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zvaigzdelasas · 5 months

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A painful reality check shows the 600-mile-long Ukrainian-Russian front in a figurative and literal freeze, draining Ukrainian resources and lives without much prospect for change in the foreseeable future. The much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive of the past six months exacted a huge cost in casualties and matériel, but barely nudged the front lines. Ukraine’s top military commander has said the fight is at a “stalemate” — a notion deemed taboo not long ago — and only an unlikely technological breakthrough by one side or the other could break it. [...]

The way things are going, “Ukraine will for the foreseeable future harbor Europe’s most dangerous geopolitical fault line,” [...] an endless conflict that deepens Russia’s alienation from the West, enshrines Putinism and delays Ukraine’s integration into Europe. That, at least, is the bleak prognosis if victory in the war continues to be defined in territorial terms, specifically the goal of driving Russia out of all the Ukrainian lands it occupied in 2014 and over the past 22 months, including Crimea and a thick wedge of southeastern Ukraine, altogether about a fifth of Ukraine’s sovereign territory. But regaining territory is the wrong way to imagine the best outcome. True victory for Ukraine is to rise from the hell of the war as a strong, independent, prosperous and secure state, firmly planted in the West.[...]

the only way to find out if Mr. Putin is serious about a cease-fire, and whether one can be worked out, is to give it a try. Halting Russia well short of its goals and turning to the reconstruction and modernization of Ukraine would be lasting tributes to the Ukrainians who have made the ultimate sacrifice to preserve the existence of their nation. And no temporary armistice would forever preclude Ukraine from recovering all of its land.

With U.S. and European aid to Ukraine now in serious jeopardy, the Biden administration and European officials are quietly shifting their focus from supporting Ukraine’s goal of total victory over Russia to improving its position in an eventual negotiation to end the war, according to a Biden administration official and a European diplomat based in Washington. Such a negotiation would likely mean giving up parts of Ukraine to Russia. The White House and Pentagon publicly insist there is no official change in administration policy — that they still support Ukraine’s aim of forcing Russia’s military completely out of the country. [...]

The administration official told POLITICO Magazine this week that much of this strategic shift to defense is aimed at shoring up Ukraine’s position in any future negotiation. “That’s been our theory of the case throughout — the only way this war ends ultimately is through negotiation,” said the official, a White House spokesperson who was given anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on the record.[...]

“Those discussions [about peace talks] are starting, but [the administration] can’t back down publicly because of the political risk” to Biden, said a congressional official who is familiar with the administration’s thinking and who was granted anonymity to speak freely.[...]

The European diplomat based in Washington said that the European Union is also raising the threat of expediting Ukraine’s membership in NATO to “put the Ukrainians in the best situation possible to negotiate” with Moscow. That is a flashpoint for Putin, who is believed to be mainly interested in a strategic deal with Washington under which Ukraine will not enter NATO. [...]

For most of the conflict GOP critics have accused Biden of moving too slowly to arm the Ukrainians with the most sophisticated weaponry, such as M1A1 Abrams battle tanks, long-range precision artillery and F-16 fighter jets. In an interview in July Zelenskyy himself said the delays “provided Russia with time to mine all our lands and build several lines of defense.” [...]

The Ukrainians themselves are engaged in what is becoming a very public debate about how long they can hold out against Putin. With Ukraine running low on troops as well as weapons, Zelenskyy’s refusal to consider any fresh negotiations with Moscow is looking more and more politically untenable at home. The Ukrainian president, seeking to draft another half million troops, is facing rising domestic opposition from his military commander in chief, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, and the mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko.

So what was all that for then [27 Dec 23]

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goodqueenaly · 7 months

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If Tywin was to decide, a few years after Joanna's death, to remarry, who and what (in terms of marriage power) do you think he would go for?

The problem is, I can’t work in a scenario which by the author’s own admission would never happen. Tywin did not want to remarry, point blank, despite having plenty of opportunity (certainly in terms of time) to do so. Joanna was, I think, completely irreplaceable in Tywin’s mind as the ideal bride: the kinswoman whose main-line (male) Lannister pedigree identified her as elite among the levels of humanity (by Tywin’s calculus, anyway); the companion of his childhood at Casterly Rock, whom he had loved and had married at least in part for love; the trusted confidante who could not only make him smile and laugh but who had supposedly ruled Tywin personally as much as he had ruled as Hand politically; the mother of his golden twins, especially precious heir Jaime, the products of Tywin’s quest for politico-dynastic domination through Lannister perfection. Tywin, the man who never did anything by half measures - as small-scale as shaving his head when his hair began thinning or as large-scale as drowning every Reyne inside Castamere at the tail end of the Reyne-Tarbeck Rebellion - could not simply remarry after a proper period of mourning: he would remain a widower, publicly advertising his permanent status as only husband to the late Jonna.

If this all sounds mighty hypocritical given Tywin’s ruthless insistence on unhappy but diplomatically advantageous marriages for his children, as well as his violent and cruel outrage toward Tyrion and Tysha’s marriage purely for love … well, you’re right! Tywin was not, as much as he might have wanted to appear, a gilded android guided only by (what he saw as) cold logic and political acumen, but a deeply emotional man, driven by (among other things) love, anger, grief, hatred, pride, and jealousy. Tywin, but not his children, could sacrifice any potential political benefits to be had via aristocratic marriage/remarriage because he had felt Joanna’s death so strongly, because he wanted to honor her memory by not remarrying, because he needed to show how much he had loved her. (Which did not, of course, prevent Tywin from using sex workers before and after Joanna died - a reflection, I think, both of the hypocrisy in Tywin’s public perception versus his private life as well as Tywin’s attitude toward sex work specifically and people he considered subhuman more generally.)

