATO was supposedly dedicated to the cause of peace and the defence of small nations. The North Atlantic Treaty (April 1949) included the following signatory states: Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, France, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Canada and the United States. Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO membership had expanded beyond the original signatories to include Greece and Turkey (1952), West Germany (1955) and Spain (1982). The first expansion into Eastern Europe occurred in 1990 with the inclusion of the former German Democratic Republic in a united Germany. Since then twelve more states, most of them former members of the Warsaw Pact nations, joined NATO.  From the outset the alliance was dominated by the United States. Its supposed commitment to the defence of democratic nations and its claim to be a North Atlantic alliance were belied by the inclusion amongst the early member states of a fascist regime in Portugal, military dictatorship in Greece, and Turkey which bordered the Soviet Union in the Caucasus.
Dismissing  legitimate grievances as the work of insidious “outside professional agitators”
The idea that ordinary people could have legitimate grievances against their governments (ruling classes) on account of appalling corruption and super exploitation has traditionally been dismissed by US (and British) propaganda as the work of insidious “outside professional agitators.”
The conventional wisdom accepted as unassailable truth by the proponents and devotees of Western Cold War propaganda, has it that the United States and its allies who came together to form NATO were reacting in the late 1940s to a grave and imminent Soviet military threat to the “free” nations of Western Europe. Had it not been for their fortitude and unity in the face of this threat, the Red Army would have rolled westwards from Berlin and enslaved the whole of Western Europe. This would have been the prelude to the triumph of Communism on a world scale. According to this account, in 1949 NATO was the shield that defended the “Free World” in the hour of danger grim.
As usual, Izzy Stone was absolutely correct about Korea and the Cold War—but alone in blowing the whistle. The gentlemen of the patriotic “Free Press’ were not interested in such heretical matters.
This scenario now seems ludicrously fanciful even to many of the liberals who a few decades ago accepted it at face value. At the time that the Atlantic Pact was signed in 1949 the independent radical journalist, I.F. Stone, exposed the truth behind the propaganda. In a piece titled From Butter to Guns July 31, 1949, (from The Truman Era, 1945 – 1952) he noted that in promoting the Atlantic Pact, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, who had earlier sold the Marshall Plan to Western Europe as a response to the urgent need for economic aid to alleviate hunger and discontent, now emphasised the importance of military assistance. The “two-fold objective” of the Atlantic Pact is “first to protect the free North Atlantic Pact countries against internal aggression inspired from abroad,” and secondly to “deter aggression.”  ‘It is significant,’ Stone comments, ‘that protection against “internal aggression” is put first. Thus the primary purpose is to muster sufficient military strength to cope with popular discontent.’
 “Protecting the Free World” from Soviet agitation
The precise mission of NATO was never clearly stated by its founders, preferring to simply assign it the role of “protecting the Free World” one of the great Orwellian terms circulated by American propaganda during the Cold War. The phrase is still used everywhere in the US/Western media without much questioning.
From the earliest post-war years the United States and its subservient allies treated popular discontent in Europe as evidence of Soviet agitation. Communist parties and movements, particularly where they were strong, in France, Greece and Italy were regarded solely as agents of the USSR; industrial unrest, mass popular movements and strikes were treated as “internal aggression” stirred up by Soviet agents. Fear was engendered of a “World Communist Conspiracy”, much in the manner of the Nazi “World Judeo-Bolshevik Conspiracy” nonsense that had preceded it several years earlier. This was the atmosphere in which NATO came into being. To understand it more fully it is necessary, however briefly, to consider the pivotal question of Germany. Here, a few simple facts, well established but almost always ignored in the western Cold War narrative, need repeating:
Between 1941 and 1944 the Soviet Union played by far the greatest part in the defeat of Nazi Germany, at a cost of between 20 and 25 million dead and about a third of its industrial base and  units of human habitation destroyed. At the Yalta conference in February 1945 the allies agreed a plan to partition post-war Germany temporarily into zones of occupation and to carry through a thoroughgoing process of de-Nazification. In recognition of the immense sacrifices the Soviet Union had suffered in winning the war for the allies, it was agreed in principle that she should receive 50% ($10 billion) of the $20 billion in reparations Germany would be required  to pay. Churchill objected,  but Roosevelt accepted it as a basis for negotiation. Stalin was determined to stand firm on this. It was agreed to return Western Russia and the Ukraine to the Soviet Union.
At Potsdam in July/August 1945 it was agreed that the partition of Germany was not to be permanent and that the allies were to work together to achieve the de-Nazification of the country and the peaceful unification of the four occupation zones.  In the two years that followed Potsdam it became clear that the Western powers had no intention of allowing the Soviets to claim $10 billion in reparations in any form. In the Western zones the occupation powers interpreted  “de-Nazification” very differently from the Soviets.In the West many former members of the Nazi or pro-Nazi ruling elite were allowed to return to public life, often in key positions,  and had their property restored. Many who were imprisoned were released after having long sentences commuted. In the Soviet zone much of the industrial base was dismantled and despatched to the USSR as war reparations. Here de-Nazification resulted in the large-scale nationalisation of capitalist enterprises that had been owned by powerful Nazis. All members of the Nazi Party who had occupied influential positions in the Third Reich were dismissed and those guilty of crimes severely punished. These measures were denounced by the US and its allies as a Soviet attempt to “communize” East Germany as a first step to destabilising the Western zones as a prelude to taking over the whole of Germany and Western Europe.
In the anti-communist propaganda onslaught of the late 1940s, the Soviets were accused of violating the terms of the Potsdam agreement concerning the division of Germany. The record shows that on the contrary, it was the Western powers that were in breach of Potsdam. The agreement stipulated that the wartime allies should work together to establish a unified, neutral, de-militarized and de-Nazified Germany. No one occupying power, or exclusive grouping of such powers was permitted to set up a separate state in any part of Germany. In fact by 1948 that is precisely what the Western powers were planning to do in the three Western zones. Plans for this were being made at the London conference convened in 1948, from which the Soviet Union was excluded. A new currency (the Deutschmark) was being planned for the new West German state. It would also be introduced, without Soviet agreement, into Berlin. The Soviets took the view, which was perfectly logical, that if the Western powers were to tear up the Potsdam agreement by establishing a separate state in the West, they were thereby abrogating their right to retain their occupation sectors in Berlin which lay 100 miles inside the Soviet zone of Germany, and to introduce the DM without their agreement . The Soviet Union was therefore entirely within its rights to close all land access from the Western zones into Berlin.

