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What if Ukraine loses the war of self-defense against Russia?

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BACKGROUND

1) Robert Kagan, “TRUMP IS FACING A CATASTROPHIC DEFEAT; If Ukraine falls, it will be hard to spin as anything but a debacle for the United States, and for its president,” The Atlantic, January 7, 2024 (1:04 PM ET);

At T-12, Trump minus 12 days. we need to ask what will happen if Russia wins its war of aggression against Ukraine.

For a comprehensive analysis of the current situation regarding the war, with realistic consideration of military and political realities, see Robert Kagan’s article cited above.

Few policymakers and analysts have thought much about the consequences of such a Ukrainian defeat at the hands of the Russians.

Most avoid the thought by entertaining the illusion that there can be negotiations that could lead to a ceasefire or some kind of a settlement. They argue among themselves about the potential terms of such a ceasefire or settlement, despite the fact that neither Vladimir Putin nor Ukraine is interested in such negotiations.

Vladimir Putin has been absolutely clear. His conditions for entering negotiations amount to total capitulation on the part of Ukraine.

Wolodymyr Zelinski appears to be open to territorial concessions, but his statements in this regard must be read as a brilliant maneuver to get on the right side of Donald Trump. The Ukrainian constitution prohibits any “territorial concessions”.

Moreover, peremptory norms of international law prohibit terms in a peace settlement recognizing the acquisition of territory by military force or even its temporary occupation due to the illegal use of force in violation of Article 2 paragraph 4 of the United Nations Charter, the bedrock principle on which the United Nations is founded. Any trreaty or agreement violating these norms of peremptory international law would be void ab initio under international law, and have no legal effect.

Political leaders know these facts.They are deliberately lying to their populations and to each other by holding out the possibility of a negotiated solution to the conflict.

They can negotiate with themselves about agreements that would leave Russia in control of conquered territories until the cows come home, but they are only blowing smoke in the air. They are only lying to each other and to their populations.

Not one of these political and military leaders and analysts has addressed in any detail the situation that would exist and the consequences that would follow if the leading powers ignored these bedrock principles of international law and the U.N.Charter.

These leaders and analysts are unwilling to face the hard realities of the Ukraine war. To do would require determined and energetic actions, including preparations for a war that may last decades (or at least until Putin leaves the scene); the imposition of sanctions against Russia that would really hurt those imposing them; and an all-out effort to persuade or coerce the nations of the so-called Global South to join the regime of international sanctions against Russia.

To face the hard realities of the Ukraine war would require countries to move toward establishing wartime economies that could sustain the production of munitions and advanced weapons systems over the course of a long and drawn-out war.

Finally, to face the hard realities of the Ukraine war would require recognition of the fact that our military forces, our soldiers, NATO soldiers, might need to become directly engaged in the war to prevent a Russian victory. This requirement, moreover, could become urgent very quickly if the Ukrainian forces begin to falter.

This is a sobering reality. So was the reality facing England, France, and other democratic countries in Europe in 1938 and 1939. They temporized. They delayed. They harbored illusions that peace could be ensured by negotiating an agreement with Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, as British prime minister Neville Chamberlain and French Prime Minister tried to do in Munich in October 1938.

As late as May 1940 Chamberlain and Foreign Minister Lord Halifax sought to negotiate a separate peace with Germany. Fortunately, Winston Churchill successfully resisted their entreaties.

The world and the U.S. need a leader of the caliber of Winston Churchill to lead us through the coming years of war with Russia.

Instead, we have Donald Trump.

We can only hope that we will be surprised.

David Ignatius’ panagyric to Jake Sullivan. Hagiography devoid of criticism which could have beeb written by Sullivan himself, and practically was.

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BACKGROUND

1) David Ignatius, “The strategist in the hurricane; As national security adviser, Jake Sullivan often had to improvise — and weigh some very imperfect responses,” Washington Post, December 31, 2024 (6:30 a.m. EST);

If you want to understand the failures of Joe Biden’s foreign policy, there is no better place to start than with David Ignatius’ Wahington Post column on December 31, 2024. Unadulterated hagiography, unburdened by a hint of criticism or hard-nosed reporting, Ignatius’ column reveals how Sullivan has masterfully spun the story of his achievements over the last four years and longer. The result has been a submissive press, and a foreign policy establishment unwilling to take Sullivan’s self-serving assertions on directly.

With such a perfectly designed and executed foreign policy ss that presented by Sullivan and Ignatius, one is hard dressed to grasp the significance of Joe Biden’s catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, or how that strategic and humanitarian disaster appears to have emboldened Vladimir Putin to incade Ukraine in Fevruart 2022, or how the cowardice of Biden and Sullivan in the face of Putin’s nuclear threats have ed to a long drawn-out war with nonend in sight.

Sullivan is brilliant, beyond any doubt. He has so impressed Biden that one might think of Sullivan as the real architect of U.S. foreign policy over the last four years.

We have forgotten the lessons of The Best and the Brightest, David Halberstam’s brilliant 1972 book which described the influence on decisions in the John F. Kennedy administration and their disastrous consequences in Vietnam.

Without real criticism from academia and the press, and with absolutely no ear for hearing such criticism, the Biden administration stumbled into failure after failure in what will eventually be seen as the worst foreign policy record of any president in recent years.

A Parable of our time: “Our democratic house is on fire!”

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James Rowles, “A Parable of our time: ‘Our democratic house is on fire!”’, first published in The Trenchant Observer, September 23, 2021, reprinted in James P. Rowles, The Rape of American Democracy: Republican Actions and Democratic Failures, 2016-2021 (2024).

A Parable of our Time

See,

Robert Kagan, “Our constitutional crisis is already here,” Washington Post, September 23, 2021 (3:32 p.m. EDT).