Also, and it me so of course I have to say it, Tywin’s refusal to remarry after a beloved wife’s death is a nod to Philip IV in The Accursed Kings. In yet another parallel between Philip IV and Tywin, Druon’s Iron King was married only to Jeanne of Navarre (note the almost identical names of their respective wives), with Druon describing Jeanne as “the only love of [Philip’s] life” and noting that following Jeanne’s death Philip had “never wanted any other woman” and “had looked at none other and would never do so” (nearly identical to what Cersei, incorrectly, thinks about Tywin in the wake of his death).

#asoiaf meta #tywin lannister #joanna lannister #the accursed kings

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anonymoushouseplantfan · 1 year

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It's not. Frankly, it hasn't been since The Hill addressed the erosion of the Commonwealth's reputation. This is just another escalation.....as someone who knows nothing about the military or politics or why this is such an issue can you break it down a bit for me please 🙏

Well, to most people the royals are just a ton of gossip and a parade of fashion, but they do have official functions. Obviously, the King is the official head of state and he opens Parliament and so on. There are also the foreign tours and diplomatic functions.

None of this matters to the US, except for one: the military function. The UK is the key military ally to the US, and that is a very important alliance that the US has invested heavily in. The UK is not that strong militarily speaking, but they bring a lot of international legitimacy to the table mainly because of NATO, the Commonwealth and their European alliances. When the US wants a campaign/initiative to look "international" and not just the US going off on its own they rely on the UK to give it that global gloss. Invictus was a part of this. The original plan was to expand Warrior Games, but that was deemed too US-centric. Invictus allowed the UK/Commonwealth to take the lead and make everything more "international."

Brexit seriously eroded the UK's reach and they don't have the EU connection anymore, so they are down to the Commonwealth and NATO. Harry's Netflix series criticized the Commonwealth, deeming it imperialistic, outdated and illegitimate, and now the biography is undermining the UK military and the Afghanistan campaign.

It's a big, big deal, not just for him but also for the UK government and the royal family. Both the Commonwealth and the UK military and hugely important for the UK's global reach and their ability to support their allies (like the US) and Harry is busily blowing both of them up. That's why The Hill is suddenly wondering why Harry is undermining key allies and why Politico is tracking how the biography is affecting UK politics.

The New York Times also just published an article about it.

They ignored the other reveals, but they are covering this one.

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mariacallous · 7 days

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On May 21, the Russian Defense Ministry published a draft decree that, if approved, would unilaterally change its maritime borders with Lithuania and Finland. Then, on Tuesday, multiple Russian state media outlets reported that, according to a “military-diplomatic source,” the authorities were never planning to alter the boundary. By Wednesday afternoon, the document had disappeared from the Russian government’s website. Meduza explains how the episode unfolded and how Russia’s neighbors on the Baltic responded.

Russia’s Defense Ministry published a draft decree on Tuesday that would unilaterally change its maritime borders with Lithuania and Finland in the Baltic Sea. The document appeared on the Russian government’s online legal portal, though it has since been deleted.

The draft decree’s description notes that the current points marking the width of Russia’s territorial waters were established in 1985 and argues that they need to be changed because they “do not fully correspond to the modern geographical situation” and were determined using “small-scale marine navigation maps,” among other reasons.

The agency proposes extending Russia’s maritime border further into the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland and around the towns of Baltiysk and Zelenogradsk. According to the document, this would allow the “corresponding water area to be used as internal waters of the Russian Federation.”

“State maritime navigation charts of the appropriate scales will be revised and reissued for the purpose of ensuring navigational safety,” the draft continues.

Lithuania’s foreign ministry called the proposal “a deliberate, targeted, escalatory provocation to intimidate neighboring countries and their societies” in a statement to Politico, saying it is “further proof that Russia’s aggressive and revisionist policy is a threat to the security of neighboring countries and Europe as a whole.” The agency said it planned to summon a Russian official “for a full explanation.”

Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen pointed out that maritime border alterations are regulated by the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, to which Russia is a party. “It’s worth noting that creating confusion is also an element of hybrid influence. Finland is not surprised by this development,” Valtonen said. She later added that Finland does not see the proposal as a provocation.

Meanwhile, Finnish President Alexander Stubb said that the country’s authorities were aware of Russian media reports about the proposed maritime border change. “The government is closely monitoring the situation. Russia has not contacted Finland about this issue. We will proceed as always: judiciously and relying on facts,” he said.

On Wednesday afternoon, multiple Russian state media outlets published reports saying the country is not planning to move its border in the Baltic, citing a “military-diplomatic source.”

“There were not and are not any intentions to alter the width of [Russia’s] territorial waters, its economic zone, the continental shelf along the mainland coast, or the state border line of the Russian Federation in the Baltic,” the source reportedly said.

By Wednesday afternoon, the document had disappeared from the Russian government’s website, though an archived copy of its official description is still accessible.

Jyri Lavikainen, a researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, told the Finnish news agency Yle that “under normal circumstances, Russia would not engage in the unilateral revision of territorial borders and let us learn about it from their defense ministry’s website.” He continued: “Even if it is a minor issue, Russia is trying to create problems. It’s trying to make Western countries feel that the current political situation is unacceptable, and they should therefore enter negotiations with Russia on terms that are favorable to it.”

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this-acuteneurosis · 1 year

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so as much as been distracted by sparkiling jedi right now your bread and butter is politico talaks and im trying to puzzle out Leia and Padme what goals right now because Palps HAS been playing em hard. Leia wanting and setting up a break away faction from Palpatines majority is a goal, but brining in padme for full AWARENESS that this is what we are doing now and EARLY instead of at the literal end of the war declaring our intentions. Alderann and its passive Palps support is question.

While Padmé is aware that Palpatine is acting selfishly, she hasn't put together that he is actively playing both sides of the war as a Sith Lord. So her perspective is more, "How do I do my job without the support of my once mentor and one of the most powerful/influential men in the Senate?" and less Leia's perspective of, "I'm gonna kill that guy. Hard."

