International Relations Watch
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Welcome to International Relations Watch,
Sadly, international relations are overwhelmingly about war and imperialism, economic violation and racism. ZCom's International Relations Watch is partly about reporting on and analyzing such phenomena, partly about contributing to overcoming such phenomena.
Please send any ideas you may have for other or additional content from our database you think ought to appear in content boxes on this page.
Latest Int. Relations
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Fisk: The Shias are winning in the Middle East – and it’s all thanks to Russia
Just as Erdogan has become pals with Putin, the Turkish and Iranian foreign ministers have been embracing in Ankara with many a promise that their own talks will produce new alliances
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Hallinan: Dangerous Seas: China & The U.S.
Simple demographics are shifting the balance of economic and political power from Europe and the U.S. to Asia
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Bennis: Team Refugee and the Normalization of Mass Displacement
As refugees take the Olympic stage, the wars that sent them running for their lives continue apace
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Prentoulis: Lexit delusionaries
The Brexit campaign brought together a number of narratives, none of which signals any progress towards social justice and democracy
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Amin: Brexit and the EU Implosion: National Sovereignty — For What Purpose?
The defense of national sovereignty, like its critique, leads to...
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Swanson: But, Mr. Putin, You Just Don’t Understand
The purpose of war is indeed war itself. The justifications are always pretexts
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Bello: Superpower Conflicts Are Driving Tensions in the South China Sea
The Philippines won a huge legal victory against China on a long-running territorial dispute. But Manila's alliance with Washington may make it all for nothing
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Cockburn: Turkey, once the great hope of the Middle East, is left weak and unstable
Erdogan thrives on crisis and confrontation, of which the failed coup is the latest example. But a state of permanent crisis is weakening and destabilising Turkey
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Cole: Russian & Iranian Press deplore Hillary Clinton Hawkishness; Israelis complain she’s Dove
How is the international press responding to the Democratic National Convention and the formalization of Hillary Clinton’s status as the party’s standard-bearer in the presidential campaign?
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Fisk: Qatar exerts huge control over British business, but it could be heading for an ‘Arab autumn’
Investments by Qatar’s state-owned companies in Britain are the largest in western Europe
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One reason could be that it enables the US to prevent any rapprochement between them, and ensures, after Brexit, that its most biddable ally, the UK, remains closely bound to Europe’s military destiny
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Savio: How Did We Arrive at This Chaos?
The real problem is that since the failed Cancun Summit in 1981, countries have lost the ability to think together
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Cole: Nice, France, Attack: A Gandhian Response to Serial Killers
You want to reply effectively to Nice? Reject fear and reject hate
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What are the forces behind "Brexit" and what's coming next ... for Britain and the rest of the world?
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Falk: Why Arms Control is the Enemy of Nuclear Disarmament
By encouraging a new norm against first-use of nuclear weapons, Obama could help ensure, for this generation and those to come, that nuclear weapons are never used again
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Cole: The Real Problem with the Iraq War: It was Illegal
The Bush-Blair war of aggression in turn authorized many others, and other countries have sometimes openly cited the Iraq War as justification for their own belligerence
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Prashad: End of exceptionalism
The U.S. does not have the economic or political power to thrust its agenda on a multipolar world and this is not because, as Donald Trump claims, of the policies of Barack Obama
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Bacevich: Presidential Candidates Push American Supremacy, Not National Defense
Interview on how both parties are committed to maintaining U.S. global hegemony through military power
ZMag Int. Relations
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Herman: Foreign Engagement v. Aggression
The United States has been intervening and fighting wars abroad almost continuously since World War II. This has involved frequent aggressions, using standard definitions of the word, with many of them extremely destructive. But these cannot be designated “aggression” in our well-honed propaganda system
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Dangl: The Implications of Bolivia’s Referendum
Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, who rose to prominence as a union leader among coca farmers and as a dissident congressperson, has won three general elections, including a 2014 victory with over 60 percent of the vote, and is now in his tenth year in power
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Herman: Anti-Terrorism Rally in Paris?
