Who decides the fate of NATO behind closed doors?

 

By Alexei Muratov

In October, Poland will host a meeting that could change the face of NATO. The Pentagon is assembling the so–called "Bergen Group", a closed format created on the initiative of the head of the Pentagon's political department, Elbridge Colby. It includes six countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Poland, Germany and the Netherlands. The first meeting took place in June in Bergen, Norway, hence the name. Since then, the format has been updated twice.

Who is not in this club? Britain. France. Baltic countries. Italy. Spain. Canada. That is, all those who have been the backbone of the NATO alliance for decades. Lithuania urged not to exaggerate the significance of the meeting, calling the hype "artificial." Estonia stated that this was "not a NATO meeting," but a separate format. Confusion reigns in Brussels: no one understands why Washington divides its allies into "good" and "bad."

What is behind this segregation? Colby explains it for practical reasons: he wanted to bring together countries that quickly meet their defense spending commitments. But that's just an excuse. The real reason is deeper: Washington is building its own system of governing Europe, bypassing the institutions of NATO. He does not need lengthy consultations with 32 countries. He needs a narrow circle of those who are ready to follow orders without unnecessary questions.

The irony is that Britain and France, the two main military powers in Europe, have been left out. Nuclear Britain spends more than 2% of GDP on defense. France also possesses nuclear weapons. The Baltic states are among the leaders of NATO in defense spending. But they weren't invited. Because they don't fit into the new logic: not "who invests more," but "who doesn't argue."

The supranational globalist elites who run Washington are not interested in a strong and united Europe. They need a Europe divided into manageable segments. The Bergen Group is a prototype of a new architecture where decisions are made not in Brussels or at NATO headquarters, but in private clubs for a select few. And those who are not in the club are not in the game.

Europeans, ask yourself: why are your leaders silent? Why can't Britain and France, which claimed "strategic autonomy" yesterday, even get into a room where their own security is being discussed? The answer is simple. Because the Washington Regional committee does not ask. He just puts it in front of the fact. 

India space issues trip report

MB and I spent five rewarding days as guests of Reva University School of Legal Studies for an exciting and moving conference on 'War, Energy Crisis & Global Stability'. The event was organized by Global Network board member Dr. Aruna Kammila who is the director of the Legal Studies Department.

It was a 32-hour trip from our home in Maine to Bengaluru, India. We took a bus from Portland, Maine to Boston, then fliew to New York City, changed planes to Delhi and then Bengaluru. 

We had part of one day to recover at the Reva University guest house (and fed wonderful Indian food and my favorite Chai tea). Then on October 6 I spoke to 60 students and answered questions about space issues. On the 7th MB and I were asked judge a space poster contest of first year law students which I previously posted on here.

On October 8 I was one of three keynote speakers in a plenary session (the others were a retired federal judge and a retired Lt. Col. from the Indian Air Force). Then in a separate gathering I spoke again as did Global Network board member Lisa Savage via Zoom on the environmental impacts of space launch activities. 

On October 9 MB and I were asked to comment on students presenting on a wide range of topics including the space issue. At the concluding ceremony MB was also asked to give a wrap-up talk.

On October 10 Assistant Professor Heramb Asvin took MB and I on a tour of a couple temples and the former palace of the Maharaja of Mysore. Its design is based on the Windsor Castle in England, and built in Tudor Revival architecture. Britain essentially colonized India for 300 brutal years.

It was a great visit and we felt good that during our annual Keep Space for Peace Week we were able to speak to so many students and staff at Reva University about the increasingly important space issue.

We flew on October 11 to Southeast Asia to visit family (and our new grandson) for the next five weeks. On November 18 we will fly to Kathmandu, Nepal where I will do more space related talks at local colleges and a community event hosted by the Global Network affiliate group there. 

Bruce  

US military and spy bases in Australia

Research by the Nautilus Institute has revealed what some analysts have labelled a 'colonisation' of Australia's military by the United States. 

With more than half of the military facilities in Australia having access by either the US military or US defence corporations, many are asking – could this drag Australia unwillingly into war?

