German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on Thursday that Germany supports NATO's large-scale military expansion plan, which is expected to be approved during the alliance's defence ministers' meeting in Brussels.
At the present juncture of global power shifts, the visit of US Vice President J D Vance and his wife is of high strategic importance to India and South Asian politics.
There is an unconfirmed report that the US has redeployed at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan. This base was the command centre for NATO and US forces throughout their occupation of Afghanistan.
Donald Trump coined the slogan “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) when he first ran for presidency in 2016. He has created a virtual cult through this MAGA movement; his consistent message has been “USA first” in almost everything he does in establishing his policies.
President Donald Trump’s intentions to strike a peace deal in Ukraine without security guarantees for Kyiv and his possible relinquishing of America’s role as supreme allied commander of NATO have sparked concern among allies.
Arms manufacturers, the world over, are in clover. A year-long high intensity war, which shows no signs of ending, has sent the profits of arms manufacturers soaring to stratospheric levels. Plus, there has been the unexpected bonanza of testing hardware in live battlefield conditions. Oil companies have recorded windfall profits. The US has benefited by capturing the energy market in Europe from the Russians. Mercenaries, like the Wagner group are rolling in money by supplying convicts and other cannon fodder to the warring countries
Unipolarity has run its course and the lesson of the Ukrainian war is the inevitable movement towards multipolarity. The increased military assistance to Ukraine will only prolong that country’s agony just as it was in the case of Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s. A new world order is emerging with new centres of power. The war in Ukraine will accelerate this irreversible process
"It is a violation of the UN Charter and international law. It is having dramatic humanitarian and human rights consequences and the impact is being felt far beyond Ukraine," said Guterres.
The war has resulted in high inflation, higher energy prices, less money with households and higher interest rates. The IMF director general feels that 2023 would be economically far worse.
Turkey will not approve Sweden's bid to join NATO as long as it continues to allow Quran-burning protests, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, adding that his country looks positively on Finland's application for membership of the military alliance.
