The COVID-19 Chronicles: Western Europe

June 4, 2020 (Gunnar Ulson - NEO) - Western Europe (we'll define as France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, and Austria) shows how regions of the world with existing socioeconomic problems have seen Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) simply amplify them while in other regions where fundamentals have been stronger (China and ASEAN), have simply been temporarily setback.

Even within nations, this is also the case, where sectors and industries performing well have merely been set back while others already struggling long before COVID-19 showed up have been dealt a severe blow.

Health Impact 

Just looking at the reported number of cases and the reported number of deaths tells us that even deep in the heart of the European Union there is some disparity, whether it is via how testing is done, statistics are gathered and reported, the state of healthcare in each respective nation or some sort of demographic factor being responsible.

Germany and France, for example, had nearly the same number of reported COVID-19 cases, yet France had many, many more reported deaths.

France: 182,942 cases, 28,432 deaths
Germany: 180,789 cases, 8,428 deaths
Spain: 282,480 cases, 26,837 deaths
Belgium: 57,342 cases, 9,312 deaths
Portugal: 30,788 cases, 1,330 deaths
Austria: 16,539 cases, 641 deaths

Fears of overburdened healthcare infrastructure stemmed from predictions and models of a pathogen that would spread faster and have a greater impact on public health than COVID-19 actually did.

As testing continues to expand, the number of infected appears to have been vastly larger than previously reported meaning that the mortality rate of COVID-19 is thus much lower.

The COVID-19 Chronicles: Eastern Europe

Author's note: This is part of The Covid-19 Chronicles Series covering how nations and regions are responding to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) crisis. 

May 28, 2020 (Gunnar Ulson - NEO) - Like much of Asia, Eastern Europe appears to have weathered the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) crisis relatively well, at least in terms of overcoming a health crisis. 

Total reported infections and deaths have been much lower across these nations, and the Western media has taken turns wondering just how this is possible.

Health Impact

Statistics indicate that Covid-19 has impacted Eastern European nations in about the same manner as the annual flu or common cold. Nations like Belarus have in fact been hit harder by the annual flu than by the recent Covid-19 outbreak. 

While headlines claimed nations would be scrambling for critical medical equipment including ventilators, Eastern Europe has since had no widespread or widely reported shortages nor reports of overcrowded or overwhelmed healthcare facilities. 

The table below gives a quick look at the impact of Covid-19 nearly half a year into the supposed "pandemic" and is easily comparable to annual flu burden in each respective nation. 

Belarus: 27,730 infections, 156 deaths
Bulgaria: 2,174 infections, 105 deaths
Czechia: 8,406 infections, 295 deaths
Hungary: 3,473 infections, 448 deaths
Poland: 18,016 infections, 907 deaths
Moldova: 5,745 infections, 202 deaths
Romania: 16,437 infections, 1,070 deaths 
Russia: 262,843 infections, 2,418 deaths
Slovakia: 1,480  infections, 27 deaths 
Ukraine: 17,858 infections, 497 deaths

The health impact has been minimal with Eastern European nations imposing measures that ranged from the extreme to, in Belarus' case, very minimum in the face of global panic over the virus.

Measures 

Eastern European nations did indeed put measures in place including the closure of public venues, issuing guidelines regarding social distancing and the use of facemasks. Poland had closed public venues and businesses, restricted public activities including gatherings and instituted the use of face masks, but has since begun easing such measures. 

In other instances, measures have been so lax that it incurred complaints from neighboring nations. 

Belarus, for example, has been accused by Lithuania of hiding the impact of Covid-19 on its population and responding inadequately. 

US State Department propaganda Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in an article titled, "COVID-19: WHO Urges Belarus To Implement Distancing Measures; Georgia To Extend State Of Emergency," would complain about Belarus' insistence on not caving in to what Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka called "mass psychosis."

As Russia Sends Aid, US and NATO Sneer and Smear

Once again NATO reveals itself as the architect of its own decline, missing a golden opportunity to help instead of hinder and harass. 

April 9, 2020 (Gunnar Ulson - NEO) - When Russian military planes and trucks arrived in Italy to provide relief for communities hit by the Covid-19 outbreak, the Italian government, elected into power by the Italian people, was thankful for the assistance offered by Moscow.

Named officials within the Italian government, including the foreign minister, the minister of defense and the governor of Apulia, Michele Emiliano, publically expressed thanks to Russia for the aid.

But finding any mention of this across the Western media is difficult, often buried deep within articles aimed entirely at smearing Russia for sending aid and depicting Italians as victims of a publicity stunt.

Reuters, in a smear piece published by the New York Times and aimed at vilifying Moscow, still had to admit regarding Russian aid that Italians were grateful, noting:

"There are no new geopolitical scenarios to trace, there is a country that needs help and other countries that are helping us," Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio was quoted as saying by Italy's Il Corriere della Sera newspaper on Thursday.

Despite Italy being capable of speaking for itself and bringing up any suspicions (if they had any), the West decided to step in and speak for Italy instead.

Sneering and Smearing 

Western headlines are flooded with scorn for both Russia and the aid they sent, completely indifferent to how Italians themselves perceived the gesture.

Articles like Bloomberg's "Italy Questions Russians Over Their Goodwill Virus Gestures," admit several paragraphs in that officially, Italy was grateful for the aid, noting:

“Our country can only be grateful” for the solidarity of many countries, including Russia, the Italian defense and foreign ministries said in a joint statement Friday.

Yet claims that "Italy questions Russia" suggest the entire nation is suspicious of the aid. Upon reading Bloomberg's article, the only source cited is a single article in the Italian newspaper "La Stampa." It is hard to believe an article in "La Stampa" constitutes all of "Italy."

According to the pro-Western Moscow Times in their article, "80% of Russia’s Coronavirus Aid to Italy ‘Useless’ – La Stampa," also entirely based on the La Stampa article, its admits La Stampa's information came from an "unnamed source." 

Other articles, like the BBC's "Coronavirus: What does ‘from Russia with love’ really mean?," Foreign Policy's "Beware of Bad Samaritans," and Forbes' "From Russia With Love? Putin’s Medical Supplies Gift To Coronavirus-Hit Italy Raises Questions," all used similarly disingenuous tactics to depict the Russian aid as somehow sinister and unwanted.

