WHY I DON'T TAKE SIDES IN THE WAR IN GAZA

 It may come as a surprise to readers of my geopolitics blog  that I have avoided - and will continue to avoid - taking sides in the conflict pitching Israelis against Palestinians in Gaza. 

The reasons are however quite simple. As a Romanian-Australian historian having specialised in Toulouse in international relations and geopolitics, my professional interests are exclusively focused on developments happening around Romania and, by extension, in Eurasia. This is why I have devoted most of my professional attention to the war in Ukraine in the past twenty months, as well as before that, since 2014. Sadly, Romania still has more than half a million ethnic Romanians living, or dying on the battlefields in Ukraine, and unfortunately it has been flooded with hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees since February 2022. 

As Romania was for more than two decades a satellite of China during the Ceausescu regime, I have also paid special attention to China's spreading influence in Eastern Europe, before and after 1989.

By the same token, Russia was an important actor in the evolution of the Romanian principalities during the Middle Ages, as well as a leading power involved in the major developments affecting the history of the modern Romanian state since the unification in 1859. 

My professional interest in the major events happening within the EU has  deepened since 2007, when Romania was admitted as a member. 

My acquired knowledge of events from parts of the Arab world dates back to 2010-2011, when I was studying for my masters degree at Sciences Po in Toulouse. My research thesis then was concerned with the evolution of the EU's relations with the Maghreb countries. My thesis did not include research or references to events in the Mashreq ,nor did I acquire the necessary in-depth historical information about these areas.

After World War II, the US replaced European powers - the British and the French- in the Middle East, becoming its sole peace and security provider. Consequently, I have usually paid only scant attention to developments there. I have always considered it a huge mistake,for example,  and an illustration of his megalomania the fact that Ceausescu had cultivated political leaders from the Middle East, like Yasset Arafat , or that he tried - albeit unsuccessfully - to play the role of peacemaker between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

A comparative analysis of the way major powers have governed the Arabs from the Middle East over the past few hundred years reveals the fact that the Ottomans were by far much more adept at keeping the peace among Arabs than the West has over the last  hundred years. Naturally, having the same religion as the Arabs in the Middle East or North Africa has helped the Ottoman Turks keep the peace in those regions until 1918 when the Sultanate imploded. Unfortunately, the skills of various Western administrators, including the Americans, were not up the task of keeping the Middle East stable and the Arabs pacified .

This above comment, however, should not be understood as an endorsement of President Erdogan's latest speech in Istanbul on behalf of the Palestinians from Gaza. Although his first decade in power was very successful, Erdogan has slowly but surely torpedoed his main achievements during his second decade at the helm. Trying to bask in the glory of his Ottoman predecessors, or of that of Kemal Ataturk, will not help the efforts to stabilise the Middle East or put an end to the conflict in Gaza. 

A FAREWELL TO THE REPUBLIC OF ARTSAKH

It is generally assumed that international relations graduates from IEP in Toulouse contribute little, if at all, to the management of international crises or their resolution. As always, there are exceptions to this rule.

The decision of the Armenian leaders of the Nagorno Karabakh enclave (Azerbaijan) to evacuate the province and relocate the entire population from there to the interior of the Armenian state is a step in the right direction. It brings to an end several decades of military confrontation between the Azeri Muslim majority and the Armenian Christian minority.

On August 4, 2023, I commented on an article about Armenians in the Azeri province signed by Srdja Trifkovic (Chronicles Magazine), stating that :

" Now, returning to the dire situation of the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, I must say that I do not believe that there are any diplomatic or military solutions to this geopolitical problem. I also believe that the absorption of the 150,000 Armenians living there into the Armenian state proper is a much more logical and practical solution. After all, this is what the state of Israel has been doing for decades: absorbing Jews from countries where their ordinary life and religion are threatened."

I am now happy to hear that the Armenian authorities have reached the same conclusion and reacted accordingly.

Incredibly as this might sound, however, the bureaucrats of the US State Department would like Azerbaidjan to create the conditions for the RETURN of the 100,000 Armenians who already fled Nagorno Karabakh for the safety of Armenia. Their stance calls into question their ability to conduct American foreign affairs in Eurasia.

What is BRICS' Global Agenda ?

 BRICS is putting together the world's biggest balance of power mechanism to date.

