War termination and the “will to fight”

The Bulwark is a bit hard to characterize. They have some decent content. I would describe it as taking a Never Trumper position while wishing they could just be straightforward neocon hawks. When they started up in 2019 they drew on a lot of the former writers from The Weekly Standard. Jennifer Rubin wrote about its founding in a 2010 column in which she noted some of the “familiar faces” there: professional warmonger Butcher’s Bill Kristol, Charlie Sykes, Jim Swift and Janathan Last. (1)

I’m all for Never Trumpists supporting pro-democracy Democrats. But it reminds me a bit of the post-World War II former-Communists-turned-rightwingers whose pitch was: “I used to be a horrible person who was ready to lie, steal, kill, and commit all sorts of treason, so now that I’ve switched sides you should put particular trust in what I say because now I’m a total Good Guy.”

The imagined virtuous pre-Trump Republican Party was led in the 1950s by Dwight Eisenhower, who had some bad ideas of his own but who was a raving left-liberal in comparison to the Trumpified Republican Party of 2026. The liberal/conservative divides in those days cut across Republican and Democratic Party lines. But that hasn’t been true for a long time, though of course there are still some occasional crossovers – more often Democrats finking out to support Republicans’ conservative positions. For example, Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema blocking Senate approval of the John L. Lewis Voting Rights Act in 2022.

But the heads of the Republican Party since Eisenhower have included segregation supporter Barry Goldwater, Dick Nixon, Gerald Ford who pardoned Dick Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Old Man Bush, Shrub Bush (with Dark Lord Dick Cheney in tow), and now Donald Trump. The road to Trumpism was paved by Watergate, the Nixon pardon, Reagan’s Iran-Contra caper (and the “October Surprise” deal with Iran in 1980, the “Gingrich Revolution” and the hysteria over the “Whitewater” pseudo-scandals.

Brynn Tannehill did a piece this week for The Bulwark that is basically a cheerleading pitch for the Ukrainians in the current war in the form of an all-you-Russians-bound-to-lose argument. The gist of her piece is this:

For years, casual and expert observers alike assumed that if one of the armies in Ukraine were to collapse—to suddenly lose the wherewithal to fight - it would be the Ukrainians. But now it seems more likely to be the Russians. And that’s no accident, as it appears the Ukrainians’ theory of victory is not that they will drive the Russians from their land in great, sweeping offensives like those of late 2022 but that they will break the Russian army’s back by attacking its logistics, its manpower, and its will to fight. [my emphasis] (2)

It’s worth remembering what the concept of “will to fight” means in the military context. In polemics over a particular war, it’s often used to mean something like patriotic fervor or enthusiasm in cheering for the home team.

It actually means something more specific and more prosaic. At some point in every war, One or both sides decide that continuing the war is more costly than ending it. That is not usually an unconditional surrender like Germany in the Second World War. And usually not the complete collapse or disintegration of one side’s government. It’s one or both sides deciding it’s not worth in lives, treasure, and/or territory to keep on with the war.

Whether that’s a good or bad decision, or whether it was made through an adequate decision-making process, are different questions. And while subjective support and enthusiasm for the war is part of those decisions, the will to fight in war is about conscious cost-benefit decisions on both sides. It’s not primarily about team spirit or personal grit.

Tannehill offers as a grand historical lesson that “history teaches that as long as a country has the will to continue to fight, it will find a way to do so until it either loses the will or fighting becomes materially impossible.” Those lessons that History teaches, though, often require a good bit of reflection and inspection to see what they are, much less how to apply them. Those two elements she names there are also not two distinct things. If fighting becomes materially impossible, one side can decide to go Masada and commit suicide rather than surrender. But those cases are real outliers in actual wars.

She offers four historical lessons as boosting her outlook that Ukraine has the advantage in the war and that the Russians are more likely to go soft and lose the “will to fight.”

One example: The German Army in 1918. Her quickie summary is this:

Exhausted and demoralized German troops faced hordes of fresh Americans who brought the industrial and agricultural capacity of the United States with them. After four fruitless years of fighting in France, German troops began surrendering at the Battle of Amiens in August 1918, believing that the war was lost, and the quickest way to end it and live was to capitulate.

This looks like a soft version of the infamous stab-in-the-back theory that wound up playing such a toxic role in the politics of Weimar Germany. The two main military leaders were Erich Ludendorrf and Paul von Hindenburg. They persuaded Kaiser Bill to flee Germany and hand the government over to the Social Democratic Party so they could make the SPD the scapegoats for their loss. The SPD leaders could have played their role more adroitly, but that’s a bigger story. Ludendorrf went on to participate Hitler’s failed 1923 “Beer Hall Putsch” in Munich. Hindenburg was elected as President of Germany and it was he who appointed Hitler as Chancellor in 1933.

The fact was that the German army and political leaders knew the war was lost and made a rational decision to surrender based on their military situation and prospects. How well the victorious allies handled the peace negotiations is a whole different story. But the surrender was not the result of treacherous commies wrecking the government as the stab-in-the-back theory framed it.

Second World War Burma Campaign

She uses the 1944 defeat of the Japanese army Burma (now Myanmar) as another example. This one seems an odd choice because her own description of it describes it as a defeat that different planning and execution by the Japanese Army might have averted. Not as a case where weak-willed, sissy leaders panicked and ran from a fight they could have won.

This was also a case in which Japan was fighting to retain its occupation of the British colony of Burma, not one that directly involved the Japanese homeland.

South Vietnamese Army in 1975

The United States was actively involved in the war of South Vietnam against the Communist government in the north. For ten years or more, depending on when you start the count. This was famously a situation in which the US won every battle and lost the war. Here she repeats the Republicans’ stab-in-the-back version of the war’s end for the US, which Henry Kissinger persuaded President Ford and the Republicans to set up. “Despite pleas from the South Vietnamese government, the United States refused to intervene. North Vietnamese troops retained the support of China and the Soviet Union.”

This is the concept of “will to fight” that Republican and neocon hawks favor. The folks at the fervently pro-war neocon think-tank, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) and likeminded hawks love the Munich Analogy, in which a feckless Neville Chamberlain had a testosterone contest with Adolf Hitler in their 1938 negotiations, and Chamberlain chickened out in the face of Hitler’s mighty macho presence. Sadly, this is the canonical version of the Munich story, which manages to miss pretty much everything important that made the Munich Agreement a bad deal. (3)

Another favorite testosterone tale is the one during the Cuban Missile Crisis at a critical moment when Secretary of State Dean Rusk said, “We’re eyeball-to-eyeball, and I think he other fellow just blinked.” That was a crisis that was resolved with creative and difficult diplomacy in the middle of a military standoff and dang near triggered a nuclear war between the US and the Soviet Union. It was not solved by a staring contest. And here the outcome was less a matter of the “will to fight” on either side buts rather of having the brains and the will to avoid a nuclear war. Fidel Castro was initially angry with the Soviet for pulling out the nuclear missiles, although he later conceded that it was a better outcome than what might have happened if it hadn’t been resolved in the way it was.

In the case of the Vietnam War, the Americans had the will to fight for years, even though it was a bad idea to enter the conflict directly in the way they did. In the end, after all those years of “winning,” they made the rational decision to stop stringing out their participation in a war they knew they had lost. (Neocon ideologues notwithstanding!) And the South Vietnamese leadership decided – whatever their testosterone levels - not to keep fighting in a war they were clearly losing and had no plausible path to avoiding that defeat. In the last sentence

Tannehill closing comment on Vietnam carefully concedes that the South Vietnamese regime never was able to convince its own people that it had the nationalist legitimacy that the regime in the North achieved – but she still blames the loss on wimpy, stab-in-the-back US Congressional Democrats.

Russian Army in 1917

The case she cites first of all is the strangest of her four examples. She kinda-sorta tries to make this another stab-in-the-back case, in this case the Bolsheviks being the backstabbers. In her account, Czar Nicholas was doing a bad job of running the war (which Imperial Germany had started), and so did the interim regime of Alexander Karensky. She says that the Kerensky Offensive of mid-1917, “Russian soldiers lost all faith and quit fighting en masse.”

But she (of course) blames Lenin’s new Communist government for this particular loss-of-will-to-fight. They agreed to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in December 1917, which surrendered “huge swaths of [Russia] land and people to the Germans and all but ending the war in the east.” Which is true.

But the new government then prosecuted the Civil War of 1918-20, which resulted in as many as 10 civilian lives lost in fighting and other side-effects of the war. The Civil War including fighting Ukraine, Poland and Czechoslovakians. There were also interventions by the Allies, including Britain, France, and the US, who wanted to force Russia back into the war against Germany – and were obviously not happy about having a Communist government in Russia. “As many as 10 million lives were lost as a result of the Russian Civil War.” (4)

The relevant point here is that Lenin’s government made big territorial concessions at Brest- Litovsk, not because of testosterone deficiencies in their leaders, but rather based on their assessment of what were the practical possibilities for keeping the revolutionary government in power and getting out of the war against Germany. The new Russian government pulled out of the Czarist government’s war based on a practical assessment of their military capabilities. But based on the experience of the Civil War, that was not because of psychological loss of their subjective “will to fight.”

