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www.cato.org/commentary/us-nato-helped-trigger-ukraine-wa...
The U.S. and NATO Helped Trigger the Ukraine War. It’s Not ‘Siding With Putin’ to Admit It
But Moscow’s cruel overreaction deserves emphatic condemnation.
March 7, 2022 • Commentary
By Ted Galen Carpenter
This article appeared in Newsweek on March 7, 2022.
Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch a full‐scale invasion of Ukraine is a monstrous act of aggression that has plunged the world into a perilous situation. By any reasonable standard, his move was an over‐the‐top response to any Ukrainian or NATO provocations. However, that conclusion is different from saying that there were no provocations, as far too many policymakers and pundits in the West are doing now.
It has become especially fashionable in such circles to insist that NATO’s expansion to Russia’s border was in no way responsible for the current Ukraine crisis. Many dismiss all arguments to the contrary as “echoing Putin’s talking points,” “siding with Putin,” or circulating Russian propaganda and “disinformation.” Leaving aside the ugly miasma of McCarthyism enveloping such allegations, the underlying argument is factually wrong.
Russian leaders and several Western policy experts were warning more than two decades ago that NATO expansion would turn out badly—ending in a new cold war with Russia at best, and a hot one at worst. Obviously, they were not “echoing” Putin or anyone else. George Kennan, the intellectual architect of America’s containment policy during the Cold War, perceptively warned in a May 2, 1998 New York Times interview what NATO’s move eastward would set in motion. “I think it is the beginning of a new cold war,” he stated. “I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake.”
Kennan was speaking of the first round of enlargement that brought into the Alliance Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary. Later rounds, which added the Baltic Republics and other East European countries, were considerably more abrasive, and Washington’s subsequent attempt to make Ukraine and Georgia members was contemptuous of Russia’s core security interests. Moscow’s complaints and warnings were becoming increasingly sharp as well.
Yet U.S. and European officials blew through one red light after another. George W. Bush began to treat Georgia and Ukraine as valued U.S. political and military allies, and in 2008, he pressed NATO to admit Ukraine and Georgia as members. French and German wariness delayed that endeavor, but the NATO summit communique affirmed that both countries would eventually achieve that status.
In his 2014 memoir, Duty, Robert M. Gates, who served as secretary of defense in both Bush’s administration and Barack Obama’s, conceded that “trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching.” That initiative, he concluded, was a case of “recklessly ignoring what the Russians considered their own vital national interests.”
Indeed it was, and Moscow began to push back. Putin exploited a foolish provocation by Georgia’s pro‐Western government to launch a military offensive that penetrated deeply into the country. Upon its victory, Russia permanently detached two secessionist‐minded Georgian regions and put them under permanent Russian control.
The Kremlin’s decisive action should have alerted even slow‐learning U.S. leaders that the days of Russian officials merely issuing verbal protests about the West’s steady encroachment into Russia’s security sphere were over. Amazingly, though, the Obama administration still sought to turn Ukraine into a NATO political and military asset. In late 2013 and early 2014, the United States and several European governments meddled shamelessly to support the efforts of demonstrators to unseat Ukraine’s generally pro‐Russia president, Victor Yanukovych, some two years before the expiration of his term.
That campaign was especially inappropriate since Yanukovych became president in 2010 as the result of an election that even the European Union and other international observers acknowledged was reasonably free and fair. In a democratic system, the legal way to remove a president from office is, depending on a specific country’s constitutional rules, through a parliamentary vote of no‐confidence, impeachment, or defeat in the next election. Angry street demonstrations do not fit into any of those categories, yet the United States and its allies backed that illegal process. A recording of the infamous leaked telephone call between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt confirmed the extent of Washington’s meddling in the affairs of a sovereign country.
The Ukraine episode proved to be an intolerable provocation to neighboring Russia. Putin responded by annexing the strategic Crimea peninsula and the United States and its NATO partners then imposed economic sanctions on Russia. The new cold war was on in earnest.
Yet Washington still refused to back off. Instead, the Trump and Biden administrations poured weapons into Ukraine, approved joint military exercises between U.S. and Ukrainian forces, and even prodded the allies to include Ukraine in NATO war games.