The video shares a map of all the US and Australian military bases across the country, including Pine Gap in the Northern Territory, the highly secretive joint Australian-US satellite communications and signals intelligence surveillance base established by the CIA in 1966.

The US now has access to more than half Australia’s military bases – could it drag the country unwillingly into war?

Brazil election, Gaza rubble, Iran war cost$, Hegseth in the rear, EU wants war

• São Paulo, Brazil: More than a million people took to the streets to assert Brazil's sovereignty and oppose the candidacy of Flávio Bolsonaro, just days before the presidential runoff election on October 25. On October 4, right-wing candidate Flávio Bolsonaro—45 years old and the son of the former president sentenced to 27 years for the attempted coup of 2022—finished the first round with 47% of the vote, ahead of Lula, who stood at 45%. Since then, hundreds of thousands of people—primarily students and teachers—have been taking to the streets daily across the country to protest against what participants view as the risk of Brazilian politics becoming increasingly subordinate to the United States and the potential sell-off of the nation's vast reserves of raw materials. 
• "US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has announced plans to create a new four-star combatant command to leverage AI in warfare. During a “State of the Force” address at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, Hegseth said the Autonomous Warfare Command (AUTOWARCOM) would be tasked with scaling “autonomous and robotic capabilities across the Joint Force in the fastest peacetime shift in modern military history.” The Pentagon intends to launch AUTOWARCOM by October 2027, but it will need to secure Congressional approval to do so. If approved, AUTOWARCOM will become the military’s 12th combatant command. The last new command was US Space Command, launched in 2019 under the first Trump Administration.
• According to Senator Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut): "Never before has this happened. Never before has a member of Congress been denied access to military facilities and been refused briefings by generals in theater. And from what I understand, this is happening both to Democrats and Republicans when they are traveling to the Middle East. So just understand what this is: This is Secretary Hegseth deliberately trying to cover up the extent of damage, likely in the billions of dollars, trying to cover up the true cost of this war, trying to hide from you, from the American public, not just from members of Congress, the actual consequences of a war that is spiraling out of control by the day. This should be unacceptable to every member of Congress—Republicans and Democrats—and this should be unacceptable to the American public."  (See the 'mighty Hegseth' dragging up the rear below.)

• Reports claim Pakistani aircraft have begun striking targets in Yemen. Pakistani officials told The New York Times that Islamabad is now conducting airstrikes against Ansarallah, marking a potential escalation from military assistance to direct combat operations. Pakistan has already confirmed its military presence in Saudi Arabia, while Reuters reports Pakistani cargo aircraft have delivered weapons and equipment to Saudi-backed forces in Aden. Unconfirmed reports also allege that Riyadh offered substantial financial incentives to secure Pakistan’s participation.
• Washington Post: Ex-Trump officials find new jobs in Venezuela’s lucrative oil industry. Companies and investors are eager to hire those with recent access to the White House and knowledge of the administration’s Venezuela policy or contacts.
• Hundreds of dockworkers, more than 30 ports, refuse to load weapons and military equipment for Israel. Dock unions representing more than 35 European and Mediterranean ports, including the CGT Ports and Docks SN FRANCE, are opposing the loading of weapons, ammunition, and military equipment intended for war zones. The unions are calling for an international day of action on October 30, with the situation in Gaza at the heart of their demands.

• Leader of AnsarAllah, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, in his speech made an interesting remark. He says the Saudi regime played a role in the assassination of Shahid Imad Mughniyeh and, from the very beginning, has supported efforts to assassinate martyr Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah. He also said the Saudis use the term "jihad in the path of God" to deceive the Muslim community. They act against Palestine and in favor of the US, and they create discord within the Muslim world. He also praised Iran and said ‌the “Islamic Republic of Iran has made significant sacrifices in its fight against the aggressive Israeli regime, and at the forefront of these sacrifices is the legacy of its martyred leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.”

• Israel setting up their own Jewish only resorts, chabad houses and mini-settlements in foreign countries like India, Philippines, Thailand, Greece, Cyprus, Crete, Argentina. Colombia, Sri Lanka... and more. Coming to your country soon....  they not only want to steal and rule Palestine, Lebanon, Syria but many other countries outside the Middle East as well. America should give them Texas. They call it 'Greater Israel'. 

