Archive for the ‘ukraine’ Tag
The Washington Post is reporting that members of the US military were ordered to kill two survivors of a US attack on a vessel that the US alleges was used for running drugs.
There are a number of questions about this action which need to be answered. But I think that the Post did a great job of raising those questions. Many of those questions revolve around the status of the military action against these alleged drug running vessels: are these actions “acts of war”? President Trump defends these actions under his authority as Commander-in-Chief of the US military and that he is using forces against actors which threaten US national security. Most of those defenses are bogus and have been addressed in many other media sources.
But, for purposes of argument, let’s pretend that the US military action is justified by the principles of self-defense. Those arguments are used to justify the first use of force against these vessels.
But the second attack on the survivors clinging to wreckage is unquestionably a violation of the laws of war. The Geneva Convention is explicit:
GENEVA CONVENTION for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea of 12 August 1949
CHAPTER II Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked
Article 12
Members of the armed forces and other persons mentioned in the following Article, who are at sea and who are wounded, sick or shipwrecked, shall be respected and protected in all circumstances, it being understood that the term “shipwreck” means shipwreck from any cause and includes forced landings at sea by or from aircraft.
Such persons shall be treated humanely and cared for by the Parties to the conflict in whose power they may be, without any adverse distinction founded on sex, race, nationality, religion, political opinions, or any other similar criteria. Any attempts upon their lives, or violence to their persons, shall be strictly prohibited; in particular, they shall not be murdered or exterminated, subjected to torture or to biological experiments; they shall not wilfully be left without medical assistance and care, nor shall conditions exposing them to contagion or infection be created.
Only urgent medical reasons will authorize priority in the order of treatment to be administered.
Women shall be treated with all consideration due to their sex.
We should remember that the Laws of War are generally unenforceable since the international organizations tasked with the enforcement (the UN Security Council, the International Court of Justice, and the International Criminal Court) are powerless to enforce the laws against powerful states. But the Laws of War rest upon the self-interest of states to protect their own people against unlawful acts. The United States would never want its wounded soldiers to be ruthlessly murdered, so it must adhere to a code of conduct that respects the similar status of its enemy’s soldiers. This code of conduct is frequently violated, but far less than one would expect. This self-interest is most potent with respect to civilians, but again, we have lots of evidence to suggest that it is far less than perfect.
Killing two wounded individuals in open seas is a blatant violation of this norm and it invites reciprocal actions by other states. We have already witnesse massive loss of civilian lives in the conflicts in Congo, Myanmar, Ukraine, and the Gaza Strip, and these actions should be soundly condemned. The report of Israeli Defense Forces killing two individuals in the West Bank who had their hands raised in surrender is further evidence of the erosion of this critical aspect of the Laws of War.
Nov. 27, 2025 incident in which two Palestinian men were killed during an operation in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank
There is a second important issue raised by the second missile attack. According to the Post, the military unit that carried out the attack was one of the US’s most elite troops. Whoever received the order to kill the wounded survivors should have refused the order. That the order was carried out suggests a stunning lack of discipline by very well-trained troops. The protections for wounded soldiers and civilians must be enforced. If not, then no war is being fought; it is murder and barbarous.
US President Trump fired the chief statistician, Erika McEntarfer, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he thought that the recent jobs report was distorted by political bias.
There are many examples of “killing the messenger” in history. When a messenger informed King Tigranes of Armenia that Roman general Lucullus was approaching, Tigranes had him executed. Plutarch recounts the result: “The first messenger, that gave notice of Lucullus‘ coming was so far from pleasing Tigranes that, he had his head cut off for his pains; and no man dared to bring further information. Without any intelligence at all, Tigranes sat while war was already blazing around him, giving ear only to those who flattered him”.
