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April 22, 2020

Pentagon Seeks Billions for Arms Companies in Coronavirus Funds

With debate picking up for the US to pass another major emergency stimulus package for coronavirus, the Pentagon is lining up this time with the expectation that they will be included. The money would be going to well-connected US arms makers, already some of the world's most heavily subsidized companies as it is.

Undersecretary of Defense Ellen Lord says the pandemic is effecting ship-building, aviation, and space-launch companies, and that the Pentagon is going for a major pay-day for these groups, adding "we're talking billions and billions on that one."

- By  Jason Ditz

Pandemic Brings US and Russia Closer Together and Washington Hawks Panic

President Donald Trump entered office saying that he wanted a better relationship with Russia. Instead, the two governments edged closer to conflict.

The administration increased sanctions on Moscow, expelled Russian diplomats, expanded military assistance to Ukraine, and inserted more troops and money into NATO for Europe's defense. U.S. and Russian forces directly confronted each other in Syria.

The Putin government openly challenged Washington in Venezuela, ignoring the venerable Monroe Doctrine, and helped trigger an oil price war intended to bankrupt America's shale oil industry. The administration withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, threatening to trigger a new nuclear arms race. In a reversal of Richard Nixon's famous opening to Beijing, Russia and China forged a cooperative relationship based almost entirely on hostility from and to America.

- By  Doug Bandow

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The Still Exceptional Empires: Neo-Imperialism, Franco-American Style

Everyone has heard, ad nauseam, about the "Special Relationship" between the United States and Britain. Accordingly, the few Americans who dare identify their country as an empire - past or present - tend to analogize with the British model. While the similarities between Washington and London-style imperialism are manifold - along with the distinct differences - in other important ways, the more appropriate parallel is with France. For the French, unlike the Brits (for the most part), and like modern Americans (in a more indirect way), imagined their colonial subjects as vital, moldable constituents (if rarely citizens) of a grand francophone project for good.

I know, I know, the French and Americans can't stand each other, right? Well, sure, theirs has been a contentious relationship for centuries - politically, culturally, you name it. True enough, but lest we forget that the U.S. formed in opposition to British Empire, and - though rarely mentioned in the dominant memories of American Revolutionary triumphalism - the colonists'+ military victory would've been far more difficult (if not impossible) without French intervention on their behalf.

- By Maj. Danny Sjursen, USA (ret.)

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As the coronavirus pandemic continues to create a global crisis of generational proportions, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is pushing a broad measure to declare a global ceasefire among all nations, allowing the world to focus on fighting the virus instead of one another.

- By Jason Ditz

I will begin with the necessary preventions. I am not an epidemiologist nor do I have any medical expertise. I have, however, spend a great deal of time over the years looking at how deployment of information affects the making of public policy. It is in this vein that I articulate the speculations that follow. I hold no claims to being absolutely correct, or even substantially so. Rather, I am simply seeking to raise some issues that may have been overlooked thus far in the government/media rendering of the Corona crisis.

- By Thomas Harrington

The UN Security Council has backed a call by Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres for all sides in Yemen to accept an immediate ceasefire and shift focus to fighting the coronavirus. The virus has just reached war-torn Yemen, which has virtually no medical infrastructure to fight it. 

This comes amid the Saudi forces engaged in a partial, two-week ceasefire in Yemen, though the Houthis have rejected it because the Saudis did not end a naval blockade of the port, and moreover have continued their offensive in the north.

- By Jason Ditz

Will COVID-19 Retire the World's Policeman?

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