The Berlin Airlift was hailed throughout the world as a great triumph for “freedom.”  It served to demonstrate, once again, that the United States had huge and powerful shoulders.

The blockade and airlift that lasted from June 1948 to May 1949 marked a critical intensification in the Cold War. Before the lifting of the blockade Britain and the other Atlantic Pact states had set up NATO. In October the Federal Republic of Germany had come into being with the full agreement and sponsorship of the US and NATO. This was followed almost immediately by the Soviet response – endorsement of a separate state in the East, the German Democratic Republic.
Thereafter NATO spearheaded US imperialist nuclear and military expansion on an ever-expanding scale. During the Eisenhower administration (1952-1960), under Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, this extended to the Middle East and South East Asia with the establishment of new military alliances CENTO and SEATO.
As is clear from Gromyko’s observations in 1955, the overriding Soviet concern for many years after the Second World War was with Germany. Stalin was desperate to prevent a German state, allied with a deeply hostile USA, once again becoming a strong military power. This preoccupation was crucial in his relations with his former wartime allies from 1945 until his death in 1953. One does not have to excuse his domestic record or his controversial treatment of his East European satellites to recognise the validity of this concern and to understand his determination to maintain a reliable buffer zone of states on his Western flank. He had no intention of invading Western Europe. There was real fear of a rearmed Germany, hardly surprising after the Soviet experience during the war.
In The Desert Fox (1951), the formidable James Mason portrayed Marshall Erwin Rommel as a principled military man quietly opposed to the brutalities of Nazism and Hitler, in particular.
But the US and the NATO states were determined to rearm Western Germany after 1949. In Britain, for example, what was almost certainly a deliberate propaganda campaign was launched from the early 1950s to whitewash the Wehrmacht by romanticising the role of Erwin Rommel in two feature films. Documentary films about the Nazi concentration camps were withdrawn and the full horror of the Nazi genocide of the Jews was played down. Attempts to keep these horrors in the public domain were denounced as communist propaganda. The term “Holocaust” was never used, and it was implied that reference to it stirred up “anti-German” sentiment.
In March 1952, in another episode which has almost been written out of the history of the Cold War, Stalin offered the Western powers the possibility of German reunification on the basis of nation-wide democratic elections, on condition that a unified Germany would be neutral and de-militarised. The USSR proposed “a unified democratic and peace-loving German government in accordance with the Potsdam provisions – with all foreign troops withdrawn from its territory; it would be permitted armed forces on a scale “necessary for the defence of the country.”

