“After years of attacks on civilians, the Saudis and Emiratis are guilty of manifold war crimes. The United Nations Group of Eminent International and Regional Experts on Yemen, subsequently disbanded under Saudi pressure, last fall described the horror: “Since March 2015, over 23,000 airstrikes have been launched by the coalition in Yemen, killing or injuring over 18,000 civilians. Living in a country subjected to an average of 10 airstrikes per day has left millions feeling far from safe.” Victims included “civilians shopping at markets, receiving care in hospitals, or attending weddings and funerals; children on buses; fishers in boats; migrants seeking a better life; individuals strolling through their neighborhoods; and people who were at home.”
Support for the royal aggressors made US officials into coconspirators. Reported the New York Times in September 2020: “The civilian death toll from Saudi Arabia’s disastrous air war over Yemen was steadily rising in 2016 when the State Department’s legal office in the Obama administration reached a startling conclusion: Top American officials could be charged with war crimes for approving bomb sales to the Saudis and their partners. Four years later, more than a dozen current and former U.S. officials say the legal risks have only grown as President Trump has made selling weapons to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Middle East nations a cornerstone of his foreign policy.””
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“Last November the United Nations Development Programme estimated Yemen’s death toll at 377,000, 70 percent of whom were children under five. Indirect causes, especially malnutrition and disease, took the majority of lives.”
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“despite Washington’s shameful backing for Saudi/Emirati aggression and attacks on civilians, the royal regimes appear to have tired of their endless wars. Indeed, Ansar Allah’s strikes on Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, though limited in effect, seriously embarrassed both governments. The Emiratis were particularly vulnerable since further attacks on Dubai could wreck its role as a hub for commercial activity and air travel.
In a dramatic move, the Saudis forced Yemen’s nominal president, Hadi, to yield his authority, after spending seven years justifying war to restore him. Reported The Wall Street Journal: “Saudi authorities have largely confined him to his home in Riyadh and restricted communications with him in the days since, according to Saudi and Yemeni officials.” The Houthis dismissed the move and some analysts speculated that Riyadh hoped to unite factions opposed to Ansar Allah to better wage war. However, the move effectively cleared the deck for negotiations. Peter Salisbury of the International Crisis Group opined that this was the “most consequential shift in the inner workings of the anti‐Houthi bloc since war began.”
More significant — and generating more hope — is the two‐month ceasefire that began on April 2, the first day of Ramadan, a month of fasting and reflection for Muslims. For the first time in more than seven years, the royal air war against Yemeni civilians halted. If respected, the suspension of hostilities, which was announced by UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg, could lead to a more durable settlement. Needed is a political compromise among Yemenis providing broad representation in a new government.
Still, any optimism must be tempered. Past ceasefires have collapsed and reaching agreement, especially given outside interference, will be difficult.”
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made Sen. Mitt Romney winner of the latest “strange new respect” award. When running for president in 2012 Romney insisted that Russia was “without question our number one geopolitical foe.” He’s being held up as a geopolitical prophet even though he was ostentatiously wrong then and remains wrong today.”
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“Despite Moscow’s unhappiness with US policy, only in Georgia had Moscow responded violently toward a military threat. And that appeared to be a one‐off event. The Putin government did little to obstruct Washington’s imperious, incompetent interventions despite Putin’s 2007 criticism. And the two countries were nowhere at existential odds. Indeed, cooperation even seemed possible on regional issues, such as addressing the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs.
Nor had the Russian army performed particularly well in Georgia, exhibiting “structural and technological weaknesses,” according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies. IISS also noted that “the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff remain on the whole reluctant to reform and modernize.” The Putin government sought to reform its armed forces, but the process was nowhere near complete by 2012. Prior to the US election IISS noted that despite claims modernization objectives had been largely achieved, “the reforms have not always run smoothly.” In particle, “personnel issues continue to bedevil the modernization process.” Finally, “modernizing the equipment used by military personnel is another challenge.” Although the Russian armed forces were improving, they did not threaten the US in any significant way, nor should they overmatch European capabilities, at least if America’s allies contributed meaningfully to their own defense.
There was nothing that justified calling Russia a geopolitical foe, let alone America’s “number one geopolitical foe.” And there probably wouldn’t have been reason to make that argument today absent events of 2014.”