Here is an hour-long documentary on the Russian Civil narrated by British military historian Antony Beevor provided by the Jerry Ford Presidential Foundation, so it’s safe to assume it’s not a leftie take on the situation. (See the cited Britannica article for a non-polemical version. (5)

Notes:

(1) Rubin, Jennifer (2019): A bulwark against Trump and Trumpism. Washington Post 01/08/2026. <https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/08/bulwark-against-trump-trumpianism/> (Accessed: 20026-10-06).

(2) Tannehill, Brynn (2026): What a Russian Army Collapse Might Look Like. The Bulwark 06/08/2026. <https://www.thebulwark.com/p/what-a-russian-army-collapse-might-look-like-ukraine-drones-logistics-war-ukraine-zelensky-putin> (Accessed: 2026-10-06).

(3) Jeffrey Record offers a very good, reality-based account in: The Specter of Munich: Reconsidering the Lessons of Appeasing Hitler (2007). Washington: Potomac Books.

(4) Britannica Editors (2026): Russian Civil War. Encyclopedia Britannica, 06/01/2026. <https://www.britannica.com/event/Russian-Civil-War> (Accessed:2026-11-06).

(5) Russia: Revolution and Civil War with Sir Antony Beevor. Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation YouTube channel 10/11/2026. <https://youtu.be/WbGz2x_v1ho?si=hF-CwNkQ9gKWhWgP> (Accessed:2026-11-06).

Zelenskyy’s new proposals for ceasefire talks with Russia

In the long and continuing Russia-Ukraine War, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently issued a new proposal for negotiations, proposing a face-to-face meeting with Vladimir Putin. (“Volodymyr” is the Ukrainian version of the “Russian Vladimir”.)

It’s not hard to imagine that both Vladimir’s are sick of the clown-show diplomacy of Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. Although it seems to have worked better for Putin’s purposes than for Zelenskyy’s. Still, ultra-amateur diplomacy is the last thing this situation needed. (Which is even more true for the current Iran War!)

The BBC summarizes the current position of the two countries on territorial issues:

Putin's longstanding position has been that Ukraine should withdraw from four regions largely occupied by Russia - Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia - and give up its efforts to join Nato.

Ukraine has ruled out ceding territory, saying it would embolden Russia to invade again, as it had in 2022 when it launched its full-scale war eight years after illegally annexing Crimea. (1)

And the BBC report notes:

Putin's longstanding position has been that Ukraine should withdraw from four regions largely occupied by Russia - Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia - and give up its efforts to join Nato.

Ukraine has ruled out ceding territory, saying it would embolden Russia to invade again, as it had in 2022 when it launched its full-scale war eight years after illegally annexing Crimea.

Ceasefire negotiations have stalled in recent months, while previous peace talks in Geneva, Abu Dhabi and Istanbul have failed.

It’s a bit surprising that the BBC report didn’t mention Crimea there. In current international law, Crimea (seized by Russia in 2014), Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are Ukraine’s territory. The Russia position that they have officially incorporated Crimea and parts of the other four oblasts into Russia proper is not valid in international law and has never been recognized by Ukraine as valid.

Oleksandr Kyselov, a left-leaning Ukrainian from the Donetsk oblast (province) and currently of Uppsala University in Sweden, provided a helpful context this past December for what geographical issues that would be involved in a settlement of the current war. He was reacting to a particular peace proposal put forward by Russia last November 21.

Precedents exist for lasting ceasefires even when underlying territorial claims remained unresolved - Cyprus since 1974, Korea since 1953, Kashmir since 1972. But Cyprus has United Nations peacekeepers and foreign troops on both sides. Korea has one of the world’s most militarized borders. Kashmir sees regular outbreaks of violence, prevented from full war only by nuclear deterrence. None offers templates for sustainable peace in Ukraine fitting the deals discussed. [my emphasis] (2)

The Crimea problem(s)

Crimea has the most important port for the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Russia’s involvement in Crimea is also not new. Russia officially annexed the peninsula 1783. The Crimean War of 1853-1856 was, as the name suggests, was a war with Britian and France against Russia over control of Crimea. Two Ukrainian experts, Alina Frolova and Stepan Yakymiak, write for the Carnegie Institute:

Moscow’s determination to dominate the Black Sea runs deep in its strategic culture.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of 2022 aimed not only to seize Ukrainian land but also to reimpose its dominance at sea. Its initial war plans foresaw a rapid occupation of Ukraine’s coastline, including the critical port cities of Odesa and Mykolaiv. If it had succeeded in that, Moscow would have been able to restore much of its Cold War-era control over the Black Sea, strangle Ukraine’s economy, and use control over the flow of food and energy for coercion. The world learned in 2022 that Ukraine is vital to global food security. Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports triggered a surge in grain prices, placing millions—particularly in Africa and the Middle East—at risk of hunger until a UN-brokered agreement, and later Ukraine’s military power, prompted Moscow to retreat. [my emphasis] (3)

But Russia’s ability to use Crimea to produce a military advantage in the Black Sea has also been inhibited by Ukrainian drones and missiles in the current war. So at the moment, Crimea is not a critical to Russia’s power position as it seemed before the war. But that does not mean that Russia is inclined to cede it back to Ukraine. The current state of drone technology may have far-reaching effects on naval strategies and types of vessels used.

Frolova’s and Yakymiak’s position doesn’t seem to anticipate a harmonious resolution of the Crimea issue anytime soon:

The only way to achieve lasting peace and security in the Black Sea, therefore, is to ensure that Russia’s naval capabilities are not just degraded temporarily but kept structurally paralyzed. …

Ukraine’s primary objective in the Black Sea, working alongside its partners, should be the preservation of the current balance of power. But consolidating this achievement demands long-term commitment: scaling up Ukraine’s maritime strike capacity, institutionalizing the support of its coalition of partners, and integrating Black Sea security into NATO and EU frameworks. In other words, the Black Sea will remain insecure until Russia’s fleet ceases to be able to function as an offensive force. That is the starting point from which any serious strategy must proceed.

I think it’s safe to say that if Russia’s leaders think that is the goal Western powers include Ukraine are pursuing, it could be a very long time before the control of Crimea is resolved in any way acceptable to both Ukraine and to Russia!

Türkiye is also a key player on Black Sea security matters and has also focused on restricting Russia naval power there. Countries bordering on the Black Sea include Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine (even without Crimea) Russia, Georgia, and Türkiye. So the Crimea issues involves much more than just Ukraine and Russia agreeing on new boundary markers.

2014 Black Sea Map from Encyclopedia Britannica:

The occupied eastern Ukrainian oblasts

Zelenskyy’s new offer for talks at least hints that there could be a longterm ceasefire like those Oleksandr Kyselov cites for Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. On the surface, there seems to be a lot to be said for such an arrangement. Although the three examples Kyselov cites involve frozen conflicts that have lasted since 1953, 1972 and 1974. So a settlement along those lines could mean in practice something that would look to those directly affected a lot like a permanent settlement. The example of China and Taiwan, divided since the end of the Second World War, is on an even longer timeline.

At the very least, a stable and protracted ceasefire could give both sides a chance to begin removing the massive number of landmines and other unexploded ordinance on both sides of the conflict lines there. It could also offer a chance to resolve the heartbreaking issues of the many Ukrainian children illegally deported by Russia, many of them given to Russian families for adoption. And it would allow war refugees to return to their homes if they want to do so – although in many cases their actual homes may no longer exist.

A key issue for Ukraine of their 50-meter-long “fortress belt” in Donetsk. A 2025 analysis from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) describes the importance of that part of Donetsk – still controlled by Ukraine – as a key defensive position for any new military drive on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv by Russian forces. The ISW report discusses them in the context of proposals Russia had on the table at the time of the report:

The surrender of the rest of Donetsk Oblast as the prerequisite of a ceasefire with no commitment to a final peace settlement ending the war would force Ukraine to abandon its "fortress belt," the main fortified defensive line in Donetsk Oblast since 2014, with no guarantee that fighting will not resume. Putin's reported proposal reportedly demands that Ukraine concede this critical defensive position, which Russian forces currently have no means of rapidly enveloping or penetrating, apparently in exchange for nothing. (4)

John Mearsheimer describes the current context of the war is that Russia is winning in the war of attrition and advancing slowly, but advancing. He doesn’t see much credibility in claims that Putin is facing critical challenges politically because of the Russian economy or claims that the occasional drone attacks by Ukraine deep inside Russia are putting huge new political pressure on Putin to end the war. (5)

Scott Lucas is a good analyst of American diplomacy and on Trump’s regime generally. But He’s a bit too starry-eyed on things like the Ukrainian strikes inside Russia. It’s not that Ukraine isn’t successful in hitting some strategic economic infrastructure targets. But it’s hard to imagine that those are having any large economic effect on Russia’s industrial capabilities, especially in comparison to using those attacks for tactical operations on the Russian forces on the border. But Lucas also comments that he thinks Zelenskyy is seeking a ceasefire in place now. (6)

At this stage, a prolonged ceasefire along the current front lines is likely the very best Ukraine can do. There’s a good argument that it also makes sense for Russia, and Mearsheimer gives the impression that there is some possibility to Putin’s government will see it that way. He recent suggest that Zelenskyy’s current optimistic rhetoric would be a good way for Zelenskyy to spin the results if Russia should agree to a stable ceasefire-in-place. But that would be a best-we-can-do type settlement from Ukraine’s viewpoint. And the Russian government may decide that maintaining something like the current position with sporadic rounds of fighting without a ceasefire is a preferable position.