London Attack: West's Terrorists Bite the Hand that Feeds (Again)

The latest incident in London was so entirely preventable that it is difficult to describe it as anything less than deliberate.

February 13, 2020 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - In yet another headline-grabbing terror attack - an armed man in south London left several injured - some seriously - with the suspect himself killed at the scene by police.

Entirely predictable was the fact that the suspect named as Sudesh Amman - was a known terrorist - having been previously arrested, tried, and imprisoned for terror-related offenses, only to be inexplicably released early.

The London Telegraph in its article, "Streatham attack knifeman named as Sudesh Amman who had a previous terror conviction," would report regarding his earlier conviction that:

Alexis Boon, then head of the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command, said at the time of his conviction that Amman had a “fierce interest in violence and martyrdom”.

He explained: “His fascination with dying in the name of terrorism was clear in a notepad we recovered from his home. Amman had scrawled his ‘life goals’ in the notepad and top of the list, above family activities, was dying a martyr and going to ‘Jannah’ - the afterlife.

Also predictable was the fact that this known terrorist would once again menace the public - being only the most recent example in a string of headline-grabbing terror attacks carried out by similar suspects similarly known to police and intelligence organizations, but otherwise inexplicably allowed to menace the public.

Major terror attacks in France and Belgium were likewise carried out by suspects entirely known to local police and regional intelligence organizations.

Not only are these suspects known to Western authorities, but they are also affiliated with Western-sponsored terrorist organizations most notably Al Qaeda, its various franchises, and the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) which have for nearly a decade served as proxies in Western-engineered regime change wars aimed at Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Iran, and beyond.

The latest incident in London was so entirely preventable that it is difficult to describe it as anything less than deliberate.

It is only a matter of time before politicians begin spinning and exploiting the incident - using it to shape policy both foreign and domestic - allowing analysts to better understand why such an entirely preventable act of violence was allowed to unfold nonetheless.

From London to Paris: The West's Self-Perpetuated Terror 

As seen in nearly every terror attack in recent years both in Europe and North America including high-profile incidents like the "Charlie Hebdo shooting" and the Garland, Texas attack, the alleged suspects all have one common thread - they were all already under the watch of security agencies for years, some even imprisoned one or more times for terror-related and/or other violent offenses, some even having traveled overseas to fight alongside Western-backed terrorists in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and beyond.

The Guardian in an article titled, "France passes new surveillance law in wake of Charlie Hebdo attack," admitted then that the French government alone had over 1,400 people under watch, including hundreds of terrorists who have recently returned from fighting alongside Western-backed terrorists in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. 

Among these monitored potential risks were in fact the suspects behind the "Charlie Hebdo shooting."

Slate Magazine would report in their article, "The Details of Paris Suspect Cherif Kouachi’s 2008 Terrorism Conviction," that: 

Kouachi was arrested in January 2005, accused of planning to join jihadists in Iraq. He was said to have fallen under the sway of Farid Benyettou, a young "self-taught preacher" who advocated violence, but had not actually yet traveled to Iraq or committed any acts of terror. Lawyers at the time said he had not received weapons training and "had begun having second thoughts," going so far as to express "relief" that he'd been apprehended.

Kourachi and his brother would be reported to have traveled to the Middle East to receive training from Al Qaeda, then to have fought in Syria in a war backed in part by France, before returning home and carrying out their grisly terror attack, all while being tracked by French intelligence.

If Kouachi previously could be arrested for "association with wrongdoers with the intention of committing a terrorist act," why wasn't he arrested immediately upon his return to France for having subsequently received and employed military training by a terrorist organization?

CNN would report in an article titled, "France tells U.S. Paris suspect trained with al Qaeda in Yemen," that: 

Western intelligence officials are scrambling to learn more about possible travel of the two Paris terror attack suspects, brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, with new information suggesting one of the brothers recently spent time in Yemen associating with al Qaeda in that country, U.S. officials briefed on the matter told CNN. Additional information from a French source close to the French security services puts one of the brothers in Syria.

The problem that led up to the "Charlie Hebdo shooting" - or any high-profile attack since - was clearly not a lack of intelligence or surveillance. 

Washington Desperation Drives Nuclear Proliferation

January 22, 2020 (Gunnar Ulson - NEO) - A cornered animal is a dangerous animal. For the elite in Washington, with the terminal decline of their "American Century" and the global empire it built during it, they find themselves in a most unaccommodating corner and thus have become increasingly reckless and dangerous in their decision making.

Compounding matters exponentially is the fact that in that corner and amid Washington's desperation, they are in possession of thousands of nuclear weapons and an increasing disinterest in the treaties that sought to ensure such weapons were neither used nor proliferated.

The Unspoken Nuclear Threat

The highly destructive trade wars, real wars and political and/or economic interference the US is engaged in worldwide is creating a negative and very tangible impact on the globe. Despite the high costs of Washington's increasingly disruptive polices and the prominence they assert themselves with across daily headlines, it is perhaps the nuclear threat of an increasingly reckless political order that poses the most danger.

Yet it is often downplayed, spun or left unspoken entirely.

Incremental policy decisions spanning the presidential administrations of George Bush Jr., Barrack Obama and Donald Trump have seen the end of two important nuclear arms treaties signed with the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation. Not only have these treaties been unilaterally shredded by the United States, the US immediately took actions these treaties had sought specifically to prevent such as the encircling of Russia with anti-missile systems to prevent Moscow from launching a nuclear retaliation in the wake of a hypothetical US first strike, undermining the entire premise of mutually assured destruction and the keystone of nuclear deterrence.

The New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) is nearing its expiration in 2021 and policymakers in Washington appear to have little interest in renegotiating its extension or its replacement with a similar or better treaty.

According to Reuters in its 2017 article, "Exclusive: In call with Putin, Trump denounced Obama-era nuclear arms treaty - sources," it's claimed that:

In his first call as president with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump denounced a treaty that caps U.S. and Russian deployment of nuclear warheads as a bad deal for the United States, according to two U.S. officials and one former U.S. official with knowledge of the call.

