This is a complete list of references for my chapter ‘Sanctions and Nation Breaking: Yugoslavia, 1990-2000’, published in the anthology ‘Sanctions as War: Anti-Imperialist Perspectives on American Geo-Economic Strategy‘, Haymarket Books, March 7, 2023.
A Geopolitical Perspective of Biden’s North Korea Policy
Presentation by Simone Chun, Tim Beal, and Gregory Elich
The NATO War on Yugoslavia
Gregory Elich discusses his visit to Yugoslavia two months after NATO bombings, the impact of the war, and the broader objectives behind Western intervention.
The Balkan Project Washington Wants to Derail
As work nears completion in the first phase of an ambitious project in Montenegro to develop a highway that will connect the Adriatic port of Bar with Serbia, Western officials and mainstream media are ramping up attacks on the endeavor. Western commentators are united in condemnation, ranging from fear-mongering over China’s role to disparaging the plan’s viability. Consistently, they dismiss it as “the highway to nowhere,” implying foolishness on the part of Montenegro and presenting it as a cautionary tale on the dangers of doing business with China. The theme fits neatly within the framework of Washington’s campaign to economically isolate and cripple China, its main competitor in the global economy.
Penetrating Curtains of Deceit: I.F. Stone’s ‘The Hidden History of the Korean War’
By Tim Beal and Gregory Elich
When the American journalist, I.F. Stone, published The Hidden History of the Korean War at the height of the military conflict in 1952, its message did not find a warm welcome at home. In a period of unhinged anti-communist fervor, mainstream media took little or no notice of such an iconoclastic work, and whatever impact it had would have to wait for a later time, when the Vietnam War encouraged more skepticism about the motives underlying U.S. war-making. Even so, mainstream receptiveness to critical analyses of US war-making in subsequent decades has not substantially improved, and Stone’s book has spent far more years in out-of-print oblivion than in ready availability.
Reminding South Korea Who is Boss: Biden’s Enforcers Pay a Visit
In a Washington Post opinion piece, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spelled out their objectives in visiting Japan, South Korea, and India. “The United States is now making a big push to revitalize our ties with friends and partners,” they wrote. The nature of those relationships, as perceived by Washington, is the subordination of Asian nations as junior partners in an anti-China coalition. “Our alliances are what our military calls ‘force multipliers’,” Blinken and Austin explain. “Our combined power makes us stronger when we must push back against China’s aggression and threats.” [1]
Read More »Police Raid Humanitarian Group Over Pandemic Aid to North Korea
An Interview with Peter Wilson, by Gregory Elich
United Nations and U.S. sanctions targeting North Korea prohibit almost all trade and transactions with the nation, resulting in collective punishment of the entire population. Ostensibly, humanitarian aid is exempt from sanctions. Still, many humanitarian groups have been compelled to curtail or halt assistance to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK – the official name for North Korea). U.S. officials regularly contact officials abroad, urging them to crack down on businesses, organizations, and individuals having any dealings with North Korea.
One such group is the New Zealand-Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Society (NZ DPRK Society), which over the years, has provided aid and engaged in educational exchanges with North Korea. Among its projects, it has provided farm equipment, diesel fuel, flood relief, and fertilizer to the NZ Friendship Farm, supplementary food to the SeungHo Home for the Elderly, and multiple shipments of medical supplies. These are only a few examples of the group’s many activities.
This year, the NZ DPRK Society fell afoul of the U.S.-driven effort to strangle the North Korean economy when it provided the DPRK with personal protective equipment to help it deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. Peter Wilson, the Society’s secretary, shared his experiences with me.
Read More »Race, Militarism and the US Scheme to Control the Pacific
Christine Hong’s marvelous book, A Violent Peace: Race, U.S. Militarism, and Cultures of Democratization in Cold War Asia and the Pacific, arrives at a time when Washington’s Indo Pacific Strategy is driving U.S. political, economic, and military confrontation in the Asia-Pacific, as the culmination of a long process that began in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.
Read More »Is There Any Hope for Revival of U.S.-North Korea Negotiations?
Interview with Gregory Elich
Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun arrived in Seoul, South Korea yesterday for talks on stalled nuclear diplomacy hours after North Korea said it had “no intention of sitting face to face with the United States.” President Trump had said earlier in the day that he was willing to have yet another summit with the North Korean leader. But Biegun reiterated the U.S. position that North Korea must give up all of its nuclear weapons, something North Korea has always maintained it would not do unilaterally without concurrent sanctions relief.
Listen:
What is Behind the Strain in Inter-Korean Relations?
Gregory Elich interviewed by Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman
The recent strain in inter-Korean relations, and how it ties in with U.S. North Korea policy
Listen:
Gregory Elich 