The Ukraine-can’t-join-NATO demand is sounding a little obsolescent these days, since the European allies and even Canada are scrambling to find alternative military-defense commitments and arrangement now that they can no longer count on the US in anything like the way they could pre-2025. But if Putin wants to do a deal, he probably could convince Trump to make some kind of pledge that the US would veto any Ukrainian bid for membership.

Still, a firm agreement with he US on sanctions relief would be a likely thing for Russia to demand in a major ceasefire agreement. And that would require the US to conduct something more like actual diplomacy than the current Kushner-Witkoff Laurel-and-Hardy act.

Jared and Steve prepare for their next round of negotiations with Russia

Notes:

(1) Shevchenko, Mann, Toby (2026): Zelensky proposes face-to-face talks in open letter to Putin. BBC News 2026-05-06). <https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy2ypyp4x4o> Accessed: 2026-09-04).

(2) Kyselov, Oleksandr (2025): Ukraine Faces an Imperial Carve-Up. Jacobin 2025-04-12. <https://jacobin.com/2025/12/ukraine-russia-war-concessions-trump> (Accessed : 2026-09-06).

(3) Frolova, Alina & Yakymiak, Stepan (2026): The Changing Military Balance in the Black Sea: A Ukrainian Perspective. Carnegie Institute 04/02/2026. <https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/research/2026/04/the-changing-military-balance-in-the-black-sea-a-ukrainian-perspective> (Accessed: 2026-09-06).

(4) Ukraine’s Fortress Belt in Donetsk Oblast ISW 12-Aug-2025. <https://understandingwar.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/The20Critical20Importance20of20UkraineE28099s20Fortress20Belt20in20Donetsk2C20August20122C2020252C20final20PDF.pdf> (Accessed: 2026-09-06).

(5) Prof. John Mearsheimer: Why Ukraine Will Lose. Judge Napolitano YouTube channel 06/09/2026. (5) <https://www.youtube.com/live/XtINoZon8as?si=4labuv1wjoCc5u4g> (Accessed: 2026-09-06).

(6) Why Ukraine's Show of Strength in St. Petersburg Matters. Scott Lucas Worldview YouTube channel06/09/2026. <https://youtu.be/iFOfGT-f1iQ?si=ZjJh0c90Qh4pTjnX> (Accessed: 2026-09-06).

The latest escalation in the Iran War

I’ve been around for several US wars. But at least from today’s perspective, it seems as if in earlier wars there was a plausible off-ramp that even Republicans could reasonably see as a plausible option.

In the current Iran War, the only option the US has to limit the growing catastrophe is to cut off all military aid to Israel until they agree to an enforceable peace treaty with Iran. And it seems completely unrealistic to expect the Republican Party to demand or even accept such a thing. And it seems at this point impossible to imagine the incompetent and seriously mentally impaired Donald Trump doing it as long as he’s President.

Another two and a half years of a Middle East policy of the kind we’ve had since Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu initiated their war of aggression against Iran on February 28 will have seriously catastrophic consequences for the entire world economy. And we’re now on the verge of having Middle East oil production capability radically reduced, with Saudi Arabia, Iran, and numerous other major oil producers looking at radical damage to their oil infrastructure.

We’re on the verge of things becoming so bad that even the chances for insider traders to reap weekly financial windfalls may be drastically curtailed. (Patrick Wintour, Guardian)

Israel launched airstrikes early on Monday targeting central and western Iran in response to missile fire from Tehran, attacks that threatened to drag the wider Middle East back into a regional war.

Iranian state TV reported the sound of explosions being heard in the cities of Isfahan, Karaj, Tabriz and Tehran. A witness in Tehran described hearing at least one large blast somewhere to the west of the capital.

Iran closed the airspace around Tehran’s Imam Khomeini international airport – the main airfield in the country – after the Israeli attack.

Multiple explosions were heard over Jerusalem later on Monday as Israel said a new wave of Iranian missiles was incoming. The Israeli military said it “identified missiles launched from Iran” and was working to intercept the threat. (Guardian)

Iran has said that any US or Israeli strikes on major Iranian oil infrastructure would be met with attacks against oil infrastructure of other US Middle East allies. They have also threatened to attack desalinization plants, which those countries depend upon for potable water. That would be a war crime on Iran’s part, but it doesn’t mean they want do it. Which could be seriously catastrophic for the countries affected. As David Michel wrote during the first month of the current war:

The economies of the Persian Gulf countries depend on oil and natural gas. Their populations depend on desalinated water. Nature endows the Arabian Peninsula with scant freshwater resources. Consequently, all of the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations lining the Gulf’s southern shores critically rely on desalination plants drawing seawater from the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. The war on Iran that began on February 28 puts these essential water systems at risk. Desalination facilities in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) suffered indirect damage from missile and drone strikes early in the conflict. Subsequently, plants in Bahrain and Iran have reportedly been intentionally attacked. Deliberate targeting of desalination infrastructure would represent a significant conflict escalation, potentially threatening vital water supplies for millions of people across the region. (1)

On the American side, this mess is the result of years of the US Republican Party indulging the politics of crackpots and bigots like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.

Reckless warmongering has left the world economy is a bad place, as Politico reports: (2)

Did the year 1989 actually happen, when it seemed practically possible to reduce preparations for wars and develop a much more peaceful world?

Simon Tisdall resorts to a sports analogy – which is at least better than talking about who “holds the cards”:

There are visionary statesmen and high-minded negotiators, pragmatic mediators and professional diplomats – and then there are meddling fools. As ceasefires implode, vast numbers of civilians die or flee, and wars Donald Trump started, fuelled or pledged to resolve rage unchecked, there’s no doubt which category he belongs to. In baseball parlance, in Ukraine, Iran-Lebanon and Israel-Palestine, Trump is “0 for 3”. He boasted he alone could cut deals and bring peace. He’s delivered neither. In striking out, he mostly makes matters worse. [my emphasis] (3)

If anyone is interested in seeing Trump’s Meet the Press meltdown from Sunday, it’s available on YouTube. Weirdly, it was held in a location where rain on the roof is very loud during the interview.

Notes:

(1) Michel, David (2026): Could Iran Disrupt the Gulf Countries’ Desalinated Water Supplies? CSIS 03/19/2026. <https://www.csis.org/analysis/could-iran-disrupt-gulf-countries-desalinated-water-supplies> (Accessed: 2026-08-06).

(2) Politico EU 06/05/2026. <https://www.politico.eu/article/global-shipping-industry-prepares-for-permanent-disruption/> (Accessed: 2026-08-06).

Tisdall, Simon (2026): Trump’s failure to maintain ceasefires is part of the new world disorder – and ordinary people pay the price. Guardian 06/07/2026. <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/07/donald-trump-ceasefire-failure-ukraine-iran-gaza-lebanon-gaza> (Accessed: 2026-08-06).

J.D. Vance and the Nationalist International, British edition

J.D. Vance, Vice President, Opus Dei supporter and fan of theocratic “Catholic integralism”, has joined in with British far rightists to use the stabbing death of a young British man named Henry Nowak to stoke xenophobia. Because that’s what rightwing demagogues do.

A Sikh man named Vickrum Digwa has already been convicted of the murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Scott Lucas discusses this case and American Trumpists’ influence on far-right, anti-democracy British politicians and activists. (1)

Jamie Grierson reports on the case and its aftermath. From her report, it appears clear that a Sikh man named Vickrum Digwa fatally stabbed Nowak without justification in December 2025. And, as just mentioned, Digwa was found guiltry in a court trial of the murder.

Police arriving on the scene immediately after the stabbing, in a tragic and grotesque turn, arrested Nowak and ignored his stab wounds and basically let him bleed out in their custody.

After Digwa was jailed, Nowak’s father, Mark Nowak, condemned the “inhumane and degrading” treatment of his son by police, but said: “We do not want his death to be used to create further division, hatred or tension. We want his story to help make our streets safer for everyone.”

However, some high-profile rightwingers seized upon the case. Among them was Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of the social media platform X, who posted repeatedly about Nowak’s treatment, including claims that official police policy required officers to be “racist against whites”. Musk also reposted commentary on the case from far-right agitators including the UK’s Tommy Robinson.