There is a man running up and down the street, with his hair all frazzled and his eyes filled with terror, shouting, “The house is on fire! Our house is on fire! Our whole democratic city is on fire!”

Outside a cafe, on a bright sunny morning, a number of people sit calmly drinking their coffee. A few, but not as many as in the past, are reading their newspapers.

“Help! Help!” the screaming man implores. “Don’t you know, the whole city is on fire!”

The seated individuals proceed calmly to drink their coffee and chat among themselves.

“Don’t you know?” the wild man implores again, “The whole city is on fire!”

Different individuals respond variously.

“You exaggerate,” one says. “We don’t see any flames.”

“The houses in the next street are on fire,” the wild man rejoins.

“Don’t worry,” another replies. “Someone will take care of it.”

“Fake news!” another shouts out, aggressively.

“What about you newspapers readers?” the wild man screams, in exasperation.

“We know,” one of them replies. “But what do you expect us to do about it? Someone will take care oi it.”

Another newspaper reader says, “I haven’t read anything about it in my newspaper, or heard anything about it on my television stations.”

“Of course not, John,” another cajoles. “Look at the newspapers you read and the television stations you watch.”

Another man, a thoughtful-looking gentleman, declaims, “You’re right. Something is going on. We ought to launch an investigation to see who started the fire.”

A teenager, sitting with her parents at the cafe, leaps to her feet and shouts out, “We know who started the fire, and who the arsonists are who have been pouring gasoline on it!”

“In this town,” the wild man screams, “we have a volunteer fire department. You are all members of our volunteer fire department.”

“Don’t get so excited,”a senior member of the group rejoins. Someone will take care of it.”

“The alarm bell at the fire department hasn’t even rung,” says another.

“Who disarmed the bell?” the teenager shouts out, as she is ignored.

“The wild man, with growing terror in his eyes, screams, “Our democratic town will be destroyed if we don’t act to save it!”

“Go on, get out of here. You are disturbing our morning coffee,” one man yells back, as other coffee drinkers join in. “Yes, go on, get out of here. You’re disturbing out morning coffee.”

The screaming man yells, “The whole town is on fire, and half of its citizens are pouring gasoline on the fire!”

***

One might ask, “Does this parable have anything to do with current politics or democracy in America?”

One associates to Katherine Anne Porter’s brilliant novel, Ship of Fools (1962)–made into a movie of the same name in 1965. In the final scene of the movie, the protagonist, a dwarf, is watching the other passengers get off the ship, including those who had argued vociferously in the movie in defense of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.

Looking directly into the camera, he says, “You are thinking,”What does Thia all have to do with us?”He then says, “Nothing” Puffing on his cigar,he turns and walks out of the station.
The movie ends.

The Trenchant Observer

Merry Christmas! The last Christmas before Crazy. The last Christmas without an apparent Russian Asset in the White House. The last Christmas before the billionaires’ unchecked rule. The last Christmas before the Unknown.

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“Merrily we roll along, We are safe now, safe in the hands of Donald Trump and the billionaires. Antitrust is out. Arbitrary rule is in.

We have a president, who surely briefed on the contents of the House Ethics Committee Report, proceeded to nominate Matt Gaetz to be Attorney General of the United States. With the full support of Elon Musk.

Merrily we roll along. But what can we expect?

We can expect a lot of controversies, a lot of distractions from the serious business of government and the proper management of international affairs.

What will happen in Ukraine? Who cares?

Merrily we roll along.

Netanyahu and Israel, if they agree to a ceasefire in Gaza, won’t do so until after Trump takes office on January 20, 2025. In the meantime, for Israel Gaza will remain pretty much a free-fire zone, as it occupies Syrian territory in open defiance of international law.

Who cares.

What will the Russians exact from Trump? Will Elon Musk, deeply enmeshed in business in China, moderate Trump’s policies toward that country?

How long will the two biggest alpha males on the planet continue to work harmoniously with each other?

How does Trump like people calling Elon President Musk?

Both men strive to always be the center of attention. How will that work out?

The president-elect, knowing the contents of ahe House Ethics Committee Report on Matt Gaetz, nominated Gaetz to be Attorney General of the United States.

Think about that for a minute.

Then we can all join the dance and song, as “Merrily we roll along”.

What could possibly go wrong?

Democracy v. the billionaires, tyrants, and time

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With their Trumpist conquest of the government and the political and information systems, they will be hard to dislodge,

It’s really a race against time. Will the people reassert their power before the institutions of democracy and their means of doing so peacefully are dismantled?

It is a worldwide struggle. America is the stronghold of the billionaires and the wealthy, of those with the money to buy the technology that can help defend their positions and to advance toward their goal of tyrannical or oligarchical control?

Dec. 10, 2024

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The Gleichschaltung of Big Tech in Trump’s America

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BACKGROUND

1) Keren Lentschner et Lucas Mediavilla, “De Bezos à Zuckerberg, l’allégeance très calculée des grands patrons de la tech envers Donald Trump; RÉCIT – Les dirigeants des Gafam montrent patte blanche au président élu. Une illustration de l’espoir dans la vague de dérégulation promise par Donald Trump, tout autant que la crainte de représailles de la part du président ou de son vice-président officieux, Elon Musk,” Le Figaro, le 14 décembre 2024 (18h00);

2) Keren Lentschner and Lucas Mediavilla,”From Bezos to Zuckerberg, the highly calculated allegiance of the big tech bosses towards Donald Trump; The leaders of the Gafam show a white paw to the president-elect. An illustration of hope in the wave of deregulation promised by Donald Trump, as well as the fear of reprisals from the president or his unofficial vice-president, Elon Musk,” Le Figaro, December 14, 2024 (6:00 pm);