Månad: augusti 2023

[…] The United States, of course, is not the first global great power to experience this problem. It was one that the British Empire also faced even in its heyday in the nineteenth century. One of the leading British statesmen wrestling with it was Lord Palmerston (Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston), who was the dominant figure in shaping British foreign policy from 1830 until his death while serving as prime minister in 1865. It was Palmerston who famously said, “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.” […]

Palmerston observed, “As to the romantic notion that nations or Governments are much or permanently influenced by friendships, and God knows what, why, I say that those who maintain those romantic notions, and apply the intercourse of individuals to the intercourse of nations, are indulging in a vain dream. The only thing which makes one Government follow the advice and yield to the counsels of another, is the hope of benefit to accrue from adopting it, or the fear of the consequences of opposing it.”[…]

Later in his speech, Palmerston declared, “I hold with respect to alliances, that England is a Power sufficiently strong, sufficiently powerful, to steer her own course, and not to tie herself as an unnecessary appendage to the policy of any other Government.”

At the end of his speech, Palmerston noted, “When we find other countries marching in the same course, and pursuing the same objects as ourselves, we consider them as our friends, and we think for the moment that we are on the most cordial footing; when we find other countries that take a different view, and thwart us in the object we pursue, it is our duty to make allowance for the different manner in which they may follow out the same objects. It is our duty not to pass too harsh a judgment upon others, because they do not exactly see things in the same light as we see…” Läs artikel

[…] – Ryssland får inte vinna det här kriget. Det handlar om ukrainarnas rätt att leva i frihet och demokrati. Men det handlar också om oss. Om hela Europas och vår framtid, säger Magdalena Andersson. […]

Socialdemokraterna vill att Sverige förbereder sig för att kunna stötta Ukraina med stridsflyget JAS Gripen. Det kräver att flera saker är på plats – inte minst att Sverige har blivit Natomedlemmar.

Ukrainas luftförsvar behöver stärkas. Med JAS Gripen kan Sverige hjälpa Ukraina att vinna kriget även i luften. JAS Gripen är ett flexibelt stridsflygplan som är smidigt att underhålla. Därutöver är det kraftfullt. Med hög precision, flexibilitet och slagkraft kan det verka mot mål på marken, i luften eller över havet. JAS Gripen kan på så vis hjälpa Ukraina att återta ockuperat ukrainskt territorium, och kan göra stor skillnad.

Socialdemokraterna lyfter även att en analys av konsekvenserna av att skicka JAS Gripen till Ukraina bör göras omedelbart. Hur omfattning av stöd, behov av utbildning, ersättningsanskaffning, tidsramar och former kan se ut. S lyfter även vikten av att ha en plan för hur det stöd Sverige eventuellt bidrar med kan ersättas. Detta kan dock inte göras förrän Sverige är fullvärdiga medlemmar i Nato.

– Från Socialdemokraternas sida kan vi inte se något principiellt hinder för att stödja Ukraina med kvalificerade vapensystem. Sverige ska efter förmåga, och med hänsyn till egna behov, fortsätta med detta, säger Peter Hultqvist. Läs pressmeddelandet

NATO engagement in East Asia, to counter China’s influence, is a misguided and potentially dangerous strategy for the alliance’s European members. It is bound to increase tensions between China and NATO and risks binding China Russia closer together. A China containment strategy has no tangible benefits for European security and predominantly serves the interests of a United States that is desperately trying to maintain its global hegemony.

While NATO is not currently looking to recruit new members in East Asia, it is forging strategic partnerships with ‘likeminded’ states in the region. Countries like Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand are all in the process of transitioning from being NATO’s ‘global partners’ to becoming members of a more tangible arrangement that NATO has labelled ‘Individually Tailored Partnership Programs’.

NATO’s strategic cooperation with Japan has increased in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. At the July 2023 NATO Leaders Summit in Lithuania, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg greeted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, telling him that ‘no partner is closer than Japan’.

As a step toward more substantial security relations, NATO was planning to open a liaison office in Tokyo — the first of its kind in Asia. But these plans have been shelved due to apprehensions that they might fuel tensions between NATO and China. French President Emmanuel Macron warned that such a move would be a ‘big mistake’. […]

When NATO strays so far ’out of area’ that it begins operating in East Asia, one has to question the benefits for European security. There seems to be few, if any. For the United States, NATO’s turn to East Asia is strategically significant. Washington is seeking to maintain US global hegemony by binding together its loose alliance networks into a firmer coalition capable of containing a rising China. It seems clear that NATO’s new East Asia policy is primarily directed from Washington.

But Europe does not have to play the United States’ power games. As French President Emmanuel Macron correctly stated earlier in 2023, getting involved in such games would be ‘a trap for Europe’. Läs artikel

Inbjudan har gått ut till Iran, Saudiarabien, Förenade Arabemiraten, Argentina, Egypten och Etiopien. Länderna kan bli fullvärdiga medlemmar 1 januari 2024, var beskedet under toppmötet i Sydafrika.

– Den här expansionen av medlemmar är historisk, säger Kinas president Xi Jinping, vars nation är den mest inflytelserika i gruppen.

