This statement is submitted in connection with the Joint Committee’s deliberations on the European Union’s (EU) legislative proposals COM(2025)122 and COM(2025)123. Those two measures aim to increase EU member state military expenditures and weapons production. They raise multiple serious concerns regarding the merits thereof, including gravely exacerbating the existing Ukraine conflict and making a peace settlement even more difficult to achieve. They will also contribute to cementing the EU on a path of massively increased military expenditures, which will inevitably displace and diminish other forms of needed government spending owing to the fiscal constraints confronting member states. Worst of all, they could contribute to EU member states becoming directly involved in the Ukraine conflict, thereby bringing the conflict inside the EU. Consequently, Ireland should vigorously oppose the two measures as they are neither in Ireland’s national interest nor in the collective interest of the European Union.
Archive for the ‘Europe’ Category
The Case Against European Union Rearmament Spending: statement to the Irish Parliament re EU Proposals COM(2025)122 and COM(2025)123
Wednesday, June 18th, 2025A Niemöller moment: more on being cancelled Post Keynesian style
Saturday, May 31st, 2025Last week I e-mailed a note titled “Goodbye pluralism: cancelled Post Keynesian style” which detailed my suspension by the Post Keynesian Economics Society (PKES). That suspension unjustly sanctioned me for an earlier e-mail announcement of my article “The Ukraine war and Europe’s deepening march of folly”.
The PKES has now responded, claiming I violated its list-serve rules. I welcome their response. It creates an opportunity both to remedy this injustice and to reverse an intolerant turn within the PKES’s rules of discourse. That turn is the much more important issue and it should concern all.
But first, I must address the PKES response, which I believe is disingenuous about the real reason for my suspension. In my view, that reason is the desire of pro-Ukrainian sympathizers to ban discussions of the Ukraine conflict which challenge the Western establishment’s anti-Russian narrative. If my article had been about Keir Starmer’s Labour government fiscal austerity it would not have been sanctioned.
(more…)Goodbye pluralism: cancelled Post Keynesian style
Monday, May 26th, 2025At the end of March, I sent a brief e-mail notice of my article “The Ukraine war and Europe’s deepening march of folly”. The article has been published and re-posted in multiple places, including being translated into Spanish and Italian.
It describes the political economic costs incurred by Europe owing to the war; the political economic interests driving Europe’s stance on Ukraine; the false narratives used to drum up popular support; and the likely further political and economic costs from Europe’s deepening turn to militarism in the name of Ukraine.
In response, I was notified by the Post-Keynesian Economics Society (PKES) that I had been cancelled and my right to communicate with colleagues via the PKES list-serve had been suspended for three months.
The decision is triply deplorable. First, this is a time when free speech is under grievous attack and we should all defend it. Banning political economic analyses of the Ukraine war that criticize the Western establishment is the opposite. It places one in the company of those who argue for banning critique of Zionism or Israel on grounds that it is antisemitic.
Second, freedom of speech is especially precious to academics and the PKES is a network that connects academics.
Third, pluralism is a core claim of Post Keynesian economics and the ban is an affront to pluralism. It is easy to preach pluralism but difficult to practice it, as that requires tolerating views one may not like.
I hope readers will share this note and it prompts debate about the current fragility of pluralism in heterodox economics and society.
The Ukraine war and Europe’s deepening march of folly
Monday, March 24th, 2025In her book The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam, the historian Barbara Tuchman explores the perplexing question of why countries sometimes pursue policies that are fundamentally contrary to their own interests. That question has acquired renewed relevance as Europe has now enlisted in a deepening march of folly over Ukraine.
Failure to reject the march of folly will have grave consequences for Europe, but doing so is a huge political challenge. It requires explaining how Europe has been harmed by its Ukraine policy; how Europe stands to be further harmed by doubling-down on that policy; how the march of folly has been sold politically; and why the political establishment persists therewith.
(more…)The Ukraine – Russia war explained: how the US exploited internal fractures in the post-Soviet order (plus lessons for Georgia)
Sunday, November 10th, 2024This paper explores the deep causes of the Ukraine – Russia war. It argues that the war has both internal and external causes. The internal causes are rooted in the way the Soviet Union disintegrated. The external causes relate to how the US exploited the fractures in the post-Soviet order to advance its geopolitical agenda aimed at establishing US global hegemony. The war has devastated Ukraine. The capture of Ukrainian politics by extremist nationalists prevented a compromise that addressed the political and demographic reality of post-Soviet Ukraine. In doing so, the nationalists made Ukraine a sacrificial pawn in the US project seeking global hegemony, with fateful consequences that may yet worsen further. Georgia’s frozen conflict with Russia has some structural similarities. That said, Georgia can avoid Ukraine’s fate by choosing a path of non-alignment. That will not be easy as the US is likely to try and sabotage that path, as non-alignment tacitly challenges US hegemony.
