Two Hamtramck leaders face up to five years in prison if convicted. The post Muslim Michigan town rocked by voter fraud scandal appeared first on World Israel News.

Iran poses an existential threat to Iraq’s sovereignty and the survival of Christians and other religious minorities in the region. Decades of war, unrest and widespread persecution have devastated Iraqi Christian communities, now comprising just 1% of Iraq’s total population. This crisis is perpetuated by the Iranian regime’s Axis of Resistance and its increasingly potent influence over the Iraqi government. Since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, Tehran has pursued a deliberate, multifaceted campaign to infiltrate Iraq’s political landscape, often at the expense of Iraq’s religious minorities. Recent developments, specifically the Trump Administration’s June 2025 strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, have left the regime weakened and increasingly focused on Iraq as one of its last footholds in the region. The Babylon Brigades, established and backed by Tehran under the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), as well as its political offshoot, the Babylon Movement, embody Iran’s exploitation of Iraq’s religious minorities to advance their malign agenda. Founded in 2014 by US-sanctioned human rights abuser Rayan al-Kildani, these groups are nominally Christian, yet depend on the support of Iraqi Shi’a and are not representative of Christian values or interests. Strategically centered in the Nineveh Plains, Iraq’s only Christian-majority region, al-Kildani has forcibly submerged the authentically-Christian Nineveh Plains Protection Unit (NPU) into his militia. Kildani has further consolidated his authority by silencing the political voices of Iraqi Christians. Article 49 of Iraq’s Constitution allocates a certain number of seats to religious minorities in the Council of Representatives (COR), with five currently reserved for Christian candidates. However, Iraqi election law permits anyone, regardless of religious affiliation, to vote for these seats, allowing for unchecked manipulation of the system. Through this loophole, al-Kildani and his Babylon Movement have effectively hijacked nearly all Christian-designated seats at varying levels of government in federal Iraq. With the next parliamentary elections scheduled for November of this year, urgent action must be taken to ensure equal and fair representation for minority communities. Al-Kildani is seemingly preparing to continue his exploitation of Iraqi Christians, reportedly having ordered NPU members to collect at least twenty-five voting cards from Nineveh Plains residents so they may be used to cast votes for Babylon Movement candidates. Kildani has expanded his influence with impunity. Despite ongoing abuses and blatant electoral fraud, al-Kildani has never been prosecuted by Iraqi courts. Media outlets even refrain from publishing negative press about Kildani, signaling the fear he has instilled in the population. The Iraqi government must hold al-Kildani and his supporters accountable to the fullest extent of the law and implement reforms to secure representation of Iraq’s religious minorities. This Iranian-backed infiltration has extended beyond political exploitation. In July of 2023, Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashad revoked an order recognizing Cardinal Sako as patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church— Iraq’s largest Christian denomination. This reportedly came just one day after the president met with al-Kildani. Recognizing the rising influence of Kildani in the Chaldean church, Cardinal Sako fled to Erbil in the Kurdish region of Iraq. Months later, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shi’a al-Sudani invited Cardinal Sako back to Baghdad after a concerted diplomatic effort by the U.S. government. More recently, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Prime Minister al-Sudani, discussing a bill currently pending in the COR that aims to institutionalize the PMF by establishing a more clearly defined structure for the organization. As emphasized by the Secretary of State, this legislation would only further integrate the PMF into Iraq’s security apparatus and deepen Iran’s influence, as well as directly contradict U.S. government efforts to facilitate the dismantling of the PMF. Refusing to eradicate the PMF would cement U.S. opposition to the Iraqi federal government’s embrace of Iranian influence, damaging Washington-Baghdad relations and further diminishing Iraq’s national sovereignty. The United States has been presented with a historic opportunity to undermine Iran’s power and influence following the strategic defeat of the regime’s proxies and regional allies. Hezbollah, Iran’s most powerful proxy, was significantly weakened following the assassination of its leader and other top-ranking officials. Months later, the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria effectively ended the close partnership between Tehran and Damascus, as well as the ability for Iran to utilize Syria as a land bridge to the eastern Mediterranean. Moreover, Washington’s April 2025 airstrikes on Yemen’s Ras Isa port have cut off a crucial oil supply to the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in control of the country. The Trump Administration’s strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities last month signal a further decline of the regime’s scope and dominance. In the wake of these events, Iraq has become Tehran’s most viable avenue for maintaining its influence. Effectively resisting Iran’s encroachment into Iraq is now critical to securing regional stability. The Trump Administration should continue to pursue diplomatic efforts with Iraqi government officials, specifically with those who have previously expressed support for religious minority groups and incentivize them to meet these commitments. Building strong ties and demonstrating the benefits of U.S. partnership will continue to push the population further from Iran. Additionally, President Trump should ensure U.S. troops remain in Iraq, especially in the Kurdistan region, to act as a counterweight against the PMF, and Washington must continue to put pressure on the Iraqi government to dismantle the PMF in its entirety. Members of Congress should support legislation aiming to strengthen an independent Iraq from Iran, specifically Representative Joe Wilson’s Free Iraq from Iran Act, which will give the Trump administration additional leverage to pursue the dismantling of the PMF. Finally, U.S. government officials should call out al-Kildani by name, reprimanding his abuses of Iraqi Christians and electoral processes. If the United States fails to adequately intervene, al-Kildani and other Iranian-backed forces will continue their destructive, extremist objectives— posing a threat not only to Iraqi Christians but to the stability of the entire region. Defending international religious freedom is a cornerstone of U.S. morality and foreign policy. Simultaneously, countering Iran’s entrenchment into Iraq is essential for containing and derailing the regime as a whole. Washington must prioritize both of these obligations before Tehran’s grip tightens beyond reversal.

