Cutting the Pentagon Down to Size
In an age when American presidents routinely boast of having the world’s finest military, where nearly trillion-dollar war budgets are now a new version of routine, let me bring up one vitally important but seldom…
In an age when American presidents routinely boast of having the world’s finest military, where nearly trillion-dollar war budgets are now a new version of routine, let me bring up one vitally important but seldom…
Empires don’t just fall like toppled trees. Instead, they weaken slowly as a succession of crises drain their strength and confidence until they suddenly begin to disintegrate. So it was…
When Napoleon engaged Russia in a European land war, the Russians mounted a determined defense, and the French lost. When Hitler tried the same, the Soviet Union responded similarly, and…
We Americans have been at war now since October 7th, 2001. That was when our military first launched air strikes against the Taliban in Afghanistan in response to al-Qaeda’s September 11th terrorist attacks in…
Joe Biden wants you to believe that spending money on weapons is good for the economy. That tired old myth — regularly repeated by the political leaders of both parties…
Like many American boys of the baby-boomer generation, I played “war” with those old, olive-drab, plastic toy soldiers meant to evoke our great victory over the Nazis and “the Japs”…
In war, people die for absurd reasons or often no reason at all. They die due to accidents of birth, the misfortune of being born in the wrong place — Cambodia or Gaza, Afghanistan or Ukraine —…
2023 was a year marked by devastating conflicts from Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine to Hamas’s horrific terror attacks on Israel, from that country’s indiscriminate mass slaughter in Gaza to a devastating civil war in Sudan. And there’s…
They are unlikely to be revelatory, will shatter no myths, nor disprove any assumptions. Cabinet documents exist to merely show that a political clique – the heart of the Westminster…
When war criminals can daub canvasses in blithe safety, rake in millions of dollars in after dinner speeches and bore governments to death with their shoddy words of wisdom, the…
One way of understanding the ongoing bloodbath pitting Israel against Hamas is to see it as just the latest chapter in an existential struggle dating back to the founding of…
America’s Global War on Terror has seen its share of stalemates, disasters, and outright defeats. During 20-plus years of armed interventions, the United States has watched its efforts implode in…
The New York Times headline said it all: “Middle East War Adds to Surge in International Arms Sales.” The conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine, and beyond may be causing immense and unconscionable human suffering, but…
The anti-imperialism movement is a very important movement with a very noble role—that of protecting the majority of the world’s people as well as its environment from the highly aggressive…
One of modern history’s major empires is falling apart right now, right before our eyes. Yet precious few in the media have reported on this extraordinary event, much less offered…
The anti-imperialism movement has always been a very noble effort and at the same time it is an effort that is essential at a very basic level in present day…
The United States of America has been the pre-eminent country on Earth for over 40 years.[1] There are many competing analyses of these developments, different understandings, etc., and with all…
In the 1980s the Sandinista government in Nicaragua was attracting wide attention with achieving very significant improvements in health, education and small peasant based farming cooperatives. Some of the development…
A progressive Pentagon? Talk about an oxymoron! The Pentagon continues to grow and surge with ever larger budgets, ever more expansive missions (for example, a Space Force to dominate the heavens and yet more bases in…
In his message to the troops prior to the July 4th weekend, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin offered high praise indeed. “We have the greatest fighting force in human history,”…
The AUSMIN 2023 talks held between the US Secretaries of State and Defense and their Australian counterparts, confirmed the increasing, unaccountable militarisation of the Australian north and its preparation for…
The Doctrine (1823) The doctrine was presented by the 5-th U.S. President James Monroe (1817−1825) in 1823 as an official warning to (West) European powers that any European policy of…
Imperialism has entered a new phase of its expansion to everyday lives of people and the planet. In this new phase of its growth, the grandiose of imperialism permeates everyday…
All around us things are falling apart. Collectively, Americans are experiencing national and imperial decline. Can America save itself? Is this country, as presently constituted, even worth saving? For me,…
Imperialism has always been extremely harmful and dangerous, bringing immense distress, death and destruction. However there are at least seven reasons due to which the present phase of imperialism has…
by Norman Solomon and David Barsamian [The following is excerpted and adapted from David Barsamian’s recent interview with Norman Solomon at AlternativeRadio.org.] David Barsamian: American Justice Robert Jackson was the chief…
Do most people in the USA desire world peace? Like all normal human beings they certainly do, preferring a world of peace and stability to a world of wars and…
In mid-March 2023, David Swanson published a very interesting article: “Iraq and 15 Lessons We Never Learned.” There were some things in there I agreed with, some I disagreed with,…
Over 300 wars! As documented in the Wikipedia timeline of U.S. wars, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_military_operations and in the Wikipedia list of wars involving the United States, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States the United States of America…