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By now we all know who was the ‘godfather’ of BRICS. In 2001 as chief economist at Goldman Sachs, Jim O’Neill used the acronym BRIC in a research paper. At the time, grouping together Brazil, Russia, India and China made a lot of sense, as Western capitals were eager to invest in faster-growing developing economies. 

The launch of BRICS unfortunately coincided with the launch of America’s Athenian-styled informal empire, which aimed to become the sole global hegemon economically, politically and militarily. 

Such hubristic ambitions greatly alarmed most emerging economic powerhouses, like China and Brazil, as well as India and Russia. Two decades later, BRICS’ combined share of global GDP is already higher than that of the G7 nations. The US, the leader of G7 , has these days a share of only 16 percent of global GDP, a far cry from the 50 percent it enjoyed back in 1945. 

Undaunted, the Americans are willing to risk an all-out war with the leading members of BRICS, China and Russia, in the hope of clinging to the self-appointed position of global hegemon. With this objective in mind, the US is dragging along both G7 and the members of the NATO alliance, a fact which actually elevates the importance of BRICS even more, according to the same Jim O’Neill:

“I think if I go right back to my initial paper, I cannot believe how narrow-minded or naïve leaders in the G7 countries are. The whole idea that this group of seven “industrialised” or “more developed” or “earlier developed” countries can run the world is embarrassing. Because, first of all, their share of the world GDP has declined. Japan’s not shown any net increase in its GDP for 20 years. Italy virtually never grows. So, this idea that they are some kind of thing for the whole world to follow is erroneous.

And then on top of it, G7 is effectively a hostage to whatever Washington wants. So how do you solve the mammoth global issues of our time with just those guys ? I mean, it’s embarrassing and that’s quite depressing, because the whole reason why I created the BRICS was to suggest we needed a better form of global governance than the G7.” (interview in African Business, June 1st, 2023)

After more than 20 years, from an economic grouping meant to rival the G7, BRICS morphed into an alliance of countries determined to thwart, in any way possible, the US’ drive for global hegemony. 

Not too many experts are clear about this, and quite possibly not even most BRICS members realise the fact that they actually helped put together a classic, European-style balance of power mechanism, meant to contain and defeat America’s global leadership ambitions.

Sure, there are many differences and even frictions among the leading BRICS countries. These, however, do not interfere with the main item on the 

BRICS’ agenda, namely that of stopping American hegemonism in its tracks. 

This is the key to understanding why more than 20 countries on all continents have expressed a desire to join the group at the recent BRICS summit in Johannesburg. Tired of being bullied by the US and to have their sovereignty diminished, these aspiring countries have decided to side with the BRICS in its quest to contain and defeat America’s hegemonic designs. 

To be sure, the size of this balance of power mechanism put together by BRICS under own eyes is unprecedented as far as size goes and is global in scope, as well. It includes not only Russia and China – the world’s largest and the world’s most populous countries, but also leading countries from Africa and South America. 

With its great economic and human resources , BRICS is fully able - economically and militarily - to tilt the balance in favour of developing countries for good, and thus put a stop to the absurd hegemonic ambitions of the US and its Western allies.

Europe for Europeans

Two hundred years years ago, President Monroe asked the European powers of the time to stop interfering in the affairs of their former colonies, in the Americas. It is now time Europeans ask the US to reciprocate, in order for the EU to be able to build its own security architecture on the continent.

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In his speech before the US Congress on the 2nd of December 1823, US President Monroe outlined what has since become known the "America for Americans" doctrine:

"It is impossible that the allied powers should extend their political system to any portion of either continent without endangering our peace and happiness; nor can anyone believe that our southern brethren, if left to themselves, would adopt it of their own accord. It is equally impossible, therefore, that we should behold such interposition in any form with indifference. If we look to the comparative strength and resources of Spain and those new Governments, and their distance from each other, it must be obvious that she can never subdue them. It is still the true policy of the United States to leave the parties to themselves, in hope that other powers will pursue the same course..."

By and large, European powers heeded Monroe's call. Now it is  European leaders who need to call on the Americans to reciprocate and to dissolve the NATO alliance,  thus enabling European countries to make their own security arrangements.