In late 2021, it became clear that the Kremlin’s restraint had run dry. Moscow issued demands for security guarantees, including a draw‐down of military forces already deployed in NATO’s eastern members. With respect to Ukraine, the demand was very clear and uncompromising: Not only would Kyiv never receive a membership invitation, but NATO weapons and troops would never be deployed on Ukrainian soil. When the West failed to provide those guarantees, Putin launched his devastating, full‐scale war.
Moscow’s cruel overreaction deserves emphatic condemnation. However, the culpability of the United States and its NATO allies also is sizable. Moving an alliance that one great power dominates to the border of another major power is inherently destabilizing and provocative.
Those people who are familiar with even the basics of international relations should grasp that point; it was inexcusable that so many U.S. and NATO leaders apparently did not do so.
One can readily imagine how Americans would react if Russia, China, India, or another peer competitor admitted countries from Central America and the Caribbean to a security alliance that it led—and then sought to add Canada as an official or de facto military ally. It is highly probable that the United States would have responded by going to war years ago. Yet even though Ukraine has an importance to Russia comparable to Canada’s importance to the United States, our leaders expected Moscow to respond passively to the growing encroachment.
They have been proven disastrously wrong, and thanks to their ineptitude, the world is now a far more dangerous place.
Networked Fabrication for Urban Provocations.
Shifting Paradigms from Mass Production to Mass Customization
Computational architecture and design course
Conventional construction methods all depart from the basic premises of mass production: standardization, modulation and a production line. What these systems developed during the last two centuries fail to take into account are the evolutionary leaps and bounds the manufacturing industry has taken over the last decades. With the introduction of CNC technologies and rapid prototyping machines have altered the paradigms of fabrication forever. It is due to these new tools that it is now possible to create (n) amount of completely unique and different pieces with the same amount of energy and material that is required to create (n) identical pieces. The possibilities for implementation of new forms, textures, materials and languages are infinite due to the versatility that these new tools offer a growing network of architects, designers, fabricators that are integrating them into their professional practices to generate unique and precise objects that respond to countless data and real-life conditions.
Instructors:
Monika Wittig [ LaN, IaaC ]
Shane Salisbury [ LaN, IaaC ]
Filippo Moroni [ SOLIDO, Politecnico di Milano ]
MS Josh Updyke [ Advanced Manufacturing Institute, KSU, Protei ]
Aaron Gutiérrez Cortes [ Amorphica ]
Paris - France - 2005 (SQ0359) aussi (SQ0365)
Description: dessin, tout, femme, assise, seins, chaise, jambes écartées, sexy, slip; bicolore, rose, rouge
Our Pennymite militia forcefully evicted a gang of treacherous Marylanders and Lord Baltimore's head rattlesnake, Col. Tom Cresap, from the Susquehanna valley back in 1736. So you can imagine my anger seeing this flag of Baltimore's Colors flying just off the river at Chestnut Grove on Saturday.
Wait, this is just a Baltimore Oriole? Well, don't I feel like a fool. I guess I ought to apologize to that horrified family with the Maryland plates whose tires I slashed and windshield I smashed in the parking lot. My bad.
In case your wondering what I'm jabbering about, see here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cresap%27s_War
Or better yet, pick up a copy of Carl Carmer's "The Susquehanna" for a more colorful treatment of the incident. It's pretty entertaining. And Cresap, despite being a dirty Marylander, had balls of steel.
Desayunador 2da y Miramar -
Ensenada, Baja California
Networked Fabrication for Urban Provocations.
Shifting Paradigms from Mass Production to Mass Customization
Computational architecture and design course
Conventional construction methods all depart from the basic premises of mass production: standardization, modulation and a production line. What these systems developed during the last two centuries fail to take into account are the evolutionary leaps and bounds the manufacturing industry has taken over the last decades. With the introduction of CNC technologies and rapid prototyping machines have altered the paradigms of fabrication forever. It is due to these new tools that it is now possible to create (n) amount of completely unique and different pieces with the same amount of energy and material that is required to create (n) identical pieces. The possibilities for implementation of new forms, textures, materials and languages are infinite due to the versatility that these new tools offer a growing network of architects, designers, fabricators that are integrating them into their professional practices to generate unique and precise objects that respond to countless data and real-life conditions.