The US vice-president, JD Vance, claimed on Friday that mass migration was to blame for Nowak’s murder. He said Nowak would be alive “if the last few generations of European elites had stood their ground against the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants, many of whom despise the west and the people who love it”. [my emphasis] (2)

This is another instance of the current Nationalist International of far-right parties and groups at work. The report also goes into a longer history of mutual British and American efforts to influence each others’ politics, including in the days of the original America First movement.

Grierson reports, “The Independent Office for Police Conduct, a watchdog that deals with police complaints and investigates deaths after police contact, is investigating how the police officers involved handled Nowak’s arrest. It is expected to report back in three months.“ But that hasn’t stopped wretched characters like J.D. Vance and Nigel Farage, the creepy head of Britain’s Reform UK party. Le Monde reports:

British leader Keir Starmer said on Wednesday, June 3, there was "no justification" for violence after protesters clashed with police in a demonstration against officers' handling of the murder of a white student by a Sikh man. The prime minister branded as "unforgivable" calls by hard-right firebrand Nigel Farage for people to respond with "pure cold rage" to the death of 18-year-old Henry Nowak – a murder that has become highly politicized in the UK. ...

Two people were arrested late on Tuesday during a protest led by far-right figures that turned violent, despite pleas from Nowak's father that his son's murder should not be used "to create further division, hatred or tension." Eleven police officers were injured during the demonstration in Southampton, which saw around 100 protesters pull apart garden fences, throw bricks, flares and chairs, and roll a flaming bin at police. Officers responded with a spray on demonstrators and hit them with riot shields. [my emphasis]

The British family singing group, the Marsh Family, who do brilliant satirical songs, has done one about Opus Dei Vance’s intervention in the politics of the case, “Bile and Lies”: (4)

A Greg Bovino footnote

Greg Bovino, until recently head of US Customs and Border Patrol (CPB), just attended a meeting of hard-right European nationalists and xenophobes. The idea of a “Nationalist International” is a bizarre concept. But there actually is such a thing in practice if not in name. (4)

Bovino in an interview before the conference called World War II German general Ernst Rommel one of his inspirations. Rommel is considered to have been a capable general, as shown by the number of British and American soldiers his forces killed.

Rommel was at least marginally involved in the 1944 assassination attempt against Hitler - which is now celebrated in Germany history as a patriotic and justified act of resistance - and Rommel committed suicide to avoid being arrested and executed after the attempt failed.

The intensive US bombing campaign against Iraq in 1998 was officially designated as "Operation Desert Fox", which was famously the nickname of Ernst Rommel. Whatever credit Rommel deserves for his part in the 1944 plot, naming an American military campaign after one of Hitler's most important generals was just bizarre.

Notes:

(1) J.D. Vance Exploits A Murder to Undermine UK Government. Scott Lucas Worldview YouTube channel 06/07/2026. <https://youtu.be/pigPXeFG04M?si=dI73FVzx7Bd3wYPI> (Accessed; 2026-07-06).

(2) Grierson, Jamie (2026): How Britain was rocked by Henry Nowak’s murder – and why the US intervened. Guardian 06/05/2026. (Accessed: 2026-07-06).

(3) UK PM slams violence outbreaks after footage shows dying stabbing victim handcuffed by police, Le Monde/AFP. <https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2026/06/03/outrage-grows-in-britain-after-footage-shows-dying-stabbing-victim-handcuffed-by-police_6754067_4.html> (Accessed; 2026-07-06).

(4) (3) "Bile and Lies" - Marsh Family parody of The Eagles "Lyin' Eyes" about JD Vance views on Henry Nowak. Marsh Family YouTube channel 06/06/2026. <https://youtu.be/2J95CTmZUUM?si=nMs49kxF0jQh0jEC> (Accessed; 2026-07-06).

(5) Far-Right Leaders, Including Ex-CBP Chief Greg Bovino, Convene in Portugal for "Remigration Summit." Democracy Now! YouTube channel 06/04/2026. <https://youtu.be/YJM7iLg1KFc?si=TU8EEUB1RtyjX8Up> (Accessed; 2026-07-06).

More on military Keynesianism in Russia

Following up on my recent post on military Keynesianism in Russia during the current war with Ukraine, there is an analysis from Seva Gunitsky and Jeremy Morris on that same topic:

The Kremlin has made the war the central organizing principle of social and economic life, and the Russian state has been transformed by the war in turn. The country’s shadow economy, labor markets, regional budgets, social hierarchies, and political incentives have all been reordered around the conflict. In the process, the war has produced a self-sustaining institutional and economic order that constrains even Putin. Russia’s fiscal and industrial base has become structurally dependent on military spending, so much so that entire regions and sectors cannot survive without it. Combat pay and expanded defense wages have given millions of Russians in depressed regions their first real income gains in years. [my emphasis] (1)

That particular construction seems to be hinting that Russia’s survival depends on sustaining the current level of military spending. The article by Michael Krätke that I cited in the previous post implied that the current level of military spending is damaging the Russian economy because it is diverting so many resources from the civilian economy.

Gunitsky and Morris emphasize a very different claim:

Russia’s fiscal and industrial base has become structurally dependent on military spending, so much so that entire regions and sectors cannot survive without it. Combat pay and expanded defense wages have given millions of Russians in depressed regions their first real income gains in years. [my emphasis]

A big emphasis of the neoconservative anti-Russia fixation has been on the idea that keeping Russia in a long war would severely damage Russia and help unseat the Putin government. This argument builds on the background of the common but very flawed assumption that the Soviet Union’s war in Afghanistan caused the collapse of the USSR, or at least contributed mightily too it: an assumption that relies considerably on imagination.

They elaborate on the argument this way:

Contrary to popular belief, most Russians have not benefited from the invasion. It is true that as the defense budget tripled over the first two years of conflict, the Russian economy grew and wages rose. But what looks like wartime prosperity is what the geographer Natalia Zubarevich calls the “law of small numbers”: percentage gains that seem impressive only because the starting point is so low.

The argument seems to be that the Russian economy has become incredibly dependent on high military spending that raised wages and stimulated the economy – but this apparently benefitted approximately nobody except Russian plutocrats. 

They also make a head-scratcher argument that Russia has been quite successful in evading external sanctions on importing consumer goods during the war by relying on smuggling networks. Apparently quite successfully, according to them. “The Russian government also tolerates outright smuggling in order to help the economy fill gaps that domestic production cannot meet. Entire sectors of retail have gone gray with the state’s tacit blessing, since the alternative is empty shelves and political trouble,” they write. They frame this as though it shows how badly Russia manages its economy. How successfully evading foreign sanctions is a bad thing from Russians’ viewpoint is, well, hard to understand!

The following argument makes sense if we accept the lazy assumption that the war in Afghanistan destroyed the USSR’s economy:

The wartime economy is difficult to structurally dismantle in other ways, as well. Defense and security spending now accounts for around 40 percent of all federal expenditure, an unprecedented level in Russian history and likely higher than even during Soviet-era militarization in the 1970s and 1980s. The number of enterprises in Russia’s military-industrial complex has roughly tripled since the invasion, and these firms now employ around four and a half million people. War-related manufacturing grew by 20 percent in 2025 alone.

Michael Krätke rightly pointed to the fact that an equivalent amount of government stimulus channeled into civilian spending would be more effective in boosting the economy than the military spending. Gunitsky and Morris are so focused on the concept that the Russian economy is doomed to disaster no matter what that it sounds more like cheerleading for Russian failure than a realistic analysis of its war economy.

But for the latter, the focus seems to be on polemics, based on shaky assumptions going back to the idea that the Afghanistan War destroyed the Soviet Union.

This discussion from British Channel 4 from November deals with Russia’s war economy: (2)

Notes:

(1) Gunitsky, Seva & Morris, Jeremy (2026): The Inertia of Russia’s War: Why Putin Can’t End the Conflict. Foreign Affairs 06/03/2026. <https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russia/inertia-russias-war> (Accessed: 2026-05-06).

(2) Booming or breaking? The truth about Russia’s war economy. Channel 4 News YouTube channel 11/207/2025. <https://youtu.be/qg5PWLfvlJw?si=HqLxpsYNnNt1Kcy1> (Accessed: 2026-05-06).

Confusingly multiple truths on the Ukraine-Russia War (Includinng Ukrainian Nazis and Russia's war economy)

The Russia-Ukraine War that’s been going on since 2022 has often been a reminder of the banal observation that “multiple things can be true at once.”

It can be true (and is) that the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 by Russia, Ukraine, the UK and the US that committed Ukraine to give up its legacy nuclear weapons included a pledge by the parties to respect Ukraine’s national sovereignty. It can also be true (and is) that there were no mutual defense commitments by the parties in the event that one party did violate Ukraine’s national sovereignty. (1)

It can be true (and is) that when Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and incorporated it into Russia it was violating the 1994 Budapest Memorandum and international law against invading another country. It can also be true (and is) that Crimea was the key base for the Russian Black Sea fleet and Russia considers control of it critical to their national security as they understand it.

Nazis in Ukraine

It can be true (and is) that there are Nazis in Ukraine. It can also be true (and is) that Russian propaganda has grossly exaggerated the influence of Ukrainian Nazis on the current government’s policies and goals.

