UN VOTES TO COMBAT NAZISM – BUT THE WEST OPTS OUT

Posted on January 2, 2021 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged china, cold war, diplomacy, EU, fascism, featured, foreign policy, ideology, India, King Salman, Narendra Modi, nationalism, Nazism, Neo-Nazis, Neo-Nazism, politics, racism, Russia, Saudi Arabia, second world war, socialism, uk, Ukraine, UN, united nations, USA, West, white supremacism, xenophobia.

By Howard Green

On December 16th, the UN General Assembly passed a proposal entitled ‘Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance’. 130 out of 193 UN members voted in favour of it, and only two against: the United States and Ukraine. Similarly alarmingly, all EU member states and the UK abstained from the vote. Why are the nations who take so much pride in having defeated Nazism 75 years ago now refusing to vote in favour of combating it?

IS SPAIN FINALLY TURNING ITS BACK ON GENERAL FRANCO?

Posted on August 31, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged 20th century, anarchists, Álava, Basque country, Basque independence, Catalonia, Catalonian independence, Catalonian referendum, cold war, concentration camps, democracy, dictatorship, ETA, Europe, european history, european politics, fascism, featured, General Franco, government, history, Hitler, independence, monarchy, Naverre, police violence, politics, spain, Spanish Civil War, spanish history, spanish politics, state violence, Valle de los Caídos, Winston Churchill, World War Two.

By Robyn Banks

Content warning: fascism, mass state violence

Last week the Spanish government approved the exhumation of the body of General Franco, the fascist dictator who ruled over Spain for most of the 20th century. Whilst this may not seem like a huge deal on the face of it, it is massive news in Spain and to those with an awareness of Spanish politics. Franco’s ‘legacy’ has been hanging over Spain since his death in 1975. This decision marks a major point of departure for the country.

SPIES, MURDER, AND RUSSIA

Posted on March 16, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged attack, cold war, economy, featured, housing, housing market, interference, investment, london, money, Nato, nerve gas, property market, putin, Russia, Sergei Skripal, service, spies, spy, uk, war, weakness, Yulia Skripal.

by Gunnar Eigener

The attempted murder of Sergei and Yulia Skripal with a nerve agent bares all the hallmarks of a Cold War spy novel and the complexity of the smaller and more tightly connected modern-day world. Political balance is needed when addressing and reprimanding those responsible. If Russia is found to be to blame, what happens next? Is it likely that remarkably little will be done or will this be the beginning of a new coalition to stand up to Putin’s Russia?Continue Reading

BLAMING THE BEAR – THE 21st CENTURY RED SCARE

Posted on November 9, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged 100 years, 1918 Immigration Act, 1918 Sedition Act, 2016 US Presidential election, activists, Adam Ramsay, anarchists, anti migrant, arrest, Arthur Miller, Artie Shaw, berlin wall, bolshevik party, Brexit, burqa ban, capitalism, capitalist west, Catalonia, cold war, communism, communist east, Department of Justic, deportation, EU referendum, General Strikes, government, hammer and sickle, Hollywood, independence referendum, Leave Campaign, media, muslim ban, nuclear weapons, openDemocracy, Palmer Raids, People's Republic of China, political phenomena, prevent strategy, provisional government, public hysteria, putin, Quebec, red menace, red scare, Russia, russian revolution, sharia law, Soviet, spain, Stalin, state power, The Crucible, Truman, Trump, US Patriot Act, USA, USSR, W E B Du bois, wwii, xenophobia.

by Chris Jarvis

Tuesday November 7th marked 100 years since the Russian Revolution, when the Bolshevik Party overthrew the Provisional Government in Russia established in February of 1917. What followed was 84 years of Government by the Party in Russia, and what came to be known as the USSR, as well as a global struggle for ideological, economic, military, and imperial dominance between the “communist” east and capitalist west.

Throughout that period, a central plank of western political policy and rhetoric was the fear-inducing concept of the red menace and its attempts to wreak havoc upon the democratic states of Western Europe and North America. Erosion of civil liberties, aggressive policies on migration, and imperialist adventures through East Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa were all justified with the visage of Joseph Stalin, conniving communists. and the hammer and sickle looming ominously as a backdrop.

Amongst the most brazen of these were the infamous ‘red scares’ – periods of government, media and public hysteria about the communist threat, primarily confined to the USA. Continue Reading

THE LATEST NORTH KOREAN MISSILE TEST: A NEED FOR CHANGE IN U.S. GRAND STRATEGY IN THE REGION

Posted on August 29, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged china, cold war, Cuban crisis, diplomacy, Donald Trump, DPRK, fascism, Grand Strategy, Hiroshima, Japan, Juche, Kim Jong-Un, Korea, MAD, military, missile, missile test, Nagasaki, news, NHK, North Korea, nuclear war, response, sanctions, Shinzo Abe, strategy, The Long Peace, totalitarianism, US, USSR, Xi Jinping.

by Oliver Steward

The latest North Korean missile launch over Japan on the 28th August 2017 is a sign that North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un is willing to act unilaterally, despite what any other country may think or want the regime to behave according to international accords. This is obviously disturbing and only goes to show that the North Korean regime is totally defiant towards the international community, and sticking its middle finger up at the United States and the wider world.Continue Reading

M.A.D. CAN’T SAVE US NOW.

Posted on July 6, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged army, cold war, crisis, despot, deterrent, diplomacy, display, Donald Trump, global, Japan, Kim Jong-Un, Korea, MAD, militarism, military, navy, news, North Korea, nuclear, Okinawa, Pacific, Regime, South Korea, strike, threat, trident, uk, US, world.

by Toby Gill

Madness. Or, more precisely, M.A.D.ness. This is the doctrine which has governed foreign policy among major powers for the last half a century: ‘Mutually Assured Destruction’ – the idea that the possession of nuclear arms is, in of itself, the ultimate deterrent against aggression from other nuclear armed powers.

