Category: Jan Oberg

TFF PressInfo: Psycho politics in the age of imperial decline

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By Jan Oberg

Lund, Sweden – May 23, 2014

The time of rational politics, if it ever existed, is over.

”Realpolitik” has become a mixture of marketing soundbites, propaganda and leaders making statement that borders on the Theatre of the Absurd. Thinner and thinner links to Real-ity.

This is what happens when decline in being denied.

All empires go down. The U.S. empire is in decline. Macro historians (see e.g. British Arnold Toynbee’s 12-volume work 1934-61) tell that there are many reasons when empires fall:

• militarism with constant warfare;

• overextension – trying to control more than you can manage;

• loss of legitimacy in the eyes of others;

• structural economic crisis;

• moral decay;
• loss of intellectual and technological innovation and

• simply other powers gaining strength over time and doing things in new, creative ways.

After 1945 the U.S. was considered strong on many power dimensions: military, economics, politics, legitimacy, culture, innovation. Today, it is only clearly Number One on the military dimension. When all the other indicators go down, the military becomes a huge burden and only accelerates the decline.

The U.S. is in decline and denial. So are most of its allies and sympathizers.

Its foreign policy-makers seem to assume that everything is fine and they can still lead and shape the world according to their interest and worldview. It remains fundamentally a missionary.

Here is some elements of what it consists of:Read More »

TFF PressInfo: Ukraine – Stop escalation and think peace

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By Jan Oberg

Lund, Sweden May 9, 2014

1. Welcome de-escalation
Vladimir Putin’s statements that separatists should not hold referendums on May 11, that he welcomes the elections in Ukraine on May 25 and that Russia is withdrawing troops from the border with Ukraine should be welcomed.

If he has been ”aggressive” and this is a ”turnabout” as many in the West believe, this turnabout is even more welcome.

If he hasn’t been aggressive but merely defensive, it is still helpful in terms of defusing the crisis.

2. Constructive response from the West
The only constructive approach so far seems to be OSCE chair Burkhalter’s “roadmap”. But it needs to get more concrete and detailed.

We now need some constructive response from the US, NATO and EU. It would be helpful if they announced that they will not try to include Ukraine in NATO or EU for that matter but respect the opinion of all Ukrainians. Read More »

TFF PressInfo: Sverige – inte längre aktör för en bättre värld

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Av Jan Öberg
Dr.hc., direktör för TFF
4 maj 2014

Eliten i Sverige är mer lojal mot Nato, USA och EU än mot sitt folk

• Under de senaste 25-30 åren har Sveriges militära, säkerhets- och utrikespolitiska elit vridit Sveriges politik 180 grader.

• Dessa grundläggande förändringar inleddes av den socialdemokratiska regeringen under Göran Persson och utrikesminister Anna Lindh och har genomförts praktiskt taget utan offentlig debatt.

• Omsvängningen till interventionism, militarism och USA/Nato på alla områden har planerats gradvis, i smyg och ohederligt – kort sagt på ett sätt som är ovärdigt en demokrati.

• Denna elit är mer lojal mot Bryssel och Washington än mot svenskarna.

• Om din bild av Sverige är att det är ett progressivt, förnyande och fredsfrämjande land med global inställning som försvarar folkrätten så är den – tråkigt nog – föråldrad.

Hur Sverige har förändrats

Sverige är inte längre neutralt och det är bara formellt alliansfritt; det finns ingen mer närstående bundsförvant än USA/Nato. Landet har upphört att utveckla en egen politik och positionerar istället sig inom ramen för EU och Nato. Landet bidrar inte längre med betydelsefullt nytt tänkande – det sista var Olof Palmes kommission om gemensam säkerhet (1982).Read More »

TFF PressInfo: Sweden – no longer a force for good

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Sweden’s elite more loyal with NATO, the US and EU than with its people

By Jan Oberg

May 2, 2014

• Over the last 25-30 years Sweden’s military, security and foreign policy elite has changed Sweden’s policy 180 degrees.