Forging a new party is technically an option, but it's a complicated one, especially since "parties" in the Republic Senate aren't necessarily about sticking a useful label for the general populace on the group. They're more useful internally, and frankly in a voting body of that size that doesn't canonically have a two party system, not even that useful there. It's a nice shorthand to use as a storyteller and writer, having the Loyalist label. But it's mostly supposed to be a clue that these are people that are close to Palpatine, whether they agree with his personal politics or not.

Padmé's goals are still pretty simple. She wants citizenship for the clones, she'd like to end the war by negotiation rather than fighting, she wants to open up diplomatic channels for that purpose, she's dealing with the refugees, and she's helping a little with Shea's project.

Padmé would also like to see the Trade Federation launched into the nearest star, or at least banned from the Senate, but that's not really in the cards at the moment. She's got some background concerns now about the relationship between the Order and the Republic, and when there's fewer immediate concerns, she'll push harder to get their roles and restrictions defined. But it isn't a top priority, just something she's working on in the background.

#Duty Bound #Don't Look Back #politics

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bluespring864 · 3 months

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I just read this insane thing and thought the folks of tumblr might appreciate it

The European Parliament is a peculiarly Byzantine place, which is all the more baffling for an assembly that only sprung into life in 1979.

It’s replete with obscure working groups hived off from real committees, opaque voting procedures, feeble attempts to keep tabs on the Commission, and dull, empty plenary sessions taking place weeks after the news trigger has passed. And don’t forget the gift vault on floor 5 ½.

And the article in full because it is insane:

Inside the European Parliament’s gift vault

APRIL 17, 2023 4:00 AM CET

BY EDDY WAX

BRUSSELS — Down a curving corridor on floor five and a half, there’s a dark alcove hiding an unmarked door.

This is the final resting place for the European Parliament’s would-be bribes.

The secret chamber is piled high with diplomatic gifts, all carefully labeled and left to languish in bureaucratic limbo under lock and key — neither accepted nor rejected.

There’s the opulent; there’s the bizarre. One cupboard contains a Taiwanese wristwatch given to a Polish EU lawmaker. Another holds a pot of French mustard, a miniature Saudi Arabian door and a commemorative plaque from the Indonesian parliament.

Expensive bottles of wine, children’s toys, wireless headphones, books, stationery, figurines — five dusty containers are brimming with the forsworn freebies that governments and parliaments from all over the globe have showered on EU lawmakers.

The crypt — essentially a glorified janitor’s closet — has sat largely unperturbed since the collection began almost 15 years ago. But in recent months, it has taken on a new significance due to revelations over alleged bribes that countries like Qatar, Morocco and Mauritania were funneling to EU lawmakers.

The scandal, dubbed Qatargate, has prompted soul-searching within Parliament, which is now squabbling over how to revise the code of conduct that governs lawmakers’ behavior — including what they should do when offered a gift.

But here, in room 55A031 of the labyrinthine Paul-Henri Spaak building, remain the gifts given but not received.

Too small a room

Outside, there is no indication about what the room contains. It is permanently locked.

Besides the renounced gratuities, the room stores old MEP files.

POLITICO’s access to the vault was facilitated by the office of German Green MEP Daniel Freund — a vocal proponent of tougher transparency rules in the institution — plus three European Parliament officials, including a spokesperson.

“It’s a bit anticlimactic if you expected some kind of treasure trove,” Nurminen said, standing on the squeaky linoleum floor of the vault as the air conditioning thrummed in the background.

With MEPs rushing to declare many more gifts than before in light of the Qatargate scandal, this storage room could soon become too small. Between 2009 and 2014, EU lawmakers declared just 15 gifts — but in this parliamentary term, which began in 2019, they’ve already registered 266.

The higher numbers are largely due to a massive dump of gifts by Parliament President Roberta Metsola, who declared 170 gifts since the start of the year — most recently a traditional shirt from the chairman of the Ukrainian parliament and a decorative box from Harvard University.

The president’s gifts are either displayed in her office, stored in this gift vault — or already long gone. When it comes to gifts of chocolates, wine or crunchy snacks, some have been “served in the course of Parliament’s functions,” i.e. consumed during official work meetings.

Even though she missed the internal deadline to declare many of the gifts, Metsola — who has been Parliament president since January 2022 — argued she was being radically transparent by declaring the gifts and turning them over. This broke with years of the institution exempting the president from declaring gifts on the public register.

Because of this change, many gifts given to previous presidents and kept in boxes by a set of civil servants called the “protocol service” are now being transferred to this room from undisclosed locations. The Parliament spokesperson described this gift vault as the only dedicated room where such gifts to former presidents are kept.

Just 17 gifts to presidents past and present are on display in glass cabinets at the Parliament’s seat in Strasbourg, next to a tiny kiosk selling Roberta Metsola-themed stamps. They include a statuette of a horse from the United Arab Emirates’ National Council; handmade artwork from the president of Nigeria; a silver bowl from top U.S. politician Nancy Pelosi; a peace-themed mosaic from Pope Francis; and a vide-poches or decorative tray from French President Emmanuel Macron.

Manfred’s mobile

For now, the gifts in the chamber in Brussels are essentially in limbo — neither displayed nor used — a fate that might perhaps make lobbyists or foreign dignitaries think twice about going to the trouble of making any such gesture in the first place.

A case in point is a Huawei smartphone that was worth more than €150 when given to European People’s Party chief Manfred Weber by the Chinese tech company — in 2013. It’s been gathering dust here ever since.

The “end of life” rules, as Parliament speak would have it, means dead but not buried.

According to the current rules, EU lawmakers can keep these gifts permanently if it can be proved they have no “obvious” value to the Parliament. Or they may be temporarily displayed in their offices if the president gives her blessing.

In theory, parliamentarians can also bid to buy back their gifts in a public tender — but such an auction has never happened.

