ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

© / AFP NATO’s former deputy military chief in Europe says his book, a fictional story which describes a nuclear war with Russia over the Baltic nations taking place in 2017, is based on an “entirely plausible” scenario. General Sir Richard Shirreff, from Britain, served at the second-highest NATO military office in Europe between 2011 and 2014. He says his experience acquired in the alliance of war-gaming future conflicts helped him model the narrative for the book. According to his scenario, starting next year Russia would first occupy Ukraine to secure a land route to Crimea and then invade the three Baltic nations, all of which are members of NATO. The move, Shirreff argued, would be driven by the perception of NATO’s weakness and Russia’s opposition to what it sees as the alliance’s attempts to encircle it. We need to judge President [Vladimir] Putin by his deeds not his words,” the retired general told BBC Radio 4’s Today program. “He has invaded Georgia, he has invaded the C

by JOHN PILGER Photo by Diego Torres Silvestre | CC BY 2.0 The American journalist, Edward Bernays, is often described as the man who invented modern propaganda. The nephew of Sigmund Freud, the pioneer of psycho-analysis, it was Bernays who coined the term “public relations” as a euphemism for spin and its deceptions. In 1929, he persuaded feminists to promote cigarettes for women by smoking in the New York Easter Parade – behaviour then considered outlandish. One feminist, Ruth Booth, declared, “Women! Light another torch of freedom! Fight another sex taboo!” Bernays’ influence extended far beyond advertising. His greatest success was his role in convincing the American public to join the slaughter of the First World War. The secret, he said, was “engineering the consent” of people in order to “control and regiment [them] according to our will without their knowing about it”. He described this as “the true ruling power in our society” and called it an “invisible government”. Today,

By Mike Whitney “Nation state as a fundamental unit of man’s organized life has ceased to be the principal creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state.” — Zbigniew Brzezinski, “Between Two Ages: The Technetronic Era”, 1971 “I’m going to continue to push for a no-fly zone and safe havens within Syria….not only to help protect the Syrians and prevent the constant outflow of refugees, but to gain some leverage on both the Syrian government and the Russians.” — Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Third Presidential Debate Why is Hillary Clinton so eager to intensify US involvement in Syria when US interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have all gone so terribly wrong? The answer to this question is simple. It’s because Clinton doesn’t think that these interventions went wrong. And neither do any of the other members of the US foreign polic

DAMASCUS, SYRIA (10:15 P.M.) - Jaysh Al-Islam (Army of Islam) and their Islamist allies are facing complete defeat in the East Ghouta region of rural Damascus, as the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and their allies continue their onslaught near the Syrian capital. Most recently, Jaysh Al-Islam lost two imperative hilltop villages in the northern part of the East Ghouta, leaving them completely exposed at Douma's eastern flank. The two hilltop villages captured by the Syrian Armed Forces in the East Ghouta were Tal Sawwan and Tal Kurdi; these sites are located directly north of the strategic town of Al-Reyhan. With Douma exposed, the Syrian Arab Army's 105th Brigade of the Republican Guard will likely offer the Islamist rebels one last chance to surrender; if rejected, they will storm the town from two different flanks.

(TASS) Moscow strongly condemns a chemical attack against civilians in Aleppo, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova said in a commentary on Monday. The ministry reports that on Sunday terrorists shelled Hamdaniya and Dahiyet al-Assad districts in western Aleppo using self-made shells stuffed with chemical agents. "At least 35 people were poisoned, many of them were hospitalized," the ministry said. "This incident in which terrorists used toxic agents against civilians is unfortunately not an isolated one," the commentary said. "Earlier, gunmen applied similar chemical weapons in 2013 in East Ghouta, in 2013 not far from the settlement of Khan al-Assal at Aleppo, in 2015 in the settlement of Marea in the same province and also in the summer of 2016 when the Salah-Eddin neighborhood of Aleppo was shelled," the diplomat said in the commentary. "We consider it our duty to remind those, who as they themselves maintain have influence on armed

Audio Player 00:00 00:00 Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume. Download file | Play in new window | Duration: 39:09 | Size: 35.85M In this week's installment of the Al-Masdar Podcast, Brad Blankenship is joined with Dr. Max Abrahms to discuss his structural model of terrorism, one that is radically different from our basic intuitions. Also joining us is Mojtaba Masood, providing his experience and insights into the discussion. Dr. Abrahms is an assistant professor of political science at Northeastern University. Dr. Abrahms is a member at the Council on Foreign Relations and works for The Center for Cyber and Homeland Security. Mr. Masood is a London-based documentary filmmaker and political analyst. You can view Mr. Masood's documentary here .

(TASS) At least 40 ceasefire violations by armed groups have been registered in the past 24 hours in Syria, including 20 breaches in the region of Aleppo, 15 ― in the Damascus province, and five ― in the Latakia province, the Russian Center for reconciliation of the warring parties in Syria said in its daily news bulletin posted on the Russian Defense Ministry’s official website on Saturday. "Armed groups, which have announced joining the regime of cessation of hostilities, delivered fire from mortars and small arms in the Damascus province ― on the populated localities of Harasta, Jobar, Bala al-Kadima, Douma, and the positions of government forces on Abu Ali mountain in the Latakia province. At 1:15pm, the Embassy of the Russian Federation in the city of Damascus came under mortar fire, no one was hurt," the document says. In the Latakia province, militants shelled the village of Jourin and used an unmanned aerial vehicle with an explosive device that left a civilian wounde

By John Pilger TJC: Please tell us about your new film, The Coming War on China . JP: The Coming War on China is my 60th film and perhaps one of the most urgent. It continues the theme of illuminating the imposition of great power behind a facade of propaganda as news. In 2011, President Obama announced a ‘pivot to Asia’ of US forces: almost two-thirds of American naval power would be transferred to Asia and the Pacific by 2020. The undeclared rationale for this was the ‘threat’ from China, by some measure now the greatest economic power. The Secretary of Defense, Ash Carter, says US policy is to confront those ‘who see America’s dominance and want to take that away from us’. The film examines power in both countries and how nuclear weapons, in American eyes, are the bedrock of its dominance. In its first ‘chapter’, the film reveals how most of the population of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific were unwittingly made into nuclear guinea pigs in a programme whose secrets –