While many may dismiss Trump's denouncement as an extension of his brash leadership style, it fits in perfectly with an incremental process of unilateral US withdrawal from a series of fundamental nuclear arms treaties, an incremental process almost never mentioned across the US mass media.

Washington Deliberately Walks Toward a Dangerous Nuclear Threat 

In 2002, US President George Bush Jr. would unilaterally withdraw the US from the The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty). This was immediately followed by US efforts to encircle Russia with anti-missile systems designed to stymie any Russian nuclear retaliation.

Then in August 2019, US President Donald Trump withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty). Despite Trump's name being associated with the withdrawal, the process of preparing for the withdrawal as well as developing the weapon systems prohibited under it began during the administration of US President Barrack Obama.

Immediately after the US withdrawal from the treaty, intermediate-range missile systems developed in the US were unveiled; systems that most certainly were under development long before the US withdrawal from the treaty.

Nord Stream 2: Washington to "Free" Europe From Freedom to Decide for Itself

December 23, 2019 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Nord Stream 2 is a pipeline project extending from Russia to Germany that - when completed - will provide a secure means of exporting Russian natural gas to Western Europe - circumventing a  now volatile Ukraine all while tying Russia and Europe together further through mutually beneficial economic activity.

Of course, for special interests residing across the Atlantic in Washington and on Wall Street, Russia and Europe building closer ties through constructive economic activity undermines a long-standing strategy of coercing Europe via the constant threat of a supposedly hostile Kremlin Washington claims undermines a free and united Europe.

Ironically, in order to preserve Europe's "freedom" the US has now resorted to punishing interests in Europe - and in Germany specifically - for freely choosing to do business with Russia. It not only fully illustrates the supreme hypocrisy that lies at the very root of Washington's current foreign policy, but also threatens to undermine legitimate US business interests seeking - just as Russia does - to build constructive economic ties with companies and nations around the globe.

Sanctions Approved

The BBC in its article, "Nord Stream 2: Trump approves sanctions on Russia gas pipeline," would report:

President Donald Trump has signed a law that will impose sanctions on any firm that helps Russia's state-owned gas company, Gazprom, finish a pipeline into the European Union. 

The sanctions target firms building Nord Stream 2, an undersea pipeline that will allow Russia to increase gas exports to Germany. 

The US considers the project a security risk to Europe. 

Both Russia and the EU have strongly condemned the US sanctions.

It may or may not confound objective observers to see the US unilaterally leveling sanctions against foreign companies because of what Washington claims are security threats to the nations these companies reside in.

It is clearly the business of Germany and Germany alone to determine what may or may not be a security risk. The US deciding not only unilaterally that the Nord Stream 2 project is a security risk - but in contradiction to Berlin's own assessments of these supposed risks - exposes what is a US foreign policy rooted in singular self-interests poorly hidden behind notions of global peace, stability, and progress.

Were Russia the "threat" that Washington claims it is, clearly Germany would not have invested the immense amount of time, energy, and resources required merely to approve of the Nord Stream 2 project - let alone all the time, energy, and resources required to build and operate it.

Stated Motives. Admitted "Hidden" Motives. Larger, Unspoken Motives 

The BBC article gives a glimpse of what is truly motivating Washington's current posture regarding Nord Stream 2. In its article, it notes that:

The Trump administration fears the pipeline will tighten Russia's grip over Europe's energy supply and reduce its own share of the lucrative European market for American liquefied natural gas.

And indeed, US energy interests do stand to lose against Russian natural gas - but only because US energy interests are unable to fairly compete against Russia's ability to deliver cheaper energy through much more practical means.

There is also another motivation driving Washington's current foreign policy - unmentioned by the BBC - but one that eclipses the interests of American big-energy - no matter how large these interests may be.

The alleged spectre of a malign Russia preying on Europe serves as - and has served for decades as the foundation of the US-led NATO alliance, the US military presence in Europe and the billions upon billions of dollars of weapon sales, contracts, and all the political influence that constitutes both.

Europe and Russia building a significant pipeline and cooperating over something as key to Europe's economic security and survival as energy demand obviously and completely undermines NATO's pretense to exist - and thus threatens the immense racket that constitutes NATO's continued existence. This not only threatens Washington's grip on Europe, but all the other wars NATO is used as a vehicle to carry both the American nation and its Western allies into across the globe.

The Western intervention in Serbia in the 1990s, the Afghan war stretching from 2001 to present day, and more recently the Western intervention in Libya beginning in 2011 are all examples of US belligerence made possible by NATO - and belligerence that would be exponentially more difficult to continue onward with if NATO was weakened or rendered entirely unnecessary and disbanded.

Not Serving European Interests, or even US Interests 

One must be careful when saying "the US is imposing sanctions on Germany." The US is not. A small handful of special interests in Washington, directed by an even smaller handful of interests on Wall Street are imposing sanctions on Europe over the Nord Stream 2 project.

They are doing so clearly to the detriment of Russia. But also obviously to the detriment of Germany and the European companies involved in completing, operating, and receiving benefits from the pipeline when it opens.

They are also imposing sanctions on Europe to the detriment of the American people, American businesses at large, and the American nation itself both as it stands internationally today and to the detriment of how it will stand internationally in the future.

The G7's Growing Irrelevance

September 13, 2019 (Gunnar Ulson - NEO) - The Group of Seven (G7), comprised of the "most advanced economies in the world," includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. 

It emerged in the 1970s. While it exists for supposedly many different and "important" reasons, it has functioned more as a Western-centric economic cartel than any sort of progressive international alliance.

For a relatively short time, the G7 included Russia, and was known then as the G8. But Russia's inclusion was aimed at forcing Russia, its people and resources under Western domination, not any sort of real effort to cultivate cooperation or inclusion with emerging economies like Russia's.

When it became clear that Russia was using its membership in the Group to advocate for its own best interests rather than falling into line, it was ousted.

While Russia seeks closer ties with the West to move costly and perhaps even dangerous conflict into the direction of healthy competition if not certain forms of cooperation, the G7's posture toward Russia and its attempts to frame it across the media illustrates exactly why the Group and the nations that comprise it, are losing their leadership role upon the global stage.

