Just after a band of mercenaries tried to oust the government in the Maldives back in 1988, I asked a Maldivian diplomat, using a familiar military catchphrase, about the strength of his country’s “standing army.”
Millions of lives at stake. Families in dire need of international aid. Russia plays games with them all at the UN Security Council. Repeat every six months until further notice. Welcome to the Syria debate at the UN.
This has been the case ever since 2014. The UNSC authorizes the UN to use one Turkish-Syria border crossing to deliver aid — just one, at Bab Al-Hawa — while rejecting attempts to open others, as was the case previously. The Ya’roubia border crossing from Iraq into northeast Syria has been closed since January 2020. As a result of the earthquakes that hit southern Turkiye and northwest Syria in February, the Syrian government did make the rare move to allow an extra two border crossings with Turkiye to be used. This approval runs out on Aug. 13.
The Vilnius Summit, convened by the NATO Heads of State and Government on July 11-12, 2023, concluded with the release of an extensive communiqué. This document distinguishes itself from a typical summit declaration, serving instead as a strategic roadmap that outlines NATO’s future direction in an ever-evolving world order.
Je tiens à remercier l’un de mes lecteurs, Paul S., qui m’a signalé cet article de Newsweek remarquable et hilarant, écrit par Bill Arkin, qui est un exemple classique de la façon dont la CIA a jeté l’Ukraine sous le bus et a évité d’être tenue pour responsable du désastre militaire qui se profile à l’horizon. Je commencerai par citer la conclusion de l’article :
The hypothesis that the Anglo-Saxon axis is pivotal to the proxy war in Ukraine against Russia is only partly true. Germany is actually Ukraine’s second largest arms supplier, after the United States. Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged a new arms package worth 700 million euros, including additional tanks, munitions and Patriot air defence systems at the Nato summit in Vilnius, putting Berlin, as he said, at the very forefront of military support for Ukraine.
The 2023 Global Security Forum took place from March 13-15, in Doha, Qatar. The 2023 Global Security Forum theme was Reshaping the Global Order. The conference focused on international approaches to conflict, crises, and cooperation and included discussions on topics such as: the global energy crisis and approaches to strengthening sustainable economies; great power competition, shaped by the war in Ukraine; the evolution of global terrorism and emerging threats; violent far-right extremist networks and financing; and the disinformation-terrorism nexus.
A long convoy transporting Wagner troops entered Belarus from Russia on July 15, the independent Belarusian military monitoring project Belaruski Hayun reported.
The column included at least 60 vehicles, including pickups, large trucks, vans, and at least three buses, and was escorted by Belarusian traffic police, Belaruski Hayun said in a tweet.
Benghazi Update:
In a dramatic turn of events on June 11th, 2023, the notorious terrorist Ziad Balaam, a key figure in the infamous 2012 Benghazi attacks on the U.S. Mission and CIA Annex, was detained and subsequently deported from Istanbul Airport in Turkey back to Libya. Ziad is now barred from returning to Turkey. This shocking development comes after years of Ziad enjoying freedom of movement in Turkey, adding a surprising twist to the long-standing pursuit of justice for the lives lost.
The 2023 NATO Summit at Vilnius, Lithuania, is now but a memory. If I could characterize the summit in just two words, I would say, “reality bites.” And it bites both ways.
On the one hand the US and its NATO allies came face to face with the reality that endless promises of “unlimited” military aid to Ukraine to defeat Russia would not achieve that goal. Five weeks of the much-anticipated Ukrainian counter-offensive have produced zero results. They have only snuffed out another estimated 20,000 Ukrainian soldiers, this time mostly drawn from the shrinking pool of forced – and barely trained – conscripts.
Russia may have already lost upwards of 50,000 men in Ukraine, along with untold economic costs from sanctions, direct expenses and forgone labor. Many in the West have hoped that Russia’s invasion, failing to take the whole of Ukraine in the early stages of the war, will prove to be just a costly blunder from which Russia will eventually have to retreat. They are wrong. Russia can and will continue to fight.