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Selection of studies and documents published by research centres and national or international institutions
285 articles
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Statement of A. Wess Mitchell at the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee
by A. Wess Mitchell
Washington D. C. (États-Unis)
| 21 August 2018
U.S. Strategy Towards the Russian Federation
Chairman Corker, Ranking Member Menendez, thank you for inviting me to testify today. I will use my prepared comments to outline in brief form the overarching strategy of the United States towards the Russian Federation. The foundation for this strategy is provided by three documents, as directed and approved by the President: the National Security Strategy, the National Defense Strategy and the Russia Integrated Strategy.
The starting point of (...)
The F-35, the Scam of the Century
16 August 2014
The F-35 is the largest weapons program in history. This multi-role aircraft is built by Lockheed Martin with Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems as major partners.
It should equip the armies of Australia, Canada, Denmark, the United States, Israel, Italy, Japan, Norway, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Turkey for the next 40 years and replace the F-16, F-18 and F-22.
However, its production started while essential aeronautical software has not yet been invented. The defense (...)
The White Book on Violations of Human Rights and the Rule of Law in Ukraine
5 May 2014
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation a White Paper on violations of human rights and the rule of law in Ukraine that have occurred since November 2013.
The book is divided into six chapters:
Violations of Human rights;
Interference by the European Union and the United States;
Weapons and violent methods used by the protesters;
Restrictions on basic freedoms and crackdown on dissidents;
Discrimination based on ethnic background;
Religious persecution. (...)
Do Indonesian Shia need protection?
12 March 2014
The propaganda of Indonesian groups hostile to the Syrian government highlights the supposed Shia character of the Assad regime. The point is to legitimize "jihad" by painting Shi’ism not only as a heresy, but also as a threat to pure Islam. This rhetoric has notably prompted Abu Bakar Ba’asyir to brand the "Shiite regime in Syria" as being "worse than infidels and Jews."
For Navhat Nuraniyah of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, this propaganda has already yielded evil (...)
Difficult succession ahead in the House of Saud
12 March 2014
Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre NOREF) published a brief study on the succession of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
According to author Stig Stenslie, a recognized expert on the subject, the Succession Act, promulgated in 2006 by King Abdullah does not apply to himself. In theory, therefore, it is one of the brothers of the present monarch who should first succeed him. The king appointed Prince Salman as heir and Prince Murkin as Deputy Prime Minister, putting him second in the line (...)
Flawed US intelligence on Ghouta massacre
18 January 2014
Richard Lloyd, a former UN weapons inspector, and Theodore Postol, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), published a report which challenges the ballistic data used by U.S. intelligence services in connection with the 21 August 2013 massacre in Ghouta, a Damascus suburb.
The authors show that the sarin-laden rockets could not have been fired from a distance of more than 2 kilometers from their point of impact. Based on the intelligence maps published by the (...)
War crimes in Syria
17 January 2014
Two Turkish groups have released a report on the war crimes perpetrated against the Syrian people. According to them, the events started in Deraa on the “Day of Wrath” against the neoliberal policies of the Assad administration. However, the revolt lost its meaning after the constitutional referendum of February 2012, which granted to citizens more rights than they had originally claimed.
The report then scrutinizes the involvement of the United States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel and (...)
What purpose could mass surveillance in the EU possibly serve?
16 January 2014
The European Parliament commissioned a report on the mass surveillance programs implemented in the European Union. The document lays down the data available regarding five member States (France, Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom and Sweden) and ponders about their impact on the economic system.
In the first place, the report ascertains that only four of the above run that type of program (not the Netherlands), but that the United Kingdom allocates a huge budget to it, on an altogether (...)
Towards a partition of Syria?
16 January 2014
As the countries militarily engaged in the war on Syria are pulling out one by one leaving the United States and Russia facing each other, several publications are puzzling over the plans to partition the country.
In The Impossible partition of Syria, Mustafa Khalifa - writing for the Arab Reform Initiative - expounds the ethno-religious divisions besetting the country and the impossibility, due to the mix of populations, of transplanting them geographically. Furthermore, he points out (...)
The strategy of Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood
16 January 2014
The German government is currently funding research studies on the transformation of elites in the Arab world. One of them focuses on the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria.
The document highlights the difficulty of assessing their actual presence within the NATO-designated opposition, showing to extent to which they move in the shadows. Thus, if there are only 20 MB affiliates listed among the 320 members of the Syrian National Coalition, there are in fact 78 hiding behind the (...)
The manipulated videos of the Ghouta ’’massacre’’
16 September 2013
The Institute, presided by Mother Agnes Mariam of the Cross, has listed the first videos of the massacre of Ghouta, and was able to ascertain the encoded hours of the videos as well as the time of posting on internet. The closer study of this material enables us to point out incoherences and manipulations :
Ghouta is has been depopulated or some time now. The only people that are left are those who support the ’’rebels’’ and some elderly people who weren’t able to flee. The supporters of the (...)