Speaking to residents, Netanyahu recalled a visit 25 years earlier when he vowed to secure Israel’s presence in the territory. The post Netanyahu touts success in thwarting Palestinian state appeared first on World Israel News.

Ilana Gritzewsky held a symbolic wedding ceremony for her partner, Matan Zangauker, who has spent 681 days in Hamas captivity. The post Symbolic wedding for captive Matan Zangauker held at Hostages’ Square appeared first on World Israel News.

The Religious Zionist Party leader pressed for a decisive military operation in Gaza. The post Smotrich dismisses hostage protest impact, urges Netanyahu to escalate Gaza campaign appeared first on World Israel News.

The months-old video shows Israeli hostage Matan Zangauker begging his family to raise their voices for his release, saying he hopes, God willing, to see them soon. The post WATCH: New footage shows Israeli hostage Matan Zangauker in Gaza appeared first on World Israel News.

In broad daylight in Ramallah, Israeli undercover forces swooped in at the entrance of Al-Amari camp and arrested wanted terrorists Omar al-Atashan and Ali Abu Attiyah. The post WATCH: Israeli special forces arrest two wanted suspects in Ramallah appeared first on World Israel News.

A Palestinian state would, in addition, continue trying to conquer more of Israel's historic homeland, and try to drive Jews out of it, as they openly vow to do. The post Here we go again – The West’s Palestinian state fantasy appeared first on World Israel News.

Israel secured 5th place in the tournament by defeating Poland 83-80 on Sunday. The post Brits turn back on Israeli anthem at wheelchair basketball game appeared first on World Israel News.

An Air Force strike eliminated a Hamas terror squad arming themselves near Gaza’s Al-Ma’amadani hospital, once again exposing the group’s cynical use of medical facilities as terror hideouts. The post WATCH: IDF eliminates Hamas cell operating near hospital appeared first on World Israel News.

France’s move makes it the largest Western power and first G7 nation to commit to Palestinian recognition, but Macron won’t be alone come September. The post Israeli cabinet considers closing French consulate over Palestine recognition appeared first on World Israel News.

The tourists were due to return to Israel on Saturday, but their stays have been extended by at least several days, Ynet reported. The post 47 Israelis stranded in Bosnia after passports end up in waste bin appeared first on World Israel News.

Amid the ruins of war and under the shadow of Hezbollah, Israelis are turning northern border towns into booming vacation spots—where resilience meets relaxation and every booking is a quiet act of defiance. The post WATCH: Vacationing on the edge of war appeared first on World Israel News.

During 12-day war with Israel, Iranian government reportedly managed to gain access to a former senior Israeli minister’s cellphone. The post Report: Iran hacked ex-Israeli minister’s cell phone appeared first on World Israel News.

Israel will continue war in Gaza until Hamas defeated, says IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, adding that Gaza campaign is part of broader effort targeting Iran. The post IDF poised to enter Gaza City, says army chief appeared first on World Israel News.

In his 2001 horror classic Pulse, Kiyoshi Kurosawa portrays the internet as a space of dark enchantment, a portal for evil spirits to invade the world of the living. Cloud, a new thriller which sees Kurosawa return to the subject twenty-four years later, contends with a vastly different online environment: whatever enchantment existed on the

BBC cited Italian media reports that Gazan woman who died in Italy had suffered malnutrition but ignored her cancer diagnosis, which explained her emaciated appearance. The post Israel debunks BBC claim that evacuated Gaza woman died of starvation appeared first on World Israel News.

Netanyahu says premature end to war without destruction of Hamas would ensure future Oct. 7-style massacres. The post Netanyahu: Protesters demanding end to Gaza war guarantee another Oct. 7 appeared first on World Israel News.