Neoliberalism and the Drift to Proto-Fascism: Political and Economic Causes of the Crisis of Liberal Democracy
Saturday, September 7th, 2024Neoliberalism is a political economic philosophy consisting of two claims, one economic and the other political. The economic claim is laissez-faire is the best way to organize economic activity as it generates efficient outcomes that maximize well-being. The political claim is free markets promote individual liberty. This article argues both claims are problematic. The evidence from the Neoliberal era shows Neoliberalism has undercut shared prosperity and unleashed illiberal forces that threaten liberty. The article distinguishes between the first political turn which established Neoliberal political hegemony, and the second political turn toward proto-fascism now underway. The second turn is being driven by a collection of factors which have created a demand for proto-fascism and weakened the defenses against alt-right ideas. Those factors include socio-economic disembedding, institutional destruction and political disembedding, increased economic inequality that tilts political power, transformation of attitudes to government and governance, transformation of economic identity, and behavioral transformation that celebrates sociopathic egotism. The Third Way’s capture of center-left politics means liberal elites occupy the political place that should be held by true opponents of Neoliberalism. Those elites obstruct the politics needed to reverse the deep causes of the drift to proto-fascism. Ironically, that makes them a real danger.
Keywords: Neoliberalism, proto-fascism, disembedding, inequality, identity, behavior
Ukraine’s Hiroshima moment is drawing closer (the consequences of Neocon madness)
Wednesday, August 21st, 2024In August 1945, the US atom bombed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since then, nuclear weapons have never been used in conflict. That may soon change as Ukraine faces the increasing likelihood of a Hiroshima moment.
Conditions in Ukraine increasingly give Russia military and geopolitical cause to use tactical nuclear weapons. Though Russia will use them, the US and NATO are deeply implicated in the process. They are in the grip of Neocon madness which casually dismisses potentially catastrophic consequences and blocks all off-ramps.
Lessons from Hiroshima and Nagasaki
One way to understand the current moment is via the history of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Those attacks also had military and geopolitical motivations. The former is widely recognized: the latter is not.
(more…)Europe’s foreign policy has been hacked and the consequences are dire
Tuesday, February 13th, 2024Europe’s foreign policy has been hacked and captured by US Neocon interests. That capture poses a dire threat to both European democracy and global security. The threat to global security is because Europe is now captive in the US Neocon war on China and Russia. The threat to democracy comes from European voters gradually intuiting they have been sold out, which helps explain their turn against the political establishment.
The consequences of hacking are simple and dire, but exposing it is difficult. The status quo is privileged and there is resistance to acknowledging unpleasant facts. This essay presents those facts.
What is Neoconservatism and who are the Neocons?
The starting point is understanding Neoconservatism and the Neocons. The former is a US political doctrine which rose to ascendancy in the 1990s. It holds that never again shall there be a foreign power, like the former Soviet Union, which can challenge US global hegemony. The doctrine gives the US the right to impose its will anywhere in the world, which explains why the US has over 750 bases in 80 countries, ringing both Russia and China.
(more…)The corruption of US foreign policy & weaponization of antisemitism
Tuesday, January 2nd, 2024Below are three brilliant articles and one interview that help understand geopolitics at the beginning of 2024. In my view, they should be read by anyone interested in the geopolitical situation & should be required reading for students of international relations and international political economy:
US Foreign Policy is a Scam Built on Corruption, Jeffrey Sachs, Common Dreams, December 26, 2023.
Two Cheers for Isolationism, Jeff Faux, The Nation, November 17, 2023.
Please share (or even tweet) these items.
Ukraine destroyed the Kakhovka dam: a forensic assessment
Tuesday, July 4th, 2023The Kakhovka dam was a massive two-mile-long structure that dammed the Dnieper River which bisects Ukraine. It was built by the Soviet Union in 1956 and raised the Dnieper by 16 meters (52 feet), creating the Kakhovka Reservoir. The dam was destroyed on 6 June 2023, resulting in massive flooding downstream on both sides of the river which created a social and environmental disaster. The city of Kherson, located near the river’s mouth with the Black Sea, was also flooded.
Both Ukraine and Russia deny blowing up the dam and blame the other. At this stage, all the evidence is circumstantial and conjectural, but a forensic assessment of that evidence overwhelmingly suggests Ukraine destroyed the dam. Despite that, US and Western European politicians and media have uniformly sought to implicate Russia as the perpetrator.
In multiple ways, the dam’s destruction echoes the 2022 destruction of the Russian-owned Nord Stream 2 pipeline. That pipeline was a piece of civilian infrastructure; was destroyed by an explosion; its destruction caused a massive environmental disaster; Ukraine denies any role; many European governments claimed Russia had blown up its own pipeline; and Western media either explicitly claimed Russia had done it (Time) or tendentiously sought to implicate Russia (New York Times, Guardian).
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