Western Leadership is Dying 

Articles like the Christian Science Monitor's "Disarray at G-7 summit: Is Western leadership dying, or adapting?," frame perfectly why there really is no question to whether or not Western leadership is dying. It is, and the West's inability to face this reality and the underlying reasons for its existence is precisely why it is.

The article claims:

When French President Emmanuel Macron declared it would be “pointless” to try to deliver the traditional final communique at the G-7 summit he hosted last weekend it prompted some to wonder if maybe the organization itself is pointless. 

Leaders of the Group of Seven major economies had been especially riven by conflicting perspectives on global issues from climate change to trade. 

But the larger question behind the doubts about the G-7 is whether a Cold War-era grouping based on common interests and values such as democracy, the rule of law, free markets, and human rights still has a global leadership role to play in the 21st century.

Anyone paying attention to anything members of the G7 are doing and their actions upon the global stage are well aware that "values" like democracy, the rule of law, free markets and human rights were always ever political mechanisms the West hid its otherwise self-serving agenda behind rather than stood for.

In reality, it is the toppling of governments around the globe, the subverting of national sovereignty, the literal invasions and occupations of various nations particularly under deliberately false pretexts, the mafia-style economics, the lopsided and predatory "free trade agreements" and the operation of a multinational, global-spanning network of torture facilities to process opponents of Western interests that defines "Western leadership" in the late 20th and now 21st century.

If the G7 cannot come to grips with the reality that its supposed values are now clearly seen by the world as a canard rather than as its compass, it cannot effectively address why its power and influence is in decline, saying nothing of its waning global leadership.

Moral leadership and a unity of purpose are two fundamentals that have always historically bound nations in pursuit of their endeavors. The G7 functions more like a tropism of perpetual expansion, lacking genuine purpose while hiding behind increasingly transparent "values."

Does anyone still truly believe Western leadership is predicated upon democracy, the rule of law, free markets and human rights? What evidence is there that suggests this?

Europe Has no Freedom But to Choose "Freedom Gas"

June 7, 2019 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - The US Department of Energy (DOE) recently renamed US liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports "freedom gas." But freedom for who? For Europe who already has a cheap and reliable source of natural gas, but is being forced to switch over to more expensive US gas under the threat of sanctions? Certainly not.

Or freedom for Russia who supplies Europe with much of its natural gas to compete openly and fairly with the United States? Most definitely not.

Or is it freedom from competition for the US?  Yes, indeed.

It is often contradictory branding that heralds various chapters of US injustice at home (under the draconian "Patriot Act" for example) and abroad, such as during the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq carried out under the dubious name of "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

Not the Onion

So discredited have US campaigns christened in the name of "freedom" become, that few scarcely believed the US was actually, seriously calling its natural gas exports "freedom gas." However, it is not a headline torn from the pages of the satirical newspaper "The Onion," but rather from the US DOE itself.

In an article from the DOE's official website titled, "Department of Energy Authorizes Additional LNG Exports from Freeport LNG," the DOE states (emphasis added):

“Increasing export capacity from the Freeport LNG project is critical to spreading freedom gas throughout the world by giving America’s allies a diverse and affordable source of clean energy. Further, more exports of U.S. LNG to the world means more U.S. jobs and more domestic economic growth and cleaner air here at home and around the globe,” said U.S. Under Secretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes, who highlighted the approval at the Clean Energy Ministerial in Vancouver, Canada. “There’s no doubt today’s announcement furthers this Administration’s commitment to promoting energy security and diversity worldwide.”

Aside from the almost comical reference to "freedom gas," there is something else revealing about the DOE's claims of  "giving America’s allies a diverse and affordable source of clean energy." 

This is in direct reference to Europe, and Europe's current imports of Russian gas. Russian gas, delivered by pipelines to Europe will always be cheaper than US liquefied natural gas transported by sea to Europe. That is, unless the US, through the threat of sanctions not only against Russia, but against Washington's own allies in Europe, can raise those costs to above the price of US exports.

Articles like Foreign Policy's "U.S. Senate Threatens Sanctions Over Russian Pipeline," make it clear just how far along the US is toward doing just that.

Who Gains from Turning Europe into a Potential Nuclear Battlefield?

February 20, 2019 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - The United States and its NATO partners are attempting to make the case for Washington's decision to abandon the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

Claims that the Russian Federation has been violating the treaty have yet to be substantiated with anything resembling credible evidence. Also missing is any rational explanation as to why Russia would develop or deploy nuclear weapons capable of launching a nuclear strike on Europe without warning - a scenario the INF Treaty was created to deter.

Bloomberg in its article, "Nuclear Fears Haunt Leaders With U.S.-Russian Arms Pact's Demise," would claim:

Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s top civilian, cited recent Russian deployments and evoked a Cold War-style threat of nuclear destruction at a global conference of security and defense officials this weekend in Munich, the baroque German metropolis that’s one of Europe’s richest cities.  

“These missiles are mobile, easy to hide and nuclear-capable,” Stoltenberg said. “They can reach European cities, like Munich, with little warning.”

Stoltenberg, the rest of NATO, Washington, and the many media organizations that work for and answer to both have failed categorically to explain why Russia would ever use nuclear-capable missiles against cities "like Munich, with little warning."

Would Moscow Nuke Russia's Closest Trade Partners? 

While Russia has invested greatly in recent years to expand its economic trade with Asia, it is still heavily dependent on trade with Europe.

The Harvard Atlas of Economic Complexity reveals not only Europe as the most important region for Russian trade, particularly for Russian exports, but nations like the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy as among Russia's top trade partners.

Russia is currently working with Germany on its Nord Stream 2 pipeline - a pipeline transporting Russian hydrocarbons to Western Europe without passing through politically unstable nations like Ukraine. The project is a keystone of recent Russian efforts to modernize and adapt its hydrocarbon industry around complications arising from US interference across Europe - particularly in the form of the US-engineered 2014 coup in Ukraine and NATO's constant US-led expansion along Russian borders.