Marta Havryshko recently provided some current analysis of the “brown” (Nazi) part of the Ukrainian political spectrum. First, the bad news:

Neo-Nazi networks are deeply embedded in parts of Ukraine’s military structure. Their presence is visible in units such as Azov, the Third Assault Brigade, the Russian Volunteer Corps, Bratstvo, the German Volunteer Corps, Karpatska Sich, and others. Yet Ukraine’s Western backers continue to arm, fund, and train these units without meaningful scrutiny.

Even more striking is the normalization of Nazi imagery itself. Official Ukrainian military channels and mainstream media regularly publish images of soldiers wearing swastikas, Waffen-SS insignia, and patches linked to neo-Nazi groups like Combat 18 and Misanthropic Division. This is no longer treated as scandalous. It has been normalized. (2)

She writes that the de-politicization of the Azov unit of the Ukrainian army was over-emphasized in Western reporting to the point of whitewashing the “brown” influence in the Ukrainian forces. While it may be based on a pragmatic consideration, the continuing influence she describes of far-right ideologues in the military is a potentially serious problem for Ukraine’s future.

Some far-right parties and factions in Europe more generally are pro-Russian in their orientation. Ukrainian Nazis tend to be anti-Russian.

Without getting too deeply into these particular toxic weeds, the far-right, authoritarian parties in the EU Parliament – the main democracy-hating Nationalist International parties - are mainly organized into two groups: the Patriots for Europe and the Europe of Sovereign Nations Group.

Overt neo-Nazis are (currently!) much fringier that the more clean-shaven aspiring fascists.

Of course, the turn to [supporting] Russia was not adopted by the entire extreme right. Rather, the war against Ukraine, which has been going on since 2014 and entered a new phase in 2022, led to a marked formation of camps. While pro-Russian positions prevail in the FPÖ [Austrian Freedom Party], in the "alternative media" landscape, in conspiracy-inclined groups and in parts of the "New Right," or at least a strategic equidistance is insisted on, in the neo-Nazi spectrum partisanship for Ukraine on the basis of a racist reading of the conflict and revisionist historical analogies dominates.

Russia appears [to them] as a revenant of the Soviet Union, which - as it had already happened in the Second World War - unleashed the "hordes of Inner and East Asia" to subjugate "Europe and the white world". The Austrian neo-Nazi milieu shares this view with like-minded people in Ukraine itself as well as in other European countries, which is also reflected in corresponding networking activities. On August 24, 2024 - Ukraine's Independence Day - the pan-European alliance "Nation Europe" was founded at a meeting in Lviv in western Ukraine. This sees itself as a networking platform against Russian expansionism and unites organizations from all over Europe. [my emphasis] (3)

So, yes, there are neo-Nazis in Ukraine and Zelenskyy’s government probably is too tolerant of their presence in the military. Neo-Nazis are not running the government.

Is the war overwhelming Russia’s economy?

It can be true that the war is putting real strains on Russia’s economy. It can also be true that Western hopes that Russia’s economic weaknesses will undercut their war effort have been overblown.

Michael Krätke, in a new article on the damage the war is doing to the Russian economy. wrestles with the multiple-things-can-be-true challenge in a recent short (four pages) article on Russia’s wartime economy.

He asserts the claim that seems to be pretty generally accepted that Russia has cut back on the publication of much of its economic data and what they do publish tends to be less than accurate. On the other hand, he cites the Russian Ministry of Development figures reporting that in early 2026 by 0.3 to 0.4 percent. And he notes, “All government forecasts for the coming years claim no more than growth of around one percent.”

He writes that “the prices of basic foodstuffs such as bread, potatoes or cucumbers have more than doubled since December 2025 alone, even according to the Russian statistical office Rosstat.” He doesn’t cite the particular source for that claim, but it’s at least consistent with the price rises that the current Iran War has been causing worldwide.

According to him, the economic burdens of the war have only recently become sharply felt in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

But given the assumption that he shares that Russia’s published economic statistics are bad information, he doesn’t make clear where the numbers he’s citing for his own arguments are provided. Which is probably partially due to space constraints. While the multiple-things-can-be-true-at-the-same-time consideration applies to the economy as well, it’s hard to evaluate them without some ideas of the sources.

In a backhanded acknowledgement that the economic sanctions on Russia failed to have the hoped-for effect on Russia’s ability to continue the war, he writes: “Ukraine's supporters have been just as inconsistent and hesitant about sanctions as they were about supplying weapons to the invaded country.” He argues they were “much too slow and much too soft.“

But in the multiple-things vein, Krätke reports on the stimulative effect since 2022 of what is called military Keynesianism, in which the increase in government funding for military goods stimulates the economy more generally:

Since 2004, the Putin regime has pursued one rearmament program after another, and in 2022 it converted the entire economy to war [priorities]. The country's military-industrial complex has grown almost explosively in the past four years: at the beginning with emergency measures such as maximum utilization of the existing facilities, the reduction of production times or the introduction of a three-shift system with a six-day working week.

Krätke makes an interesting use of the longtime anti-militarist argument that spending on military production inevitably results in at least a relative short-changing of civilian production. As President Dwight Eisenhower put it in his famous 1953 “Chance for Peace” speech: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” (5) Krätke stresses the damage that higher military spending is doing to the Russian economy, in his view.

Without going into greater detail here, military expenditures generally are less stimulative than equivalent amounts of government spending on civilian projects, not least because of the large and poorly-regulated profit margins on major military contracts. But conservatives generally find military-related spending as more virtuous than civilian spending.

However, it is widely accepted that wartime spending booms can stimulate the economy while also causing potentially serious economic imbalances, even if the overall economy is growing at a healthy pace.

Krätke concludes his article with, “Russia’s war economy is hitting up against its limits.”

So here also we have a multiple-things-can-be-true-at-the-same-time situation. It can be true (and is) that wartime military spending can provide relatively quick economic stimulus. It can also be true (and is) that a lopsided emphasis on rapidly building up the military can also cause real economic problems.

And when it comes to economic sanctions more generally, it can be true (and is) that economic sanctions can create important pressure on a country to change its behavior. But it can also be true (and is) that economic sanctions alone cannot reasonably be expected to produce a rapid change in a country’s existing regime or quickly force a concession on a matter the targeted country considers vital to its national interest or survival. Decades of US experience with sanctions on Iraq and Iran provide substantial evidence for that.

And imposing sanctions on a country is often a prelude to war, which the examples of Iraq and Iran also illustrate.

This discussion from half a year ago from British Channel 4 News addresses issues with the Russian war economy. Elina Ribakova in it discusses the limited effectiveness of the sanctions on Russia and Russia’s continuing disadvantages as a petrostate. (6)

Notes:

(1) Ukraine, Nuclear Weapons, and Security Assurances at a Glance. Arms Control Association March 2022. (Accessed: 2026-04-06).

(2) Havryshko, Marta (2026): Ukraine's military has a real Nazi problem. Responsible Statecraft 06/02/2026. <https://responsiblestatecraft.org/nazis-in-ukraine-military/> (Accessed: 2026-04-06).

(3) Pflegerl, Phillip & Weidinger, Bernhard (2026): Globalisierter Antiglobalismus: Internationale Beziehungen des österreichischen Rechtsextremismus, 386. In: Handbuch Rechtsextremismus in Österreich. Vienna: Falter Verlag. My translation to English.

(4) Krätke, Michael (2026): Putins Kriegswirtschaft: Propaganda und Realität. Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik 6/2026, 9-12.

(5) Address "The Chance for Peace" Delivered Before the American Society of Newspaper Editors. 04/16/2026. The American Presidency Project. <https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-the-chance-for-peace-delivered-before-the-american-society-newspaper-editors> (Accessed: 2026-04-06).

(6) Booming or breaking? The truth about Russia’s war economy. Channel 4 News YouTube channel 11/27/2025. <https://youtu.be/qg5PWLfvlJw?si=KQV8YqWs6cfhJFNu> (Accessed: 2026-04-06).

Historical turning points: recognizing them is tricky, Iran War version

Turning points in history are tricky to recognize. And also tricky for historians to describe even when they all assume they were historical turning points.

The current US-Israel War on Iran has certainly become Trump’s biggest headache of the moment – although there are millions of pages of Epstein files yet to be released.

In scale, of course, the current conflict does not match the Vietnam war, which went on for years, led to the deaths of 58,220 US soldiers, and is often perceived as the totemic and unmatchable example of US hubris. By comparison with the Vietnam odyssey, Iran feels more like a day trip.

But in terms of consequence, it is still possible that the “excursion” will prove to be the bigger geopolitical turning point for the unrivalled superpower, the moment when the US will have to concede it mishandled a war not just because it had no convincing battle plan, but also no grand strategy to match how the contemporary world works. In an interconnected world, Trump believes progress is achieved through conflict, not cooperation. [my emphasis] (1)

In the thirty years or so after 1989, when the Warsaw Pact began to break apart quicky, the US was the single “hyperpower” in the world. This is also called the “unipolar moment.” But sometime around the start of the Trump 1.0 government, China had become powerful enough economically and militarily strong enough that it was a real “peer competitor” to the US, now sharing that status with Purin’s Russia, which is economically weaker than China but still has a nuclear military force on a level with those of the US.