Instructors:
Monika Wittig [ LaN, IaaC ]
Shane Salisbury [ LaN, IaaC ]
Filippo Moroni [ SOLIDO, Politecnico di Milano ]
MS Josh Updyke [ Advanced Manufacturing Institute, KSU, Protei ]
Aaron Gutiérrez Cortes [ Amorphica ]
OVER HALF A MILLION PEOPLE took to the streets of London on Saturday 26th March. They were marching against the Con-Dem government’s cuts. It was one of the biggest protests this country has ever seen. Every single trade union was represented on the protest and they were joined by anti cuts campaigners, pensioners, students and the unemployed.
No amount of police provocation against peaceful protesters or headlines in papers about violence can obscure that this was a massive working class demonstration.
And its power came from numbers and the social power they represent. It was a determined but angry protest. Millions of workers fear for their jobs and millions more are right to believe that the Tories are out to destroy their communities.
Magnificent
This government, held up by it’s Lib Dem collaborators, knows and cares nothing about the pain it causes, after all the majority of the cabinet are millionaires and two thirds went to private school.
The marchers’ message was clear—not one cut and not one job loss. And they are right: why should workers and the poorest in society pay for a crisis they did not create?
There doesn’t have to be a single cut or job loss. Greg Philo published an important article in the Guardian newspaper recently. He highlighted the fact that the personal wealth of the richest 10% of the population in Britain is £4,000 billion.
A one off tax of 20% on the wealth of this group would raise £800 billion and would wipe off Britain’s debt in one fell swoop.
With this in mind it’s crazy that Ed Miliband and New Labour are arguing that some cuts are necessary and that it’s the pace of the cuts that’s the problem. There’s no need to make cuts at all!
Saturday’s demonstration was magnificent, but it alone will not be enough to force Cameron and his cronies to make a U-turn. The Socialist Workers Party believes that if we are going to stop the Tories in their tracks, we will need further mass protests—and more importantly, strikes involving hundreds of thousands of workers.
And we are not alone. On Saturday the leader of Unite (Britain’s biggest union), Len McCluskey, told those at the rally “This is only the start. We need a plan of resistance including coordinated strike action.”
Strike
Again when Mark Serwotka (the general secretary of the PCS) addressed the march he said, “Imagine what a difference it would make if we didn’t only march together but took strike action together.”
It’s time to turn those words into action. Already some unions, including the NUT, PCS and UCU are moving to joint action on pensions at the end of June—this could see 700,000 teachers, civil servants and lecturers on strike together.
That would be a good start, and would put pressure on the government, but we could really finish Cameron if the GMB, Unison and Unite also called their members out. We would see 5 million on strike—that would signal the end of Cameron.
Now we are all back at work, there is no time to waste. Union meetings need to be called as soon as possible and every union section/branch/region needs to be passing motions calling on their unions to call joint strike action now.
The message is simply that we marched together, now it’s time to strike together.
Article: Socialist Worker www.socialistworker.co.uk
Vivienne Westwood
By William Lee Adams
The grand dame of British fashion has always had a knack for provocation. In the 1970s, Westwood made new wave and punk mainstream when she began selling her eccentric collection of bondage gear, massive platform shoes and slogan T-shirts on London's King's Road — the epicenter of posh. "It changed the way people looked. I was messianic about punk, seeing if one could put a spoke in the system in some way," she's said of that period. By the early '80s she began experimenting with, among other things, pinstripe tailoring and tartan, and debuted her now signature corsets, inspired by the silhouettes of 18th century courtesans.
Find this article at:
www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,21105...
Networked Fabrication for Urban Provocations.
Shifting Paradigms from Mass Production to Mass Customization
Computational architecture and design course
Conventional construction methods all depart from the basic premises of mass production: standardization, modulation and a production line. What these systems developed during the last two centuries fail to take into account are the evolutionary leaps and bounds the manufacturing industry has taken over the last decades. With the introduction of CNC technologies and rapid prototyping machines have altered the paradigms of fabrication forever. It is due to these new tools that it is now possible to create (n) amount of completely unique and different pieces with the same amount of energy and material that is required to create (n) identical pieces. The possibilities for implementation of new forms, textures, materials and languages are infinite due to the versatility that these new tools offer a growing network of architects, designers, fabricators that are integrating them into their professional practices to generate unique and precise objects that respond to countless data and real-life conditions.