Another example is Ivan Adamovich Kraval who was the lead statistician for the 1937 census report in the Soviet Union. That report indicated that the Soviet Union’s population growth had been stunted because of famine induced by Stalin’s agricultural policies:
“The problem was that calculations of natural population growth had projected a population of 186.4 million, an increase of 37.6 million since the 1926 census; the actual increase turned out to be only 7.2 million. The population gap spoke so graphically of unnatural death, and so belied the image of a healthy happy society, that the census was squelched. On September 26, Pravda published a communiqué of the Sovnarkom claiming ‘crude violations of the principles of statistical science.’”
Stalin had Kraval executed for the bad news. as well as others who were involved in the production of the census. But the shortfall in population were the direct result of destructive policies pursued by Stalin;
“Whatever explanations were offered by the statisticians and demographers whose lives were at risk, they were unable to conceal the extent to which population growth had lagged behind the fantastic growth projections of the leadership, to say nothing of the actual decline in population. The child mortality figures were particularly alarming, as was the greater mortality among men, who constituted the greater proportion of the deportees, special settlers and camp inmates, and also the lower birth rate resulting from this catastrophic situation. Over 40 million people were struck down by famine.
“In total, for the year 1933, there were circa 6 million more deaths than usual. As the immense majority of those deaths can be attributed directly to hunger, the death toll for the whole tragedy must therefore be nearly 6 million. The peasants of the Ukraine suffered worst of all, with 4 million lives lost. There were a million deaths in Kazakhstan, most of them among nomadic tribes who had been deprived of their cattle by collectivization and forced to settle in one place. The Northern Caucasus and the Black Earth region accounted for a million more.
“Even if the census of 1937 does not speak of deportations, executions and victims of famine, the data it compiled exposed the true dimensions of the catastrophe. The missing millions correspond fairly precisely to the losses that had arisen through the increased mortality caused by collectivization and the resulting famine.”
The lower employment numbers for the US in 2025 still need to be fully explained, but the most likely explanations involve the uncertainties created by the ever-changing tariff policies of the Trump Administration and the significant cuts to Federal Government employment caused by the efforts of DOGE. President Trump does not care for this explanation, and the statistical manifestations of his moronic economic policies can be fudged by a good statistician. But the human harms created will occur and one hopes that we have a media that is committed enough to publicize these harms. If not, then many millions of people will suffer and die in silence. And the US will cease to be a Republic.
In what will surely be regarded as the ultimate in chutzpah in diplomatic history, President Trump argued today that Russia is making a concession to Ukraine by not taking it over completely. According to The Hill:
“President Trump said Thursday that Russia would be making a concession toward peace if it agrees not to take over Ukraine, as the U.S. president has struggled to negotiate even a limited ceasefire deal between Moscow and Kyiv.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office during a meeting with Norway’s prime minister, Trump was asked what concessions Russia has ‘offered up thus far to get to the point where you’re closer to peace.’
“’Stopping the war, stopping from taking the whole country, pretty big concession,’ Trump responded.”
President Trump must surely be aware of the fact that Ukraine has been fighting desperately against the Russians in a war that most analysts (as well as Russian President Putin) thought would be over in three days. To add insult to injury, Trump also suggested that Ukraine should accept Russian control over Crimea. A Financial Times editorial assesses this gambit without mincing words:
“Donald Trump’s ultimatum to Kyiv to accept a peace deal that includes US recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea makes a mockery of Washington’s supposed negotiation to end Russia’s war against Ukraine. Trump’s election campaign boast that he could strike a peace deal in 24 hours beggared belief. So has the incompetence and cynicism of his administration as it scrambles to land a settlement at any price.
“Now Trump and his officials are threatening to walk away from the talks unless Ukraine swallows terms written without it. Trump’s comment on Wednesday that he thought he had a deal with Vladimir Putin but now needed to get one with Volodymyr Zelenskyy was telling. This has never been a proper three-way negotiation.