• These fundamental changes were initiated by the Social Democratic government under Goran Persson and foreign minister Anna Lindh and have been carried through virtually without public debate.

• The rapproachment with interventionism, militarism and US/NATO in all fields has been planned, incremental, furtive and dishonest; in short, unworthy of a democracy.

• This elite is more loyal with Brussels and Washington than with the Swedes.

• If your image of Sweden is that it is a progressive, innovative and peace-promoting country with a global mind-set and advocate of international law, it is – sad to say – outdated.

How Sweden has changed

Sweden is no longer neutral Read More »

TFF PressInfo: Criminal investigation of the Nobel Peace Prize

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Media release
Lund and Oslo, April 25, 2014

The management of the Nobel Peace Prize has become a case for the Norwegian police, following a request for criminal investigation from 16 prominent Scandinavians, parliamentarians, lawyers, authors and peace activists, 10 Swedes and 6 Norwegians, to the authority on economic crime, the ØKOKRIM.

The move is based on the research of Norwegian lawyer Fredrik S. Heffermehl who in his books has called for respect for Alfred Nobel and the peace plan he wished to support.

– “In his last years Nobel joined the peace movement and wished to support financially its idea of co-operation on disarmament to replace military force and forces. The Norwegian Parliament appoints the five-member selection committee that must step down and be replaced by people who favor the idea of the prize,” says Heffermehl.

He claims that his demands through 6 years, and even an order in March 2012 from the Swedish Foundations Authority have not led the awarders to show any interest in Nobel and what he really wanted.

– “This is unlawful and criminal, and the requested police investigation comes as a last resort to secure justice for “the champions of peace” Nobel specified in his will.Read More »

TFF PressInfo: Kosovo 15 years later, a personal memory and a word about free research

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By Jan Oberg

Lund, Sweden March 24, 2014

Media with a pro-Western bias usually remind us of 9/11 based on a victim narrative. We just passed 3/20 – the 11th Anniversay of the war on Iraq. Every year they forget 10/7 (Afghanistan) and 3/24, the destruction of Serbia-Kosovo in 1999.

What to do when NATO’s raison d’etre – the Warsaw Pact – had dissolved? Answer: Turn NATO into a humanitarian bombing organisation which in – fake – Gandhian style could say: We are bombing for a higher ethical humanitarian purpose to save lives and on this exceptionalist moral high ground we ignore international law.

Kosovo 15 years later

Kosovo remains a unique result of propaganda and mass killings to produce and independent state without a UN Security Council mandate – which doesn’t prevent Western politicians from teaching Russia international law these very days.

If Kosovo, why not Tibet, Taiwan, the Basque country, Korsica, Kurdistan, Palestine, or Crimea? The answer is: Kosovo was exceptional. But why? Oil and gas, perhaps, see later…Read More »

TFF PressInfo: Crimea – The referendum, the mote and the beam

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By Jan Oberg

Lund, Sweden March 16, 2014

Of course it is illegal and of course it will be rigged, that referendum in Crimea today. And of course it is a ploy and comes only in the wake of Russia’s (read Putin’s) unprovoked aggression, used as a pretext to build a new Greater Russia.

That is, if you browse the mainstream Western media the last week and on this Sunday morning.

Referendum means referring an issue back to the people. It is – or should be – an important instrument in democracies. And it’s a much better instrument than war and other violence to settle complex conflicts.

Generally, citizens-decided conflict-resolution is likely to last longer and help healing wounds of the past than any type of solution imposed by outside actors.

In Switzerland citizens go and vote on all kinds of issues on many a Sunday throughout the year. Sweden has used it to decide about nuclear energy, Denmark about EU membership and – in 1920 – to solve the conflicts in Schleswig-Holstein and define the future border between Germany and Denmark. Referendums, binding as well as non-binding, are an accepted instrument in many countries.

Why did the West not use referendums?