At the end of the Cold War, German Foreign Minister Genscher, French President Mitterrand and Soviet leader Gorbachev fully expected NATO to be dismantled, as the Warsaw Pact was. They intended to create a new European security architecture, which would have included Russia, but excluded NATO and the United States. The project was rejected out of hand by American leaders, who decided to not only keep NATO going, but opted for its eastward expansion after the implosion of the USSR.

Since 1999, NATO ceased to be a guarantor of peace on the European continent. It started a series of wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and now, by proxy, in Ukraine.

As of two years ago, NATO even intends to drag European nations into military confrontations in the Indo-Pacific with China, a drive which leading European nations oppose. 

Although most leading IR specialists believe that the current war in Ukraine is a result of NATO's expansion, the fact remains that this is but a consequence of not dismantling NATO in 1991.

Accordingly, today's European leaders should collectively push for the dissolution of the Alliance and for its replacement by a collective security arrangement, not only autonomous but independent of the United States.

In truth, stopping NATO's expansion and the neutrality of Ukraine will not address the root cause of Europe's security woes and will not guarantee that Europe can become again a peaceful continent.

As matters now stand, European nations are captive to a military alliance  emulating  Athens' ancient Delian League, which has become toxic to most of its members. It is therefore not in the interest of Europeans to continue to be part of an alliance that has been redefined after 2000 as an instrument of American global hegemonism.

IS PENTAGON'S PRESENCE GOOD FOR AFRICA ?

 " We entered the region in force. We were looking, in particular, at how the U.S. strategy toward the Sahel is working. That's a strategy that we put in place about a year ago to try to bring more coherence to our efforts to support increased security," ( Victoria Nuland, 2022 )

After the start of the "war against terrorism", the Pentagon also appeared in Africa, managed until then by Europeans. The "results" were not long in coming: in the last 15 years, there have been 7 coups, led by local officers trained in the United States by the Pentagon (in Mali, Mauritania and Burkina Faso),eight if we include the recent military coup from Niger.

" Technically, the United States is not at war in Africa. But the practice and terminology of the US-led War on Terror has changed, making the US military’s involvement more difficult to trace. In the past 15 years, the US government has quietly expanded its military footprint across the African continent, engaging in “special operations” with African troops in the name of security. Since the 2007 establishment of the Africa Command (AFRICOM), the defense department’s regional combatant command for Africa, the US has adopted a military-first approach to securing its interests on the continent. This has had disastrous effects. Whether it’s the seemingly endless (undeclared) war against the militant group Al-Shabaab in Somalia or the wave of coups (in many cases led by US-trained officers), AFRICOM has contributed to the very instability it claims to address." ( Samar al-Bulushi)

In other words,  according to Nuland, all the coups mentioned above - directed against democratically elected governments - have had the objective of "bringing more coherence" in supporting "security efforts" in the Sahel region. In reality, the US military presence by proxy in Africa was the root cause for the spread of military anarchy in  Sahel.

An Agenda for NATO's 2024 Washington Summit

"The most serious danger to the security of the world right now ? The United States itself. The United States has become the most profound source of instability and an uncertain exemplar of democracy." (Richard Haass, former President, Council on Foreign Relations, July 2023)

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It is not by accident that I decided to write this post on the national day of France. 

Since NATO's foundation, the French have always been ill-at-ease with the US' leadership style of the alliance. In 1949, 13 American senators were also opposed to its foundation. Senator Robert A Taft, the son of the 27th American president, William Taft, refused to vote in favour because 

: “If we undertake to arm all the nations around Russia from Norway on the north to Turkey on the south, and Russia sees itself ringed about gradually by so-called defensive arms from Norway and … Denmark to Turkey and Greece, it may form a different opinion. It may decide that the arming of western Europe, regardless of its present purpose, looks to an attack upon Russia. Its view may be unreasonable, and I think it is. But from the Russian standpoint it may not seem unreasonable…. How would we feel if Russia undertook to arm a country on our border; Mexico, for instance?”

To be sure, NATO's recent enlargement around the Baltic Sea cannot obscure the fact that this alliance has outlived its usefulness by some two decades and that it has, unfortunately, become the main war provocateur and a menace to global peace. 

No European expert or politician of note really believes that EU nations are under threat of invasion from Russia. By contrast, Russia has rightfully complained for years about NATO's expansion from Central Europe eastwards, to no avail. Its misgivings were proven prescient, as NATO has expanded right up to Russia's borders.