“Trump says Zelenskyy has no cards to play. In fact, Trump has taken cards away from Ukraine and handed them to Russia. Through amateurism or naivety, US officials gave away important leverage before talks even began. They ruled out Ukraine’s membership of Nato or the prospect of regaining any occupied territory. Trump’s neophyte special envoy Steve Witkoff has been seduced by the Kremlin’s flattery and swallowed its talking points about the causes of the war.”
Moreover, Trump is flatly contradicting the position his administration took on the issue of Crimea in 2018. That policy was articulated by Secretary of State Pompeo and is known as the Crimea Declaration which Trump approved.
“Press Statement
Michael R. Pompeo
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
July 25, 2018
“Russia, through its 2014 invasion of Ukraine and its attempted annexation of Crimea, sought to undermine a bedrock international principle shared by democratic states: that no country can change the borders of another by force. The states of the world, including Russia, agreed to this principle in the United Nations Charter, pledging to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. This fundamental principle — which was reaffirmed in the Helsinki Final Act — constitutes one of the foundations upon which our shared security and safety rests.
“As we did in the Welles Declaration in 1940, the United States reaffirms as policy its refusal to recognize the Kremlin’s claims of sovereignty over territory seized by force in contravention of international law. In concert with allies, partners, and the international community, the United States rejects Russia’s attempted annexation of Crimea and pledges to maintain this policy until Ukraine’s territorial integrity is restored.
“The United States calls on Russia to respect the principles to which it has long claimed to adhere and to end its occupation of Crimea. As democratic states seek to build a free, just, and prosperous world, we must uphold our commitment to the international principle of sovereign equality and respect the territorial integrity of other states. Through its actions, Russia has acted in a manner unworthy of a great nation and has chosen to isolate itself from the international community.”
It is impossible to imagine a more confused, inconsistent, and worthless foreign policy than Trump’s 2nd term Ukraine policy. A leader who cannot even remember what he has done in the past and who shamelessly depreciates the sacrifices by the Ukrainian people in the face of ruthless aggression is unworthy of the role. There are few historical events that even come close to this level of treachery.
In one of the most shameful episodes in diplomatic history, the US announced it is prepared to vote against a resolution in the UN General Assembly condemning Russian aggression against Ukraine. For the last two years, the US has voted in favor of such a resolution, but this year is supporting a watered-down version simply calling for an end to the conflict. Ukraine is going ahead with the stronger resolution which will undoubtedly pass, but the US will be left with the small number of states who have decided that aggression is permissible despite the plain language of the UN Charter. Among the other states that opposed the Ukrainian resolution were Russia, North Korea, Belarus, and Sudan. Astonishing bedfellows in such a dramatically brief period of time.
This decision represents the clearest example of the US repudiation of the world order it helped to create after World War II. That world order was based on rules and norms that reflected the commitment of several states in 1945 to an alternative to the traditional practices of world politics: imperialism and the balance of power. It was never completely successful (and failed most dramatically in 2003 when the US invaded Iraq despite the UN Security Council’s decision not to authorize the use of force against Iraq). But one does not have to believe in the aspirations for a more stable world order to hold that clear aggression across national borders should be readily condemned. The US position on the Ukrainian resolution holds that clear aggression across national borders is acceptable behavior.
There is a second conclusion to the change in US policy toward Ukraine–it represents a significant political victory for Putin that should put to rest all the speculation as to whether Putin has something on Trump. That question is irrelevant. Trump could not be more supportive of Putin and his foreign policy objectives, so whether he is paid to do so or is coerced to do so does not change the outcome. When asked today at his meeting with President Macron of France by a reporter whether he thought Putin was a dictator (a word Trump regularly uses to describe Ukrainian President Zelensky), Trump declined to use the word. I remember the Presidential election of 1976 when President Ford asserted that the East European states under Soviet control were “free”: “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration.” The firestorm that followed effectively doomed Ford in the election. Today, however, few in the Republican Party were willing to condemn Trump for his sugarcoating of Putin.