And Russian companies aren't the only ones benefiting from Nord Stream 2 or other economic ties between Russia and Europe. Russia imports more from Germany than any other European nation, and Germany is only second to China among all nations Russia imports goods from.

It is highly unlikely Russia is going to launch nuclear missiles at "Munich, with little warning" - because to do so would be entirely without rational justification. Characters like Stoltenberg and the rest of NATO gloss over this obvious gap in their narrative to sell Russia as an unpredictable adversary and an enduring threat to Western Europe, as well as the United States. But by filling in this obvious gap in NATO's logic, we can see who really benefits from turning Europe into a potential nuclear battlefield by stationing short-range nuclear weapons across the region.

Nuclear Battlefield Europe

It is Washington, not Germany nor Russia that opposes the Nord Stream 2 project. It is Washington who seeks to drive a wedge between Western European and Russian economic trade. It is Washington who seeks to galvanize - or coerce - Europe into a united front against Russia - even if it means compromising regional stability - both in terms of economics and security.

Washington - by withdrawing from the INF Treaty - doesn't jeopardize the security of its own territory - but opens up a new dimension to an already ongoing nuclear arms race in the heart of Western Europe. It will be Western Europeans and Russians who face the consequences that emerge from the abandoning of the INF Treaty and any unpredictable - or even accidental - incidents that result from the stationing of short-range nuclear weapons across the region.

As pointed out many times before - NATO itself more than any external threat - represents the greatest danger to its member states in terms of pilfering national treasuries, miring nations in protracted wars and occupations thousands of miles from their own shores, and exposing member nations to the consequences of these wars including the deluge of refugees fleeing to Europe from them.

The US - by causing chaos and division both within Europe and between Europe and its trade partners - is able to continue exercising control over the continent - literally an ocean away from Washington DC.

The withdrawal from the INF Treaty and the dangerous arms race sure to follow is another example of the US playing the roles of arsonist and fire brigade as a means to maintain the relevance of the international order it constructed over the last century - an order the US serves as the self-appointed leader of.

In terms of simple economics and genuine European security - the United States could not be more irrelevant.

While Germany maintains the United States as its top export destination - the overall European and Asian regions by far contribute more to the German economy. Any instability or crisis in Europe would have an impact on the German economy its trade with the US would in no way compensate for. In terms of imports, the role of the US is even less.

While European trade with Russia is relatively small in comparison to inter-European trade, or with partners in Asia or even the US - Russian hydrocarbons serve an important role in European energy security. And while the cutting of ties between Europe and Russia would certainly hurt Russia more - the chaos used to cut those ties may disrupt stability within Europe itself - chaos that would impact inter-European trade - trade that ties with the US or Asia would not compensate for.

Washington plays a dangerous game, with short-range nuclear missiles being the latest point of leverage it seeks to use in prying Europe away from Russia. It is another illustration of just which nation's government truly poses the greater threat not only to Europe, but to global peace, security and stability in general.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.     

US Withdrawal from NATO Would Benefit Americans Most of All

January 20, 2019 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Alleged discussions between US President Donald Trump and his aides about a US withdrawal from NATO have been making headlines recently.

The New York Times in an article titled, "Trump Discussed Pulling U.S. From NATO, Aides Say Amid New Concerns Over Russia," would claim:

There are few things that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia desires more than the weakening of NATO, the military alliance among the United States, Europe and Canada that has deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years. 

Last year, President Trump suggested a move tantamount to destroying NATO: the withdrawal of the United States.

And while the division or dissolving of NATO most certainly would benefit Russia - removing a malignant and aggressive rogue institution from its borders and the toxic atmosphere of perpetual confrontation it creates - it would also most certainly benefit each and every NATO member many times more.

Despite the many myths surrounding NATO's role in "protecting" its individual members, nothing has undermined the security of NATO member states more than NATO itself.

The Myth of NATO's Purpose 

The reality-show that is American politics has increasingly depended on institutionalized reverse psychology - where a notion that fundamentally appeals to Americans of all political persuasions is passed through "Trump" to create automatic and irrational aversion in at least some segments of the public.

A US withdrawal from an expensive, antiquated, and repeatedly abused military alliance allegedly created to keep in check a Soviet Union that no longer exists is one such universal notion. To polarize debate around the otherwise clear-cut benefits of reducing or dissolving America's role in NATO, "Trump's" alleged desire to withdraw from the alliance has been emphasized, and specifically within the context of "Trump" being an alleged agent of "Russian" influence.

But the truth of NATO's actual purpose and the very real threats it poses to global peace and stability is independent of one's like or dislike of US President Donald Trump.

Far from confronting a Soviet - or now "Russian" threat - NATO instead is used to leverage and abuse Europe's collective political and military power to augment US wars of aggression far beyond the North Atlantic where NATO was supposedly created to protect.

According to NATO's own website, NATO exists to:

...guarantee the freedom and security of its members through political and military means.

Considering this stated purpose, one must wonder what the now 17 year-long US-led NATO occupation of Afghanistan has to do with the freedom and security of  NATO's American and European members - who must cross oceans and seas just to reach Afghanistan - a nation that poses no threat to any of NATO's members nor possesses the means even if it sought to.

The ongoing occupation of Afghanistan has seen the rise of terrorist organizations previously unheard of in Afghanistan, including the emergence of the so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS) who use the nation as a springboard to spread across Central Asia. The conflict has bled NATO members of billions in funds and has claimed the lives of NATO member soldiers.

NATO atrocities including the bombing of civilians with manned aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), torture, and other abuses have further tarnished NATO's reputation as well as consumed the political legitimacy of many individual NATO members involved.

The fact that the numerous goals NATO supposedly seeks to achieve in Afghanistan have gone unmet for now nearly two decades also undermines the legitimacy and credibility of NATO and its member states.

Another recent NATO action was in Libya in 2011. The destruction of Libya triggered a refugee tidal wave that swept Europe, compromising socioeconomic stability and domestic security within the very heart of NATO's supposed area of responsibility.

Libya itself has been reduced to a failed state where terrorism now runs rampant, threatening security across North Africa and serving as a springboard for militancy and terror both regionally and globally.

