US President Joe Biden and Speaker of House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi say the Ukraine war will continue “until victory is achieved”, but neither of them has said what might constitute victory.
Which brings us to what the Florentine clerk advised 500 years ago: “Never wound a deadly foe and let him live. Either kill him or turn him into a friend.”
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said that Ukraine should give up territory to seal an end to the Russo-Ukrainian war in an address to Western leaders. Ukrainian leader then gave a “polite” response to the former secretary, declining his suggestion.
As of last week, NATO seemed well on its way to expanding, when Finland and Sweden formally submitted their applications for membership. When they officially join, becoming the 31st and 32nd member of the alliance, it could potentially mark the fastest accession process in the alliance’s history. This is reflective of the sudden about-face in the two countries’ foreign policies in the months since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
At least once at every conference about an international security crisis, in the midst of debate, a participant will suddenly lean back and quote Carl von Clausewitz in a booming voice to underscore a tenuous point. Sometimes, in order to demonstrate that they are not just drawing on conventional wisdom about politics and war, the Clausewitz citation might be followed up by an observation borrowed from Henri Jomini. Every once in a while, there might even be a Sun Tzu quip thrown in for good measure.
Q: “Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?” (CBS News)
A: “Yes.” (President Joe Biden, May 23, 2022)
Q: “ You are?” (CBS)
A: “That’s the commitment we made.” (President Biden)Once again, an unplanned and impromptu remark from President Biden has generated controversy, although this represents his third (incorrect) reference to a commitment to defend Taiwan. Each time, Biden’s national security team has tried to walk back the president’s remarks, but the fact of the matter is that the United States is pursuing a policy of confrontation and containment with China. There has been no attempt to pursue a diplomatic solution to our differences with China or to give Chinese leader Xi Jinping reason to believe that Sino-American relations could be improved through pursuit of a serious diplomatic dialogue.
Russia has not only been modernizing its nuclear triad; it has also been developing new types of nuclear systems….
Russia, of course, is not the only nuclear threat to the United States. China has accelerated its nuclear buildup to the extent that Admiral Charles Richard, Commander of U.S. Strategic Command told the Senate Armed Services Committee last April, “For the first time in our history, the nation is on a trajectory to face two nuclear-capable, strategic peer adversaries at the same time, who must be deterred differently. We can no longer assume the risk of strategic deterrence failure in conflict will always remain low.”
As so often in the past, Lithuania has openly declared what many believe but are unwilling for one reason or another to say. The Lithuanian parliament in a unanimous vote declared Russia to be a terrorist state and its war in Ukraine an act of genocide against the population there, actions for which Russian leaders, including Putin, must stand trial.
He said: “Making concessions failed between 2014 and 2022, ultimately bringing us all the biggest war in Europe since the Second World War.” However, he insisted that this war is not a “copy-paste of any previous wars”, highlighting that every war is special.
President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree allowing residents of two Ukrainian regions, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya, parts of which have been occupied by Russian forces during Moscow’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, to obtain Russian citizenship.
Ukraine wasn’t supposed to stand much of a chance in a military conflict with Russia. It was outgunned and outmanned. In the first months of 2022, as the threat of an invasion loomed, the Russian military was expected to quickly and decisively defeat its much weaker neighbor with ease. Many experts were asking not if Russia could win the coming war, but how far its ambitions stretched within and beyond Ukraine.