In 1917, US President Wilson asked the US Congress to declare war against Germany. There were many incidents that provoked Wilson to seek the declaration. His Presidential Campaign of 1916 was adamantly opposed to US participation in the war that had raged in Europe since August 1914. But Wilson’s justification for this change was more deeply rooted in his belief that wars were initiated by leaders who felt little constraints on their ability to use war for spurious reasons:
“We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their government acted in entering this war. It was not with their previous knowledge or approval. It was a war determined upon as wars used to be determined upon in the old, unhappy days when peoples were nowhere consulted by their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in the interest of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their fellow men as pawns and tools.”
It is not at all clear that Wilson’s diagnosis for the causes of war were accurate but they were based on a long-standing tradition in political thought stimulated by Immanual Kant’s pamphlet, Perpetual Peace, which was published in 1795. Kant’s argument was straightforward. Kant believed that the leaders of a country reaped all the benefits of war, such as the expansion of territory, without paying the real price of war. Ordinary people bear the real costs of war (through taxes, conscription, and destruction of property) and would therefore oppose going to war if they were given an effective voice in making decisions. To Wilson, expanding democracy was the most effective way to secure peace.
The meeting yesterday between leaders of the US and Russia in Saudi Arabia was exactly the type of scenario that both Kant and Wilson found compelling. There were no members of the Ukrainian government, nor were there any representatives of other European states. Moreover, the discussion centered on several issues which were decidedly peripheral to the conflict that has been ongoing for three years. According to the Associated Press:
“In an interview with The Associated Press, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the two sides agreed broadly to pursue three goals: to restore staffing at their respective embassies in Washington and Moscow, to create a high-level team to support Ukraine peace talks, and to explore closer relations and economic cooperation.”
Two of these three goals are broad issues that relate exclusively to the US-Russian relationship. Both the US and Russia are more interested in normalizing relations, and Ukraine in that context is nothing more than an impediment. But Ukraine and Europe do not view Ukraine in that context. Their context is that Russia ruthlessly invaded Ukraine with no real provocation and has waged a brutal war against the civilian population in Ukraine. At the press conference in Saudi Arabia, both Secretary of State Rubio and National Security Adviser Waltz gave lip service to the idea that there is a need to involve Ukraine and Europe in the negotiations but there was no indication whatsoever whether Trump was concerned about those issues.
As I indicated in my previous post, Trump has yet to extract any concessions from Putin. Instead, he has already conceded on the two principal issues for Putin: control over wide swathes of Ukrainian territory and a promise that Ukraine would not be allowed to join NATO. These concessions are profound and are on the scale that is usually made by a side that has been routed in war. But Russia has fared dismally in proving its military prowess. The Economist reports:
“Any assessment of Russia’s negotiating position should start with the military situation. Its army has performed dismally. The pace of advance is excruciatingly slow: since last July it has struggled to take the town of Pokrovsk, where current losses are staggering. Most of its gains were in the first weeks of the war. In April 2022, following Russia’s retreat from the north of Ukraine, it controlled 19.6% of Ukrainian territory, and its casualties (dead and wounded) were perhaps 20,000. Today Russia occupies 19.2% and its casualties are 800,000, reckon British sources.”
Trump has declared Ukraine’s unconditional surrender without securing any guarantees that Ukraine’s future sovereignty will be protected, and that condition will only weaken US credibility in the future. Inevitably, those states–not only in Europe but also in Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America–who rely upon US power to keep stability will lose faith in the US and will either resort to self-reliance in defense (most likely, the possession of a nuclear weapon) or will find other protectors (China and Russia are eager to fill a US vacuum).
Trump’s abject surrender to Putin, however, is a greater tragedy. He has seriously damaged US relations with its European allies, and all other states now have legitimate doubts about the integrity of US promises. The world is significantly less safe because of his foolish infatuation with Putin.