Foreign Policy in a 2015 article titled, "The New Pirates of Libya: Why the rise of the radical Islamists in North Africa threatens America directly -- and how to stop it," would admit (emphasis added):

Over the last four years, Libya has become a key node in the expansion of Islamic radicalism across North Africa, West Africa, and the Sahel, and into Europe. Arms and fighters have crossed Libya’s porous borders, feeding radical organizations from al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb to Boko Haram and reinforcing radical trends in the heart of the Middle East. If events in Libya continue on their current path, they will likely haunt the United States and its Western allies for a decade or more. 

The current situation in Libya is the product of a series of significant mistakes, erroneous assumptions, and myths that date back to NATO intervention in 2011.  

NATO is revealed as a geopolitical wrecking ball - knocking down - not upholding regional or global security. The resulting chaos is then used as a pretext to further expand its mandate. Its actions have repeatedly compromised its many member states in ways even the most tenacious outside threat could not.

Blocking Nord Stream 2: To Fight "Russian Dictatorship," US Dictates to Europe

December 20, 2018 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Rarely is irony and hypocrisy so thoroughly combined as it was when the US House of Representatives passed resolution 1035 - "Expressing opposition to the completion of Nord Stream II" (.pdf).

Bloomberg in its article, "U.S. House Passes Resolution Opposing Russian Gas Pipeline," would report:

The U.S. House of Representatives approved a largely symbolic resolution expressing opposition to Gazprom PJSC’s $11 billion Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, on concerns that the project will boost the Kremlin’s control over Europe’s energy supplies.

 Bloomberg would also report (emphasis added):

While the resolution is non-binding, it highlights growing Congressional opposition to the Russian project. The Trump administration is reviewing potential sanctions against the European companies involved. The pipeline, which would send Russian gas to Germany, has financing agreements with Engie SA and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, among others.

By passing this resolution, the United States presumes to dictate to all of Europe who they can and cannot do business with.

And while the resolution itself is "non-binding," the resolution itself admits it:

...supports the imposition of sanctions with respect to Nord Stream II under section 232 of the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (22 U.S.C. 9526).

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline circumvents Ukraine through which Russia had previously shipped natural gas to the rest of Europe. The Russian Federation, and before that, the Soviet Union had for decades reliably supplied Europe with natural gas through Ukraine.

It was not until an openly US-backed putsch swept the elected government of Ukraine from power in 2014 and transformed Ukrainian foreign policy into being openly hostile toward Moscow, that gas flow was jeopardized, prompting Russia to pursue alternatives - including Nord Stream 2.

US Dictates to Europe to Save it from a "Russian Dictatorship?"

Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline is not a unilateral project - it includes partners from Germany such as Uniper SE and Wintershall, as well as Dutch natural gas infrastructure and transportation company, Gasunie.

The pipeline has also been approved by the elected German government itself.

German public media, Deutsche Welle (DW), in an article titled, "Germany approves Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline," would report:

Germany has given a green light to the construction of the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea, the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency said Tuesday. 

The decision means all legal hurdles to building a 31-kilometer (20 mile) section of the pipeline in Germany's exclusive economic zone have been cleared. In January, authorities approved construction of a gas pipeline segment in German territorial waters.

In what is essentially a bilateral deal between Germany and Russia, the US - from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean - "expresses opposition" to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and is preparing to target companies involved to prevent the pipeline's completion and use.

It is the ultimate irony and the pinnacle of hypocrisy that the US claims in its own resolution that Russia seeks to "control" European energy markets while the US House resolution itself is an open demonstration of Washington's desire to control European energy policy.

EU Event Chastises China-Pakistan Economic Corridor

November 26, 2018 (Joseph Thomas - NEO) - The European Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS) put together a day-long seminar chastising the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Organised by Jonathan Bullock, a UK Independence Party (UKIP) Member of the European Parliament (MEP), it gathered European critics of China's rise upon the global stage along with US and European-funded agitators active in undermining Chinese-Pakistani relations.

The CPEC is a keystone project amid Chinese-Pakistani ties and an integral part of Beijing's One Belt, One Road initiative (OBOR). It includes energy and transportation projects developing and connecting Pakistan's Baluchistan province along the Arabian Sea with Chinese territory along Pakistan and China's border.

When completed, the projects will increase both Pakistan's prospects and China's influence not only in Pakistan, but across the wider region. Together with other OBOR projects, CPEC will be yet another step toward the rise of Eurasia out from under centuries of European domination.

For MEP Jonathan Bullock of UKIP, it is somewhat perplexing to see a politician supposedly concerned with British independence so eager to interfere in the sovereignty of Pakistan and China, thousands of kilometers from British or indeed, all of Europe's shores.

The EFSAS website included a summary of the CPEC-oriented event:

A high level panel consisting of Members European Parliament (MEPs), Scholars and Academicians spoke at the event and discussed the construction of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and its interrelated legal, geo-strategic, economic and environmental issues, which directly impact the stability of South Asia. 

Participants claimed that China would assume unwarranted influence over Pakistan over the course of the projects' construction. Concerns related to Pakistan's Kashmir region and Baluchistan were also brought up by representatives of separatist groups, many of which are funded by the US and Europe specifically to serve as vectors for Western influence in Pakistan and agents of destabilisation not only within Pakistan, but between Pakistan and its immediate neighbours (Afghanistan, India, Iran and China).

The EFSAS' statement would claim:

Mr. Fernando Burgés, Programme Manager at the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO), provided his perspective on the negative repercussion stemming from the construction of the CPEC, which goes through the disputed territory of Gilgit Baltistan, part of the erstwhile Princely State of Jammu & Kashmir over which Pakistan does not have any legal right.

The UNPO serves as collective representation for myriad separatist groups backed by Western special interests used to agitate around the globe.

They have included or currently include Chechen separatists seeking to carve off territory from Russia's south, Tibetan separatists backed for decades by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and various groups from Kashmir and Baluchistan. The latter are backed by the US State Department in their bid for independence and the effective end of Chinese access to the Arabian Sea via the recently built Gwadar Port. 