Since 1999, NATO has become an offensive alliance, as the wars in Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq and the bombing campaigns in Syria and Libya have demonstrated. Gone are the days when NATO tasked itself with preserving peace in Europe. Nowadays there is even talk of dragging European NATO allies into the Indo-Pacific, presumably to deter China from invading Taiwan. American policymakers cannot truly hope to enlist NATO's European allies to participate in a conflict with China: in 2003 the US was unable to convince them to take part in the invasion of Iraq - a much less dangerous adversary.

These are only a few reasons why the upcoming NATO 2024 summit in Washington should have only one item on its agenda: the peaceful dissolution of this alliance. It can no longer justify its existence in geostrategic terms, and it has become toxic to its European allies. NATO officials should forget about building expensive new headquarters in Europe, opening liaison offices in Japan or pressing its members to increase their military spending. The US is no longer in a position to be the global hegemon, since it now lacks a strong industrial base and its budget deficits have become unbearable for the average American taxpayers. Putting its fiscal house in order should be the main priority for the US. Nowadays it can ill-afford to maintain its 750 military bases worldwide and to simultaneously finance NATO's European allies' defence, as well as Ukraine.

As in our nuclear age the dismantling of NATO is the only rational choice, the entire US political class should give their full support to the executive branch and back a decision to curtail the agony of an alliance which lacks a solid geostrategic justification for its existence. In other words, NATO's main preoccupation in 2024 should not be Ukraine or Russia, but how to fold its war tents from Europe as peacefully as the Soviets did in 1991.

A Eulogy for the White World

 The sheer stupidity of NATO leaders gathered in Vilnius is such that they do not realise they are hastening the final demise of their world. 

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Do you know any more stupid race than the white one ? If so, please point it out to me, because I, as a historian, do not know of any other ! 

The story of the white world's impending demise from preeminence (think here Russia, Europe and North America) began 2500 years ago in Ancient Greece. 

In order to be able to vanquish the invading Persians, Athens focused all its diplomatic skill to build the impressive Delian League, which included most Greek city-states. Unfortunately, after their alliance's victory against the Persians, Athenians rather unwisely transformed the League into an alliance dedicated to perpetuating their hegemony over the entire Greek world. This was anathema to Sparta, which fought Athens during the fratricide Peloponnesian war and, in the process, provoked the total destruction of the Greek civilisation, the most advanced in the world at the time.

Athens' brilliant achievements during Pericles's era in the 5th century B.C. were mirrored by Europe in the 19th century. As a result of the industrial revolution and colonial expansionism, the continent - home to the bulk of the white race - reached its zenith.

To the bitter disappointment of the intellectuals of the time, the 20th century proved to be an unmitigated disaster for the white world. The drive to achieve hegemony over it, pitching Germans against an alliance between Great Britain, France and Russia, provoked tens of millions of victims on the continent. This "war to end all wars" was in fact the greatly magnified version of the Peloponnesian war that destroyed Greece during Antiquity. 

The second world war followed within a generation, proving to be at least as destructive as the first. It mortally wounded a white world that completely lost its solidarity, which had hitherto generally been the norm for hundreds of years.

Built on the ruins of WWII, the NATO military and political alliance was formed by the United States, which succeeded in keeping the peace on the European continent for almost 60 years. After the implosion of the USSR, the US unwisely decided - like Athens did - to repurpose NATO as an instrument of hegemonic domination over the entire European continent, Russia excluded. This new Nato has as a result become an offensive alliance which, sadly, needed a new enemy. It therefore designated the Russian Federation, as the successor to its old Soviet foe of the Cold War years.

Back at the height of its economic and military power, as the 19th century drew to a close, the white world decided it was strong enough to conquer and partition China. In the 21st century, the objectives of the Nato alliance are currently more modest. It is now aiming at destroying and partitioning Russia only. Thus the type of conflict engineered by the US in Ukraine can be characterised as a kind of civil war, pitching the white nations of Europe - using Ukrainians as their proxy - against Russia.

This ill-inspired drive against a kin country like Russia, however, could only end up in a total disaster for the whole of the white world. The war now being stoked in Ukraine could be the catalyst to "the End of History" Fukuyama peddled during the '90's. Sadly, however, the history of the white world will not end with the universal triumph of liberal democracy, but in a nuclear holocaust instead. 

If this is not the ultimate expression of stupidity, what is ?