Månad: augusti 2021

Following the United States’ unilateral withdrawal from the agreement between the five permanent UN Security Council members, the European
Union, Germany, and Iran, that intends to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, the United States has re-imposed and tightened its sanctions against Iran. The United States’ renunciation of the agreement, despite the agreement’s UN Security Council approval and verified Iranian compliance, arguably violated international law.
Nevertheless, the United States is attempting to compel the other state parties (and others) to follow its policy on Iran by threatening those states’ companies and business executives with economic or even criminal sanctions to force them to cut commercial ties with Iran. […]

U.S. sanctions laws and their consequences for third states are incompatible with public international law. By assuming jurisdiction and enforcing its domestic legislation in cases with no relevant connection to the United States, the United States violates customary international law on jurisdiction and other States’ sovereignty, which includes the right to govern to the exclusion of other States. By intimidating foreign businesses and citizens so that they do not enter into commercial transactions that may violate the United States’ sanctions laws, the United States imposes its foreign policy on other States. The United States is thus unlawfully intervening in matters, which, as the ICJ pointed out, every state is entitled to “decide freely.” 200 By utilizing its economic strength in order to impose its will on third states, the United States also disregards the principle of sovereign equality. As one observer commented more than 20 years ago, United States’ sanctions policy “does little to reassure those who think that many members of the United States’ Congress do not understand international law at all, but see the world as one great federal state with the United States filling the role of the federal government.” 201 This corresponds with Austen Parrish’s conclusion that the United States views “the use of national law, applied extraterritorially, as a way to displace international law.” Läs artikel

Many people around the world are being denied the right to development – both their countries’ economic improvement and their own personal development – because of unilateral coercive measures, independent experts appointed by the Human Rights Council said today.

The experts called on countries that impose unilateral sanctions to withdraw or at least to minimize them to guarantee that the rule of law and human rights, including the right to development, are not affected.

“The precautionary principle should be applied by States when unilateral sanctions are taken to avoid any negative humanitarian impact on the whole scope of human rights, including the right to development,” the experts said. “The punishment of innocent civilians must end.

“The General Assembly has declared the right to development to be an inalienable human right, and it is recognized as such by the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Arab Charter on Human Rights and a range of multilateral human rights declarations.”

Extraterritorial application of sanctions, secondary sanctions, national civil and criminal penalties aimed at implementing unilateral sanctions which result in over-compliance, exacerbate and expand their impact to every individual or company in targeted societies, third country nationals and companies, humanitarian organizations, donors and beneficiaries of humanitarian aid, the experts said.

“Sanctions hold countries back from development, they hold back people as well, and in a globalizing world, that hurts everyone,” the experts said. Läs artikel

On July 6, a British carrier strike group passed through the Suez Canal, heading to the South China Sea and the Western Pacific Ocean for the first time since 1997. The last carrier deployment to the region marked a decline in British Indo-Pacific presence, as the task group visited Hong Kong prior to the handover of the former colony to the People’s Republic of China. This deployment, led by the new aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, marks a renewed determination to wield British maritime power and influence “east of Suez.” […]

The answers to these questions are far from trivial. The British media has heavily criticized this deployment. The Observer categorically judged that “sailing into imperial delusions is no way to run foreign policy.” The Financial Times went to great lengths to present remarks by U.S. Secretary of Defense Austin so as to suggest that Britain would be “more helpful” closer to home — presumably in Europe — only to subsequently update the story to better reflect his rather “positive remarks.”

This comes as no surprise. Since its first appearance in a speech Theresa May delivered in 2016, the idea of a “Global Britain” has often attracted criticism from those who view it as a “lonely fiction.” Specifically, pundits have regarded the recalibration, or “tilt,” toward the Indo-Pacific — and the carrier deployment — as a post-Brexit “theatrical exercise.” The prism of Brexit has tinted much of these critiques, with the majority of skeptics viewing plans for the Indo-Pacific as a distraction from the loss of a close relationship with the European Union and, as a result, of relevance to the United States. Informed observers, on the other hand, have raised questions about Britain’s need to sustain its engagement for British intentions to be taken seriously within the region. Similarly, some academics have noted that the logistics of sustaining activities would inevitably stretch British military resources too thinly, like “butter scraped over too much bread.” Harsher critics have gone as far as considering British ambitions in the Indo-Pacific through the prism of “imperial nostalgia,” with the government’s rhetoric being “miles distant from reality.” Läs artikel

USA:s militära insats i landet är planerad att avslutas till den 31 augusti och på en pressträff på tisdagen uppgav Joe Biden att han inte ångrar beslutet.