It should be noted that Pakistan's claimed portion of the Kashmir region is its only direct access to the Chinese border in the north. Thus it is especially convenient that here, the UNPO has found yet another group to support which seeks independence and would effectively close Pakistan off from China in the north.

While the European Union's various MEPs complaining about the CPEC will hardly do anything to slow down its construction let alone stop it, even augmented with US and European funded and backed separatist groups attempting to complicate security on the ground, it is important to understand the persistent imperial chauvinism that still deeply infects many circles of political elite across the West.

It is also important to understand how it manifests itself politically through various but entirely disingenuous and cynically abused "human rights" causes. Likewise, it is important to see how it manifests itself on the ground where these interests seek to disrupt their geopolitical competitors instead of finding common grounds for cooperation and mutual benefit.

Alternative circles of interests both in the US and Europe and elsewhere around the globe will seek common grounds for cooperation and mutual benefit with China and its many Eurasian partners. They will ultimately find themselves in prime seats at the table of emerging multipolarism while the instigators and imperial chauvinists find themselves out in the cold.

Joseph Thomas is chief editor of Thailand-based geopolitical journal, The New Atlas and contributor to the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

NATO’s Greatest Enemy is Itself

November 19, 2018 (Gunnar Ulson - NEO) - Accidents happen. For Norway at the conclusion of NATO’s Trident Juncture 2018 military exercises, such an accident occurred with its Lockheed Martin Aegis-equipped frigate, HNoMS Helge Ingstad.

After a collision with an oil tanker, the frigate’s captain ordered the ship aground to prevent a total loss. The quick thinking may have saved the lives of Norwegian sailors and made salvaging operations easier. Thankfully no lives were lost and only eight injuries are being reported by the Western media.

The NATO exercises the Helge Ingstad was participating in simulated an invasion of Norway. As the Council on Foreign Relations made clear in their article, “NATO’s Trident Juncture Exercises: What to Know,” the imaginary invaders were obvious stand-ins for Russia.

The CFR piece would claim:

The aggressor in the simulation is fictitious, but the setting and the scale of the exercises point clearly in one direction. Tensions between NATO and Russia, which shares an Arctic border with Norway, are running high. In the last five years, Russia has annexed Crimea, destabilized eastern Ukraine, provided military aid to a brutal regime in Syria, meddled in Western elections, and either walked away from or allegedly violated major multilateral security treaties.

Of course none of what the CFR alleges is true and many of the accusations leveled against Russia by the article have long been abandoned by even most in the Western media.

The fact that Norway lost an expensive ship in the middle of this NATO exercise to prepare for a Russian invasion that will never happen suggests that the greatest threat much of Europe faces is from NATO itself, not Moscow.

NATO is a Cancer, Not a Shield

The amount of money required to host NATO members in Norway to prepare for a Russian invasion that will never happen would seem detrimental to Norwegians as well as other European nations spending money to move their forces and their equipment (40,000 personnel, 120 aircraft and 70 ships) to and from the exercise areas.

Training is important and maintaining a strong military as well as a credible deterrence is also important for all nations, both Western Europe and Russia included. But such preparations should be proportional to the prospective threats any nation or bloc of nations face. Such preparations should also clearly be made to create a deterrence rather than a provocation.

NATO’s Trident Juncture appears to be more of an exercise to enforce NATO expansion eastward toward Russia’s borders than any genuine preparation for a “Russian invasion” that even Norway’s leadership says is highly unlikely.

Such exercises and the agenda they serve benefits a handful of special interests, primarily in Washington (Lockheed Martin included), at the expense of NATO’s European members.

Does US Withdrawal from another Nuclear Treaty Really Benefit Russia?

October 31, 2018 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - No. Obviously Russia does not benefit from the scrapping of yet another treaty designed to prevent a nuclear exchange amid a war with the United States.

Yet, as an attempt to frame blatant US provocations as somehow "Russia's fault," a narrative has begun circulating - claiming that not only does the US withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty somehow benefit Russia - it was via Russia's "puppet" - US President Donald Trump - that saw the treaty scrapped.

Spreading this scurrilous narrative are political provocateurs like former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul who has re-branded himself recently as a prominent anti-Trump voice - feeding into and feeding off of America's false left-right political paradigm.

In one post on social media, McFaul would claim:

Why can’t Trump leverage his close personal relationship with Putin to get Russia to abide by the INF Treaty?

In other posts, he would recommend followers to read commentary published by US corporate-financier funded think tank - the Brookings Institution - on how the US withdrawal "helps Russia and hurts US."

The commentary - penned by former US ambassador to Ukraine, Steven Pifer - admitted that no evidence has been made public of supposed "Russian violations." It also admits that America's European allies - those who would be in range of Russian intermediate range missiles if deployed - have not raised a "stink" with the Kremlin, publicly or privately.

But Pifer claims that the US has no missiles to match those supposedly being developed by Russia, and even if it did, the US would have no where to place them - claiming that NATO, Japan, and South Korea would not allow the US to place such systems on their shores. This, he and McFaul suggest, is why the US' withdrawal from the treaty "benefits" Russia by granting it a monopoly over intermediate range missiles.

Washington's Other Withdrawals Prove Otherwise 

Yet the US has already withdrawn from treaties and twisted the arms of allies to allow newly developed missile systems to be deployed on their shores.

In the aftermath of Washington's unilateral withdrawal from another Cold War-era agreement - the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty scrapped by US President George Bush Jr. in 2002 - the US developed and deployed the Lockheed Martin ashore Aegis ballistic missile defense system in Europe along with the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile defense systems to South Korea - also manufactured by Lockheed Martin.

It is clear the unilateral treaty withdrawals under Bush and Trump, as well as the deployment of anti-ballistic missile systems to Europe and East Asia under the Obama administration, represent a continuity of agenda regardless of who occupies the White House.

Coupled with these treaty withdrawals and the subsequent deployment of US missile systems to ring Russia and China - there has been a constant build-up of US troops directly on the borders of both nations.

While those claiming Russia has violated the INF Treaty - and has been doing so for "8 years" as claimed in a 2017 op-ed by US Senator Tom Cotton published in the Washington Post, it should be noted that 8 years previously, it would be revealed that in addition to the US placing Patriot missile systems along Russia's borders, plans for wider military deployments in the Baltic states were also in the works.