At a later stage of the ethics reform plan initiated by Metsola, senior parliamentarians could at some point tweak the code of conduct to allow the gifts to be given to charities — as happens with used furniture and food waste from the canteens. But such a tweak is currently not under consideration.

“If you have more presents handed into the institution, there needs to be a way to process them. So the existing 2013 rules might be revised,” the spokesperson said as the door quietly closed.

source: politico.eu

#eu politics #the funny side of it #unwanted gifts #i hope this article brings you as much joy as it did for me

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dzthenerd490 · 2 days

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News Post

Palestine

Israel-Palestine debate seizes French National Assembly after Rafah offensive – POLITICO

The US must recognize Palestine as a state. It’s time to look to the future, not the past | Jodi Rudoren | The Guardian

Are we witnessing Nakba 2.0 in Gaza? | Israel-Palestine conflict | Al Jazeera

'No Longer Taboo': More European States Considering Recognizing Palestine, Senior EU Diplomat Tells Haaretz - Israel News - Haaretz.com

Ukraine

Ukraine war: The children adapting to survive Russia's invasion (bbc.com)

France and Germany say Ukraine should be able to use their weapons to strike inside Russia | CNN

Russia wants to wipe Ukraine off the map, not negotiate with it (thehill.com)

Russia-Ukraine war: Putin warns of consequences if Russian soil is hit | AP News

Joe Biden isolated after Western allies agree to let Ukraine fire weapons into Russia (telegraph.co.uk) - (I won't link this one because the news article is blocked and requests your email to continue. I just thought the title was funny and wanted to show you guys)

Sudan

Sudan Civil War: Crisis in El Fasher Overshadowed by Gaza, Ukraine (foreignpolicy.com)

Over 130 killed in 2 weeks as fighting intensifies in major Sudanese city, aid group says - ABC News (go.com)

Iran’s intervention in Sudan’s civil war advances its geopolitical goals − but not without risks (theconversation.com)

Millions living through nightmare as Sudan’s civil war brings killings, torture, famine | PBS NewsHour

#Rafah #Palestine #Gaza #Ukraine #Sudan #News Post

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mikeo56 · 6 months

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Israel and Hamas have reportedly agreed to a four-day ceasefire which will entail the release of 50 hostages held by Hamas in exchange for 150 hostages held by Israeli forces.

In an article titled “Biden admin officials see proof their strategy is working in hostage deal,” Politico describes the deal as “the administration’s biggest diplomatic victory of the conflict” and reports that White House officials are calling it a “vindication” of Biden’s decision making. Which is an entirely inappropriate level of verbal fellatio for an achievement as minimal as not murdering children for a few days.

Tucked away many paragraphs into this report is a sentence which is getting a lot of attention on social media today saying that according to Politico’s sources there has been some resistance to the pause in fighting within the administration due to fears that it will allow journalists into Gaza to report on the devastation Israel has inflicted upon the enclave.

“And there was some concern in the administration about an unintended consequence of the pause: that it would allow journalists broader access to Gaza and the opportunity to further illuminate the devastation there and turn public opinion on Israel,” Politico reports.

In other words, the White House is worried that a brief pause in the Israeli massacre of civilians in Gaza will allow journalists to report the truth about the Israeli massacre of civilians in Gaza, because it will hurt the information interests of the US and Israel. They are worried that the public will become more aware of facts and truth.

Needless to say, if you’re standing on the right side of history you’re not typically worried about journalists reporting true facts about current events and thereby damaging public support for your agendas. But that is the side that the US and Israel have always stood on, which is why the US empire is currently imprisoning Julian Assange for doing good journalism on US war crimes and why Israel has a decades-long history of threatening and targeting journalists.

During Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza in 2021 the IDF reportedly targeted more than 20 Palestinian press institutions in the enclave, as well as the tower hosting the international outlets AP and Al Jazeera. During this current onslaught Israel has been killing dozens of Palestinian journalists, sometimes by actively bombing their homes where they live with their families. The IDF’s campaign to wipe out inconvenient news reporters has resulted in the Committee to Protect Journalists calling this the deadliest conflict on record for journalists anywhere, ever.

Both the US and Israel have been attacking the press in this way because their governments understand that whoever controls the narrative controls the world. They understand that while power is controlling what happens, ultimate power is controlling what people think about what happens. Human consciousness is dominated by mental narratives, so if you can control society’s dominant narratives, you can control the humans.

This is why the powerful have been able to remain in power in our civilization — because they understand this, while we the public generally do not. That’s why they bombard us with nonstop mass media propaganda, that’s why they work to censor the internet, that’s why Julian Assange languishes in prison, that’s why Israel routinely murders journalists, and that’s why the White House is afraid of what will happen if worldwide news reporters are able to get their cameras into Gaza.

#palestine #ceasefire #reporting #us adminestration #censorship #us conflation

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oldshrewsburyian · 1 year

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yes to all of this! I agree that there's not a perfect comparison to the west wing (although iirc the Diplomat's creator did work on the non-sorkin seasons of tww?) but maybe it's a bit of a wild cross between the west wing and the thick of it (satirical movie by armando iannucci about uk and us politicos failing to stop the iraq war?) - i must also say that Stuart and Eidra took a minute to grow on me, but they did, and I was in for Austin ever since that garden scene where she blurts out (1/2)

(2/2) "are you saying you like me?" like that CHEMISTRY! on the other hand, I found both Kate's reaction to Hal's kidnapping endlessly endearing, as well as Hal's complete inability to go for anyone but his wife. Genuinely compelling love triangle, much to consider. (maybe a little Team Austin due to Hal's Afghanistan stuff, but idk!) Ultimately, I did find the final twist to be *very* interesting and way different than most US foreign relations thrillers. the call's coming from inside the house

Oh, I always have a blast with Iannucci (but I'm only familiar with The Thick of It as a hilarious and profane TV show with Peter Capaldi.) His political observations are razor-sharp but I tend to think of his satire as deliberately flamboyant, even picaresque.

