We’ve been using the term “NATO liberal” quite a bit in our recent series of Ukraine-Russia episodes. But, you may ask yourself: “what exactly do Bob and Scott mean when they say ‘NATO Liberal’?”
Part One, listen in: https://apple.co/36S2fSw
Part Two, listen in: Coming Soon
We dive deep into the history of NATO liberals and discuss their role in developing the U.S. empire during the 20th and 21st centuries.
A mass of western companies are exiting Russia over the war in Ukraine. This has included some major corporate heavyweights, including McDonald’s, Starbucks, Nike, Netflix, Apple, Visa, Coca-Cola, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Exxon, major western law firms and most major film distributors.
Listen in: https://apple.co/3qy13ud
Jeffry Sonnenfeld at the Yale School of Management compared it to the boycott of apartheid era South Africa. We’ve talked on past shows about the role that multinationals have played in the political economy. But have they developed a new conscience?
In our latest, we talk with investigative journalist and Executive Director of CorpWatch Pratap Chatterjee (@pchatterjee) about the latest round of corporate activism. We talk about who benefits, who’s being hurt and whether it’s having enough of an impact on Russia.
In December, the Pentagon got a $768 billion budget approved, despite the withdrawal from Afghanistan, with the aim to counter China and build Ukraine’s military strength. This has been a bonanza for arms makers like Raytheon, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Northrup Gruman.
Listen in: apple.co/3qn4ELx
Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes popped the champagne open when saying “…[W]e are seeing, I would say, opportunities for international sales. We just have to look to last week where we saw the drone attack in the UAE, which have attacked some of their other facilities. And of course, the tensions in Eastern Europe, the tensions in the South China Sea, all of those things are putting pressure on some of the defense spending over there. So I fully expect we’re going to see some benefit from it.”
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we saw a spike in these companies’ stock prices.
In our latest episode, we talk about arms manufacturers with William Hartung of the Quincy Institute. We discuss how the war in Ukraine, potential conflict in the South China Sea and wars in Yemen and other parts of the world are critical to their business model. We also talk about how the bureaucracy of the Pentagon and Washington D.C. gives these companies so much influence.
Our latest episode on the Ukraine is a wide-ranging conversation with our good friend Prof. Clinton Fernandes on the U.S. empire and Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. We discuss Russia and Putin’s adventures in Georgia and Ukraine to the lack of strategic empathy from the West (particularly the U.S.). We break down the motives of the U.S. drive to expand NATO and encircle Russia, and the effect it has on global politics.
Listen to part one here: https://apple.co/3I9zY6v
Listen to Part Two Here: https://apple.co/3JlgYn7
We discuss the tensions in the South China Sea and the impact of the Ukraine conflict on Australia’s coming election. Finally, we get an update on Clinton’s law suit trying to get the Australian government to release documents showing intelligence agencies supporting Pinochet’s coup in Chile in 1973.
Recently, Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes reported to his shareholders, “[W]e are seeing, I would say, opportunities for international sales. We just have to look to last week where we saw the drone attack in the UAE, which have attacked some of their other facilities. And of course, the tensions in Eastern Europe, the tensions in the South China Sea, all of those things are putting pressure on some of the defense spending over there. So I fully expect we’re going to see some benefit from it.” While lauded in the press for his comments, Hayes’ thinking embodies structures established by government and private industry for over a hundred years.
Listen in: https://apple.co/34cn5KZ
We’ve got another briefing on the larger contexts of the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Sure, Putin is a horrible and brutal force in the world and the attack on Ukraine is indefensible, but we ignore the larger contexts at our own peril.
Listen in: https://apple.co/3hoJ5p5
We talk about the impact of the breakup of the USSR, the privatization of the Russian economy, the sense of western/NATO encirclement felt by Russia, and U.S-Russia-Ukraine economic and trade relations.
This week, Russia invaded the Ukraine sparking the largest land assault on the European continent since World War Two. The markets went into turmoil. The price of oil and gas went up. Political and media establishments scrambled to act on what’s next. Biden moved 7000 US troops to the Polish-Ukrainian border and NATO is expected to send more troops. In cities across Russia, antiwar protestors took to the streets to protest Vladimir Putin’s war with over 2000 being arrested. Finally, the Biden administration and allies have begun a sanctions war against Russia’s people, it’s elite institutions and Putin himself.
Listen in: https://apple.co/3sn9w4T
In our latest episode, we go deep into the history of the Ukraine-Russian conflict and the bipartisan involvement by the U.S. ruling class. We discuss the break up of the Soviet Union, the expansion of the North American Treaty Organization (NATO), the role of the 1999 war in Kosovo in all of this and the Russian invasion of the former Soviet republic of Georgia in 2008. Most importantly, we talk about how U.S. foreign policy has sought to contain Russia and wield economic and political influence over Europe and the former Soviet republics.