It is the reason why the UK is willing to continually bankrupt itself keeping its Trident system running. It is the reason why, in the Cold War, the US and Soviets tolerated one another pouring funding into nuclear missiles, but mutually agreed to ban investment in systems to defend against nuclear missiles, as they were too dangerous. It is the reason why many International Relations experts believe that additional nuclear weapons could actually make the world a safer place. M.A.D. is the key to understanding the ecosystem of superpowers, in the Cold War and beyond.

There is, of course, only one problem – we have no idea whether it really works.

A FRIGHTENED AND DANGEROUS NEW WORLD AWAITS? – LOOKING BACK ON OBAMA’S 2ND TERM

Posted on December 31, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged America, boko harem, cold war, daesh, defence, diplomacy, Donald Trump, Exceptionalism, foreign policy, George Bush, globalisation, hegemony, history, isolationist, Kupchan, legitimacy, make america great again, middle east, Nato, nuclear, obama, Osama bin Laden, protectionist, rhetoric, Russia, Syria, TTIP, unipolar, Yemen.

by Oliver Steward

Two things that have become clear with the election of Donald J Trump as President – elect. Firstly, America’s status as a sole superpower and its Exceptionalism is coming to an end, and secondly, the liberal international order, rooted in principles of international law and community and defined in part by American hegemony, has been turned upside down. The world is in an increasing state of flux.

While it is undergoing a process of reordering, the likelihood is that global affairs may not be very responsive to the will of the United States either through its diplomatic capacity, its institutional structures which it retains its legitimacy, or through hard power. Authors such as Kupchan go further, arguing that America must prepare for the decline of the West, correlating with a decline in its own position.Continue Reading

ALEPPO: A TRAGEDY WE WON’T LEARN FROM

Posted on December 20, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged Abdul Mohsen bin Walid bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, Aleppo, Amnesty International, Bashar al-Assad, Britain, CIA, cold war, Darfur, democracy, ethnic cleansing, human rights, Iran, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, media, media bias, Mujahideen, nationalism, obama, rebels, Russia, Rwanda, Srebrenica, Syria, UN, US.

by Gunnar Eigener

Content warning: mentions genocide, conflict, death.

“The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilisation.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

As Aleppo draws its last few timid breaths, the global community sits back and watches as four years of war, suppression and ignorance engulf an ancient city, certain to go down, alongside the likes of Srebrenica, Rwanda and Darfur, as an abject failure of Western governments to fight the oppression of human rights and democracy that they have so carefully and vocally pronounced their desire to protect. Continue Reading

FIDEL CASTRO AND CUBAN SOCIALISM

Posted on November 27, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged agriculture, apologism, authoritarianism, blockade, cold war, cuba, cuban missile crisis, dictatorship, education, fidel castro, healthcare, history, imperialism, revolution, socialism, USA, war.

By Chris Jarvis

Content warnings: mentions execution, torture

Throughout the twentieth century, as ‘socialist’ regimes sprung up across the world, their leaders and key figures were consistently deified in the west. Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, Guevara, Chavez, Allende; all were adopted as icons of the revolutionary left, with posters of them adorning walls across the world, and their words taken as gospel. For a time, much of the left in Europe and the USA endorsed Stalinism, even as the true horrors of the gulags, the famines, the mass executions, the anti-semitism began to be revealed. The unbelievable death toll of Mao’s ‘great leap forward’ was brushed aside by apologists. Colonel Gaddafi was revered by many as a valued comrade, even as he ordered mass executions and dismantled trade unions.

THE TRUMP CARD AND ‘MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN’ — IS IT ONE OF DECLINE OR RENEWAL?

Posted on November 16, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged china, cold war, decline, economic decline, economic growth, external, foreign policy, growth, international community, make america great again, middle east, military, obama, Russia, superhero, Syria, Trump, US, US election.

by Oliver Steward

The United States is experiencing relative decline vis-a-vis in relation to other so-called ‘Great Powers’, notably China. The election of President-elect Donald Trump may navigate this transition or accelerate this relative decline in the second decade of the 21st century.

US GDP has only grown nominally at 1.5%. Some important elements can be taken to show the growing disparity and changes to the world’s two most important economic powers. As discussed in The Globalist, ‘US GDP stood at $16.8 trillion in 2013 —just about 4% larger than China’s economy…. [While]The IMF estimates that China’s GDP at purchasing power parity was $17.6 trillion at the end of 2014.’ Furthermore the US is spending $1 trillion on domestic and national security under the auspices of counter terrorism. It has spent blood and treasure in two costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Continue Reading

cold war

UN VOTES TO COMBAT NAZISM – BUT THE WEST OPTS OUT

IS SPAIN FINALLY TURNING ITS BACK ON GENERAL FRANCO?

SPIES, MURDER, AND RUSSIA

BLAMING THE BEAR – THE 21st CENTURY RED SCARE

THE LATEST NORTH KOREAN MISSILE TEST: A NEED FOR CHANGE IN U.S. GRAND STRATEGY IN THE REGION

M.A.D. CAN’T SAVE US NOW.

A FRIGHTENED AND DANGEROUS NEW WORLD AWAITS? – LOOKING BACK ON OBAMA’S 2ND TERM

ALEPPO: A TRAGEDY WE WON’T LEARN FROM

FIDEL CASTRO AND CUBAN SOCIALISM

THE TRUMP CARD AND ‘MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN’ — IS IT ONE OF DECLINE OR RENEWAL?

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