But to The Diplomat: I agree that it's very compelling to make the narrative one in which the vast political bureaucracy on both sides of the Atlantic, glacial except in moving to protect its own stability, is simultaneously the machinery that our protagonists have to use, and that which armors and upholds the antagonists. ...Which, when I put it like that, sounds really depressing. But it feels, to me, like a show that is fundamentally optimistic about the moral and political value of decency, even if also providing at least an appearance of realism about its limitations.

#the diplomat 2023 #the diplomat #asks and answers

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 10 months

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* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 4, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

AUG 5, 2023

Army Chief of Staff General James McConville, the 40th person to hold that position, retired today. Because Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) has put a hold on military promotions for the past 8 months, there is no Senate-confirmed leader to take McConville’s place. There are eight seats on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the group of the most senior military officers who advise the president, homeland security officials, the secretary of defense, and the National Security Council. Currently, two of those seats are filled by acting officials who have not been confirmed by the Senate.

Politico’s defense reporter Paul McLeary wrote that as of today, there are 301 senior military positions filled by temporary replacements as Tuberville refuses to permit nominations to go through the Senate by the usual process. Two more members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will retire before the end of September.

Politico’s Pentagon reporter Lara Seligman illustrated what this personnel crisis means for national security: “U.S. forces are on high alert in the Persian Gulf,” she wrote today. “As Tehran attempts to seize merchant ships in the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. is sending warships, fighter jets and even considering stationing armed troops aboard civilian vessels to protect mariners. Yet two of the top senior officers overseeing the escalating situation aren’t where they’re supposed to be.”

Two days ago, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wrote in a memo that the “unprecedented, across-the-board hold is having a cascading effect, increasingly hindering the normal operations of this Department and undermining both our military readiness and our national security.” Today he reiterated: “The failure to confirm our superbly qualified senior uniformed leaders undermines our military readiness.” He added, “It undermines our retention of some of our very best officers. And it is upending the lives of far too many of their spouses, children and loved ones.”

Tuberville, who did not serve in the military, likes to say "there is no one more military than me.” And yet, thanks to him and the Republican conference that is permitting him to hold the nominations, we are down two chiefs of staff tonight.

Meanwhile, on July 26, when soldiers took charge in Niger, a country central to the fight against Islamic terrorists and the security of democracy on the African continent, the U.S. had no ambassador there. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) was blocking the confirmation of more than 60 State Department officials the same way that Tuberville was blocking the confirmation of military officials.

Paul claimed he was blocking State Department confirmations because he wanted access to information about the origins of COVID, but Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the department had “been working extensively” with Paul, providing the documents and other information he had requested. “But unfortunately, he continues to block all our nominees.” Paul complained that he had been only given private access, and wanted to “take those documents out.”

As of July 17, the current Senate had confirmed only five State Department nominees. On that day, Blinken wrote to each senator to express “serious concern” about the delays. He told reporters that he respects and values the Senate’s “critical oversight role…[b]ut that’s not what is happening here. No one has questioned the qualifications of these career diplomats. They are being blocked for leverage on other unrelated issues. It’s irresponsible. And it’s doing harm to our national security.”

Ambassadors “advance the interests of our country,” he said, and not having confirmed ambassadors “makes us less effective at advancing every one of our policy priorities—from getting more countries to serve as temporary hubs for [immigrant visa] processing, to bringing on more partners for global coalitions like the one we just announced to combat fentanyl, to support competitive bids for U.S. companies to build…critical infrastructure projects around the world.”

Our adversaries benefit from these absences, not only because they offer an opening to exploit, but also because “[t]he refusal of the Senate to approve these career public servants also undermines the credibility of our democracy. People abroad see it as a sign of dysfunction, ineffectiveness—inability to put national interests over political ones.”

Blinken noted that “[i]n previous administrations, the overwhelming majority of career nominees received swift support to advance through the Senate by unanimous consent. Today, for reasons that have nothing to do with the nominees’ qualifications or abilities, they are being forced to proceed through individual floor votes.” More than a third of the nominees had been waiting for more than a year for their confirmation.

Late on July 27, the day after the conflict began in Niger and the day before the senators left for their summer recess, Paul lifted his hold, tweeting that the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), an independent agency that administers foreign aid, had agreed to release the documents he wanted. The Senate then confirmed career diplomat Kathleen A. FitzGibbon as ambassador to Niger, as well as ambassadors to other countries including Rwanda, the United Arab Emirates, Georgia, Guyana, Ethiopia, Jordan, Uganda, and Italy.

But FitzGibbon did not arrive in Niger before the U.S. government on Wednesday ordered “non-emergency U.S. government personnel” and their families to leave the country out of concerns for their safety.

The attack on our nation by individual Republicans seems to be a theme these days. After yesterday’s arraignment on charges that he conspired to defraud the United States, conspired and attempted to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspired to overturn Americans’ constitutionally protected right to vote, Donald Trump today flouted the judge’s warning not to try to influence jurors. He posted on social media: “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”

Prosecutors from the office of Special Counsel Jack Smith tonight alerted the court to Trump’s threat when they asked the court for a protective order to stop him from publishing information about the materials they are about to deliver to his lawyers. They expressed concern that publishing personal information “could have a harmful chilling effect on witnesses” or taint the jury pool by telling potential jurors too much before the trial.

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#letters from an american #heather cox richardson #TFG #Radical Republicans #US Military #US State Department

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goodqueenaly · 7 months

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I couldn’t help but notice that Arianne Martell and Asha Greyjoy have a lot in common and are pretty much foils of each other’s. My question is if they met do you think they’d get along maybe even become friends?