For the CRS, the regional consequences of a war against Syria are difficult to foresee
9 September 2013
While the US congress is asked to come to a decision regarding a possible war on Syria, the Congress Research Service is publishing a study on this option.
As well as answering many questions about chemical weapon procedures, war powers, the eventual cost of a war etc, it evaluates the regionalization possibilities : actions of Iran and Hezbollah against Israel. The document concludes that Israel is capable of intercepting part of enemy missiles so that the US could thus extend their (...)
The bombing of Syria should extend to a ground invasion
9 September 2013
While the US government is considering changing the Syrian regime by force, with the excuse of punishment following the chemical attack that the Obama administration holds the el-Assad government responsible for, the Rand Corporation is studying the consequences of the options available.
Destroying or pining to the ground the Syrian aviation wouldn’t radically change the balance of power and wouldn’t enable the opposition to win.
Destroying the Syrian anti-missiles is possible, by only (...)
Syria: the CNAS prefers the status quo
25 September 2012
«This Fox has a longing for grapes:
He jumps, but the bunch still escapes.
So he goes away sour;
And, ’tis said, to this hour
Declares that he’s no taste for grapes»
Jean de la Fontaine, The Fox and the Grapes
The Center for A New American Security (CNAS) published a study on the possible changes in Syria and how to defend U.S. and Israeli interests according to different scenarios. Given the considerable influence that the CNAS exerts on the Obama administration, in general, and on the (...)
Storytelling: NATO rewrites the Syrian conflict
20 May 2012
Yossef Bodansky, the U.S.-Israeli expert who wrote the official history of Al Qaeda, is back. The one who had explained with a straight face that bin Laden was both an Iraqi and Iranian agent, and that Saddam Hussein had financed the attacks of September 11, no longer works for the U.S. Congress and the Defense Department, but for the Institute Strategie für Politik-und-Sicherheits-Wirtschaftsberatung (ISPSW) in Berlin, a, Atlanticist think tank.
He has just published a paper soberly titled (...)
Syria: For the UK, it is urgent to do nothing
4 April 2012
The House of Commons Library is supposed to provide completely "impartial advice and analysis" to Members of the UK Parliament and their staff. The least that one can say is that this debriefing on the crisis in Syria after 12 months of unrest is somewhat general and vague.
After examining the different types of sanctions inflicted on Syria, the report observes that no external intervention is possible because of Russia’s and China’s adamancy to abide by international law at the Security (...)
According to WINEP, the Shiites banned the atomic bomb to better conceal they are building it
27 September 2011
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), which denounced the supposedly military nature of the Iranian nuclear program, must regularly be confronted with a hefty contention: how is it possible that the Revolutionary Guards could be developing such a program in secret when the manufacture, stockpiling, threat and use of weapons of mass destruction were forbidden by a fatwa of the Supreme Leader of the Revolution?
After its long-standing denial of the fatwa’s existence, the (...)
Does the G20 serve any purpose?
18 May 2011
The Institute for Security Studies, linked to the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, published a study on the G20.
The author endorses the rhetoric according to which the G20 allows emergent economic powers to have a hand in world global management. On this premises, he posits that the G20 provides the ideal context for elaborating a new multilateralism.
However, all along, his study shows exactly the opposite: namely, that the G20 has in no way (...)
The doctors at the Guantánamo torture center
5 May 2011
Scientific magazine PLoS Medecine has published a study by Dr Vincent Iacopino (senior medical adviser for Physicians for Human Rights) and retired Brigadier General Stephen Xenakis on the role played by doctors at the Guantánamo torture centre.
Guantanamo’s premises are structured in separate detention blocks. The study examines the cases of nine people detained in the prison boasting the least severe conditions. It shows that the doctors purposefully covered up abuses and prepped the (...)
USA-UK : Discrepancies between official accounts of the Libyan war
4 May 2011
The US Congressional Research Services and the UK’s House of Commons have published separately a summary paper on the first military operations in Libya.
The thrust lies in their comparison: whereas the historical background is the same, their account of the facts differs. The US document remains vague when it comes to the chain of command, while the British document is more explicit as regards US dominance.
==
Operation Odyssey Dawn (Libya): Background and Issues for Congress, under (...)
The USA forecast 8 billion dollars for a 6-month no-fly zone operation
3 May 2011
A study from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), published on 9 March 2011, assesses the possible financial cost for the USA to implement a no-fly zone in Libya.
Extrapolating from the costs of previous similar operations conducted in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo and Iraq, the authors have estimated it, on average, at 10 USD per year and per square meter. As a result, a no-fly zone over the vast Libyan desert would prove to be particularly pricey.
The CSBA believes (...)