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“Yet even his terrible war on Ukraine doesn’t directly threaten America. At least so long as both Washington and Moscow avoid a clash that could escalate. Putin may grow more reckless having presumably miscalculated in expecting an easy victory. The Biden administration might grow more aggressive in supporting Kyiv to maximize Russia’s distress. Putin’s nuclear alert is a reminder of the global stakes, especially if he feels he has painted himself in a corner.
Thankfully, unlike during the Cold War, Moscow and Washington are not playing a winner‐take‐all ideological game. The US remains vastly stronger militarily and America and Russia still have no essential territorial disputes. Although their objectives sometimes conflict in areas such as the Middle East, that has been exacerbated by the steady deterioration of their relations over the last eight years, which has encouraged Moscow to challenge the US globally. Another unfortunate consequence: The Putin government also has turned to Beijing, but additional American pressure only pushes them closer.
Moreover, Moscow lacks the power to dominate Europe, let alone Eurasia. Europe still should be defended, but it is long past time for the Europeans to take over that responsibility. Indeed, Russia’s attack on Ukraine should be the famed fire bell in the night for Europeans. Already Moscow has unified both NATO and the European Union against his country. He even has provided a demonic figure, not quite as dramatic as Adolf Hitler, but still sufficient to enrage his opponents.
The US can be most effective not by rushing more forces to Europe, but rather by calling its allies to account. Washington should make clear that Putin’s criminal aggression has not changed the fact that for America China remains a far more significant challenge. Their security is ultimately their responsibility.”
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” Russia’s lawless attack is an atrocity but does not change basic geopolitical reality: Moscow is principally a problem for Europe, not America. Since the end of the Cold War Russia stopped being a significant geopolitical foe of the US and has not turned into one since. Dealing with the ongoing war still won’t be easy. However, while punishing Russia for its criminal conduct Washington must ensure that neither it nor its alliance partners get drawn in. That could turn a limited conflict into a nuclear confrontation and a world in which no one would be debating geopolitical threats anymore.”
“To be precise, between Feb. 24 and May 30, at least 4,149 civilians were killed, including 267 children, according to the U.N. Human Rights Office. The true numbers of civilian casualties are much higher but can’t yet be fully counted because of active fighting and lack of access to areas under the control of Russian forces, the organization added.
The deaths bring the total number of civilians killed as a result of Russian military aggression in Ukraine to more than 7,500 over the course of eight years. Prior to Feb. 24, 3,404 civilians had been killed in the war in the Donbas, which broke out in April 2014. A vast majority of those casualties occurred in the first nine months of the war, when the fighting was at its peak. Several ceasefire agreements that never fully materialized kept the fighting at a simmer, with each side trading pot shots from well-worn trenches.
Lyman, a once-quiet town surrounded by a forested nature reserve and the bone-white chalk mountains, was once home to 20,000 residents — more than 43 percent of which were ethnic Russians, according to local data — until people began spilling out in recent weeks. It had largely avoided hostilities, save for some street fighting with automatic rifles and grenade launchers in 2014.
Now it’s synonymous with Russia’s brutal new military campaign in the Donbas, demolished homes and shattered lives.
“We can never go back. There is nothing left there for us,” cried a woman brought to the Raihorodok staging area carrying several bags of clothing and possessions, her two young children in tow. “They are bombing everything. Our city is dying.”
Her husband interjected: “No, the city is already dead.”
The family, who declined to be identified, said their home had been partially destroyed in mid-May. They spent nearly two weeks living in a neighbor’s basement with little food and water, no toilet, electricity and gas until Holtsyev and the other rescuers came to pick them up. Everything they had to begin their new lives fit into four duffel bags. Asked about what they would do next and where they would go, the husband tried to speak but no words came out of his mouth; he just shook his head and shrugged.”
“Angell didn’t think that war was impossible, but that it was futile. It’s illogical and uneconomical, even from the invader’s perspective. In a modern, globalized economy, countries do not benefit from wars of conquest anymore. Countries don’t grow richer just because they have more land or a bigger military. In fact, small, peaceful countries like Switzerland and Norway were richer than mighty empires like Britain and Germany, Angell pointed out.
War would be costly even for the aggressor. Integrated financial markets would unleash chaos back home. If you lay your neighbor in ruins, you also destroy your own suppliers and markets. As Mises put it, if the tailor goes to war against the baker, he must henceforth bake his own bread. There’s a cheap way to satisfy the craving for another country’s natural resources: Buy them.