Bloomberg: "America's New World Order is Officially Dead"

July 23, 2018 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Hal Brands - the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments - pines of waning American hegemony in his op-ed in Bloomberg titled, "America's New World Order Is Officially Dead."

The sub-headline would further elaborate, "China and Russia have fully derailed the post-Cold War movement toward U.S.-led global integration."

And while Brands blames Russia and China for America's decline - it should be noted that the "US-led global integration" Brands and others within the halls of corporate-financier funded policy think tanks promote, was little more than modern day empire.

Post-Cold War, the United States abused and squandered its monopoly over military and economic power. It led serial wars of aggression across the globe, destroying entire regions of the planet. It proved that whatever the rhetoric was used to sell its unipolar world order to rest of the world, it was in practice an order that ultimately served Wall Street and Washington at the expense of everyone else on the planet.

Russia and China's vision of a multipolar world order is not predicated on institutions the world must surrender its sovereignty, trust, and future to. It is an order built on a much more realist balance of power - where national sovereignty holds primacy and a balance of economic and military power defines and protects the boundaries of international norms. This is in stark contrast to America's vision in which an easily co-opted and manipulated UN made it easy for the largest, most powerful nations to sidestep national sovereignty and even international law, and expand wealth and power through sanctions, invasions, perpetual military occupations, and the creation of subordinate client states.

An Order Built on Betrayal and Brutality 

The international order Brands mourns began with the immediate betrayal of Western promises not to expand its NATO military alliance eastward toward Russia's borders. At the time of the Soviet Union's collapse, a buffer zone existed between Russia's borders and NATO member states - many of these states choosing to benefit from the best of both Eastern and Western relations.

Today, NATO sits on Russia's borders, particularly in the Baltic states where US troops train just shy of the Russian border - in Lithuania which surrounds Russia's Kaliningrad oblast, and in Ukraine where US and NATO members have installed a regime in power dependent on literal Neo-Nazi militants and their respective political wings. 

It is also an international order which saw in Russia's moment of weakness, an opportunity to impose its order by force on former Soviet client states. This not only included NATO's process of expansion in Eastern Europe through sanctions, subversion, and all out war, but also in the Middle East and Central Asia.

It would be US Army General Wesley Clark who best summarized US foreign policy in the proper, realist context it was actually executed in.

In a 2007 Flora TV talk titled, "A Time to Lead," General Clark would reveal this post-Cold War agenda by relating a conversation he had as early as 1991 with then US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Paul Wolfowitz, by stating (emphasis added):

I said Mr. Secretary you must be pretty happy with the performance of the troops in Desert Storm. And he said, well yeah, he said but but not really, he said because the truth is we should have gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and we didn't. And this was just after the Shia uprising in March of 91' which we had provoked and then we kept our troops on the side lines and didn't intervene. And he said, but one thing we did learn, he said, we learned that we can use our military in the region in the Middle East and the Soviets wont stop us. He said, and we have got about five or ten years to clean up those all Soviet client regimes; Syria, Iran, Iraq, - before the next great super power comes on to challenge us. 

And of course, that is precisely what the US embarked upon doing. General Clark would also mention a later conversation he had at the Pentagon, regarding how the US planned to use the attacks on September 11, 2001 as a pretext to expand from military operations in Afghanistan and accelerate this process to invade and overthrow the governments of at least seven other nations.

General Clark would state (emphasis added):

 I came back to the Pentagon about six weeks later, I saw the same officer, I said why why haven't we attacked Iraq? We are sill going to attack Iraq, he said, oh sir he says, its worse than that. He said he pulled up a piece of paper of his desk, he said, I just got this memo from the Secretary of Defense's office, it says we are going to attack and destroy the governments in in seven countries in five years. We are going to start with Iraq and then we are going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran seven seven countries in five years.

While all of these nations were part of a singular, cynical, hegemonic agenda, each nation has been targeted and attacked under false pretenses ranging from false accusations regarding "weapons of mass destruction," to the use of the "responsibility to protect" (R2P) - leveraging "human rights" as a pretext to intervene in wars of Washington's own engineering.

US Political Meddling is Very Real, Spans the Globe

March 14, 2018 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - The United States has spent over a year now leveling accusations against the Russian Federation regarding alleged political meddling during the 2016 US elections. While accusations range from everything including "fake news" spread across the Internet to direct ties to the administration of US President Donald Trump used to assist him into power, no evidence has yet to surface to prove Russia has meddled at all in America's internal political affairs.



And while Russia certainly possesses a large and growing presence across the international media, concerted attacks against this presence stems more from the fact that decades of uncontested control over global public opinion by the US and Europe is now shifting toward a multipolar balance of power in information space.

In stark contrast to the whispers of shadows cited by the US and Europe regarding Russia, to begin understanding the scope of US political meddling abroad, one needs only to visit the US State Department and corporate-funded National Endowment for Democracy's (NED) own website.

Industrial-Scale Meddling 

US meddling is so extensive that NED is broken into multiple subsidiaries (National Democratic Institute (NDI), International Republican Institute (IRI) and Freedom House) which in turn, are joined by parallel organizations such as George Soros' Open Society Foundation, USAID, the UK's DFID and many more.

The NED website is broken into several regions including:

Africa;
Asia;
Central and Eastern Europe;
Eurasia;
Global;
Latin America and Caribbean and;
Middle East and Northern Africa.

Within each region, NED lists its extensive funding for organizations and fronts in over 100 different nations around the globe.

Within each nation, NED funds between a handful to several dozen organizations posing as legal firms, media platforms, environmental groups and human rights advocates. They collectively create the components of a political machine used to pressure incumbent governments to heed US interests, or overthrow them if they fail to.

Because the NED and recipients of its funding are increasingly exposed as a form of political subversion, NED has opted to list its funding in some nations in very general terms, never revealing the actual organizations or individuals receiving US money. Many organizations in targeted nations refuse to disclose their funding to the public. Many even possess the gall to solicit public donations despite receiving (and concealing) extensive funding from the US government.