• 239: Alexander Vindman: America Must Embrace the Goal of Ukrainian Victory, submitted on 2022-05-12 02:58:02+08:00.
• 240: The War in Ukraine Will Be a Historic Turning Point: But for History to Take the Right Path, America and Europe Must Work Together, submitted on 2022-05-12 22:19:00+08:00.
• 241: The War in Ukraine Will Be a Historic Turning Point: But for History to Take the Right Path, America and Europe Must Work Together, submitted on 2022-05-12 22:22:12+08:00.
• 242: North Africa’s Frozen Conflict: How the Biden Administration Can Resolve the Dispute Over Western Sahara, submitted on 2022-05-12 22:24:48+08:00.
• 243: No Marshall Plan for Ukraine: Geography and Geopolitics Dictate a Different Reconstruction Model, submitted on 2022-05-13 23:10:59+08:00.

239: Alexander Vindman: America Must Embrace the Goal of Ukrainian Victory, submitted on 2022-05-12 02:58:02+08:00.

—– 239.1 —–2022-05-12 02:59:30+08:00:

[SS from the article by Alexander Vindman, retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel and a Senior Fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies Foreign Policy Institute]

“For years before Russia invaded Ukraine in February, the Ukrainians had been growing frustrated with U.S. leadership. A former high-level Ukrainian official described U.S. policy to the country in this way: “You won’t let us drown, but you won’t let us swim.” Washington has earned this mixed reputation in the decades since Ukraine broke free from the Soviet Union in 1991. Although Ukraine saw the United States as an indispensable partner and greatly appreciated U.S. security and economic assistance, many Ukrainians were aggrieved that the United States remained reluctant to more fully and forthrightly support them in the face of Russian provocations and aggression—even following Ukraine’s pivot toward the West after the tumult of 2014, when protests toppled a pro-Russian government in Kyiv and Russia responded by annexing Crimea and invading the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. With few exceptions, Ukrainian pleas for increased military aid, greater economic investment, and a concrete road map for integration with Europe fell on deaf ears in Washington. The Ukrainians could not understand why the U.S. national security establishment continued to privilege maintaining stable relations with Russia—an irredentist and revanchist authoritarian state—over support for Ukraine, a democratic state that had made important strides in weeding out corruption and implementing democratic reforms.

In the two months since Russia attacked Ukraine, the United States has thus far lived up to this ambivalent reputation. It has committed aid to Ukraine in fits and starts and has sought to avoid an escalation with Russia at the expense of more uncompromising support for Ukraine’s defense. But Washington can and should do more. The United States can shore up regional stability, global security, and the liberal international order by working to ensure a Ukrainian victory. To achieve this goal, Washington must finally abandon a failed policy that has prioritized trying to build a stable relationship with Russia. It needs to discard the desire—which seems to shape views on the National Security Council—to see Ukraine ultimately compromise with Russia for the sake of a negotiated peace. And the United States must give Ukraine the support it needs to bring this war to a close as soon as possible.”

240: The War in Ukraine Will Be a Historic Turning Point: But for History to Take the Right Path, America and Europe Must Work Together, submitted on 2022-05-12 22:19:00+08:00.

—– 240.1 —–2022-05-12 22:20:33+08:00:

[SS from the article by Christoph Heusgen, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference]

“The Russian invasion of Ukraine marks a turning point in history. It brings to a close the chapter that began at the end of the Cold War, when Western countries tried to integrate Russia into an international rules-based order. Russia under President Vladimir Putin has become a pariah state. Much as it did when facing down the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the United States has taken the lead in countering Putin‘s blatant attack on civilization.

This effort requires a global alliance. The partnership among countries that commit to international law and its foundational texts, the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, should comprise countries from all continents. The international community should not be a euphemism for the West. The perception that there continues to be a conflict between “the West” and “the East” allows too many countries to sit on the fence. The fault line really lies between those who seek to reaffirm a principled, global moral and legal order, and those who do not. A new global alliance should stand tall in its uncompromising efforts to protect international law, international humanitarian law, and human rights law.

Many countries support the U.S.-led response to Putin’s war, but some do so grudgingly. Too many governments see the conflict as a return to the days of the Cold War, when they were forced to choose sides. They imagine that what is at stake is the collision of two geopolitical rivals, not a fundamental question of principle. This is deeply unfortunate. Russia’s aggression should not be seen as ushering in a new Cold War but simply as what it is: the worst act of aggression in Europe since the end of World War II and a brutal violation of international law.

History will not turn in a positive direction on its own. The United States, which has at times undermined international law in its foreign policy choices, should commit to the upholding of the norms and laws that define the international rules-based order. The burden of addressing violations of international law has to be divided more evenly. Germany‘s new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has described this moment as a Zeitenwende, a historical turning point. Along with other European countries, Germany needs to step up to the plate and significantly increase its defense spending, improve its readiness to help maintain stability in and around Europe, and take on a leadership role in resolving international conflicts.

This effort requires a global alliance. The partnership among countries that commit to international law and its foundational texts, the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, should comprise countries from all continents. The international community should not be a euphemism for the West. The perception that there continues to be a conflict between “the West” and “the East” allows too many countries to sit on the fence. The fault line really lies between those who seek to reaffirm a principled, global moral and legal order, and those who do not. A new global alliance should stand tall in its uncompromising efforts to protect international law, international humanitarian law, and human rights law.”