Lionised by the West, Konrad Adenauer, “Der Alte,” was yet another eager pawn in America’s hypocritical game.

Chancellor Adenauer rejected the proposal out of hand. The US government also rejected it, dismissing it as a devious ploy that Stalin did not mean seriously. But there is every reason to suppose that Stalin meant it very seriously. He was ready to sacrifice the government of the German Democratic Republic in favour of a unified Germany of a very different political character as long as it was neutral and demilitarised. One might refer to Gromyko’s riposte to Dulles (above) on the Soviet Union’s application to join NATO: “The Soviet Union does not make unserious proposals.” James Warburg, a member of the US Senate’s Committee on Foreign Relations testified on March 28. 1952 that while in his opinion the Soviet proposal might be a bluff, “that our government is afraid to call the bluff for fear that it may not be a bluff at all”, and that it might lead to a “free, neutral and demilitarised Germany.”
But what could possibly have been a major turning point in European history was not to be. Within a few years a rearmed Germany was in NATO and by 1957 a former Wehrmacht officer, General Hans Speidel ( who had in 1944 saved his own life by betraying Rommel’s minimal role in the officer’s plot against Hitler) was appointed Commander in Chief of Allied NATO land forces in Europe.
 
Senior contributing editor to The Greanville Post Mike Faulkner is a British citizen. He lives in London where for many years he taught history and political science at Barnet College, until his retirement in 2002. He has written a two-weekly column,  Letter from the UK,for TPJ Magazine since 2008. Over the years his articles have appeared in such publications as Marxism Today, Monthly Review and China Now. He is a regular visitor to the United Sates where he has friends and family in New York City. Contact Mike at mikefaulkner@greanvillepost.com

The secret government won’t change

Q&A

Vote all you want. The secret government won’t change.

The people we elect aren’t the ones calling the shots, says Tufts University’s Michael Glennon

By Jordan Michael Smith

BOSTON GLOBE |    October 19, 2014

istock/photo illustration by lesley becker/globe staff

The voters who put Barack Obama in office expected some big changes. From the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping to Guantanamo Bay to the Patriot Act, candidate Obama was a defender of civil liberties and privacy, promising a dramatically different approach from his predecessor.

But six years into his administration, the Obama version of national security looks almost indistinguishable from the one he inherited. Guantanamo Bay remains open. The NSA has, if anything, become more aggressive in monitoring Americans. Drone strikes have escalated. Most recently it was reported that the same president who won a Nobel Prize in part for promoting nuclear disarmament is spending up to $1 trillion modernizing and revitalizing America’s nuclear weapons.

Why did the face in the Oval Office change but the policies remain the same? Critics tend to focus on Obama himself, a leader who perhaps has shifted with politics to take a harder line. But Tufts University political scientist Michael J. Glennon has a more pessimistic answer: Obama couldn’t have changed policies much even if he tried.