I think it’s important to remember that Asha and Arianne still come from extremely different cultural and personal backgrounds. Asha is extremely comfortable with a weapon in hand and on the deck of a ship as its captain; Arianne has relationships of varying degrees of closeness with her martially trained cousins and a firm friendship with Garin of the Rhoynar orphans, but she’s certainly no warrior or sailor herself. (And this is without getting into the wholly separate politico-cultural histories of the ironborn and the Dornish.) Asha seems to show little interest in marriage, especially the sort of diplomatic matches Westerosi aristocratic women are often subject to (embodied in her rejection of Tristifer Botley’s domestic vision for the two of them in favor of “adventures”); Arianne, by contrast, fully accepted that she would marry for political alliance (and specifically that she would not marry a countryman), and indeed seems set to use her hand in marriage as a way of advancing her political interests with the would-be Aegon VI. Asha also enjoyed - well, I wouldn’t call it affection from her father, but something like regard from Balon as a de facto son and heir; Arianne, by contrast, was forced by her father into an artificial rivalry with brother Quentyn, and came to believe that Doran neither loved her nor wanted her to succeed as Princess of Dorne.

I’m not saying these characters could never see eye to eye or even be friends. However, I think there is sometimes a gap between “the author is using these two characters to explore similar themes” and “these characters are similar and would be friends if they met”.

#asoiaf meta #arianne martell #asha greyjoy

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mariacallous · 3 months

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Vladimir Putin must be enjoying this moment.

Not only did the Russian president manage to snuff-troll the Munich Security Conference with news of the death of his main political rival, Alexei Navalny (“slowly murdered” by his jailers in Siberia, according to the European Union’s top diplomat Josep Borrell); he also scored a well-timed battlefield success when, over the weekend, his troops finally took the town of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine following a tactical retreat by ammunition-starved Ukrainian troops who had defended the town since 2014.

According to one participant in Munich, the mood at the gathering of Western security and diplomatic elites — typically a chance to project unity and resolve between exclusive cocktail receptions — was grim. “There is a sense of urgency, without a sense of action,” said Jan Techau, Germany director for the Eurasia Group, a think tank. “It’s a very strange state of affairs.”

Indeed, two years after Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the situation has never looked more perilous for Kyiv — and for its neighbors along Russia’s western frontier — since the dark days of February 2022, when U.S. President Joe Biden offered his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a one-way ticket out of Ukraine (declined), and much of the world assumed (wrongly) that Russia would overrun the country.

U.S. Republicans, following orders from ex-President Donald Trump, are blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine, subjecting troops to “ammo starvation” with immediate, deleterious effects on the battlefield. After taking Bakhmut and Avdiivka, Russian troops are now trying to press their advantage in the directions of Marinka, Robotyne and Kreminna, according to battlefield observers. European leaders, despite having become Ukraine’s chief material backers, are failing to fill the gap in military supplies left by the U.S. and, thanks to France, insisting on “Buy European” provisions despite a lack of manufacturing capacity and refusing to shop outside the bloc for shells.

Meanwhile Putin, who’s still very much in power despite efforts to sanction his regime into submission, is ramping up his campaign of intimidation against the West. In his interview with ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson, the Russian leader mentioned Poland more than a dozen times, placing the NATO member squarely within his vision for Grand Russia, and his deputy prime minister has started to make threatening noises toward the Norwegian leadership of the island of Svalbard, in the Arctic Ocean, of all places.

With a deepening sense of gloom and resignation, leaders in countries most exposed to Russia’s flank are preparing for scenarios that would have been laughed off, in Berlin and Washington, as the fever dreams of Cold War nostalgics just 25 months ago. A top Swedish defense official told his countrymen in January to “prepare mentally” for war, and the defense ministers of Denmark and Estonia warned earlier this month that Russia was likely to start testing NATO’s Article 5 commitment to collective security within the next five years — i.e. attack the world’s most powerful military alliance just for a chance to “find out.”

It’s a parabolic slide down from the burst of “can-doism” that delivered weapons, sanctions and Germany’s “Zeitenwende” (epochal shift) during the first months of the war. A NATO official speaking to POLITICO said the prevailing view within the alliance is that Ukraine is “not about to collapse” and that the “gloom is overdone.” Some battlefield observers aren’t so sure. “What we’re hearing from the front is increasingly worrying,” a senior European government official said in January. “The risk of a breakthrough [by the Russians] is real. We’re not taking it seriously enough.”

It may be too early to say the West will lose the war in Ukraine — but it’s becoming increasingly clear that it could. As Kyiv and its allies contemplate a gruesome menu of possibilities for the coming year — including an all-fronts push by Russia’s allies, Iran and China, to trigger World War III — it’s worthwhile to pause for a moment and ask: How did we get here? How did the West, with its aircraft carriers and combined economic footprint approaching €60 trillion (dwarfing China, Iran and Russia combined) cede the initiative to a shrinking, post-Soviet country with the GDP of Spain, and end up in a defensive crouch flinching at the next affront from Putin? And if repelling Putin’s invasion of Ukraine isn’t the West’s real objective — what is?

Drip-drip deterrence

According to diplomats, security officials and experts on both sides of the Atlantic who spoke to POLITICO for this article, the answer to the first question lies partly in the fact that the West’s response to Russia has been, at least in part, dictated by fear of nuclear confrontation rather than a proactive strategy to help Ukraine repel its invaders.

“It all started in the beginning of the war when [German Chancellor Olaf] Scholz and the [U.S. President Joe] Biden administration agreed on this gradual approach towards arming Ukraine and sanctioning Russia,” said one senior EU diplomat on condition of anonymity. “Some governments were arguing, ‘We need to use the full force of our dissuasive capacity against Russia. But the argument we heard in return was, ‘No, we don’t want to.’”

“There was fear in Biden’s administration and Scholz’s entourage about the possibility of a nuclear confrontation,” the diplomat continued. “This fear was very strong in the beginning. It shaped the world’s response.”

