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Jeffrey Sachs: NATO has outlived its purpose


RT
Tue, 02 Sep 2025 19:05 UTC
Jeffrey Sachs
© Getty Images / Horacio Villalobos; CorbisUS Economist Jeffrey Sachs
The military bloc should have been dissolved after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US economist has argued

NATO has outlived its purpose and should have been dissolved decades ago, prominent American economist and Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs believes.

Speaking to RIA Novosti on Sunday, Sachs argued that NATO was initially formed for the sole purpose of countering the USSR and should have been disbanded in 1990 when Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev dissolved the Warsaw Pact - the Soviet-led military alliance that had grouped Eastern Bloc states since 1955.

"NATO was a treaty to defend against the Soviet Union, which doesn't exist. So in this sense NATO definitely outlived its role. It became instead a mechanism of US power expansion, which is not what NATO should be," Sachs told the news agency.
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Star of David

Belgium to recognize Palestinian statehood, impose sanctions on Israel


Al Jazeera
Tue, 02 Sep 2025 18:56 UTC
Maxime Prevot Belgium Foreign Minister
© Virginia Mayo/AP PhotoBelgium's Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot also announces 'firm sanctions will be imposed against the Israeli government'
Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot says his country will recognise Palestine this month and impose 12 'firm sanctions' on Israel.

Belgium will recognise the State of Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) later this month, Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot has announced.

"Palestine will be recognised by Belgium at the UN session! And firm sanctions will be imposed against the Israeli government," Prevot, who is also the deputy prime minister, wrote on the social media platform X early on Tuesday.

Israel will face 12 sanctions from Belgium, Prevot said, including a ban on the import of products from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and "a review of public procurement policies with Israeli companies".
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Arrow Down

What we can learn from the "Russian GPS interference" story

Kit Knightly
Off-Guardian Org
Wed, 03 Sep 2025 15:33 UTC
GPS Interference
© Off-Guardian Org
On Monday morning it was widely reported that a private jet ferrying Ursula Von Der Leyen to Plovdiv in Bulgaria was subject to "GPS interference", and had to navigate using paper charts for the final part its journey.

This was quickly blamed on Russia, a supposed attempt to assassinate, or at least intimidate the EU chief, and the reactions kicked into high-gear almost instantly.

The Financial Times lead the pack, headlining [emphasis added]:
Ursula von der Leyen's plane hit by suspected Russian GPS interference
ABC news went with [more emphasis added]:
EU head Ursula von der Leyen's plane hit by suspected Russian GPS interference
The BBC mixed it up a little [even more emphasis added]:
EU chief von der Leyen's plane hit by SUSPECTED Russian GPS jamming
Are you seeing a pattern?
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Cowboy Hat

Trump and Putin are closing the era that Reagan and Gorbachev began

Fyodor Lukyanov
RT
Wed, 03 Sep 2025 14:03 UTC
President Putin and President Trump
Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump met at Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson on August 15th, 2025 in Anchorage Alaska
"There won't be a war, but the struggle for peace will be so intense that not a stone will be left standing."
This old Soviet joke, born in the 1980s, captured the absurdity of that final Cold War decade: endless ideological cannon fire, nuclear arsenals on hair-trigger alert, and proxy wars fought on the margins. Between détente in the early 1970s and perestroika in the late 1980s, the world lived in a state of permanent tension - half-theater, half-tragedy.

The Soviet leadership was old and exhausted, barely able to maintain the status quo. Across the ocean, the White House was run by a former actor, blunt and self-confident, with a taste for gallows humor. When Ronald Reagan quipped during a sound check in 1984 that he had "signed legislation outlawing Russia forever" and that "bombing begins in five minutes," the off-air joke was truer to the spirit of the times than any prepared speech.

The official Soviet slogan was "the struggle for peace." In Russian, it carried a deliberate ambiguity - both a promise to preserve peace and an assertion of global control. By the 1980s it had lost all meaning, becoming a cliché mouthed without conviction. Yet history has a way of circling back. Today, the "struggle for peace" has returned - and this time the stakes are even greater.

Comment: The multipolar world is unstoppable regardless of whether the West will accept that fact or not. That the West were not presented in any way or form at the recent huge SCO event where world leaders were meeting, just points to the rapid decline of the West.

See also:

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Better Earth

The West had its century. The future belongs to these leaders now

Farhad Ibragimov
RT
Mon, 01 Sep 2025 12:12 UTC
Russian President Vladimir Putin in Tianjin, China.
© Sputnik/Sergey BobylevRussian President Vladimir Putin arrives at Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Centre for a ceremony to welcome Heads of States of the SCO in Tianjin, China.
What Western media dismissed as a "club of autocrats" has grown into the Global South's blueprint for a post-Western world.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in China has already emerged as one of the defining political events of 2025. It underscored the SCO's growing role as a cornerstone of a multipolar world and highlighted the Global South's consolidation around the principles of sovereign development, non-interference, and rejection of the Western model of globalization.