The NATO alliance had been the single largest geopolitical “power multiplier” of the United States. But in Trump 2.0, the US has been taking a Javier-Milei-style chainsaw to US alliances and devastated the State Department, leaving us now in a situation where the Iran War is seriously damaging the entire world economy and the US diplomacy around that war hardly even deserves to be called diplomacy.

I don’t quote Fareed Zakaria very frequently, because his commentary is too often vague and superficial. But in this recent commentary, he makes a decent observation about the contrast between the first Trump regime (2017-2021) and the current one:

[T]his time, [Trump] has surrounded himself with people whose chief qualification is fealty. The less distinguished the resume, the better. Such people owe everything to him. Process has given way to impulse, procedure to instinct, government to gut. But the starkest difference between Trump 1.0 and Trump 2.0 is not policy. It is enrichment [i.e., massive corruption], its scale, its brazenness, its open contempt for restraint. (2)

Elections matter in democracies. And a near-majority of voters in 2024 selected the guy who David Cay Johnston consistently calls “the third-generation head of a four-generation white-collar crime family” to serve as President again.

And this really has pushed both allies and adversaries to start readjusting urgently to a world in which the US cannot be counted on as a reliable partner on geopolitical commitments and has to a large extent abandoned what we normally describe as diplomacy in managing foreign affairs.

The various foreign policy establishments are trying hard to reorient themselves in the new environment, as Wintour observes:

For the US foreign policy establishment, exemplified by the Council on Foreign Relations, the missteps in Iran are the final confirmation that Trump’s highly personalised, instinctive system of predatory diplomacy creates only more disorder.

Last week, the CFR launched a fundamental review of US strategy post-Trump. Its convener, Rebecca Lissner, has already warned the war “has delivered a potentially fatal blow to a US-led international order that was already on life support”. Allies are hedging, middle powers are forming their own coalitions, and regions once firmly in Washington’s orbit are shifting toward new power centres, she said. The former state department official Mira Rapp-Hooper was more brutal at Chatham House, describing it as superpower suicide. [my emphasis]

Notes:

Wintour, Patrick (2026): Could Trump’s Iran ‘excursion’ be a bigger global turning point than Vietnam? Guardian 05/31/2026. <https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2026/may/31/donald-trump-iran-excursion-vietnam-war> (Accessed: 2026-31-05).

(2) Trump's Iran, China & US actions have set 3 new stages-Fareed's Take roundup. CNN YouTube channel 05/31/2026. <https://youtu.be/qLhJuLAnY4M?si=7J1j7rh0noez_MXE> (Accessed: 2026-31-05).

How segregationist hacks commemorate the American Revolution

This is a bit of highbrow hackery about the American Revolution, from Bradley Birzer of the famously rightwing Hillsdale College.

Some of his talks about the politics of the American Revolution and the early Republic is just dumb but vague pablum delivered in a “highbrow” tone. After 25:00 in the video, he hauls out the rightwing trope, beloved by segregationists, that the Founders favored a republic which they thought was something radically different from democracy, the latter of which they supposedly hated.

And it’s the same old hack segregationist nonsense it always was. This is more than enough to be extremely cautious about his interpretations and formulations.

Mike Caulfield takes a look at the background of this segregationist trope and explains:

It was of course popularized by the John Birch Society Blue Book, where it was a central tenet that democracy was a scam by which majoritarian rule would lead to the collapse of Western Civilization.

But underneath it all is the idea that majority rule would lead to social welfare policies and racial integration. And more specifically, there is a panic that over time demographic shifts will be against them and those groups might wield power in ways that they have in the past. (2)

John Micek quotes George Thomas, who calls the trope “a dangerous and wrong argument.”

“Enabling sustained minority rule at the national level is not a feature of our constitutional design, but a perversion of it,” Thomas argues, pointing to such Republicans as U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, of Utah, who have been trotting out this corrosive chestnut as a way to justify the limited kind of political participation envisioned by the current incarnation of the GOP.

“The founding generation was deeply skeptical of what it called ‘pure’ democracy and defended the American experiment as ‘wholly republican,'” Thomas writes. “To take this as a rejection of democracy misses how the idea of government by the people, including both a democracy and a republic, was understood when the Constitution was drafted and ratified. It misses, too, how we understand the idea of democracy today.”

He pointed out that President Abraham Lincoln, whom Republicans like to embrace when it’s convenient, “used constitutional republic and democracy synonymously, eloquently casting the American experiment as government of the people, by the people, and for the people. And whatever the complexities of American constitutional design, Lincoln insisted, ‘the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible.’” (3)

I also like to recall the 1790s, when the John Adams’ Federalists and Jefferson’s Republicans became the two dominant parties in American politics. Many conservative-leaning Federalists were so horrified at the excesses of the French Revolution that they identified democracy with the most repressive French Revolutionary governments. So they decided that they would start calling the Republicans “democrats” to smear them.

The Jeffersonians reacted to that polemical move by … changing their name to the Democratic-Republican Party. They thought they sounded pretty good! That party would dominate national politics from the first four decades of the 19th century. Until 1824, they mainly still used the name Republicans in campaigning, and Democrats after that.

So apparently not a whole lot of Americans in those days thought “democracy” was a dirty word! (4)

Birzer does talk about the significance of the cotton gin for slavery. As an explanation from the National Park Service puts it, “An unforeseen byproduct of Whitney's invention, a labor-saving device, was to help preserve the institution of slavery in the South by making cotton production highly profitable.” (5)

But he does so in a way that minimizes the ugliness of the institution of slavery pre-cotton-gin. And Southern slavery was not just an unfortunate by-product of an advance in technology. It was a human institution and one that inevitably would poison a democracy.

Lyn Martin gives a more complete version of the point:

It is impossible to remember Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin without also recognizing his contribution to antebellum slavery in the United States. His legacy therefore, will always be tarnished with his impact on slavery.

However, it is important to note that Whitney also figured out how to manufacture muskets by using a machine method, making the parts interchangeable. This technique also proved to be revolutionary, allowing for the mass production of muskets beginning in 1798. (6)

Birzer also makes a hack argument about early US imperialism in the video which is so lame I won’t bother to repeat it here.

But rightwing tropes seem never to fade out completely. And the republic-not-a-democracy one will probably get more of a workout than usual over the next couple of months with the publicity about the 250th anniversary of the Revolution.

I also discussed this segregationist nonsense in two posts, The “America-is-a-republic-not-a-democracy” trope and Once again on the republic-not-a-democracy nonsense. The former also discusses a particular vintage-1965 version of the argument by a professor, Willmoore Kendall, which is a painful 14 pages to read!

Notes:

(1) Book Talk | The Declaration of Independence: A Radical Experiment in Liberty. Quincy Institute YouTube channel 05/28/2026. <https://www.youtube.com/live/qAxrnTVQh8E?si=0tgKfJq88ZK0r-Xz> (Accessed: 2026-28-05). This is a reminder that the Quincy Institute does have some conservative-libertarians featured, though it stress the “restrainer” foreign policy position which is not exclusively associated with the left, right, or even the center.

(2) Caulfield, Mike (): Where “A Republic, not a Democracy” Came From. Medium 03/06/2021. <https://medium.com/@holden/where-a-republic-not-a-democracy-came-from-67853e9c1375> (Accessed: 2026-30-05).

(3) Micek, John (2021): ‘We’re a republic not a democracy’: Here’s what’s so undemocratic about this GOP talking point. Pennsylvania Capital-Star 05/20/2021. <https://penncapital-star.com/commentary/were-a-republic-not-a-democracy-heres-whats-so-undemocratic-about-this-gop-talking-point-john-l-micek/> (Accessed: 2026-30-05).

(5) Eli Whitney. National Park Service n/d. <https://www.nps.gov/people/eli-whitney.htm> (Accessed: 2026-28-05).

(6) Lyn Martin (2020): Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin – A Mixed Legacy. Freedom Center Voices 12/09/2020. <https://freedomcenter.org/voice/eli-whitney-cotton-gin/> (Accessed: 2026-31-05).

Iran War Monthly Summaries: Month 3 (May 2026)

The current US-Israeli War on Iran began on Febuary 28, three months ago.

And there’s no obvious end in sight.

The International Crisis Group provides a useful summary of the current situation with the Strait of Hormuz. with helpful graphics:

The blockage of the Strait of Hormuz is a contentious element in negotiations [I think that qualifies as understatement!] to end the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran and an issue of significant interest to countries nearby and far away.