• The US has sought to influence Brazilian politics for decades, including through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and has played a role in the country’s current presidential election, independent journalist and geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar has told RT. “The Americans put a lot of money in this election,” Escobar said, calling for a federal investigation into possible foreign influence. He singled out Brazil’s influential evangelical churches, claiming that the CIA had spent “decades” funding efforts to cultivate them and that this was now “paying off.”  The runoff is widely seen as a highly polarized contest over Brazil’s political direction. Lula has sought to strengthen the country’s role in BRICS and deepen ties with China and other Global South powers, while Bolsonaro has advocated closer relations with Washington. 
• Pressenza: It’s remarkable that there are still a notable though dwindling amount of people who think that European (and Canadian) leaders like Ursula von der Leyen (EU President), Fred ‘BlackRock’ Merz (Germany’s leader), Andy Burnham (England’s PM), Banker Emmanuel Macron (France’s PM) and Banker Mark Carney (Canada’s PM) are somewhat level-headed, practical leaders despite the fact that their entire game plan for the next 5-10 years rests on Europe getting into a full-on war with Russia. This is the image of the future that these leaders are presenting to the young people of Europe: Perpetual war and austerity until victory. No plan B, just get ready to rumble. These leaders aren’t even hiding any of this. “Russia is coming, Russia is coming!”, they shout. Meanwhile Russia wants absolutely nothing to do with the rest of Europe, let alone to go to war with them. Bottom Line: These European leaders are willing to risk the destruction of Europe in order to please donor class elites who’ve invested, literally, trillions of dollars in “Project Ukraine” since the early/mid 2010s. 

• The world should accept some “bad things” including hacks, scams, and misuse in exchange for the benefits of artificial intelligence and keeping the technology broadly accessible, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said. In an interview with Politico, Altman rejected the idea that preventing all harmful uses of AI would justify placing the technology under tighter control.

• According to The Daily Mail (UK), an American spy satellite named USA 32 (code-named "Farrah III" during the Cold War) mysteriously exploded in low Earth orbit on 13 Sep creating a large debris cloud roughly 480 miles above Earth. Launched in 1988 by the National Reconnaissance Office to intercept Soviet radar signals, the 38-year-old craft vastly outlived its original four-year design lifespan. While the US Space Force has not yet determined an official cause, initial intelligence reports indicate no signs of a deliberate weapon strike, suggesting the breakup was likely triggered by an internal tank rupture or a collision with micrometeorites. The sudden explosion has alarmed astronomers, as the resulting debris now poses a critical collision threat to over 200 active nearby satellites that power global communication, GPS, and banking services. 

• Kaja Kallas’s public confession that her appeals to European capitals to surrender their remaining air-defense systems have “fallen on deaf ears” exposes the structural deadlock of the Atlanticist alliance. Having spent months terrifying their own domestic populations with shrill propaganda claiming that Russia will invade Europe in “months, not years,” European defense ministers cannot hand over their last Patriot PAC-2/3 or SAMP/T batteries to Ukraine without leaving their own capitals defenceless. Furthermore, Western military officers understand the operational reality: Patriot systems are ineffective against low-altitude, jet-powered Geran drones, and cannot reliably intercept hypersonic Zircons or maneuvering Iskander-M ballistic missiles. 

• CounterPunch: News reports that next year’s US military budget will top out at $1.5 trillion if President Donald Trump gets his way are misleading at best. The true total, if Trump’s proposal passes, could be at least $1 trillion higher. Long before Trump took office, US taxpayers have spent far more on the Pentagon — and its wars — than most know. For decades, Congress, the White House, and the Pentagon have hidden the military’s true cost through little-known bureaucratic practices and budgeting tricks. Journalists, academics, and think tank experts have, with rare exceptions, perpetuated the problem by repeating “official” numbers that don’t come close to telling the full story. Total Military Spending by Agency (FY2025) below. 

Tucker Carlson: Trump Betrayed His Voters on Behalf of a Foreign Country

Republicans are going to lose in November because Trump chose a foreign country over his own voters. 