Hypocrisy runs deep in the imperialist and colonial-settler states. The United States has regularly and deliberately bombed and killed journalists in states under attack, including Yugoslavia, Iraq and Afghanistan, among others
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The United States government routinely tells its subject citizenry and the world of America’s grand commitment to freedom and democracy. Putting aside the inconvenient problem of its own domestic oligarchy and plutocracy, let’s have a look at some of Washington’s “democracy”-loving key allies
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Herman: The Fool, the Demagogue, and the Former KGB Colonel
The fool is John Kerry, rushing around between Washington and Tel Aviv, assailing Nicholas Maduro of Venezuela, and, of course, denouncing the Russians for “aggression”...
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Solomon: Heard the One About Obama Denouncing a Breach of International Law?
Unfortunately, during the last five years, no world leader has done more to undermine international law than Barack Obama.
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Davies: Checkmate In The Great Game
The June 15-16 summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)...
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Albert: On Libya & Unfolding Crises
SHALOM/ALBERT: What are U.S. motives in international relations most broadly...
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Bennis: Libyan Intervention Threatens the Arab Spring
One of the reasons many people supported the call for...
Int. Rel. Video
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Cohen: Why Is The Western Media Ignoring The New Cold War?
Interview on Russia, NATO, and our mainstream media's refusal to report on the New Cold War
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Varoufakis: Privatization, Human Rights & Capitalism
Interview on privatization, human rights, media, experience with the EU and capitalism’s ability to reform
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Greenwald: “The Assassination Complex”
During one five-month period, nearly 90 percent of the people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets
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Varoufakis: Massive IMF Bailouts are “Ponzi Austerity” Scheme
Negotiations between Greece and international creditors hit an impasse over the bankers’ demands for extra austerity measures
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Chomsky: German Weapons Exports to Israel & Saudi Arabia and the Refugee Crisis
Interview on the impacts of arms and weapons exports into Saudi Arabia and the refugee and Syrian crisis that is engulfing neighboring states as well as the European continent
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Wallach: Signing of TPP Marks Only Beginning of the Fight
The Trans-Pacific Partnership encompasses 12 Pacific Rim nations, including the United States, and 40 percent of the world’s economy
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Interview on his public spat with the Turkish president, the war against ISIL and Russia’s annexation of Crimea
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Prashad: Iran Agrees to Political Transition Where Assad is Not the Main Focus
No Syrian voices were represented at the Vienna peace talks, but geopolitical interests were front and center
Intro / Classics
Int. Relations Blogs
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Tripathi: When Netanyahu Crossed the Line
CounterPunch The bombing of an Israeli embassy car in Delhi...
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: Russia, China (and the US) Isolated at the UN
Russia and China may be isolated at the United Nations...
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: The Guantánamo Bay Files: Revealing the Mindset of the US Military
The release of the “Guantánamo Bay files” has sent shockwaves...
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: Syria: the Rule of Law vs. the Rule of Power in the Security Council
Since early this year, Syria has been rocked by pro-democracy...
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: So what is going on with Af-Pak? A review of a week’s coverage of the Afghan war
Anyone reading the news about Afghanistan last week would be...
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel seems to have secured...
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: The NYT and the art of selective reporting: Women suicides by fire in Afghanistan
Last August, Time Magazine used as its cover a shocking...
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: Afghanistan’s Minerals: Hope or Despair?
Why we should view the discovery of Afghan minerals with...
Int. Rel Audio
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Rasmus: The U.S. Empire: Growing Stronger or Weaker?
Guests Zeese & Flowers argue the US Empire’s increasing aggressiveness and violence in recent decades are indications of its growing weakness, not strength, as challenges to it mount worldwide
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Sharma: Talk By Devinder Sharma in March 2011
Talk at an international meeting in New Delhi in March...
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Pilger: Support for Julian Assange
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been remanded in custody by a British...
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Chomsky: American Socrates on an Upbeat
Noam Chomsky, after all these years, retains the power to...