The strait is an international waterway and the right to transit it is protected by international law. Nonetheless, Tehran’s influence over the strait is a tremendous source of leverage in its negotiations with the U.S. to end the war. Iran, which spent decades preparing for conflict with a conventionally superior adversary, made blocking shipping through the strait a major (though untested) component of its planning. After the U.S. and Israel launched their assault on Iran on 28 February – which is widely viewed as violating UN Charter prohibitions of the use of force – Tehran turned one of world’s most important waterways into a weapon. The U.S. has countered by imposing its own blockade of Iranian ports. Though a ceasefire that began on 7-8 April (depending on time zone) has tamped down the air war that began on 28 February, Iran and the U.S. continue to contest control of the strait.

Iran and the U.S. are both betting that they can inflict sufficient economic consequences on their foes to strengthen their position at the negotiating table, while mitigating costs to themselves. Meanwhile, the strait remains closed to most traffic, and the war’s global economic consequences continue to mount. [my emphasis] (1)

Trita Parsi discusses the current state of the war with Hasan Piker – who just got banned from the UK for criticizing Israel. (2)

In today’s news, Israel is striking Beirut again. The Israeli aggression against Lebanon – apparently with the goal of expanding Greater Israel into Lebanon – is part of the war with Iran. Lebanon’s main military force defending against Israeli attacks is the pro-Iran militia Hezbollah, not the much weaker Lebanese army. (3)

The Intercept reports on a pro-Israel influence operation directed by Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale.

A company run by former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, hired by the Israeli government to push pro-Israel views on a major conservative media network, has directed $13 million from Israel to several Republican digital strategy firms and allies, according to a previously unreported document filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Parscale was hired in part to influence major right-wing Christian media company Salem Media Group, where he is also an executive. His firm spent hundreds of thousands on ads with a Salem subsidiary. As part of the contract, Parscale’s firm also sent millions to other firms run by some of his closest political allies. …

Among those that received millions of dollars’ worth of payments related to the contract are ventures like SparkFire, an AI chatbot company leading a mass texting campaign, and a shadowy firm run by longtime mainstream Republican strategist Mike Shields. (None of the figures or firms in this story responded to requests for comment.)

Israel initially directly hired Parscale’s firm, Clock Tower X, last September with a contract worth $6 million. The new filing reveals that his firm has received over $15 million from Havas Media Network, an international media company, on behalf of the Israeli state. (4)

Esther Solomon reports for Haaretz on Israel’s new choice for their general consul in New York:

Benjamin Netanyahu has turned a corner in his relations with American Jews. No, not to even pretend to rebuild ties with the liberal majority, but to spit in their faces.

Israel's prime minister is pushing the appointment of eye-poppingly far-right pundit and advisor Caroline Glick to the post of consul general in New York, home to the largest Jewish community in the world outside of Israel, according to a report by Liza Rozovsky in Haaretz.

If you're not already familiar with Glick, count yourself lucky. Her views on Israel and the Palestinians could be charitably termed "hardline": The Jewish people are indigenous to the Land of Israel, Palestinians are an invented people, and Israel should declare sovereignty over the whole West Bank. She laid out her "one-state plan for peace in the Middle East" in an eponymous 2016 book in English. The book's Hebrew title dispensed with the niceties and was entitled "Annexation Now." [my emphasis] (5)

She also recalls:

Years ago, Netanyahu decided to subvert U.S. political bipartisanship on Israel, tried to humiliate Democratic presidents while accepting humiliation from Trump, and constantly declared that evangelicals were better allies than U.S. Jews (except for the ultra-wealthy U.S. Jewish right-wingers who subsidize him). [my emphasis]

Trump and his cowboy Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth stepped into this mess bigtime. And finding a solution would be a difficult feat even for an Administration that was capable of conducing complex diplomacy. Maybe Pete can send the Iranian government a photo of his Crusader tattoo to convince them to make concessions.

Notes:

(1) The State of the Strait: The Role of Hormuz in the Middle East War So Far. International Crisis Group 05/29/2026. <https://www.crisisgroup.org/visual-explainers/hormuz/> (Accessed: 2026-01-06).

(2) Trita Parsi Breaks Down the Endgame With Iran. HasanAbi YouTube channel 05/30/2026. <https://youtu.be/LcloUmMPMWk?si=P-1KUEK49l-8DotK> (Accessed: 2026-30-05).

(3) Israel's Netanyahu orders military to attack targets in Beirut southern suburbs. Al-Monitor 06/01/2026. <https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2026/06/israels-netanyahu-orders-military-attack-targets-beirut-southern-suburbs> (Accessed: 2026-01-06).

(4) Cleveland-Stout, Nick & Sweet, Jacqueline (2026): Ex-Trump Campaign Chief Funneled Millions of Israeli Government Money to His Longtime Allies’ Companies. The Intercept 05/28/2026. <https://theintercept.com/2026/05/28/israeli-government-money-brad-parsc/> (Accessed: 2026-29-05).

(5) Solomon, Esther (2026): Netanyahu Won't Stop Spitting in American Jews' Faces. Haaretz 05/27/2026. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/haaretz-today/2026-05-27/ty-article/.highlight/netanyahu-wont-stop-spitting-in-american-jews-faces/0000019e-6a3d-d1b9-a9bf-fabdbf5b0000?gift=a4ab5dc94ff44e02b63b27c08503fc99> (Accessed: 2026-01-06).

How the Democrats need to go about fighting a rogue reactionary Supreme Court

Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern warned in November 2024 that the outrageous Roberts Court decision basically exempted the President from the requirement to follow the law in its Trump v. United States decision of 2024. And that it would allow the Trumpists to put the pedal to the metal on its authoritarian project to destroy American democracy, which they accurately described as follows:

[O]n arguably the big issue, what presidential power actually means, Trump couldn’t be clearer: He believes the president is an elected authoritarian who can and indeed should concentrate all state power within himself and wield it to achieve his own personal ambitions and retributions. There is no daylight between his own selfish interests and the state’s needs, because to his mind, he is the state. And he is forever immune from punishment when he chooses to corruptly manipulate the tools of his office to punish his enemies and reward his friends. He is the state, but he is also the law. [my emphasis] (1)

The Democrats have to be aggressive on restoring the rule of law, which of course is intimately connected to the massive corruption of the current regime that the Democrats have to push back against aggressively, now and for the years after Trump is out of power.

David Sirota wrote in 2022 about one of the worst historical “lessons” that came out of Franklin Roosvelt’s successful fight against the blatantly partisan, anti-New Deal Supreme Court, which is often referred to as Roosevelt’s “court-packing” scheme and is commonly cited as a failure on FDR’s part, which is almost the opposite of true:

Public support for Roosevelt’s expansion initiative only truly cratered when the court’s conservative majority suddenly halted its attempts to block the New Deal. In particular, the court’s surprising decisions to uphold a state minimum wage and then the pro-union Wagner Act deflated public support for court expansion, as did the subsequent retirement of one of the court’s most conservative justices. The court soon after declined to block Social Security.

“Evidence accumulated over the years goes against that notion of the (close) relationship between the public and the court,” wrote Caldiera. “I prefer, instead, a much more straightforward account: The Supreme Court outmaneuvered the president. Through a series of shrewd moves, the court put President Roosevelt in the position of arguing for a radical reform on the slimmest of justifications.”

But here’s the key point: He notes that the court’s “shrewd moves” that “outmaneuvered” FDR were in practice “an important jurisprudential retreat” on policy.

“President Roosevelt in essence offered the Supreme Court a choice between substantive policy and structural integrity,” he concludes. “The court wisely chose to give up on the substantive issues and preserve its structural integrity.” (2)

Norm Ornstein and David Rothkopf recently held a very informative discussion about what will be required of the Democrats on both policy and politics to undo the massive damage John Roberts and Donald Trump have done to the basic functioning of the legal system in the US, with the title “The One and Only Way to Truly Defeat the Trump Crime Family”: (3)

Notes:

(1) Lithwick, Dahlia and Stern, Mark Joseph (2024): The One Reason a Second Trump Presidency Would Be So Much Worse. Slate 11/04/2024. <https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/11/2016-election-supreme-court-helps-trump.html> (Accessed: 2026-31-05).

(2) Sirota, David (2022): FDR’s Lesson About The Supreme Court Rampage. The Lever 07/08/2022. <https://www.levernews.com/fdrs-lesson-about-the-supreme-court-rampage/> (Accessed: 2026-31-05).

(3) The One and Only Way to Truly Defeat the Trump Crime Family. The DSR Network YouTube channel. <https://youtu.be/ViLgo5ivXCw?si=WFtya2Bv6za-l65-> (Accessed: 2026-31-05).

The US-Israel War on Iran rolls on and does more and more damage

Israel is continuing Netanyahu‘s permanent-war policy. The government is aggressively pushing forward on further illegal settlements in the West Bank. And further undermining what legitimacy and governing authority the Palestinian Authority has there.

While Israeli land seizure orders are certainly not uncommon in the occupied West Bank, this case has alarmed residents and human rights organizations because the plots are located in Area A. This is the section of the West Bank where, under the Oslo Accords [of 1993 and 1995], the Palestinian Authority officially maintains full civil and security control; in Area B, the PA must coordinate security with Israel, while Area C, which comprises more than 60 percent of the territory, remains under full Israeli control. (1)

Iran has been insisting that any peace settlement has to include not only the US but also Israel and that it has to cover the Israeli invasion and war-making in Lebanon.