The West likes to pride itself of its type of democracy whenever and wherever it can. But it doesn’t use the referendum instrument that often. Read More »

TFF PressInfo: Dangerous reductionism about Ukraine

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“We don’t see things as they are but as we are” – Anais Nin

By Jan Oberg

Lund, Sweden – March 5, 2014

How can we begin to understand the events in Ukraine? Who are the conflict parties and elements?

Here is a quick checklist of 13, just a selection:

1. Ukraine – government (earlier/present), opposition (split), people (19 ethnic groups + Ukrainians abroad). Crimea with its diversity and Ukraine’s relations to neighbours – enough for a doctoral dissertation.

2. Russia – the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia and Russia’s more or less strong partners such as Syria.

3. Europe – the EU and European non-EU countries such as e.g. Turkey

4. The United States – the world’s only empire, with a foreign policy establishment in Washington deeply split in neo-conservatives on the one hand and Obama and the rest on the other.

5. China – with an increasing influence worldwide, including conspicuously in Ukraine

6. BRICS – Brasil, Russia, India, China and South Africa

7. World financial organisations such as the International Monetary Fund, IMF, finance institutions, banksters and those others who influence and can ”pay the bills” (and get to own the property) in Ukraine

8. Inter-governmental organisations – the UN, NATO, OSCE and othersRead More »

TFF PressInfo: Ukraine – What Would You Like to Know About It?

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By Jan Oberg

I’m no expert on Ukraine, haven’t even visited it. Like millions of other citizens, I rely on media reports to understand at least some of what looks like potentially very serious developments.

Why do I feel so frustrated at what I get? Why do I have so many questions still after weeks of coverage? And how much will fellow-citizens who have just a few minutes per day to acquaint themselves with issues such as this understand (except that Putin is a bad guy)?

It’s a conflict, isn’t it?

I would like to know what are the internal Ukrainian dimensions, the regional East-West European and EU/NATO aspects and what has all this to do with global developments e.g. U.S. foreign policy, NATO’s expansion since the end of the Cold War, strategic interests of Russia and Russia-NATO relations. And where is China and BRICS countries in all this?

Internally, I’d like to learn about the ethnic composition and geography, the role of Russians and – not the least the Jews – and the historic relations between Russia and Ukraine.

In a shorter perspective, when did the West begin to see Ukraine as an interesting country? Why did George Bush Sr. and James Baker promise Mikhail Gorbachev that the West would never expand up to Russia’s border – and anyhow NATO began being an issue in Ukraine in 1995.

It would be great to learn from media about how – as everywhere else – economic mismanagement and overall crisis caused both neo-Nazism, rampant anti-Semitism and general dissatisfaction? And why is it that anti-Semitism is covered so little anywhere in the Western press

How come that important background aspects like these so easily translate into simplifying anti- versus pro-Russian attitudes?Read More »

TFF PressInfo – Geneva will fail but don’t blame only the Syrian parties

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Lund, Sweden – January 24, 2014

By Jan Oberg*

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The meeting in Geneva about Syria resumes today. It is destined to become a historic failure. Most observers will blame either of the armed Syrian parties – the government or the rebels – for adhering unbendingly to their mutually exclusive positions.

But that isn’t fair. Those who set themselves up as conflict-managers, mediators, negotiators and peace-makers and called the meeting must also take responsibility for its failure. It is the UN, the Arab League and several governments, various NATO countries and Russia (”facilitators” in the following).

This article is about how to achieve a negotiated peace.

Here follow 8 – out of many more – professional criteria that are useful for an evaluation of Geneva. Summary at the end:

1) How well do the facilitators understand what the conflict is about?
It’s about history, suffering, socio-economic crisis, foreign involvement, traumas and constitutional matters; it’s about vicious cycles of violence and arms traders’ profits.
No conflict is only about one top leader and, as we know from Iraq, Libya and elsewhere, conflicts are not solved by that leader leaving the stage. And no conflict is about only two sides, one with all the good people on one side and one with all the evil ones.
Further it is reasonable to say that Syria is a stage for a much larger conflict being played out: the wider Middle East as well as among actors who are competing for power in tomorrow’s world. Read More »