President Trump’s comments about Ukraine in the last few days (echoed by the Secretary of Defense, Hegseth, who had, quite ironically, spoke earlier at the Munich Security Conference) spoke volumes about the emerging Trump Doctrine. We have witnessed one of the most inept diplomatic episodes in the history of American foreign policy. The BBC reports:
“The phone call between Putin and Trump lasted nearly an hour-and-a-half, during which the Russian president extended an invitation to visit Moscow, Peskov said.
“Trump also told reporters at the White House that it was unlikely Ukraine would return to its pre-2014 borders but, in response to a question from the BBC, he said ‘some of that land will come back’.
“The president said he agreed with Hegseth, who told a Nato summit earlier on Wednesday that there was no likelihood of Ukraine joining the military alliance.”
With these pronouncements, Trump essentially ended whatever negotiations might ensue. What else is there to offer the Russians? Trump gave away the land the Russians took by force and gave Putin the prize: a promise to keep Ukraine out of NATO. Incredibly, no European state was involved in any of these discussions and President Zelensky was only informed after the fact. The statements brought to my mind the way Churchill and Stalin divided up Eastern Europe after World War II in the Yalta Conference in February 1945. Trump handled the issue in the manner that European states employed in the 19th Century–decisions were made on the basis of what the Great Powers wanted with little or no consideration for the welfare of the citizens most directly involved.
The degree to which Ukraine was ignored is actually quite stunning. The Washington Post reports:
“President Donald Trump’s phone call to Russian President Vladimir Putin has deeply rattled Kyiv and its European partners, intensifying long-held fears that Ukraine could be excluded from peace talks determining its own future and security — as well as that of the rest of the continent.
“Trump, who spoke to Putin on Wednesday and then phoned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to inform him of the call, said he and his Russian counterpart will try to meet soon in Saudi Arabia, without the Ukrainian leader. Trump clarified Thursday afternoon that the meeting in Saudi Arabia would involve officials from the United States, Russia and Ukraine. ‘Not with myself or with President Putin, but with top officials,’ Trump told reporters.
“The announcement of the Trump-Putin call, which made no mention of Europe, plays into the fears of European leaders that their defense interests will fall by the wayside if Trump sidelines them in talks with Russia. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that it was ‘premature’ to discuss a role for Europe in any talks.”
The fiasco will reverberate in all sorts of ways. The credibility of the US has been seriously damaged since Trump ignored all US allies leaving them with the distinct impression that US interests have become brutally narrow. Members of NATO can rightly ask, given Trump’s skepticism of NATO, whether the US will honor its commitments to the alliance in a dispute with Russia. Non-NATO states have witnessed the abject abandonment of a state that has valiantly resisted blatant aggression at considerable cost.
The capitulation of the US brings to mind the decision of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to capitulate to Hitler’s decision to invade Czechslovakia in 1938. Timothy Synder, one of the most astute analysts of European politics today, makes a compelling comparison:
“As American and Russian negotiators converge today in Munich for a major security conference, carrying in their briefcases various plans about Ukraine without Ukraine, the temptation is to recall another meeting in that city. Appeasement of the aggressor seems to be the plan now, as it was with Germany in 1938.
“But the resemblances between that moment and this go deeper, and it worth pausing to consider them. The symmetry between Germany-Czechoslovakia in 1938 and Russia-Ukraine in 2022 is uncanny, and pausing for a moment on the resemblances might help us to take a broader view of today. We are prisoners, now more than ever, of the rumors and disinformation and emotions of the moment. History can give us at least a calmer perspective. And so consider:
“Hitler denied the legitimacy of the Czechoslovak state. As German chancellor, he systematically denied that it had a right to exist. Although its leaders were democratically elected, he claimed that they had no right to rule. Because its people spoke various languages, he claimed that there was no such thing as a body of Czechoslovak citizens. Hitler argued that Czechoslovakia itself was artificial, the result of a historical turning point that never should have happened, the settlement after the First World War. He claimed that the existence of national minority gave him the right to intervene in Czechoslovak politics. In May 1938, he ordered his army to make preparations for a quick strike on Czechoslovakia. He also activiated his agents inside the country. On September 12th Hitler gave a rousing speech to Germans about the entirely fictional extermination of the German minority in Czechoslovakia. We know what comes next: Britain and France, together with Germany and Italy, decided in Munich on September 30th that Czechoslovakia should cede crucial border territories to Germany. These were the most defensible parts of the country. Czechoslovakia’s leaders, although they were not consulted, chose to accept the partition of their country.”