What gave the gathering an added layer of symbolism was its connection to the upcoming September 3 military parade in Beijing, marking the 80th anniversary of victory in the Sino-Japanese War and the end of World War II. Such parades are a rarity in China - the last one was held in 2015 - underscoring how exceptional this moment is for Beijing's political self-identity and its bid to project both historical continuity and global ambition.

The central guest at both the summit and the forthcoming parade was Russian President Vladimir Putin. His presence carried not only symbolic weight but strategic meaning as well. Moscow continues to serve as a bridge among key players across Asia and the Middle East - a role that matters all the more against the backdrop of a fractured international security order.
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Mr. Potato

Finnish president says country won war with USSR and Russian spokeswoman Zakharova responds


RT
Tue, 02 Sep 2025 19:54 UTC
President of Finland Alexander Stubb
President of Finland Alexander Stubb.
Alexander Stubb has claimed that despite losing territory in the conflict, Helsinki came out the victor

Finnish President Alexander Stubb has claimed that his country "won" its war against the Soviet Union by preserving independence, despite losing territory in 1944.

In an interview with The Economist, Stubb insisted that maintaining sovereignty in the face of Soviet demands proved Finland's resilience and should be viewed as a model of survival.

The conflict — fought in two phases, the Winter War of 1939-40 and the Continuation War of 1941-44 — ended with Finland ceding about a tenth of its land, including Karelia, and agreeing to Soviet terms of demilitarisation, reparations and neutrality.

Some Western leaders and commentators have drawn parallels between Finland's wartime experience and the current conflict in Ukraine, arguing it demonstrates modern Russia's drive to subjugate its neighbors.

Comment: Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova full response to the Finnish President:
In an interview with The Economist, Finnish President Alexander Stubb stated that his country "won" the war against the Soviet Union in 1944 because it managed to preserve its independence.

It seemed to us that on August 19 this year, we gave him a detailed response about Finland's participation in World War II on Hitler's side, the blockade of Leningrad, and other episodes of genocide of the Soviet people and the Holocaust.

Didn't understand the first time - it happens. We can repeat.

More about the events of summer-autumn 1944. In August, after the loss of Vyborg, the commander-in-chief of the Finnish army K.G.E. Mannerheim and Prime Minister A. Hackzell decided to withdraw Finland from the war. They asked the Soviet ambassador in Stockholm, A. Kollontai, about the conditions. They received an answer - Moscow would accept the Finnish delegation if Helsinki officially announced the severance of relations with Germany and demanded the withdrawal of German troops from its territory.

From then on, Mannerheim played only by Soviet rules and, to conclude an armistice, agreed to fulfill all Moscow's demands - payment of reparations, reduction of the army (demilitarization), disarmament of German units, break with Germany, dissolution of pro-Hitler organizations (denazification), transfer of territories and bases to the USSR, etc.

The final "victory" came in 1947 with the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty, which confirmed the provisions of the Moscow armistice.

If 1944 is hard for Stubb to let go of, we recommend his country (to thank I.V. Stalin for his goodwill) to turn, as in that year, bayonets against the Nazis - now the role is played by Zelensky's regime.

Stubb can also offer the above-described "1944 victory" algorithm to his allies in Brussels as a way to preserve Ukraine's independence and so that 79 years later their great-grandchildren have something to be proud of.


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Bomb

Best of the Web: Batsh*t Bonkers Britain: 5 armed police arrest writer Graham Linehan at Heathrow Airport "for making tweets offensive to trans people"

Helen Bushby
BBC
Tue, 02 Sep 2025 19:05 UTC
linehan arrest hospital
© grahamlinehan.substack.comIrish writer Graham Linehan in hospital following his arrest by 5 armed police officers for "3 offensives tweets" from months ago
Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan has been arrested at Heathrow Airport on suspicion of inciting violence in relation to his posts on X.

He was arrested after arriving on a flight from the US, and said in an online Substack article that officials then became concerned for his health after taking his blood pressure, and took him to hospital.

The Metropolitan Police said that a man in his 50s was arrested on 1 September at Heathrow Airport and taken to hospital, adding his condition "is neither life-threatening nor life-changing" , and he was bailed "pending further investigation".

