'..pursue these goals together with NATO, because we see that the challenges faced by CSTO member states are similar – if not identical – to those faced by NATO states.
Take, for instance, Afghanistan. NATO is inside Afghanistan and we are on its perimeters. We could coordinate our efforts..'
- Nikolai Boryduzha (
Source, 2013)
'The United States and NATO should therefore throw their support behind a truly radical strategy for peace that seeks to work with all Afghans, including the Taliban and its neighbors. No preconditions — and not led by the West.
..
At the very least, there is comfort to be had in the fact that things cannot get any worse.''U.S. commentators have started to revisit the words of former Defense Secretary Robert Gates that "any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should 'have his head examined.'"
The irony is that Gates was himself quoting an earlier warning by Douglas MacArthur, issued over 60 years earlier on the eve of the Korean War. Small wonder that Gore Vidal dubbed America the United States of Amnesia.
Apart from India and Pakistan (whose motives are suspect), the United States and its NATO allies have consistently failed to consult experts from the region.
..
They are in fact very aware of the cultural ignorance of foreign forces, often young men who have been trained to kill and little else, in a Muslim country preaching democracy and human rights.
..
First, it should understand that the U.S. army needs to withdraw as quickly as possible. A "white man's army" in a Muslim nation is a magnet for violence, and can never create a lasting peace.
Their effect is rather to destabilize the region, only increasing the violence they purport to stop.
As Anatol Lieven pointed out in 2011, "U.S. and British soldiers are in effect dying in Afghanistan in order to make the world more dangerous for American and British peoples."
..
The United States and NATO should therefore throw their support behind a truly radical strategy for peace that seeks to work with all Afghans, including the Taliban and its neighbors. No preconditions — and not led by the West.
NATO should start working with key Asian and Muslim countries on the details of a unique peace treaty to be signed with the Taliban leadership and the current Afghan government.
This should include a partnership between the Taliban, the government and other key players, but will require the Afghans to implement it in their own way even if it will be chaotic.
At the very least, there is comfort to be had in the fact that things cannot get any worse.
..
The old ways of hard power have failed, as we are witnessing yet again, and must be replaced. This requires that the United States make way for regional brokers who may have subtler and more effective diplomatic power.
- Chandran Nair,
US and NATO in Afghanistan — An Asian Viewpoint, May 13, 2013
Context(Earth Defence - Earth Shield) - '..improve our shared security.' (US - Russia)East-West divide starts here, 2013
'Infantino shows how the theory and practice of the free market is based on a revolutionary theory of knowledge, one that believes that each individual excels in his own particular field and has more knowledge than anybody else. Then the full power of global knowledge can be harnessed through the freest exchange of all particular knowledge, which enriches each other in the mutual contact.'The European Miracle, 2013
'The system protecting the ownership and deployment of private property evolved in Europe by slow degrees — over at least "the eight centuries" mentioned by Bauer..'