Etiopiens premiärminister Abiy Ahmed säger att det här är ”stort ögonblick” för hans land, som är det näst folkrikaste i Afrika. I Iran beskrev Mohammad Jamshidi, biträdande chef för den iranske presidentens politiska enhet, det som en ”historisk utveckling och en strategisk succé” för Teherans utrikespolitik. Läs artikel

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has canceled a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin set for December as Delhi seeks to distance itself from the Kremlin leader’s threat to use nuclear bombs in Ukraine, Bloomberg reported, citing unidentified officials from both countries. Russia and India have held a summit every year since the beginning of the 2000s with the exception of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. An Indian official told Bloomberg that a meeting with Putin under the current circumstances would not help Modi’s image. Modi criticized Putin publicly in September over his invasion of Ukraine and threat to use any weapons systems to win, saying ”today’s era is not an era of war.” Läs artikel

Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to have failed in his attempt at the BRICS summit in Sandton to drum up support from fellow leaders of the bloc for his war effort in Ukraine.

Putin, addressing the summit by video from Moscow, presented a narrative of his invasion of Ukraine as effectively an act of self-defence against Ukraine and the West for mounting a coup in Ukraine in 2014 against the pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych and then attacking pro-Russian elements in Ukraine’s Donbas region.

But the other four BRICS leaders who were physically present at the summit – President Cyril Ramaphosa, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Brazilian President Lula da Silva and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not publicly support his justification in their responses. […]

In his direct response to Putin, Ramaphosa merely said, “We agree that the war can only be resolved by negotiations which you have always said you support.”

In his speech to the summit, President Lula simply said: “We cannot avoid dealing with the main current conflict taking place in Ukraine with global effects.”

He emphasised that “Brazil’s historic stance is to defend sovereignty, territorial integrity and all the United Nations’ purposes and principles” – principles which Russia has clearly violated by invading Ukraine, though Lula did not spell that out. Läs referatet

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday addressed the 15th BRICS Summit in South Africa’s Johannesburg, urging joint efforts to deepen BRICS cooperation and make global governance more just and equitable. […]

—We should expand political and security cooperation to uphold peace and tranquility. As a Chinese saying suggests, ”Nothing is more beneficial than stability, and nothing is more detrimental than turmoil.” The Cold War mentality is still haunting our world, and the geopolitical situation is getting tense. All nations long for a sound security environment. International security is indivisible. Attempts to seek absolute security at the expense of others will eventually backfire. The Ukraine crisis has evolved to where it is today because of complex reasons. What is pressing now is to encourage peace talks, promote deescalation, end the fighting and realize peace. No one should add fuel to the fire to worsen the situation. […]

BRICS countries should keep to the direction of peaceful development and consolidate the BRICS strategic partnership. We need to make good use of the BRICS Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, the Meeting of High Representatives on National Security and other mechanisms, support each other on issues concerning our respective core interests, and enhance coordination on major international and regional issues. We need to tender good offices on hotspot issues, pushing for political settlement and lowering the temperature. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a new area of development. BRICS countries have agreed to launch the AI Study Group of BRICS Institute of Future Networks at an early date. We need to enable the Study Group to play its full role, further expand cooperation on AI, and step up information exchange and technological cooperation. We need to jointly fend off risks, and develop AI governance frameworks and standards with broad-based consensus, so as to make AI technologies more secure, reliable, controllable and equitable. Läs talet

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Enligt försvarsminister  Antti Häkkänen (KOK) har Finland redan visat att Finland söker en aktiv roll som medlem i Försvarsalliansen. Häkkänen redogjorde för Finlands ställning som Nato-land vid ambassadörsmötet på tisdagen. […]

Enligt Häkkänen deltar Finland som Natomedlem i försvarsalliansens fredstida uppgifter. I arbetsuppgifterna ingår till exempel luftövervakning av Baltikum, Polen, Rumänien och Bulgarien samt Island. I fredstida uppgifter ingår dessutom att delta i Natos EFP-styrkor vid alliansens östra gränser.

Häkkänen kan ännu inte säga vilken typ av satsning som kommer att göras i trupperna. Enligt honom förbereds Finlands deltagande i fredstida operationer. Beslut ska tas under hösten.

– Det är väldigt känsliga frågor. Verksamheten påverkas av försvarsmaktens geografiska läge och struktur. Vi måste komma ihåg att vi är ett gränsland mot Ryssland.

Enligt Häkkänen är den avskräckning som kärnvapen skapar en av huvudorsakerna till att Finland gick med i Nato. Finland engagerar sig i kärnvapenpolitiken utan förbehåll.

– Kärnvapenavskräckning skyddar också Finland fullt ut. Läs artikel

Russian strikes on at least 10 regions in Ukraine have left a path of death and destruction over the past 24 hours, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in the country said on Wednesday.

Denise Brown issued a statement deploring this “new wave of massive Russian attacks”, and appealed for the violence to end. “Grain storage facilities, vital for the Ukrainian farmers and global food security, have been hit in the Danube area,” she said. “A school in the Sumy region was damaged, and teachers were killed and injured.”

International media reported that a drone fired by Russia hit the school on Wednesday morning, citing Ukraine’s interior minister. The incident occurred in the city of Romny, located in the northeast. Läs artikel

American nuclear-powered submarines will now receive authorization to make brief service visits to Iceland to receive supplies and exchange crew members, announced the Icelandic government last week.

The background is that Iceland wants to support increased surveillance and response capacity among allies in the North Atlantic.

”These service visits will contribute to strengthening the continuous and active submarine surveillance of allied countries, which ensures better situational awareness and increases the safety of underwater infrastructure such as submarine cables in the waters around Iceland. The frequency of visits will depend on the need at any given time,” writes the government. Läs artikel