According to Techau and Edward Hunter Christie, a senior research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, the likelihood that the Russian leader formulated some sort of nuclear threat directly to both Biden and Scholz early on in the conflict, scaring the bejesus out of them, is high. “We know that Putin told [former British Prime Minister] Boris Johnson that he could strike his country within five minutes,” said Hunter Christie. “If he did that to Johnson, it’s perfectly possible that he did the same thing to Biden.” Techau added: “There has been fairly well-informed speculation about a direct [nuclear] threat to Scholz, warning him that such a strike could happen.”

Public discussion of a Russian nuclear strike died down after the first few months of the war, replaced by conventional wisdom that Putin would gain little from a first-use strike. But there is evidence to suggest that, far from fading as a consideration for Biden, Scholz and their aides, fear has, in fact, shaped every aspect of their approach to Ukraine, particularly as regards deliveries of weapon systems.

“There is an obvious pattern here,” said Hunter Christie. “We saw it with tanks. We saw it with aircraft. We saw it with caveats on how the HIMARS [a rocket artillery system] could be used. There is an obsessive attention to detail, to caveats on how these weapons can be used, even though some of the considerations are militarily absurd. What this obsession is covering up for is a fear of triggering some escalatory response. That’s understandable — nobody wants nuclear war — but that’s what it is.”

A case in point: the topsy-turvy debate, starting in late 2022, about the danger of sending Western-made tanks, namely the German Leopard II and the American Abrams tank, to Ukraine. In October of that year, Wolfgang Schmidt, one of Scholz’s closest advisers and a fellow traveler dating back to his time as mayor of Hamburg, came out with a bewildering array of reasons not to send the tanks, including that a) Ukraine couldn’t possibly maintain them and b) that the Iron Cross painted on them would somehow be used to suggest Germany had joined the war, or something.

As it turned out, Berlin or Kyiv discovered the existence of paint, fears were overcome, and the tanks were delivered. But a pattern had been established whereby the West agonizingly debates the wisdom of sending a weapons system for months, until some trigger pushes Scholz and Biden over the line.

More than a year later, Berlin and Washington are still following the same playbook, except now the debate centers on long-range missiles that would help Ukraine disrupt Russian supply lines, namely the U.S.-made ATACMS and German Taurus cruise missiles and the possibility of using Russia’s frozen assets — some €300 billion is held in Western countries — to help Ukraine. Until Navalny supposedly died while taking a walk in his Siberian prison, Scholz was pushing back on sending Taurus missiles which, according to German officials, shoot too far and too precisely and therefore raised the risk of direct attacks on Russian soil that could, in turn, prompt retaliation from Moscow against Germany.

Navalny’s untimely death — he was 47, and healthy-looking — seems to have changed the calculus. Media in Germany and the U.S. are now reporting that Biden and Scholz are getting ready to hand over Taurus and ATACMS missiles to Ukraine. Similar debates are under way regarding the use of Russian frozen assets to help Ukraine — currently held up due to opposition from Germany and Belgium, among other EU countries — and on purchasing ammunition for Ukraine from outside the bloc, opposed by France, Greece and Cyprus.

In each case, complex arguments are set up to establish the danger, complexity or impossibility of a particular option, only to be swept away and forgotten when a fresh provocation from Russia “justifies” the additional step. “This has been the pattern since day one,” said a second EU diplomat. “It’s no, then no but, and then yes once the pressure has become too great. Not much has changed.”

“Some people live under the illusion that limited support for Ukraine is enough to keep Russia at bay and that the situation doesn’t pose any real danger to the EU,” said Virginijus Sinkevičius, a European commissioner from Lithuania. “But I think this is wrong absolutely. The war itself, both as a humanitarian disaster and a security problem, is highly problematic for the EU.”

Not so dynamic duo

Beyond fear, diplomats and experts pointed to the dynamic between Scholz and Biden as a driving force behind the West’s overriding strategy of incrementalism and escalation management, rather than a focus on strategic outcomes, in dealing with Ukraine. Despite a 16-year age difference, both men came of age politically during the Cold War and its widespread fears of nuclear armageddon. Both are deeply wedded to the U.S.-led international order and NATO protections for Europe. Both are men of the left who are instinctively suspicious of armed intervention and, temperamentally speaking, risk-averse and uncomfortable with geopolitical gamesmanship, experts and diplomats argued.

“Biden, we know, has always been ideologically opposed to the idea of intervention and war — see his chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan,” said the first diplomat. “In this case, he is doing everything possible not to have a confrontation with Russia. America used to be strong on strategic ambiguity. But Biden has gone out of his way to telegraph moves in advance throughout this conflict. In this sense, he has found commonality with Chancellor Scholz, who is also cautious by nature.”

A former far-left activist who traveled to Moscow in his youth and rose through the ranks of a German Social Democratic Party known for its historic sympathy toward Russia, Scholz wasn’t naturally configured to be a Russia hawk. “He has come a huge distance, but nobody knows to what extent that legacy [of deference toward Russia] is still with him.”

Experts also pointed to the key role of advisers, namely U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Scholz’s advisers Schmidt and Jens Plötner, a foreign policy adviser, in shaping their bosses’ approach. Diplomats and experts consulted for this article described Sullivan as being “highly intelligent,” “not deeply experienced on national security,” “ultimately career-driven” and “a bit short on emotional intelligence.” Schmidt gets “inseparable from Scholz,” “very cautious,” “basically terrified of Russia,” “not as big a foreign policy expert as he thinks he is.” Plötner, in turn, is described as “a super close confidante,” “Russia-friendly,” “unconvinced by the narrative that an attack on Ukraine is an attack on all of us.”

“Together these two [Sullivan and Schmidt] engineered the idea that Russia would eventually get ground down and be discouraged,” said Hunter Christie. “That may have avoided nuclear war, but it has trapped us between two suboptimal outcomes: a bigger war with Russia or the collapse of Ukraine, which would be a shock and a humiliation and a demonstration of Western weakness.”