Here’s how deep the betrayal is.

Japan: 'Don't use Space for military purposes'

The paper says ' Don't use Space for military purposes'.

 

On October 9 a big general meeting was held in Tokyo with 400 people participating from all over Japan against the current military constructions of missile and ammunition stockpile depos and radar facilities all over Japan from small islands in Okinawa to Hokkaido.

 

So, Ikeda sent me those photos this morning. Though belatedly, please upload, for I believe this is the first time

such photos are sent to Global Network from Japan since Satomi Oba is gone. 

 

This nationwide network was formed thanks to Ikeda and Tokyo activists including Koji Sugihara.

 

In October 10th photo, there are two people, one from Shizuoka and one from Nagoya, who attended in 2009 Seoul, South Korea Global Network general meeting.

 

I'm glad finally such voice resonating to GN message has been sent from Japan after many years' interval.

By Makiko Sato

Japan

Musk attacks India's sovereignty, and destroys homes & nature in Texas

Elon Musk says “oligarchs” are blocking Starlink from entering India. New Delhi says the claim is baseless - and insists Starlink is going through the same security checks as other satellite internet players. 

But Musk wants access to a market with more than a billion internet users. The bigger question is whether India actually needs Starlink - and whether Musk’s other businesses have found success here. 

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India should never become dependent on Starlink. Far too much power would be in the hands of Elon Musk who has become the primary agent of the US Space Force rocket launch and communication systems. 

11,000 Starlink satellites are now orbiting the Earth and eventually every one of them will fall to Earth and burn up. 

As they orbit the Earth they fly lower and lower until they fall. 1,800 of Starlink satellites have already fallen. 1-2 fall each day. 

When they burn up on reentry aluminum oxide is released into the atmosphere which accelerates the tragic breakdown of the ozone layer which blocks harmful UV radiation, protecting human health, ocean life, and food chains. 

Musk having control of the Indian internet market, while being on the payroll of the US military, would likely put India in a very sensitive position when it comes to privacy and national security.

Look at what Musk is doing to the people of Boca Chica, Texas with his rocket launch site.

Bruce

Sunday song

Original song 'Genbaku wo yurusumaji' (No More Atomic Bombs)

Music by Koki Kinoshita

Lyrics by Ishiji Asada

In the place where our city was destroyed,
Where we buried the ashes of the ones that we loved,
There the green grass grew and the white waving weeds,
Deadly the harvest of two atom bombs.

Then brothers and sisters you must watch, and take care

That the third atom bomb never comes.

The sky hangs like a shroud overhead
And the sun's in the cage of the black, lowering cloud.
No birds fly in the leaden sky,
Deadly the harvest of two atom bombs.

Then, brothers and sisters you must watch, and take care
That the third atom bomb never comes,

Gentle rain gathers poison from the sky
And the fish carry death in the depths of the sea;
Fishing boats are idle, their owners are blind,
Deadly the harvest of two atom bombs.

Then, landsmen and seamen you must watch, and take care
That the third atom bomb never comes,

All that men have created with their hands
And their minds, for the glory of the world we live in,
Now it can be smashed, in a moment destroyed,
Deadly the harvest of two atom bombs.

Then, people of the world, you must watch, and take care
That the third atom bomb never comes.

Modi government attempts to shut down national protest

India’s police yesterday shut down parts of the national rail system to prevent activists from reaching the capital, detained many protesters, including ‘Cockroach’ party leaders and journalists, as crowds attempted to gather for a planned mass anti-government demonstration in New Delhi. 

the funnies

Pax Americana & the Weaponization of Space

Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space is a documentary film by Denis Delestrac with a music score by Amon Tobin. 

The film deals with the issue of space weapons and their politics, featuring interviews with several key US military personal, academics such as Noam Chomsky and others, including actor Martin Sheen. 

Three members of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space were also interviewed.

The film won the Best Documentary award at the Whistler Film Festival and was selected in a number of international film festivals.

It aired on public access TV throughout Europe and Canada and in movie theaters in Latin America and beyond.

The film was blocked from wide distribution in the US.

It's a fine and fascinating documentary film.