Angell did not deny irrational national passions and the madness of leaders. The fact that Europe’s leaders chose madness in 1914 did not refute his thesis. The fact that no one came out of the war in an improved state rather validates it.
What about the invasion of Ukraine? Does it refute this liberal peace theory? Well, the kind of exchanges in which Russia engages are not the types of free and open trade that enrich a broad segment of independent entrepreneurs. On the contrary, it is mostly trade in natural resources managed by monopolies, controlled by the government. The so-called oligarchs are not so much powerful business leaders as they are Putin’s poodles, safe in their positions only as long as they fall in step and line his pockets.
Despite this, it seems like most Russian oligarchs and businesses were opposed, and remain opposed, to the war, even though they don’t advertise it for obvious reasons. It doesn’t take independent entrepreneurs to understand that upending the relationship with the West would be an economic disaster. An energy system that makes Germany dependent on Russian energy might be terrible for Germany, but it would be self-immolation for Russia to end it.
It seems like the really enthusiastic pro-war constituency in Russia (before February 24) was limited to one man, give or take. And that’s precisely what Kant had in mind when he wrote that the spirit of commerce is not enough to deter the spirit of war, you also need republican institutions that channel that spirit and bind leaders.
In a despotic state, wrote Kant, thinking of all the Putin-like leaders of the late 18th century, the ruler is not affected by doux commerce. While the people suffer, “he goes on enjoying the delights of his table or sport, or of his pleasure palaces and gala days. He can therefore decide on war for the most trifling reasons, as if it were a kind of pleasure party.”
This is a reason why Thomas Friedman’s bastardized liberal peace theory—that countries with a McDonald’s don’t wage war on each other—has fared slightly less well. You can order a Big Mac without a side order of free markets and rule of law.”
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“We are in the longest stretch of peace between major powers for 1,800 years, the old archenemies France and Germany almost cozy up too much to one another, and Putin’s invasion is the first attempt to launch a major war of conquest since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990. In a world where peace used to be just a brief interlude while everybody rearmed, something has gone right in the post–World War II era. If you want the whole story, read Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature, but clearly doux commerce has something to do with it.
Proximity and interdependence are not always deterrents, especially if different groups share one pool of resources that they all want the largest share of. Additionally, not all cultures and communities are happily harmonious, and civil wars are often the most vicious. However, the general relationship between trade and peace is a strong one.”
“”Under an amendment adopted on 4 March, any Russian or foreign person can be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison for spreading ‘false information’ about the Russian armed forces,” Reporters Without Borders notes. “Under another law passed on 22 March, ‘false information’ about the activities of ‘Russian state bodies’ operating abroad – including the presidency, executive, parliament, national guard and Federal Security Service (FSB) – is also punishable by up to 15 years in prison.”
So, war gave Russian authorities expanded leeway to muzzle dissidents and prod a public already inclined to rally around their leaders. But if war arouses tribal instincts among the aggressors, it does so no less among the aggrieved. Under existential threat, Ukrainians understandably lose patience for those in their midst who are sympathetic to Russia or are suspected of undermining defense efforts.
“Eleven Ukrainian political parties have been suspended because of their links with Russia,” The Guardian reported last month. “The country’s national security and defence council took the decision to ban the parties from any political activity. Most of the parties affected were small, but one of them, the Opposition Platform for Life, has 44 seats in the 450-seat Ukrainian parliament.”
The Opposition Platform for Life had reportedly denounced the invasion, but it was undoubtedly pro-Russian in its sympathies and highly suspect in a situation where Ukraine’s continued existence is at risk. It was suspended under the provisions of martial law, which was extended on April 21 through May 25, and can probably be expected to remain in place throughout the war.
But it’s not just lawmakers. As open warfare became increasingly likely, the Ukrainian government banned media suspected of sympathizing with the enemy.
“Three pro-Russian TV channels have gone off the air in Kyiv after pro-Western President Volodymyr Zelenskiy signed a Ukrainian security council decree imposing sanctions for five years on eight media and TV companies,” Germany’s Deutsche Welle reported on February 5.
Then, in March, the Ukrainian government forcibly merged all TV stations under state control.
“The move means the end, at least temporarily, of privately owned Ukrainian media outlets in that country,” Deadline observed.”