Though it’s a bedrock American principle that citizens can steer their own government by electing new officials, Glennon suggests that in practice, much of our government no longer works that way. In a new book, “National Security and Double Government,” he catalogs the ways that the defense and national security apparatus is effectively self-governing, with virtually no accountability, transparency, or checks and balances of any kind. He uses the term “double government”: There’s the one we elect, and then there’s the one behind it, steering huge swaths of policy almost unchecked. Elected officials end up serving as mere cover for the real decisions made by the bureaucracy.

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Glennon cites the example of Obama and his team being shocked and angry to discover upon taking office that the military gave them only two options for the war in Afghanistan: The United States could add more troops, or the United States could add a lot more troops. Hemmed in, Obama added 30,000 more troops.

Glennon’s critique sounds like an outsider’s take, even a radical one. In fact, he is the quintessential insider: He was legal counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a consultant to various congressional committees, as well as to the State Department. “National Security and Double Government” comes favorably blurbed by former members of the Defense Department, State Department, White House, and even the CIA. And he’s not a conspiracy theorist: Rather, he sees the problem as one of “smart, hard-working, public-spirited people acting in good faith who are responding to systemic incentives”—without any meaningful oversight to rein them in.

How exactly has double government taken hold? And what can be done about it? Glennon spoke with Ideas from his office at Tufts’ Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. This interview has been condensed and edited.

IDEAS: Where does the term “double government” come from?

GLENNON:It comes from Walter Bagehot’s famous theory, unveiled in the 1860s. Bagehot was the scholar who presided over the birth of the Economist magazine—they still have a column named after him. Bagehot tried to explain in his book “The English Constitution” how the British government worked. He suggested that there are two sets of institutions. There are the “dignified institutions,” the monarchy and the House of Lords, which people erroneously believed ran the government. But he suggested that there was in reality a second set of institutions, which he referred to as the “efficient institutions,” that actually set governmental policy. And those were the House of Commons, the prime minister, and the British cabinet.

IDEAS: What evidence exists for saying America has a double government?

GLENNON:I was curious why a president such as Barack Obama would embrace the very same national security and counterterrorism policies that he campaigned eloquently against. Why would that president continue those same policies in case after case after case? I initially wrote it based on my own experience and personal knowledge and conversations with dozens of individuals in the military, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies of our government, as well as, of course, officeholders on Capitol Hill and in the courts. And the documented evidence in the book is substantial—there are 800 footnotes in the book.

IDEAS: Why would policy makers hand over the national-security keys to unelected officials?

GLENNON: It hasn’t been a conscious decision....Members of Congress are generalists and need to defer to experts within the national security realm, as elsewhere. They are particularly concerned about being caught out on a limb having made a wrong judgment about national security and tend, therefore, to defer to experts, who tend to exaggerate threats. The courts similarly tend to defer to the expertise of the network that defines national security policy.

The presidency itself is not a top-down institution, as many people in the public believe, headed by a president who gives orders and causes the bureaucracy to click its heels and salute. National security policy actually bubbles up from within the bureaucracy. Many of the more controversial policies, from the mining of Nicaragua’s harbors to the NSA surveillance program, originated within the bureaucracy. John Kerry was not exaggerating when he said that some of those programs are “on autopilot.”

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IDEAS: Isn’t this just another way of saying that big bureaucracies are difficult to change?

GLENNON: It’s much more serious than that. These particular bureaucracies don’t set truck widths or determine railroad freight rates. They make nerve-center security decisions that in a democracy can be irreversible, that can close down the marketplace of ideas, and can result in some very dire consequences.

IDEAS: Couldn’t Obama’s national-security decisions just result from the difference in vantage point between being a campaigner and being the commander-in-chief, responsible for 320 million lives?

GLENNON: There is an element of what you described. There is not only one explanation or one cause for the amazing continuity of American national security policy. But obviously there is something else going on when policy after policy after policy all continue virtually the same way that they were in the George W. Bush administration.

IDEAS: This isn’t how we’re taught to think of the American political system.

