NATO’s Rearming of Ukraine Under Sea Breeze 2021 Guise Is for Future Conflict in Donbass

With the participation of the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Latvia and other partner countries of NATO, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry and the US’ European Command will hold massive joint drills from June 28 to July 10. These exercises are so huge in fact that it involves about 4,000 military personnel, 40 combat ships, vessels and auxiliary craft, 30 aircraft and over 100 armored vehicles.

Although the joint Ukraine-NATO military training, dubbed Sea Breeze 2021, is undoubtedly aimed at improving the inter-operability between participants in a hypothetical war against Russia, the most alarming fact is that the Ukrainian military and the Far-Right militias will be supplied with advanced weapons and munitions over the course of the exercises – this was supposed to be hidden from Russia.

The Sea Breeze 2021 exercise comes as Russia condemns NATO activities which have become frequent in recent years near its western border. NATO, for its part, says it wants to contain so-called Russian aggression by sending reconnaissance ships, planes and drones to the Black Sea region.

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War Over Taiwan? Avoiding a US-China Miscalculation

Taiwan has returned as a troubling issue in US-China relations. It is no longer merely a case of verbal jousting over the island’s autonomy versus Chinese claims of sovereignty.

The new round of US-China tensions over Taiwan actually began in the Trump administration, when the administration authorized new arms sales to Taiwan, an official visit to Taiwan by a senior US official (Alex Azar, secretary for health and human services, the highest-level visit since 1979), and strong statements of support for Taiwan.

Early on in the Biden administration, the Chinese responded with pressure of its own: repeated violations of Taiwan’s air defense zone by their military aircraft and regular coastal patrolling by China’s coast guard and naval vessels, all justified as reactions to US naval maneuvers near Taiwan and closer political ties.

US media reported internal debate in the administration about whether and how to clarify the "strategic ambiguity" that has long existed in US declaratory policy regarding Taiwan’s security. Some officials argued for a stronger verbal commitment to Taiwan’s defense, others for directly warning Beijing or increasing military aid to Taiwan. A US Senate bill, the Strategic Competition Act of 2021, calls for bringing Taiwan within the compass of US regional defense plans.

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Conflicts of Interest: Biden’s Pentagon Budget Is a Giveaway to the Military-Industrial Complex

On COI #117, Kyle Anzalone breaks down Biden’s Pentagon budget proposal for FY 2022. The president is asking Congress to give $715 billion in tax dollars to the military-industrial complex. The proposal calls for tens of billions to be spent on weapons systems with legacies of failure, like the F-35 and Ford-class aircraft carrier. Most of the money will be used to maintain the American Empire, not defend the homeland. While Congress has the power to alter the Pentagon budget, Kyle argues we should expect they will only increase spending.

The budget also further highlights the foreign policy establishment’s growing fixation on China. Biden wants to spend $5 billion on the Pacific Deterrence Initiative and billions more on weapons systems that will be deployed to waters off China’s coast. Kyle explains the danger of shifting so much military spending towards confronting Beijing.

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The Saudi Blockade of Yemen: Frequently Asked Questions

What is the blockade’s role in Yemen’s humanitarian crisis?

For more than six years, Saudi Arabia has imposed an air and sea blockade on Yemen that has restricted the flow of vital commercial and humanitarian goods into the country. These restrictions have been a leading driver of the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, where 400,000 children are at risk of dying of malnutrition this year as the country is pushed toward “the biggest famine in modern history.” Since January 2021, Saudi Arabia has severely restricted fuel imports, hindering food shipments and hospitals’ ability to function.

Isn’t the blockade needed to prevent Iranian weapons from reaching the Houthis?

No. In 2015, the United Nations established aninspection and verification mechanism that ensures that ships docking at Yemen’s ports are not carrying weapons. In April 2021, US Special Envoy Tim Lenderking acknowledged that the mechanism “works quite well.” The import restrictions imposed by Saudi Arabia and the Hadi government are a tactic of economic warfare that seeks to gain leverage over the Houthis through starvation and deprivation of civilian populations.

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David Swanson interviews Scott Horton on Ending the War on Terrorism

This Week on Talk World Radio, it’s time to end the terrorism-generating war on terrorism. Our guest is Scott Horton. Scott Horton is the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of Antiwar.com, host of Antiwar Radio on KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles, and author of Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and of the new book we’ll be mostly discussing Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism.

More information and sources for the podcast here.

New Site Allows Vets To Share Their Personal Stories of War

My father as a 19-year-old army grunt landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944. None of the guys on his Higgins boat survived. He only talked about this and being in France and Germany (getting two purple hearts) as an elderly man. He did mention the French hedgerows as being even more horrible than Omaha Beach itself, and, later, about stumbling around considering shooting himself in the foot rather than shooting to kill. Today we are inundated with carefully curated news and images about war and all the politics and corruption supporting it. So I value personal accounts, biased as they may be by the fundamental human concerns: life, health, relations with others; they demonstrate a kind of truth. The War Horse website gathers and publishes just such material from contemporary events. For that reason, today, Memorial Day, I would like to direct Antiwar.com readers attention to it: The War Horse | Nonprofit journalism about military service.

Alexia Gilmore, Board Member, Randolph Bourne Institute/Antiwar.com