The Munich analogy is dangerous, since it is often used to justify actions whenever there seems to be a breach of international norms. The most common mistake is to regard initial acts of aggression as part of a larger plan to dominate other states. The example was often invoked in the Vietnam War: “We should resist North Vietnamese agression in Southeast Asia or we will be fighting them in San Francisco”.
“It was not until the advent of the Johnson administration, however, that the Munich analogy came into its own. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his secretary of state, Dean Rusk, considered Munich to be the most important historical lesson of their time. Remembering Munich, they saw weakness overseas as leading to World War III. Johnson explained, “Everything I knew about history told me that if I got out of Vietnam and let Ho Chi Minh run through the streets of Saigon, then I’d be doing exactly what Chamberlain did in World War II. I’d be giving a big fat reward to aggression.” Rusk was equally attuned to the lessons of the 1930s, which he described as the realization that “aggression must be dealt with wherever it occurs and no matter what mask it may wear…. The rearmament of the Rhineland was regarded as regrettable but not worth a shooting war. Yet after that came Austria, and after Austria came Czechoslovakia. Then Poland. Then the Second World War.”
“This belief in the applicability of the Munich analogy to his situation led Johnson to increase troop levels, first to 300,000 and then to 500,000 by 1968. At a National Security Council meeting in July 1965 to discuss an increase in troops, an exchange occurred between Undersecretary of State George Ball, who was opposed to committing more men, and the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge. Lodge rebutted Ball’s arguments, explaining that ‘I feel there is a greater threat to start World War III if we don’t go in. Can’t we see the similarity to our own indolence at Munich?’ No one present at the meeting questioned this statement. Even McGeorge Bundy, the national security adviser who often criticized others for using inaccurate analogies, did not comment. The administration’s policymakers were convinced of the appropriateness of the analogy to their own situation in Vietnam, and often reminded one another of this fact. Even former president Eisenhower resorted to the analogy in advising Johnson in 1965. He warned the president not to be convinced by Britain’s arguments for negotiation. Prime Minister Harold Wilson, he said, ‘has not had experience with this kind of problem. We, however, have learned that Munichs win nothing.'”
The Munich analogy was inappropriate in Vietnam because there was no evidence that North Vietnam was interested in taking over the world. But there is conisderable evidence that Putin does have larger global ambitions, not the least of which is the restoration of the empire of the Soviet Union. For this reason, the Baltic states and Poland desperately wanted to join NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Indeed, NATO expanded, not because the US wanted to include the East European countries, but because those states feared the resurgence of the Russian Empire, a point that became even more persuasive after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014.
The incompetence of the Trump foreign policy with respect to Ukraine will haunt the US as long as Trump is in power. We will see how China regards Trump on the matter of Taiwan or on the relations between North and South Korea. In the absence of US support for countries resisting aggression, many states will look for other allies or perhaps even to develop their own nuclear weapons. Fortune assesses the feelings of US allies:
“The track Trump is taking also has rocked Europe, much as his dismissive comments about France and Germany did during his first term.
‘French Deputy Foreign Minister Benjamin Haddad described Europe as being at a turning point, with the ground shifting rapidly under its feet, and said Europe must wean itself off its reliance on the United States for its security. He warned that handing a victory to Russia in Ukraine could have repercussions in Asia, too.
“’I think we’re not sufficiently grasping the extent to which our world is changing. Both our competitors and our allies are busy accelerating,’ Haddad told broadcaster France Info on Thursday.”
Trump is not pursuing an “America First” policy; rather, he is pursuing a policy of “America Alone”.
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