Pentagon still employs same number of mercenaries
2 May 2011
The US Congressional Research Service (CRS) recently published a study on Pentagon "armed contractors". It appears that the contingent of mercenaries in Iraq has halved, a trend that corresponds to the displacement of US troops outside of Iraq towards other countries in the Middle-East. At the same time, the number of contractors has multiplied by five in two years.
In reality, these two phenomena cannot be compared. “Armed contractors” in Iraq are foreign mercenaries. They had been hired (...)
The U.S. colored revolution user manual for Egypt
2 March 2011
The United States had anticipated a revolution in Egypt for some time, even if they predicted it would occur at the death of their puppet, Hosni Mubarak. Consequently, they were standing ready to step in.
From the first week of demonstrations in Cairo, Washington detached a team from the Albert Einstein Institution. A manual, already used in other countries, was translated into Arabic and disseminated to shepherd demonstrators towards the Facebook and Twitter services set up the the (...)
Two-thirds of Iranians behind Ahmadinejad
20 February 2011
The International Peace Institute recently released the results of a telephone survey of Iranians.
According to the poll, Iranians are clearly split in a one third/two thirds ratio. The majority came out in favour of continuing the Islamic Revolution under President Ahmadinejad. On its part, the minority wishes to suspend financial support to Hamas and Hezbollah, hopes for closer ties with the United States, and backs opposition leader Moussavi.
The International Peace Institute is (...)
US aid to Egypt intended for Gaza siege
8 February 2011
Breaking with its normal attributes, the U.S. Congressional Research Service handed out to legislators, "hot off the press", a summary of Egypt-U.S. relations dated 28 January, that is, from the very outset of the Egyptian mass protests.
It transpires that Washington provides annually:
250 million US dollars for economic aid.
1 300 million US dollars for military aid.
2 million US dollars to sustain the political change over.
To which must be added the funds for special (...)
The botched Pentagon propaganda programme
27 January 2011
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is concerned about the funds mobilized by the Department of Defense (DoD) for propaganda purposes. Indeed, the Pentagon budget is extravagant compared to that of the Department of State on whose prerogatives the DoD has been worming in for the past 7 years.
In 2010, the Defense Secretary had asked Congress for nearly one billion dollars for "strategic communications" and "information operations". However, some effective lobbying by the (...)
New Congress leaders promote "clash of civilizations"
17 January 2011
The Arab-American Institute (chaired by James Zogby) published a report providing insight into the new leaders who have taken control of the House of Representatives. The majority would appear to be Israel-firsters and rabid advocates of the "clash of civilizations". Thus, we are witnessing a radicalization of Congress reminiscent of what occurred in 1995 and which led to the remilitarization of the United States and the Kosovo war.
===
Analysis of Select New Leadership of the 112th (...)
Iraq: Fallujah children with birth defects
4 January 2011
The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health has published a study on the upsurge of birth defects in Fallujah, Iraq. A 15% increase has been recorded during the war period.
The study, which was conducted on a limited sample of polygamous families, highlighted in particular a high incidence of heart and neural tube malformations.
The Journal decided to release the study to exchange the data collected with other researchers working on war-associated contamination. (...)
A selection by {Voltaire Network}
Reports Monitor # 2010-03
25 April 2010
AFGHANISTAN
Afghanistan: Searching for Political Agreement (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace)
CENTRAL ASIA
Central Asia’s Security: Issues and Implications for US Interests (US Congressional Research Service)
CLASH OF CIVILISATIONS
Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa (John Templeton Foundation)
CUBA
Cuba: Military’s Profile in State Media Limited, Positive (US Director of National (...)
A selection by the Voltaire Network
Reports Monitor # 2010-02
18 March 2010
ABKHAZIA
Abkhazia: Deepening Dependence (International Crisis Group)
ANGOLA
The Oil Factor in Sino–Angolan Relations at the Start of the 21st Century (South African Institute of International Affairs)
ARCTIC
Strategic Importance of the Arctic in U.S. Policy (Senate, USA)
ASIA
The Mekong: river under threat (Lowry Institute)
BANGLADESH
The Threat from Jamaat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (International Crisis Group)
CHILE
Conjugando estrategia nacional y política local en (...)
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Most popular
The F-35, the Scam of the Century
The U.S. colored revolution user manual for Egypt
Empire
The superpower without complex
Storytelling: NATO rewrites the Syrian conflict
The White Book on Violations of Human Rights and the Rule of Law in Ukraine
Invisible children
UNICEF Report
Latin America escapes from the United States
The effervescence of a continent
Media concentration in France
Information, a merchandise submitted to the rules of market
The doctors at the Guantánamo torture center
NATO: an alliance for freedom
From the Cold War to the War on Terror
According to WINEP, the Shiites banned the atomic bomb to better conceal they are building it
Does the G20 serve any purpose?
Syria: the CNAS prefers the status quo
Difficult succession ahead in the House of Saud
Reports Monitor # 2010-03
A selection by {Voltaire Network}