Enligt Biden har man under 20 år spenderat över en biljon dollar och tränat samt utrustat över 300 000 afghanska soldater med modern utrustning.

– Afghanska ledare måste gå samman. De måste slåss för sig själva, slåss för sitt land, sa Biden.

Medan USA drar sig ur Afghanistan avancerar talibanerna snabbt trots att de är numerärt kraftigt underlägsna jämfört med den afghanska militären. I helgen tog talibanerna kontroll över fem provinsiella huvudstäder.

Enligt Pentagons talesperson John Kirby kommer USA att fortsätta hjälpa landet med luftstöd, men utöver det är det inte mycket man kan göra. Samtidigt betonade Kirby att luftstöd inte är en ersättning för ledarskap på marken, politiskt ledarskap i Kabul och den kapacitet man vet att afghanerna har. Vidare uppmanade han den afghanska militären att nu använda den mångåriga träning de fått av USA och NATO.

– De har ett flygvapen, inte talibanerna. De har moderna vapen och organisationsförmåga, inte talibanerna. De har överlägsna antal jämfört med talibanerna. De har fördelarna och det är dags för dem att verkligen använda de fördelarna. Läs artikel

Sveits kjenner vi som en stat med «orden i papirene». Sveitsiske byråkrater og bankfolk har renommé (eller skal vi si rykte?) for å være like dyktige til å husholdere med statens egne ressurser som til å gjemme unna utlendingers inntekter og formuer som ønskes unndratt hjemlig beskatning.

Det er derfor med en viss undring man kan lese i det amerikanske «Breaking Defense» at sveitserne har valgt det amerikanske kampflyet F-35A med en begrunnelse som vil måtte få USAs forsvarsdepartement, Kongressens forsvarskomiteer og riksrevisjonen Government Accountability Office, GAO)til å sperre opp øynene og raskt gå i tenkeboks. […]

GAO kom nylig med en knusende rapport om tingenes tilstand, som revisjonen sier er uakseptabel og ikke bærekraftig. Et lite lyspunkt i all elendigheten kom i en fersk melding fra Pentagon om at antall store feil i F-35 er synkende, uten at det røpes hvilke feil det dreier seg om, og hvilke store feil som gjenstår. Men det er da noe . . .[…]

Det er naturlig å tenke tilbake på beslutningsprosess her hos oss i 2008. Da Lockheed Martin skjønte at regjeringspartiet SV hadde pris som eneste kriterium for valg av kampfly, la selskapets forhandlere seg elegant rett under den regjeringsgaranterte prisen på den svenske konkurrenten, JAS Gripen.

Det gikk ikke lang tid før prisen på F-35 gikk i været, og de gallopperende driftskostnader kan våre forhandlere umulig ha tatt høyde for å verne oss mot i kjøpskontrakten. De nye flyene – de første tre ankom Ørlandet flyplass i 2017, og vi har ennå ikke mottatt alle 52 – har allerede i dokumentet «Fremtidige Anskaffeler i Forsvarset (FAF 2021)» blitt skrevet inn med et oppgraderingsbehov på 4-6 milliarder kroner allerede om få år – før vi har mottatt alle flyene! Läs artikel

The threat and consequences from nuclear or radiological events remain as a real scenario for the 200th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade on the Kola Peninsula. Based in the Pechenga valley, the unit is one of the two Russian Arctic warfare brigades.

Fighting in a post-nuclear war environment, or handling a radiological terror attack, was the main task of Russian NBC (nuclear, biological, and chemical) Troops practicing together with the Arctic Brigade at the tankodrom and shooting range at Korzunova, a few kilometers east of the mining town of Zapolyarny.

The area of the exercise was attacked by a simulated enemy using weapons of mass destruction, the press service of the Northern Fleet informs. Läs artikel

Ahead of a preliminary appeal hearing in the High Court in London tomorrow (11 August) on the decision not to extradite the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the US, Amnesty International has renewed its call on President Biden to drop the charges against him. Nils Muižnieks, Amnesty International’s Europe Director, said:

“This attempt by the US government to get the court to reverse its decision not to allow Julian Assange’s extradition on the basis of new diplomatic assurances, is a blatant legal sleight of hand. Given that the US government has reserved the right to keep Julian Assange in a maximum security facility and subject him to Special Administrative Measures, these assurances are inherently unreliable. Läs artikel

Läs även artikel på den här  sajten om USA och en regelbaserad världsordning.