241: The War in Ukraine Will Be a Historic Turning Point: But for History to Take the Right Path, America and Europe Must Work Together, submitted on 2022-05-12 22:22:12+08:00.

—– 241.1 —–2022-05-12 22:23:14+08:00:

[SS from the article by Christoph Heusgen, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference]

“History will not turn in a positive direction on its own. The United States, which has at times undermined international law in its foreign policy choices, should commit to the upholding of the norms and laws that define the international rules-based order. The burden of addressing violations of international law has to be divided more evenly. Germany‘s new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has described this moment as a Zeitenwende, a historical turning point. Along with other European countries, Germany needs to step up to the plate and significantly increase its defense spending, improve its readiness to help maintain stability in and around Europe, and take on a leadership role in resolving international conflicts.

This effort requires a global alliance. The partnership among countries that commit to international law and its foundational texts, the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, should comprise countries from all continents. The international community should not be a euphemism for the West. The perception that there continues to be a conflict between “the West” and “the East” allows too many countries to sit on the fence. The fault line really lies between those who seek to reaffirm a principled, global moral and legal order, and those who do not. A new global alliance should stand tall in its uncompromising efforts to protect international law, international humanitarian law, and human rights law.”

242: North Africa’s Frozen Conflict: How the Biden Administration Can Resolve the Dispute Over Western Sahara, submitted on 2022-05-12 22:24:48+08:00.

—– 242.1 —–2022-05-12 22:46:53+08:00:

[SS from the article by Hannah Rae Armstrong]

“In December 2020, in one of his final acts in office, U.S. President Donald Trump signed a unilateral proclamation recognizing Moroccan sovereignty over a 100,000-square-mile territory that has been disputed for half a century: Western Sahara. The United States had long remained mostly neutral in the standoff between the Moroccan government, whose forces exercise de facto control over most of the territory, and the rebel group that seeks Western Sahara’s independence. But with the stroke of a pen, Trump reversed decades of U.S. policy, endorsing Morocco’s territorial claim in exchange for its normalizing relations with Israel and joining Trump’s Abraham Accords. This tradeoff caused the collapse of a cease-fire agreement, leading to renewed fighting and growing tensions in the region.

The United Nations is trying to relaunch a political process that would overcome the current impasse; Morocco has rejected implementing a UN-backed popular referendum that would determine Western Sahara’s status and has instead advanced its own proposal that would grant the territory a form of limited autonomy. The disagreement remains intractable. Buoyed by U.S. recognition of its claims, an overconfident Morocco is unlikely to make needed concessions, such as allowing human rights monitoring in the territory or compromising on the full sovereignty it seeks to retain over Western Sahara, while the Polisario Front, the group that has for decades fought for the territory’s independence, is convinced that the process is rigged against Western Sahara. Decades of UN talks have made little progress toward a resolution, kicking the can down the road while Morocco cements control over nearly all the disputed territory.

U.S. President Joe Biden has promised to review his predecessor’s recognition of the Moroccan claim, and he has endorsed the relaunching of the UN-led peace process. His administration wants to arrest the rapid thaw of the conflict and put it back on ice. But such measures will only prop up a dysfunctional status quo. Biden should use the real leverage he has over Morocco and some key Moroccan allies to not just freeze the war but to end it altogether.”

243: No Marshall Plan for Ukraine: Geography and Geopolitics Dictate a Different Reconstruction Model, submitted on 2022-05-13 23:10:59+08:00.

—– 243.1 —–2022-05-13 23:11:51+08:00:

[SS from the article by Benn Steil, Director of International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations]

“Perhaps the most enduring legacy of the Marshall Plan, the massive U.S. program to rebuild Western Europe’s economy after World War II, is the endless desire to repeat it. Daunting geopolitical challenges invariably spawn appeals for new Marshall Plans to foster stability and prosperity. The global financial crisis seeded in 2008 brought forth calls for a Marshall Plan in southern Europe. The Arab Spring did the same in the Middle East. Ditto the civil war in Syria.

Today, Ukraine, victim of horrific mass brutality and destruction, is only the latest in a procession of stricken countries spurring calls for the legend’s reapplication. “There will be a new Marshall Plan for Ukraine,” declared Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in March. European Council President Charles Michel concurred, announcing that a May donor conference was “the starting point for [a] kind of European Marshall Plan for Ukraine.”On its surface, Ukraine would appear to be fertile ground for a Marshall Plan. It is, much like most of the 16 Marshall Plan recipients of 1948–1952, a market-oriented European country with democratic foundations, anxious to integrate more closely with its neighbors to the west. It has great untapped potential in energy production, chemicals, agriculture, and industrial manufacturing.

Yet Ukraine suffers from an immutable characteristic that even the most noble and generous of foreign saviors cannot change: geography. Ukraine borders a powerful country to the east, Russia, whose government does not wish it to look westward for salvation or to succeed as a prosperous, independent country. And Russia is fully capable of undermining, with mere threats, any steps Ukraine may take in this direction.

To be sure, Ukraine’s rich friends in the United States and western Europe can do much to aid the country’s suffering people and to rebuild its damaged infrastructure. Yet without Russian cooperation or at least committed noninterference—a noninterference that is inconceivable currently or in the foreseeable future—the robust and enduring revival experienced by the Marshall countries is simply beyond Ukraine’s reach.”