Zvi Bar’el reported on May 29:

Initial reports that Iranian and American negotiators had agreed on a memorandum of understanding that was awaiting U.S. President Donald Trump's approval didn't explain what was agreed, what remains in dispute, what the agenda will be for the talks slated to take place during a 60-day cease-fire, whether Iran is willing to let its highly enriched uranium be removed from the country or what it would get in return.

Apparently, the blows the countries have exchanged over the past week still aren't viewed as ending the cease-fire. Like the ones in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, this cease-fire has been characterized by an elasticity that is meant to reconcile the tactical need to demonstrate a resolute military posture, even if it has no strategic goal, with the need to avoid ruining the chances of the ambiguous diplomatic process. [my emphasis] (2)

That’s because Netanyahu and the Israeli supporters of his war policy don’t seem to make any practical distinction anymore between ongoing military operations and a ceasefire. Netanyahu’s goal is for Israel to dominate the region and take more territory in Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank. And probably more after that.

Bar’el also reports, “the Board of Peace is on the verge of bankruptcy due to lack of funding.” Wait, how is that possible? I thought other countries were giving Trump billions to serve on the Board. As The Independent reports:

Concerns were that the charter was so broad it amounted to an attempt by Trump to replace the United Nations (an institution he has made no secret of hating) with his own private members’ club. Trump had declared: “We can do pretty much anything we want to do.”

But fast forward to May, and as Trump overcomplicates an already impossibly hard peace deal in Iran, his Board of Peace brainchild is flailing.

It seems a bit broken: promised US funding has reportedly yet to materialise, other funds are frozen, and its mission is “stuck in limbo”. (3)

Yes, “a bit broken”!

But, hey, Trump’s really “ownin’ the libs,” huh?

And the finances of the board are going about as well as we would expect from a Trump grift:

At the time of its inauguration, Trump claimed lifetime membership of the board of peace could be bought for a hefty price tag of $1bn.

By February, states had pledged around $7bn for a Gaza relief package. Trump promised a further $10bn in US funding, although he did not say where that money would come from.

To date, “zero funds have been deposited” into the official fund, which is administered by the World Bank, and endorsed by the United Nations, according to the Financial Times.

Trita Parsi gives this brief update on Israel, Iran, and Lebanon: (4)

Notes:

(1) Zaish, Shata (2026): In first since Oslo, Israel seizing land for army base inside West Bank city +972 Magazine 05/27/2026. <https://www.972mag.com/oslo-israel-seizing-land-army-base-west-bank-city/> (Accessed: 2026-30-05).

(2) Bar’el, Zvi (2026): Trump Is Trapped Between Iran and Lebanon. Israel Could Pay the Price. Haaretz 05/29/2026. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-security/2026-05-29/ty-article/.premium/trump-is-trapped-between-iran-and-lebanon-israel-could-pay-the-price/0000019e-7108-df34-a39e-712ab8be0000?gift=f4f7b1b59bfe4bfe970dc2bd937ba2ad> (Accessed: 2026-30-05).

(3) Trump’s board of peace is flailing – just like the president. The Independent 05/28/2026. <https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/trump-board-of-peace-iran-gaza-b2984416.html> (Accessed: 2026-30-05).

(4) New regional logic: If Israel strikes Lebanon Iran strikes back at UAE. Middle East Eye YouTube channel 05/29/2026. <https://youtu.be/Dg02M6Ua95w?si=gp6ZMTY88XnC2x7P> (Accessed: 2026-30-05).

Russia and Europe and the Ukraine War

The Russia-Ukraine War is starting to feel for a lot of us not directly involved like a permanent feature of the world now. I mean, the Korean War is still officially not settled. But it hasn’t been an active shooting war for decades.

There is a new report about a Russian drone strike in Romania. Officially the Russians are denying they had anything to do with it. It’s possible it was part of a group of drones on the way to strike Ukraine and one of them just strayed and accidentally struck a building in Romania. Oopsie! Fog of war, you know. Stuff happens!

The Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, has said the alliance is “ready to defend every inch” of its territory after a Russian drone hit an apartment building in Romania, a member state, during an overnight attack on neighbouring Ukraine.

The incident in Galați, which injured two people, prompted swift condemnation and the threat of repercussions, even as Russia denied the reports of the involvement of a Russian drone as “groundless”.

The strike in Romania is the latest example of the war in Ukraine spilling beyond the country’s borders, amid growing concern over Russia’s wider campaign of hybrid warfare across Europe.

Gen Gheorghe Maxim, a stand-in commander for the Romanian armed forces’ joint staff, told a news conference on Friday that the strike in Galati was not “an attack from Russia against Romania”, but that “Romanians should understand that Russia is a threat to the security of the countries in the area.” (1)

But given the public signals that Russia has been sending lately, I’m guessing there’s at least an even chance this was intentional. Ukraine has been making drone strikes inside Russia, including on Moscow. And from what military commentators are saying, Ukraine couldn’t conduct those particular kinds of strikes without help from NATO countries. Now, there is a war going on and it was Russia that invaded Ukrainian territory, so it’s totally within the laws of war for Ukraine to attack inside Russia. (Yes, I know “War” Secretary Pete Hegseth thinks all this laws-of-war stuff is just sissy “woke” DEI nonsense, but still.)

Since Russia is pretty bogged down in Ukraine, I’m not especially worried that they intend to launch some full-blown attack on NATO and EU countries. But this kind of thing could also be a way for Russia to say, hey, if you NATO countries are helping Ukraine attack deep inside Russia, we have ways to make things uncomfortable on NATO’s eastern flank. If this stuff starts happening more in Estonia, Latvia, or especially Lithuania, things could get very sticky very quickly. Russia’s only land transportation corridor to its city of Kaliningrad is through the Suwałki Gap, aka the Suwalki Corridor, which is on the border between Poland and Lithuania and is mainly inhabited by Poles. If Russia tried to take control of that corridor, we would be in “NATO Article 5” territory. I would think at least Marco Rubio and maybe even J.D. Vance would know what that means.

There already was a drone incident in Latvia already in May. It even led to a change of government there:

Earlier this month, two drones entering Latvia from Russian territory crashed near oil facilities, intensifying public concern about whether the state could detect aerial threats.

Ukraine has launched an intensive long-range strike campaign against key Russian targets like air defense sites, refineries, pipelines, ports and strategic factories. Kyiv and NATO member countries accuse Russia of redirecting Ukrainian drones into allied airspace; they have also been spotted over Lithuania and Estonia.

The backlash over the Latvian incidents ultimately helped bring down the government of Prime Minister Evika Siliņa. Defense Minister Andris Sprūds resigned under pressure, and coalition tensions escalated into a broader collapse of the administration. (2)

Here we come back to the time-warp feeling that this war has been going on forever. It was true in February 2022 that Ukraine was not a member of NATO and that none of the NATO countries had a formal mutual-defense treaty with Ukraine. The EU Treaty also has a mutual defense clause, though it has never been formally invoked.

All that is still true today. The word “credibility” is probably the most overused word in the politics of international relations – often coupled with a superficial reference to the Munich Analogy. But if Russia did directly attack NATO territory, repelling that attack would have to take priority over supporting Ukraine. Especially now that the European allies can’t count on the US any more to play the role in mutual defense that it played until 2025.

Here is a discussion between Scott Lucas and Gilbert Doctorow, the latter apparently an advocate for Russia’s and Putin’s position on the Russia-Ukraine War. The informational blurb says the clip involves Lucas “[t]aking apart the pro-Kremlin propaganda of Russian-based Gilbert Doctorow, including his promotion of war crimes through targeted assassination of Ukraine’s leaders.” (3)

Lucas notes that Belarus has consistently refused Russian requests to enter the war with Ukraine as an active belligerent. That means, I suppose, that Belarus could somehow play a mediating role. But Belarus is siding with Ukraine.

Lucas sometimes seem to lean into an optimistic take in evaluating Ukraine’s prospects. He probably particularly emphasizes that here as a contrast to Doctorow’s position.

Notes:

(1) Beaumont, Peter (2026): Nato ready to defend ‘every inch’ of territory as Russian drone hits Romania. Guardian 05/29/2026. <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/29/russian-drone-romanian-apartments-wounding-two-people-and-starting-fire> (Accessed: 2026-29-05).

(2) Lunday, Chris (2026): No quick fix for Latvia’s drone crisis. Politico EU 05/2/2026. <https://www.politico.eu/article/no-quick-fix-for-latvias-drone-crisis/> (Accessed: 2026-29-05).

(3) Worried Kremlin Threatens to Obliterate Kyiv. Scott Lucas Worldview YouTube channel 05/29/2026. <https://youtu.be/yl6v3sINDfQ?si=h9-r9s8mdsYAqegp> (Accessed: 2026-29-05).