Posts Tagged ‘H W Bush’
TFF PressInfo # 382: Cheating Moscow – NATO’s dangerous expansion
July 7th, 2016 | 
Author: 
By Jonathan Power
June 28th 2016.
NATO has just announced a plan to send troops to the alliance’s eastern flank, close to the Russian border. NATO says it is attempting to deter potential Russian aggression.
The UK, the US, Canada and Germany will lead four battle groups to be based in Poland and the Baltic states. Diplomats say the troops will be a deterrent to Russian aggression by acting as a “tripwire” that would trigger a full response from the alliance if necessary
On Sunday the foreign minister of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, condemned Western “sabre-rattling and war cries”. He said, “Anyone who believes the symbolic tank parades on the Alliance’s eastern border will increase security is wrong”.
Apart from the appalling fact that the West is contemplating all out war against Russia there is the plain fact that it has expanded NATO in contravention of the solemn understandings given the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War.
The deal was straightforward: The Soviet Union would agree to the reunification of East and West Germany and accept that East Germany would become part of NATO in return for a non-expansion promise.
It is the breaking of this promise that, more than any other one thing, has fuelled Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Cold War - new, European Union, Ex Yugoslavia, Foreign and security politics, International law, Jonathan Power, NATO, Psychology - war & peace, Russia, Security and defence, TFF PressInfo, US Empire, USA | 
Tags: anti-Soviet/Russian coalition, Baltic States, CSCE, Eastern Europe in NATO, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Gorbachev, Gorbachev's European House, H W Bush, James Baker, Machiavelli, Mary Sarotte, NATO expansion, NATO Warsaw Summit, NATO's Eastern border, OSCE, Post-Cold War war system, Putin | 
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The North Korean Bomb
By Jonathan Power
A big sigh of relief. The UN Security Council has approved the deal on Iran’s nuclear endeavours that commits Iran not to pursue a nuclear weapons’ capability. It also approved the lifting of sanctions on Iran.
The Republicans in the US Congress are the one remaining bastion against the ratification of this deal, but facing a Security Council decision supported by not just the US but also the other permanent members – Russia, the UK, France and China – it would be a brave Congress that would block the deal.
In fact with President Barack Obama ready to wield his veto that would override any Congressional resolution it couldn’t. Neither could a putative Republican president do anything about this fait accompli, embedded deeply in international law.
Now for the next deal which – if Obama continues to hurry at the pace he is now setting – Obama could wrap up before the end of his presidency. In swift succession he has resolved three major impasses – with Burma, Cuba and Iran. So now to North Korea which already possesses nuclear weapons – which it needn’t have if Republicans in Congress hadn’t sabotaged deals worked out by presidents George H.W Bush and Bill Clinton.
Recently Admiral William Gortney announced that it is now Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Abolition, Asia, China, Jonathan Power, North and South Korea, Nuclear weapons, UN matters, US Empire, US politics & security, USA |
Tags: “Agreed Framework” of 1994, Bill Clinton, China-North Korea relations, H W Bush, Non-Proliferation Treaty, North Korean bomb, William Gortney |
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