Instructors:
Monika Wittig [ LaN, IaaC ]
Shane Salisbury [ LaN, IaaC ]
Filippo Moroni [ SOLIDO, Politecnico di Milano ]
MS Josh Updyke [ Advanced Manufacturing Institute, KSU, Protei ]
Aaron Gutiérrez Cortes [ Amorphica ]
Please read the full album description!
//Our society today is not ideal, very least the view on mental and physical illness. These pictures shows mental and physical illness from the society's perspective, the society's romanticisation.
A school project I did 2014/2015//
Networked Fabrication for Urban Provocations.
Shifting Paradigms from Mass Production to Mass Customization
Computational architecture and design course
Conventional construction methods all depart from the basic premises of mass production: standardization, modulation and a production line. What these systems developed during the last two centuries fail to take into account are the evolutionary leaps and bounds the manufacturing industry has taken over the last decades. With the introduction of CNC technologies and rapid prototyping machines have altered the paradigms of fabrication forever. It is due to these new tools that it is now possible to create (n) amount of completely unique and different pieces with the same amount of energy and material that is required to create (n) identical pieces. The possibilities for implementation of new forms, textures, materials and languages are infinite due to the versatility that these new tools offer a growing network of architects, designers, fabricators that are integrating them into their professional practices to generate unique and precise objects that respond to countless data and real-life conditions.
Instructors:
Monika Wittig [ LaN, IaaC ]
Shane Salisbury [ LaN, IaaC ]
Filippo Moroni [ SOLIDO, Politecnico di Milano ]
MS Josh Updyke [ Advanced Manufacturing Institute, KSU, Protei ]
Aaron Gutiérrez Cortes [ Amorphica ]
En savoir + ICI
Mécontent de la police, un homme s’est installé, en hauteur, sur le rebord de l’entrée principale du quartier de la police avec une paire de ciseaux à la gorge, prêt à s’en servir. Des négociateurs se sont harnachés pour tenter de le sauver, sans toutefois vraiment comprendre quelle était la raison de ce geste.
Hong Kong police negotiators try to talk to a lone man (C-bottom) holding a pair of scissors to his throat and protesting against the police on top of a ledge at the main entrance of the Hong Kong police headquarters in Hong Kong on November 20, 2011. A police spokeswoman said it was not clear what the man had been protesting about, but initial investigations showed that he had been dissatisfied with the way the police had handled a certain case.
Please don't use this image on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit permission.
Merci de ne pas utiliser cette image sur des sites web, blogs ou autre média sans ma permission.
Gracias por no utilizar esta imagen en portales internet, blogs u otros medios.
© Xavier HERNANDEZ - All rights reserved. / Tous droits reservés. / Todos los derechos reservados.
Group 3_
Alejandro Candela, Georgina Muñoz, Carlos Paz, Berenice Jimenez, Laura Antelo, Gabriel Manriquez
Networked Fabrication for Urban Provocations.
Shifting Paradigms from Mass Production to Mass Customization
Computational architecture and design course
Conventional construction methods all depart from the basic premises of mass production: standardization, modulation and a production line. What these systems developed during the last two centuries fail to take into account are the evolutionary leaps and bounds the manufacturing industry has taken over the last decades. With the introduction of CNC technologies and rapid prototyping machines have altered the paradigms of fabrication forever. It is due to these new tools that it is now possible to create (n) amount of completely unique and different pieces with the same amount of energy and material that is required to create (n) identical pieces. The possibilities for implementation of new forms, textures, materials and languages are infinite due to the versatility that these new tools offer a growing network of architects, designers, fabricators that are integrating them into their professional practices to generate unique and precise objects that respond to countless data and real-life conditions.
Instructors:
Monika Wittig [ LaN, IaaC ]
Shane Salisbury [ LaN, IaaC ]
Filippo Moroni [ SOLIDO, Politecnico di Milano ]
MS Josh Updyke [ Advanced Manufacturing Institute, KSU, Protei ]
Aaron Gutiérrez Cortes [ Amorphica ]
Please note this is not a racist provocation. I'm well aware of the painful history of burning crosses used to intimidate and frighten people. This is not that. This is a ritual burning of Brigid's Cross, symbolizing the passage of the seasons and the cycle of life. In many traditions, burning is seen as the only proper way to dispose of holy symbols.
