March 17, 2014 – Arsenal For Democracy 77

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Nate and Greg join Bill to talk about the lawsuit alleging the NCAA violates anti-trust laws, Chuck Hagel’s reshaping of the U.S. defense priorities through budget changes, and the Crimean annexation referendum.

 
AFD 77

Related Links

Deadspin: “The NCAA-Killing Lawsuit Might Finally Be Here”
Washington Post: Pentagon blueprint would cut Army size as military adjusts to leaner budgets
RT America: “Underwater drone fleet’s budget nearly doubled by the Pentagon”
AFD: Verdict on Crimea vote: Seeeeeeems legit
Moscow Times: European Investors Say Pleas Against Sanctions on Russia Ignored
AFD: What Russia missed: The rise of a united Ukraine
AFD: Russian troops land in Ukraine village, outside Crimea
AFD: Sweden after Crimea: Sure would be nice to have that empire again

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Sweden after Crimea: Sure would be nice to have that empire again

swedish-empireThough more recently known for its relative impartiality and determined neutrality (during World War II, they wedged themselves peacefully between occupied Denmark and Norway, and bitterly contested Finland), Sweden was once a powerful northern European empire dominating (or attacking) Norway, Finland, Denmark, the German states, Poland, the Baltic States, and Russia.

During the Thirty Years War of the 17th century, the Swedish Empire captured half the principalities of the Holy Roman Empire and sent colonists to the Mid-Atlantic in North America. Those days are long gone, and in Baltic Europe, Russia picked up a lot of the slack in the vacuum left by a receding Sweden in the 18th and 19th centuries.

In the post-World War II era, Sweden has maintained a relatively small military but tried to stay out of foreign entanglements, apart from some peacekeeping missions in Africa or international non-combat military roles, such as in Libya or Afghanistan.

Right about now, though, the Swedes seem to be wishing they were back to their old imperial glory days — or the next best thing: being a NATO member, something they previously have had no interest in. If Russia’s going back to the no-rules imperialism of yore, Sweden would like to be protected.

Non-aligned since the early 19th century, Sweden’s “splendid isolation” has endured two world wars and even the five-decade superpower slugfest that dominated the late 20th century. That could change, however, in the wake of Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. Last week, Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg indicated that the defense budget, to which he had recently announced cuts, would be increased as a result of the crisis. Deputy Prime Minister Jan Björklund also publicly floated the idea of Swedish membership in NATO, warning that Russia could attempt to seize Gotland, a strategically located Swedish island province in the Baltic Sea, if it chose to attack the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

 
Without international military help, Sweden’s military publicly believes it could hold out in an all-out conventional war for only one week. NATO membership brings a guarantee of international defense if attacked. So right now the old neutrality plan, translating to the go-it-alone approach, is looking pretty dicey.

Russia’s Gazprom conglomerate owns Nord Stream, an $11-billion pipeline running along the Swedish island that pumps 55 billion cubic meters of natural gas each year to Western Europe. Russian President Putin vowed to defend the strategically vital pipeline with the Russian Navy in 2006, and in one March 2013 incident reminiscent of the Cold War, two Russian heavy bombers and their fighter escorts skirted Swedish airspace and simulated a bombing run against the island. NATO’s Baltic air patrol responded. Sweden’s did not.

 
Russia was legally committed to uphold Ukraine’s neutrality and blew right through that stop sign. What’s to stop them from going after Gotland? International norms seem to be a voluntary thing for Russia these days.

Update: Following the September 2014 parliamentary elections, the incoming government (from the center-left) abandoned the previous government’s idea of having Sweden join NATO.

March 10, 2014 – Arsenal For Democracy 76

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Nate and Greg join Bill to talk about rising vaccine hysteria, the importance of public vaccinations, and how the “debate” fits into the broader arc of American politics and ideology. European correspondent Persephone looks at the debate over Spanish time zones and siesta culture. Finally Nate, Greg, and Bill look at Crimea in the context of other separatist/independence movements, such as Scotland and Catalonia.

Part 1: AFD 76

Note: This week, the online/podcast version contains an additional segment not aired on WVUD for time purposes. The whole episode with all 3 segments this week is an hour long.

Related Links

Mother Jones: Study: You Can’t Change an Anti-Vaxxer’s Mind
BBC: Analysis: Why Russia’s Crimea move fails legal test
Slate: Crimea referendum: Is the U.S. hypocritical about which independence movements it supports?
The Globalist: A History of Spanish Autonomy
The Globalist: Spain Urgently Needs Consolidation
The Globalist: To Secede or Not to Secede: The Case of Europe

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iTunes Store Link: “Arsenal for Democracy by Bill Humphrey”

One heartbeat away

In 2008, John McCain picked the person who said this today on the Crimea crisis, to be his next-in-line as president of the United States: “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke.”

Let’s just take a moment to give silent thanks that we don’t live in the other universe, where that ticket won.

March 3, 2014 – Arsenal for Democracy 75

AFD-logo-big-newDescription: Bill and Greg discuss discuss the Crimea crisis and Newsweek’s print resurrection. Persephone updates us on the Ley Gallardon abortion controversy in Spain.

 
March 3, 2014 – Arsenal for Democracy 75

 

 

Crimea: What do you really think we can do about it?

I noticed a prominent economist tweeted this the other day, reacting to the Russian occupation of Crimea: “Obama vows no tangible help Whatever happened to Democrats like Truman and Kennedy.”

This would be Truman whose Berlin Airlift occurred in a world where the U.S. was the only nuclear-armed country… and then he managed to get us stuck in Korea. And Kennedy narrowly managed to avoid getting everyone nuked over Cuba and our interference there (including his own)… but then still got us stuck in Vietnam.

So, I don’t know, maybe Obama’s handling this crisis pretty ok?

Look, this isn’t a knock against the person who tweeted that. It’s a pretty common frustration right now. I just happened to spot that particular expression of it. It’s a tense and complicated situation over there right now. There’s probably not much we can do. The U.S. isn’t omnipotent. Nor is Russia powerless before us.

Major miscalculations and underestimations following smaller disputes a century ago this year, not far from the Black Sea, brought Europe and later the United States into the devastating first world war. Let’s not repeat that. When major powers go head to head, it’s best to err on the side of doing less rather than making a catastrophic error the world will not forgive us for. And in the nuclear age, there might not be a world left anyway, after a bad call.
crimea-ukraine

Maybe it’s time to calm down a bit and not fall into The Onion’s pointed characterization: “Ukrainian-Russian Tensions Dividing U.S. Citizens Along Ignorant, Apathetic Lines”