THE LAW OF THE PEOPLE: Russia's formal justification for carrying out its "special operation" against Ukraine is an exact mirror image of NATO's justification for bombing Yugoslavia in 1999 – despite established international law.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: For Moscow, the Ukraine war is about defense, not conquest. But for the West, the war is about Russia's attempt to conquer Ukraine and about Ukraine's right to choose an alliance. Like the Western doctrine, the Russian one now allows for the first use of nuclear weapons.
USA: The European political-media elite portrays Trump as the new Hitler, but is nevertheless in a great hurry to subordinate itself to the USA economically, militarily and politically. Glenn Diesen analyzes the US situation now.
WAR: The fear of a third world war is becoming palpable. Last year, 59 armed conflicts were registered in the world, the highest number since the end of the previous world war. Can one today compare states at war with teenagers who have not yet developed the ability to think about consequences? Today, the possibility of nuclear war is undoubtedly present – with Norway linked to a nuclear-weapon dependent NATO.
POLITICAL ANALYSIS: Most have assumed that it was Russians who had shot the civilians found in the street in Butsja. But here in MODERN TIMES, peace researcher Ola Tunander criticizes this perception by documenting several facts that point in a different direction. For example: If Russian forces were responsible for the killings in Butsha, why didn't they try to cover them up? They have buried others.
BORN: Instead of showing magnanimity to an adversary that no longer wanted to be an enemy, the US continued to exclude Russia and rejected any idea of a common European security architecture.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: The main message of Annie Jacobsen's book is to demonstrate how terrible a nuclear war would be. A nuclear war would destroy the indispensable anthropological basis for any form of high culture and technology.
War: What will I do on the day the war is over and Russia is forced back behind the borders that applied before Putin in 2014 first went wild on Ukraine?
INTELLECTUAL: Belarusian and Ukrainian intellectuals have applied postcolonial theory to Russia since the 1990s – but have been largely ignored in the West. MODERN TIMES presents here the voices from the "border countries".
UKRAINE: Everyone is affected by the war in Ukraine: both family finances and official budgets, aid cuts, military rearmament, global energy policy, nuclear policy and, not least, bloc politics, and it also creates increased tension around the globe. So where is the overview, or a deeper understanding? Researcher Cecilie Hellestveit has her new book Bad news from the Eastern Front unfortunately carried out a serious 'cherry-picking' of sources and arguments where she conveniently develops backwards what confirms the generally acceptable.
HISTORY: Russia and Germany (as Europe's engine) should, like the coal and steel union, be developed into a joint peace project which in the future should make war between Russia and the European powers in the west impossible. The US clearly did not want this.
UKRAINE: Rødt's former deputy, in this longer essay, looks at the significance of International Law, not only Russia's so-called "unprovoked" violations of it, but also the West's many violations of International Law. Here follows a, seen from MODERN TIMES, timely criticism of both SV, Rødt, the left side, the media and the ongoing warmongering.
In this summer issue, as MODERN TIMES's editor, I publish a selection of articles that probably reflect different opinions than most people have about the war in Ukraine.