GLENNON: I think the American people are deluded, as Bagehot explained about the British population, that the institutions that provide the public face actually set American national security policy. They believe that when they vote for a president or member of Congress or succeed in bringing a case before the courts, that policy is going to change. Now, there are many counter-examples in which these branches do affect policy, as Bagehot predicted there would be. But the larger picture is still true—policy by and large in the national security realm is made by the concealed institutions.

IDEAS: Do we have any hope of fixing the problem?

GLENNON: The ultimate problem is the pervasive political ignorance on the part of the American people. And indifference to the threat that is emerging from these concealed institutions. That is where the energy for reform has to come from: the American people. Not from government. Government is very much the problem here. The people have to take the bull by the horns. And that’s a very difficult thing to do, because the ignorance is in many ways rational. There is very little profit to be had in learning about, and being active about, problems that you can’t affect, policies that you can’t change.

Europe may become irrelevant – Gorbachev

Europe may become irrelevant due to short-sighted policies – Gorbachev

Published time: November 08, 2014 11:47
Edited time: November 08, 2014 17:19

http://rt.com/news/203475-gorbachev-speech-berlin-wall/

Former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev attends a symposium on security in Europe 25 years after the fall of the "Wall" in Berlin on November 8, 2014 (AFP Photo / Odd Andersen)

Western policies toward Russia championed by Washington have led to the current crisis, and if the confrontation continues, Europe will be weakened and become irrelevant, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev warns.
Speaking to a forum in Berlin amid the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, he called on western leaders to de-escalate tensions and meet Russia halfway to mend the current rift.

Watch full video
 

After the Cold War ended, the leaders of the western world were intoxicated with euphoria of triumph, and they adopted anti-Russian policies that eventually led to the current crisis, Gorbachev said.
“Taking advantage of Russia’s weakening and a lack of a counterweight, they claimed monopoly leadership and domination in the world. And they refused to heed the word of caution from many of those present here,” he said. “The events of the past months are consequences of short-sighted policies of seeking to impose one’s will and fait accompli while ignoring the interests of one’s partners.”

Gorbachev gave a list of examples of those policies, including the expansion of NATO and the development of an anti-ballistic missile system, military interventions in Yugoslavia and Iraq, the west-backed secession of Kosovo, the crisis in Syria and others. The Ukrainian crisis is a “blister turning into a bleeding, festering wound,” he said.

Europe is the one suffering most from the situation, Gorbachev said.
“Instead of becoming a leader of change in a global world Europe has turned into an arena of political upheaval, of competition for the spheres of influence, and finally of military conflict. The consequence inevitably is Europe’s weakening at a time when other centers of power and influence are gaining momentum. If this continues, Europe will lose a strong voice in world affairs and gradually become irrelevant,” he said.

What needs to be done is for the west to tone down its anti-Russian rhetoric and seek points of convergence, Gorbachev said. He added that his own experience in the 1980s showed that much worse and seemingly hopeless conflicts can be resolved, granted there is the political will and a right setting of priorities. He assured the forum that the Russian leadership was willing to do its part, as evidenced by President Vladimir Putin’s keynote speech at the Valdai Forum.
“Despite the harshness of his criticism of the West and the United States in particular, I see in his speech a desire to find a way to lower tensions, and ultimately to build a new basis for partnership,” Gorbachev said.

Ukraine may have set the scene for the current confrontation, but it can also become a focus for reconciliation between Russia and the West, according to Gorbachev. He called for the parties to join forces and help Ukraine overcome the consequences of the civil war it is currently going through.

Over the longer term, the system of European security must be reformed, because the enlargement of NATO and the current EU common defense policy have failed to produce positive results, Gorbachev said. This would likely require an overhaul of the OSCE, which in its current format is not up to the task, he said, while proposals to that effect have been voiced by policymakers both in the EU and in Russia, but they had been “filed away in the archives.”
“Had such a mechanism been created, the worst scenarios of the Ukrainian events could have been averted.”