In the West, there are two different competing narratives about the war in Ukraine. The prevailing narrative is that it is a struggle between the “bad guys” and “good guys”. For many, Russia led by dictator Putin represents imperialism and is alone responsible for this unprovoked war, whereas Ukraine represents freedom and democracy as well as courage and heroism. The forces of evil must be won decisively by military means. Russians have their own version of demonization, with an opposite view on locating the good and the evil. The likelihood of a nuclear conflict is played down as it would lessen the resolve to reach a total victory. (This text co-authored with Tapio Kanninen was originally published by Katoikos.world on 29.11.2022; and republished the next day at Rozenberg Quarterly; ZNetwork; and Brave New Europe.)

My contribution to GTI Forum The Population Debate Revisited (a direct link here).

During the Cold War, the Norden was widely seen as the model of an enlightened and antimilitaristic society that follows the principles of distributive justice and is morally superior to two alternative models of modernization: the United States and the Soviet Union. The two countries that best exemplified the Nordic model and neutrality were Sweden and Finland. (This is a somewhat longer draft version of a text published on 1.6.2022 in Le Monde Diplomatique in French as “Finlande et Suède brisent l’idéal nordique” [here]; in English as “The end of the Nordic ideal” [here], republished in The Nation [here]; also in German [here], Spanish [here], Portuguese [here], and Norwegian [here]).

This is a written interview for the Italian outlet Valigia Blu, in response to questions posed by Gabriele Catania. The published story is long and apparently “super-read”, but it only involves a few selected parts of my original answers. Here is the entire interview as I originally wrote it down — exceptionally I am publishing it as a blog. You can find more interviews in English (and other languages) here.