The role of other leaders in shaping Western policy is not to be under-estimated. Ukrainian sources tend to identify the United Kingdom, under both ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and current PM Rishi Sunak, as a staunch ally that helped to break Western reticence on delivering certain weapons. They credit acting Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte with having broken a taboo on the delivery of Western fighter jets, as the Netherlands is currently preparing to deliver 24 F-16s to Ukraine at some point later this year, according to the Dutch Defense Ministry. Nordic, Baltic, Central and Eastern European states, namely Poland, win high marks from Ukrainian officials for the depth of their commitment to Ukraine’s victory — exemplified by Denmark’s recent decision to send all of its artillery to Kyiv.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who recently signed a defense agreement with Ukraine, comes in for more mixed reviews. While he is praised for having abandoned his insistence on dialogue with Putin and sending long-range SCALP missiles, his current insistence on “Buy European” has opened him to charges of leading a “cynical” policy more focused on rebuilding Europe’s defense industry than on helping Ukraine in the battlefield.

Yet in the broadest sense, interviewees agreed it was Scholz and Biden and their aides who set the overall pace. Their caution, incrementalism and fear of nuclear escalation has defined a Western strategy primarily focused on defensive measures, escalation management and avoidance of nuclear confrontation, with Ukraine’s battlefield success against Russia being a secondary consideration. Except that not everyone agrees that this amounts to a “strategy.”

“There is no strategy,” said a third European diplomat. “Things are just happening. Later on, it’s easy to say there was a strategy, this was all part of a plan. But that has never been the case.” A fourth diplomat concurred. “There are slogans — ‘As long as it takes,’ ‘Russia cannot win,’ this kind of thing. But what does any of this really mean? They are things that people say. What matters is what they do.”

‘The long term’

Having squandered an opportunity to equip Ukraine’s forces with air power during the early months of 2023 — a key factor in the failure of a much-touted counteroffensive — Western leaders now see their hands increasingly tied by politics: The U.S. presidential election and Donald Trump on one side; the European Parliament election and the rise of right-wing forces led by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on the other. Critics warn that the window of opportunity for the West to help Ukraine turn the tide is, if not already closed, closing.

The anti-Ukraine MAGA caucus led by Trump, with U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson as chief whip and Republican Senator J. D. Vance as its top ambassador (who couldn’t find time to meet with Zelenskyy while in Munich), looks unlikely to greenlight the next package of Ukraine funding anytime soon. Europe’s right-wing forces — from Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party in France to Italy’s Matteo Salvini to Dutch populist Geert Wilders and Hungary’s Orbán — are expected to bolster their influence after the election in June, with further sanctions and aid packages for Ukraine a possible casualty.

Yet there is still time and the basket of options is far from empty. As the reports on ATACMS and Taurus suggest, Western leaders are still able to deliver game-changing weapons to Ukraine if the incentive is strong enough (in this case, officials say deliveries could be justified by sending Putin a “Navalny signal” following the opposition leader’s death). But the deliveries aren’t a done deal, and other possibilities — including confiscating Russian assets, taxing Western companies that continue to operate in Russia, or stepping up sanctions against Putin’s regime — remain on the table, visible to all, yet undeployed. Even after Navalny’s killing, there has been no “Mario Draghi moment” signaling resolve to do “whatever it takes” to help Ukraine prevail, added Techau.

“We see that the sanctions we have agreed — [on Feb. 21] we adopted another round — don’t bite enough,” added Sinkevičius. “So we need to fix our approach, globally.”

The restraint suggests that, behind the bold speeches on helping Ukraine “as long as it takes,” another unspoken agenda may well be dictating Western actions. When asked to describe the optimal outcome for Ukraine in the coming year, several European diplomats talked about a “stabilization” of the conflict. Pressed on what this would entail, the diplomats said it would mean nudging Kyiv to open negotiations with Putin to freeze the conflict and lock in current territorial gains, in exchange for Western “security guarantees” (such as those recently signed with France, the Netherlands and the U.K.) and a path to membership of the EU.

Acting Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who’s seen as a likely pick to become the next secretary-general of NATO, hinted at this “day after” vision during remarks at the Munich Security Conference. While saying that only Kyiv can trigger peace negotiations with Moscow, he added: “But when that happens, we will also have to sit down with the US, within NATO, [and] collectively with the Russians to talk about future security arrangements between us and the Russians.”

Diplomats acknowledge that such negotiations have failed in the past, and might buy Putin time to prepare for his next offensive. Yet the alternative — a surge in Western financial and military aid during 2024 that would let Ukraine deliver a decisive punch against the Russian invader — is greeted with even greater skepticism in European embassies.

Another, unspoken aspect of the Western approach is that some factions hope to return to business as usual with Russia soon after a hypothetical freezing of the war. This might explain the profound reticence, namely in Germany, to confiscate Russia’s frozen assets and face the risk that Moscow could hit back by repossessing the hundreds of billions of euros worth of assets still held by European firms in Russia. It also chimes with a report in Germany’s Welt newspaper (like POLITICO, a member of Axel Springer) asserting that Scholz opposed naming European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as NATO’s next secretary-general because she is “too critical toward Moscow, which could become a disadvantage in the long term.”

In a speech at the Munich conference, Scholz gave a hint of how the West is quietly redefining its war aims in Ukraine. Rather than say “Ukraine will win,” or “Russia must leave Ukraine,” the German Chancellor argued that Putin should not be allowed to dictate the terms of peace in Ukraine. “There will be no dictated peace. Ukraine will not accept this, and neither will we,” Reuters quoted Scholz as having said.

“This is certainly softer than ‘Ukraine cannot lose,’” said Techau. “And essentially [it] means to cement the status quo.”

The West hasn’t given up on Ukraine. But its overriding focus on risk management reveals a desire to wind down the conflict and make a deal with Putin, if possible sooner rather than later. The question looming over the conflict is whether that approach will stave off disaster — or invite something worse to come.

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