Linehan said in an online article on Substack that his bail condition stipulates he is "not to go on Twitter" and that his arrest related to three posts on X from April, on his views about challenging "a trans-identified male" in "a female-only space".
The BBC, being the echo-chamber MSM 'news outlet' that it is, didn't include the link to Linehan's Substack report about what happened to him. So, here it is:

I just got arrested again
Something odd happened before I even boarded the flight in Arizona. When I handed over my passport at the gate, the official told me I didn't have a seat and had to be re-ticketed. At the time, I thought it was just the sort of innocent snafu that makes air travel such a joy. But in hindsight, it was clear I'd been flagged. Someone, somewhere, probably wearing unconvincing make-up and his sister/wife's/mum's underwear, had made a phone call.

The moment I stepped off the plane at Heathrow, five armed police officers were waiting. Not one, not two — five. They escorted me to a private area and told me I was under arrest for three tweets. In a country where paedophiles escape sentencing, where knife crime is out of control, where women are assaulted and harassed every time they gather to speak, the state had mobilised five armed officers to arrest a comedy writer for this tweet (and no, I promise you, I am not making this up...

Comment: Oh yes, quite routine...

Yet another diabolical first from the British wing of the Western Pathocracy: forget leaning on social media companies to ban users, now they're just outright arresting public figures for posts they don't like, and only letting them go on condition that they stop speaking out against the Pathocracy's crimes.

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Light Sabers

Xi calls on SCO members to challenge Western dominance


RT
Mon, 01 Sep 2025 10:32 UTC
Xi Jinping
© Suo Takekuma/Pool Photo/AP.jpgChinese President Xi Jinping speaks at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit • Tianjin, China • September 1, 2025
Members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) should continue to resist "hegemonism and power politics" to help build a fairer international system, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Monday as he opened the group leaders' meeting in Tianjin.

Delivering a keynote speech to leaders and representatives of member and partner nations, Xi invoked what he called the "Shanghai spirit" of "mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for diverse civilizations, and pursuit of shared development."

Xi praised the progress made by the SCO since its founding in 2001 and outlined new priorities. He said members must "oppose the Cold War mentality, bloc confrontation, and bullying practices" - terms often used by Beijing to criticize US and Western policies.
"We should advocate an equal and orderly multipolar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization, and make the global governance system more just and equitable."

Comment: When hearts, minds and plans come together to benefit mankind, no one loses...perhaps the most important lesson the West needs to learn. It is not divide and conquer, it is to combine and progress.

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Attention

Department of War?

Ron Paul
Mises Institute
Tue, 02 Sep 2025 00:00 UTC
Dept of war
© r/EndlessWar"Fixed it"
Last week President Trump took steps to re-name the Department of Defense the "Department of War." The President explained his rationale for the name change:
"It used to be called the Department of War and it had a stronger sound. We want defense, but we want offense too ... As Department of War we won everything...and I think we...have to go back to that."
At first it sounds like a terrible idea. A "Department of War" may well make war more likely - the "stronger sound" may embolden the US government to take us into even more wars. There would no longer be any need for the pretext that we take the nation to war to defend this country and its interests - and only as a last resort.

As Clinton Administration official Madeleine Albright famously asked of Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell when she was pushing for US war in the Balkans, "What's the point of having this superb military that you're always talking about if we can't use it?"

So yes, that is a real danger. But at the same time, the US has been at war nearly constantly since the end of World War II, so it's not like the "Defense Department" has been in any way a defensive department.

With that in mind, returning the Department of Defense to the Department of War, which is how it started, may not be such a bad idea after all - as long as we can be honest about the rest of the terms around our warmaking.
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Rocket

Missiles don't lie: What this region's rocket stockpiles say about the next war


RT
Sun, 31 Aug 2025 16:07 UTC
rockets flags
How growing arsenals and proxy wars are pushing the Middle East closer to the brink.

Modern conflicts are increasingly hybrid, blending conventional warfare with cyber operations, economic pressure, and proxy battles. Nowhere is this more visible than in the Middle East - where the interests of the US, Russia, China, Iran, Türkiye, Israel, and the Arab states collide.

In this environment, missile arsenals have become one of the decisive tools of war. Alongside airpower, they allow militaries to strike across great distances, punch through defenses, and project strategic pressure far beyond their borders. To understand the balance of power in the region, it's essential to look at the missile capabilities of its key players.

Iran: Missiles as the core of deterrence

Despite the June 2025 clash with Israel - which exposed some vulnerabilities and cost Tehran a number of assets - Iran still fields the largest and most diverse missile arsenal in the Middle East. Its rockets are deployed both directly by the Iranian military and indirectly through proxy groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and Shia militias in Iraq.

Comment: What this stockpile says about the next war? It's a global grand finale.

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