In response to the provocation from Raynald de Chatillon, Saladin invaded the kingdom of Jerusalem in 1187. After capturing Jerusalem itself, he laid siege to Shobak Castle and the other Crusader castles in Jordan.
It is said that because of the steep sided hill on which the castle stands, Saladin was unable to use his siege engines, and resorted to starving out the inhabitants. Water supply was not a problem, as deep shafts (which still exist), with long flights of (350) steps, had been dug deep down below the castle to provide it with a permanent water supply. But food was another matter.
Most of the Crusader castles held huge supplies of food, however it could not last for ever. It is said that eventually the defenders sold their wives and children in exchange for food, and that some of them eventually went blind from lack of salt. Finally, after almost two years the castle finally fell to Saladin's troops, in May of 1189.
(The defenders' families were returned to them.)
Jeffrey Merrihue + John Landau at TED2010, Session 5, "Provocation," Thursday, February 11, 2010, in Long Beach, California. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson
OVER HALF A MILLION PEOPLE took to the streets of London on Saturday 26th March. They were marching against the Con-Dem government’s cuts. It was one of the biggest protests this country has ever seen. Every single trade union was represented on the protest and they were joined by anti cuts campaigners, pensioners, students and the unemployed.
No amount of police provocation against peaceful protesters or headlines in papers about violence can obscure that this was a massive working class demonstration.
And its power came from numbers and the social power they represent. It was a determined but angry protest. Millions of workers fear for their jobs and millions more are right to believe that the Tories are out to destroy their communities.
Magnificent
This government, held up by it’s Lib Dem collaborators, knows and cares nothing about the pain it causes, after all the majority of the cabinet are millionaires and two thirds went to private school.
The marchers’ message was clear—not one cut and not one job loss. And they are right: why should workers and the poorest in society pay for a crisis they did not create?
There doesn’t have to be a single cut or job loss. Greg Philo published an important article in the Guardian newspaper recently. He highlighted the fact that the personal wealth of the richest 10% of the population in Britain is £4,000 billion.
A one off tax of 20% on the wealth of this group would raise £800 billion and would wipe off Britain’s debt in one fell swoop.
With this in mind it’s crazy that Ed Miliband and New Labour are arguing that some cuts are necessary and that it’s the pace of the cuts that’s the problem. There’s no need to make cuts at all!
Saturday’s demonstration was magnificent, but it alone will not be enough to force Cameron and his cronies to make a U-turn. The Socialist Workers Party believes that if we are going to stop the Tories in their tracks, we will need further mass protests—and more importantly, strikes involving hundreds of thousands of workers.
And we are not alone. On Saturday the leader of Unite (Britain’s biggest union), Len McCluskey, told those at the rally “This is only the start. We need a plan of resistance including coordinated strike action.”
Strike
Again when Mark Serwotka (the general secretary of the PCS) addressed the march he said, “Imagine what a difference it would make if we didn’t only march together but took strike action together.”
It’s time to turn those words into action. Already some unions, including the NUT, PCS and UCU are moving to joint action on pensions at the end of June—this could see 700,000 teachers, civil servants and lecturers on strike together.
That would be a good start, and would put pressure on the government, but we could really finish Cameron if the GMB, Unison and Unite also called their members out. We would see 5 million on strike—that would signal the end of Cameron.
Now we are all back at work, there is no time to waste. Union meetings need to be called as soon as possible and every union section/branch/region needs to be passing motions calling on their unions to call joint strike action now.
The message is simply that we marched together, now it’s time to strike together.
Article: Socialist Worker www.socialistworker.co.uk
Colonel (insert name here), a cruel man, with strange tastes in clothing. Recently, despite his odd character, he was appointed the mayor of a small port town.
Many thought this was a foolish decision, and one little boy decided to take it into his own hands; it didn't go well, and (insert name here)'s chief guard was on site to execute the foolish trespasser. This caused widespread commotion throughout the town, but it was just the first in a series of long discriminations...