The Monroe Doctrine was first discussed under that name as justification for the U.S. war on Mexico that moved the western US border south, swallowing up the present-day states of…
“If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril.” Sun Tzu “But it turns out there isn’t really any military threat by the…
Originally, the Bush Doctrine was a political phrase with the aim to describe the US foreign policy goals during the 43rd US President George W. Bush (Bush Junior), 2001−2009. The…
Here’s a seldom commented-upon reality of this century and this moment: the United States remains the number-one arms-exporting nation on the planet. Between 2017 and 2021, it grabbed 39% of the total…
To get to where they are, imperial powers will deceive, dissimulate and distort. The US imperium, that most awesome of devilish powers, has tentacled itself across the globe, often unbeknownst…
What’s the U.S. military doing in Africa? It’s an enigma, wrapped in a riddle, straight-jacketed in secrecy, and hogtied by red tape. Or at least it would be if it…
Soon after the Second World War ended, the British government with its vast colonial empire made significant territorial concessions to the USA which could facilitate the rapid spread of USA…
As China unleashed live-fire military exercises off the coast of Taiwan, simulating a real “reunification by force” operation in the wake of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s ceremonial visit to the island last…
On June 24th, at the think tank, the Hudson Institute, U.S. President Trump’s CIA chief and Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, delivered a 5,000+-word speech, suggesting that America has an…
The U.S. sought to bolster its support in Asia by reassuring nations they do not need to join a coalition against China, drawing a stark contrast with Beijing’s threats to…
An interview with Kwesi Pratt Jr., a journalist and leader of the Socialist Movement of Ghana. In April 2018, the president of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, said that Ghana has “not…
Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, the US has been able to exert tremendous influence on other nations through its military and economic power.…
Anyone who grew up in my generation of 1980s kids remembers G.I. Joe action figures — those green-uniformed plastic soldiers you could use to stage battles in the sandbox in your backyard…
Anxiety about the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) toward the Russian border is one of the causes of the current war in Ukraine. But this is not…
Why has the United States already become so heavily invested in the Russia-Ukraine war? And why has it so regularly gotten involved, in some fashion, in so many other wars…
Casualties of America's Never-Ending Global War on Terror Madogaz Musa Abdullah still remembers the phone call. But what came next was a blur. He drove for hours, deep into the…
Putin Changed the Subject, But Confronting Martin Luther King’s "Giant Triplets" Is More Urgent Than Ever I recently participated in a commemoration of Martin Luther King’s address “Beyond Vietnam —…
Regular readers of Countercurrents may recall a recent article I wrote entitled, “Japan’s Concealed Past, Condemned Future” ( https://countercurrents.org/2022/04/japans-concealed-past-condemned-future/). In that article I argued that because the Japanese people had…
One of the many qualifications for the role of president of the United States is to never miss an opportunity to praise the greatness and courage of our men and…
What Would It Take for Military Spending in America to Go Down? A Thought Experiment on the Military-Industrial Complex I have a question for you: What would it take in…
Remember Captain Renault ( Claude Rains) in Casablanca when he had them close Rick's Cafe Americain. Rick (Humphrey Bogart) runs to him and says " Why are ya shutting me…
Since the Korean war, the USA could not pass a reasonable long time without at least one enemy, if not more, around the globe. It constantly finds a foe on…
Three Generations of Conspicuous Destruction by the Military-Industrial Complex In my lifetime of nearly 60 years, America has waged five major wars, winning one decisively, then throwing that victory away,…
In the long and storied history of the United States Army, many young officers have served in many war zones. Few, I suspect, were as sublimely ignorant as I was…
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies August 2020 U.S. drone strike in Kabul killed 10 Afghan civilians. Credit: Getty Images The Pentagon has finally published its first Airpower…
Terrorist Groups Have Doubled Since the Passage of the 2001 AUMF It began more than two decades ago. On September 20, 2001, President George W. Bush declared a “war on…
This Christmas season, as always, CIA controlled mainstream media is filled with unctuous images of the hungry homeless in America being charitably served food by private citizens and institutions. It…
Professional sports is a cutthroat business. Succeed and the people running the show reap rich rewards. Fail to meet expectations and you get handed your walking papers. American-style war in…
The U.S. military drastically undercounted civilian deaths caused by airstrikes in the Middle East since 2014, according to a New York Times investigation published Saturday. The New York Times reviewed a hidden…
Common knowledge informs us that the surrender of Imperial Japan on August 15, 1945 brought an end to the Japanese empire and Japan’s occupation of all areas and countries that…
As August ended, American troops completed their withdrawal from Afghanistan almost 20 years after they first arrived. On the formal date of withdrawal, however, President Biden insisted that “over-the-horizon capabilities” (airpower and Special Operations…
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