Nato Leadership Quotes

for the Labour Party – splendid news. That increasingly leftward bound organisation is in process of splitting, and Shirley Williams,fn31 Roy Jenkinsfn32 etc. will found a new Social Democratic Partyfn33 (this oddly repeats events in Oxford circa 1940 when I was chairman of the leftward bound Labour Club and Roy Jenkins led a group to found a new Social Democratic Club. How right he was!). It’s a pity about the Labour Party but given the whole scene the split is best. It is now official Labour policy to leave the Common Market and NATO! And unofficially are likely to abolish the House of Lords instantly and have no second chamber, abolish private schooling etc. And of course (this is perhaps the main point) to have the leadership under the control of the executive committee (and Labour activists in the constituencies) substituting party ‘democracy’ for parliamentary democracy. I blame Denis Healey and others very much for not reacting firmly earlier against the left. A crucial move was when the parliamentary party elected Michael Foot, that wet crypto-left snake, as leader instead of Denis. Now Denis and co. are left behind, complaining bitterly, to fight the crazy left. Shirley still hasn’t resigned from the party so it’s all a bit odd! ‘On your bike, Shirl,’ the lefty trade unionists shout at her!

The release of the book just tomorrow. Get ready for a good dose of adrenaline ;-) Meanwhile, I have for you next article. Let’s talk about terroritstic activity in Afghanistan. The problem with which we are dealing today almost everywhere. And turning back to the Wild Heads of War, in the book you will find a lot of military action in Afghanistan, led by NATO soldiers. One of them was my friend, who in 2009 was killed by IED (Improvised Explosive Device). The book tells the stories based on fiction but for all fans of the genre it will be surely good story. Article below made just to bring you closer to terroritstic activity in Afghanistan, that is, what is worth knowing by reading Wild Heads of War. Stabilization mission in Afghanistan belongs to one of the most dangerous. The problem is in the unremitting terroristic activity. The basis is war, which started in 1979 after USSR invasion. Soviets wanted to take control of Afghanistan by fighting with Mujahideen powered by US forces. Conflict was bloody since the beginning and killed many people. Consequence of all these happenings was activation of Taliban under the Osama Bin Laden’s leadership. The situation became exacerbated after the downfall of Hussein and USA/coalition forces intervention. NATO army quickly took control and started realizing stabilization mission. Afghans consider soldiers to be aggressors and occupants. Taliban, radical Muslims, treat battle ideologically. Due to inconsistent forces, the battle is defined to be irregular. Taliban’s answer to strong, well-equiped Coalition Army is partisan war and terroristic attacks. Taliban do not dispose specialistic military equipment. They are mostly equipped with AK-47. However, they specialized in creating mines and IED (Improvised Explosive Device). They also captured huge part of weapons delivered to Afghan government by USA. Terroristic activity is also supported by poppy and opium crops, smuggling drugs. Problem in fighting with Afghan terrorists is also caused by harsh terrain and support of local population, which confesses islam. After refuting the Taliban in 2001, part of al Qaeda combatants found shelter on the borderland of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Afghan terrorists are also trained there.

Russia is changing Russia’s face and not towards democracy. Karen Dawisha, a Professor at Miami University, told PBS Frontline that “Instead of seeing Russia as a democracy in the process of failing, see it as an authoritarian system that’s in the process of succeeding.”22 Putin is that authoritarian. For him to succeed at the mission of damaging the United States he will use all tools of the Russian statecraft such as forging alliances, but also including blackmail, propaganda, and cyberwarfare. To Putin, the best of all possible worlds would be an economically crippled America, withdrawn from military adventurism and NATO, and with leadership friendly to Russia. Could he make this happen by backing the right horse? As former director of the KGB, now in control of Russia’s economic, intelligence and nuclear arsenal, he could certainly try.

This illustrates the difficulties confronting the EU’s defence capacity. A critical mass of member states must agree to an action before it can be undertaken; for substantial operations that require Nato facilities and hence American consent, the Americans may not agree to what Europeans want to do, which would give rise to tensions within Nato; and where a European critical mass and American agreement are both available, the intergovernmental arrangements may be too weak to devise and manage a successful operation. While Nato’s system is also intergovernmental, American hegemonic leadership has caused it to work. There is no hegemon among the member states; and while this makes it more feasible to develop the EU as a working democracy, it will at the same time make an intergovernmental system in the field of defence hard to operate.

Indeed, Putin would like nothing more than to see the complete collapse of NATO so he can reconstitute Russia’s lost empire without the meddlesome West standing in his way. Under his leadership, Russia is once again quietly funneling money to extreme political parties in Western Europe on both the left and the right. It seems Putin doesn’t care much about his friends’ politics, so long as they are opposed to the United States and see the world roughly as he does. Besides, Putin has no real politics of his own. He is a kleptocrat and has no philosophy other than the cynical exercise of power.

Hardly anyone has weakened democracy from within as much as the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump. But it would be uninteresting, predictable, and unjust to write about his failings without even briefly illuminating the other side of the coin. The polarization of American society is certainly not only or even primarily his work. Left-wing politics has contributed its share too, by being increasingly disconnected from the priorities and needs of large parts of the population and full of self-righteousness. Also, if one disregards Trump’s narcissistic self-dramatization and an erratic political style that shows little respect for democratic institutions, one sees an administration that made three important course corrections: the economic decoupling from dictatorships, especially China; the growing pressure on Europe to fund and strengthen NATO; and a critical stance against the abusive market-dominating practices of Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and, most importantly, Chinese surveillance tools and platforms. These policies have all been continued in Joe Biden’s presidency. In style and language, their differences are vast; in substance, strikingly few. Underplaying Trump’s leadership on these fronts does no favors to a substantive critique of his democracy-damaging legacy. From the beginning of his presidential bid, Donald Trump used aggressive and incendiary language, presented simplistic worldviews, and pointedly depicted his opponents as the enemy (US, the good guys, versus THEM, the bad guys). This is the emotional fuel of polarization. His rapid rise was based in part on relativizing racism, and throughout his term, Trump downplayed any cases of police violence against blacks, including the murder of George Floyd in 2020, as isolated incidents. He called protests against racism “un-American.” Deeply associated with Donald Trump’s administration are the terms “fake news” and “alternative facts.” And it is here that lie the most dangerous, democracy-damaging legacies of his time in office. Fake news has been around as long as news has been around. For thousands of years, it spread as rumors in the marketplaces and gossip behind closed doors. Today, it spreads globally within seconds on social media. So fake news is not new. It’s just become more dangerous. And it becomes a problem for democracy when social groups, political parties, or NGOs accuse the other side of falsifying facts and label facts that do not serve their own agenda as fake. Trump not only reinforced this tendency, he elevated it in his political communications and campaigns.