Parts of a series of scenes, which I'll be updating often. Just waiting on a couple more Bricklink orders now...
And yes, I am aware of the extremely poor photo quality.
Name suggestions for the colonel and his chief guard welcome.
Group 3_
Alejandro Candela, Georgina Muñoz, Carlos Paz, Berenice Jimenez, Laura Antelo, Gabriel Manriquez
Networked Fabrication for Urban Provocations.
Shifting Paradigms from Mass Production to Mass Customization
Computational architecture and design course
Conventional construction methods all depart from the basic premises of mass production: standardization, modulation and a production line. What these systems developed during the last two centuries fail to take into account are the evolutionary leaps and bounds the manufacturing industry has taken over the last decades. With the introduction of CNC technologies and rapid prototyping machines have altered the paradigms of fabrication forever. It is due to these new tools that it is now possible to create (n) amount of completely unique and different pieces with the same amount of energy and material that is required to create (n) identical pieces. The possibilities for implementation of new forms, textures, materials and languages are infinite due to the versatility that these new tools offer a growing network of architects, designers, fabricators that are integrating them into their professional practices to generate unique and precise objects that respond to countless data and real-life conditions.
Instructors:
Monika Wittig [ LaN, IaaC ]
Shane Salisbury [ LaN, IaaC ]
Filippo Moroni [ SOLIDO, Politecnico di Milano ]
MS Josh Updyke [ Advanced Manufacturing Institute, KSU, Protei ]
Aaron Gutiérrez Cortes [ Amorphica ]
Group 3_
Alejandro Candela, Georgina Muñoz, Carlos Paz, Berenice Jimenez, Laura Antelo, Gabriel Manriquez
Networked Fabrication for Urban Provocations.
Shifting Paradigms from Mass Production to Mass Customization
Computational architecture and design course
Conventional construction methods all depart from the basic premises of mass production: standardization, modulation and a production line. What these systems developed during the last two centuries fail to take into account are the evolutionary leaps and bounds the manufacturing industry has taken over the last decades. With the introduction of CNC technologies and rapid prototyping machines have altered the paradigms of fabrication forever. It is due to these new tools that it is now possible to create (n) amount of completely unique and different pieces with the same amount of energy and material that is required to create (n) identical pieces. The possibilities for implementation of new forms, textures, materials and languages are infinite due to the versatility that these new tools offer a growing network of architects, designers, fabricators that are integrating them into their professional practices to generate unique and precise objects that respond to countless data and real-life conditions.
Instructors:
Monika Wittig [ LaN, IaaC ]
Shane Salisbury [ LaN, IaaC ]
Filippo Moroni [ SOLIDO, Politecnico di Milano ]
MS Josh Updyke [ Advanced Manufacturing Institute, KSU, Protei ]
Aaron Gutiérrez Cortes [ Amorphica ]
Call me Snake offers an optimistic provocation – ‘imagine what could be here’ by Judy Millar. On a walk into the city October 3, 2015 Christchurch New Zealand.
The work is comprised of vibrant graphics of Millar’s looped paintings, which are adhered to five intersecting flat planes, and draws inspiration from the forms found in pop-up books. The colourful piece will add a dramatic and rhythmic counterpoint to the city’s current urban landscape — a mix of flattened sites, construction zones and defiant buildings that have stood through the quakes. The work employs theatricality, playfulness and visual trickery, whereby the viewer is unsure about the work’s flatness or three-dimensionality; and it has been designed to offer a different perspective from each angle. The bright colours interrupt the grey of the work’s surrounds, and as buildings pop up around it,
SCAPE 8, New Intimacies curated by Rob Garrett was a contemporary art event which mixed new artworks with existing legacy pieces, an education programme, and a public programme of events. The SCAPE 8 artworks were located around central Christchurch and linked via a public art walkway. All aspects of SCAPE 8 were free-to-view.
The title for the 2015 Biennial – New Intimacies – came from the idea that visually striking and emotionally engaging public art works can create new connections between people and places. Under the main theme of New Intimacies there are three other themes that artists responded to: Sight-Lines, Inner Depths and Shared Strengths.
For more Info: www.scapepublicart.org.nz/scape-8-judy-millar