Minsk is not opposed to integration with Russia within the Union State but this move must not imply any loss of the republic’s statehood and sovereignty, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Monday.

”When we speak about integration, we must clearly understand that this means integration without any loss of statehood and sovereignty,” the Belarusian leader said at a meeting with reporters and public figures.

”We have never opposed the closest union but we have always been kept at bay and now you [Russia] are keeping us at a distance,” Lukashenko added. Läs artikel

1. In 2021, BRICS turns 15. In human terms, this is young adulthood, with thoughts shaped and a world view concretised, and with a growing sense of responsibilities. As such, India’s presidency of BRICS comes at such an inflection point for this grouping.

2. But the context is important for the global system as well. This is most tellingly felt in the pandemic that has devastated economies and societies. The juncture then is pregnant with challenges as well as opportunities. The role of the BRICS countries, of the ideas, strategies and policies they contribute, has never been so apparent.

3. The birth of BRICS was an implicit recognition that the post-war order had peaked. Emerging economies needed to step up to craft a new developmental framework. Each of us was well placed to do this, to share our experiences – in some measures or the other – with partner countries of but not limited to the global South. We intuitively understood that the dominance moment at the end of the Cold War could not be sustained. BRICS was a response to the search for diversity; in many ways, it was an accurate anticipation of multipolarity. Läs artikel

[…] Based on information resources of the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library of the Administrative Directorate of the President of the Russian Federation, electronic copies of archival documents which spotlight the history, course and results of the Second World War will be placing on the Internet for a number of years.

Identification and digitization of documents are carried out on the basis of domestic, captured and foreign archival funds.

In the year of the 75th anniversary of the Victory, online access to the first part of the documentary complex dedicated to the history of the Second World War (January 1933 – August 31, 1939) has been opened. The materials disclose, in particular, the policy of appeasing Germany from the moment the Nazis came to power until the German attack on Poland.

In total, the first part of the project included more than 1700 archival documents, photographs, and newsreel fragments stored in federal and departmental archives. Almost half of them are published for the first time.

The documents highlight the most important events in the life of Europe in the 1930s, and above all the phasing out of the Third Reich of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the accelerated militarization of the country and the transition of the German leadership to a policy of active conquests on the European continent. Läs presentationen

Utrikesminister Ann Linde (S)

Hans Wallmark har frågat mig om regeringen avser att driva på för att EU ska använda sanktionsregimen mot kränkningar av och brott mot mänskliga rättigheter mot personer eller juridiska objekt i Kuba för den senaste tidens våld och övergrepp riktade mot fredliga demonstranter.

Regeringen har nära följt den senaste tidens händelser i Kuba och delar Hans Wallmarks oro för situationen för mänskliga rättigheter, demokrati och rättsstatens principer i landet – varför jag själv också uppmanat de kubanska myndigheterna att tillåta fredliga demonstrationer och respektera mänskliga rättigheter. […]

2003 införde EU politiska sanktioner mot Kuba som innebar att samtliga officiella kontakter med regeringen upphörde. Åtgärderna hävdes då de konstaterats vara ineffektiva och inte fått önskad effekt.

Regeringen anser fortsatt att öppenhet och kontakt är att föredra framför isolering och att vår främsta möjlighet att bidra till en nödvändig förändring i Kuba är genom rak och tydlig dialog. Läs svaret

Those who favor restraint are neither pacifists nor isolationists (the latter label is another common calumny). They understand that there are genuine threats to national security and that some may necessitate the use of force. What merits debate, however, isn’t whether force should be a means of statecraft but the purposes for which it should be used and not used.

Restraint, a conception of statecraft, challenges principles that have shaped U.S. foreign policy for decades. Counterattacks are therefore unsurprising. They may even be a compliment, however inadvertent. The latest critique, by John Ikenberry and Daniel Deudney, two prominent self-declared liberal internationalists, appears in Survival, a global politics and strategy magazine published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Their analysis misunderstands and misrepresents restraint. Also, it exemplifies liberal internationalism’s obsolescence. Läs artikel