BRIAN CLOUGHLEY—Thank you US-NATO, and especially thank you, President Obama and Messrs. Rasmussen, Stavridis and Daalder, and all the brave pilots who had a wonderful blitzing shindig, and all the brave button-pressers on US and UK Navy ships whose Tomahawk missiles blasted the cities. The country you wrecked will take decades to recover from your use of what you called “limited force,” and the amount of human suffering you caused is incalculable.
THE WEST
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ADAM GARRIE—Russia’s ability to build new partnerships is objectively an impressive diplomatic feat. Crucially though, it must be remembered that during this same period, Russia has remained close to traditional Cold War allies while mending fences with partnerships that were lost in the midst of or just after the Cold War. Russia is a country that is a partner with both Vietnam and China, Egypt and Turkey, Syria, Israel and Palestine, Iran and Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and to a more limited degree than in the Cold War, with India, The Philippines and Cambodia, Mozambique and South Africa and many others.
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GAITHER STEWART—And here, in order to get a handle on Matteo Salvini and the history taking place today in Italy, in Europe, the observer must first step back and consider the context in which political events are unraveling, not only in Italy, but in all of Europe and much of the world. Non-Europeans are familiar with the Catalan bid for autonomy from Madrid; readers will also recall the bloody fight of the Basques for the same, the same battle which over a half century ago shook Belgium as Flemish people fought for independence from Francophone Belgium. The Lega Nord was founded on a similar political demand: secession from Italy and Rome.
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ALEX LANTIER—What is unfolding is a historic collapse of diplomatic and economic relations between the major imperialist powers. For the three quarters of a century since World War II, a broad consensus existed internationally in the ruling class that the trade wars of the 1930s Great Depression played a major role in triggering that war, and that trade wars should be avoided at all costs. This consensus has now broken down.