Protesters have taken to the streets to make their voices heard in huge numbers across the globe this year. According to data published by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) project, June 2025 had the second-highest number of demonstrations in a single month within the United States, topped only by June 2020, at

Working in the Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith obediently repeated the INGSOC slogan, “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” While I can’t confirm that Fadli Zon, Indonesia’s minister of culture, has read George Orwell’s 1984, it seems likely that he would have at least encountered it during

James Baldwin has become the literary pinup of a generation. In 2025, he is everywhere: his most famous quotations stamped on viral infographics while his face is sold on mugs, t-shirts, and tote bags. The Fire Next Time has become a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic, redesignated as a how-to guide for dismantling

The French sociologist Didier Eribon’s memoir Returning to Reims defined how a generation came to understand what he called “the hidden injuries of class.” Originally published in 2009, when the rise of the far right was still only a looming threat, not the defining feature of politics in the advanced capitalist world, it offered a

As Donald Trump pushes to dismantle electric vehicle (EV) incentives and roll back California’s EV mandate, the struggle over what powers personal transportation has become both an economic and cultural war. American automakers are pulling back from earlier commitments to electrification, betting that the end of California’s trendsetting mandate will slow the transition throughout the

A new generation of architects around the world is adapting brutalism to modern times. Neobrutalism is not just a resurgence, but leading toward an ecological development of the polarizing architectural style. For several years now, brutalist architecture has been undergoing a revival. But not everyone is excited about it, yet. When the infamous Mäusebunker building

Since World War II, Germany and its people have had to address their forefathers’ participation in the emblematic evil of modern times, the Holocaust. Coming to terms with their Nazi ancestors’ crimes became a major issue for many families. But this was also a major issue for the German state, which resolved it by making

As Bolivia celebrated its two hundredth year of independence last week, the mood on the streets and in the countryside was far from jubilant. National elections take place on Sunday, and Bolivia is confronting a spiraling economic crisis and the total collapse of the left-wing Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) that has been in power for

Major social upheavals are typically accompanied by similar upheavals in the dominant ideas in society. This is as true of science as of other ideological spheres. The English Revolution of 1642–49, a key event in the transition from feudalism to capitalism, was followed by discoveries that included Robert Hooke’s observation of the first biological cell

“We know there are more students at Columbia and other universities across the country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it.” Recent official and institutional claims about combatting antisemitism in higher education routinely efface a key group implicated and harmed by this discourse: Palestinians. While pernicious

In Dallas, Texas, a wellness influencer urges the crowd at a conservative women’s conference to turn away from work and toward the family. “Less burnout, more babies!” podcaster Alex Clark says to raucous applause. “Less feminism, more femininity!” Outside of Cincinnati, Ohio, suburban families are building a commune suffused with the ethos of Make America

“Be the CEO. Money is your best employee,” reads the TikTok bio of Taylor Price, a twenty-five-year-old personal finance influencer who wants to “change the way Gen Z thinks about money.” Price’s philosophy is simple: financial freedom for her generation won’t come from a fat paycheck; it’ll be achieved by putting that paycheck to work

If there was ever an author who screamed “the great American novelist,” it’s Cormac McCarthy. From 1965’s The Orchard Keeper to the twinned publication of The Passenger with its companion novel, Stella Maris, shortly before his death in 2023, McCarthy produced a body of work which has been seriously (and reasonably) compared with not only

Each stage of Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza highlights a new atrocity, almost as if the previous one has fallen prey to media fatigue. Lately it has been an acute lack of food. The intentional starvation of children, in particular, torments the conscience of everyone who has seen the images. Famine, it has been said,

In spring 2023, Nicola Sturgeon resigned as first minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP). Two and a half years later, she has resurfaced as a writer, with a political memoir titled Frankly. Unfortunately, Sturgeon isn’t very good at writing. In fact, she is quite bad at it. Her prose is

On April 12, 1945, the day that President Franklin D. Roosevelt died, World War II had persisted for over five and a half years.  V-E Day (May 8) and V-J Day (August 14-15) were not known in advance; nor were these victories guaranteed.  In Europe, the hard-fought Battle of the Bulge had been costly, Adolf Hitler still lived, and the battle for Berlin was yet to come.  In Asia, the Battle of Okinawa raged in its second full week, and the Japanese showed no sign of relenting.  Americans and many others around the world mourned the death of FDR, the longest-serving U.S. president and the international champion of freedom and democracy against tyranny.  It seemed no one could fill his shoes.   It fell to President Harry S. Truman to both finish and win the second great war of the twentieth century.  The man from Missouri was a study in contrasts from his predecessor: the Midwest rather than the East Coast, small-town public school and no college degree rather than elite boarding school and Harvard, Baptist rather than Episcopalian, a mix of hardscrabble and modest means rather than easy privilege, and fast walker rather than dashing sailor.  Short and plain-spoken, the former U.S. senator and vice president of only 82 days did not look or sound like Roosevelt.  Whatever he was or would be, the new president was not FDR. Truman was antitotalitarian, as he had made clear since the time of America’s prewar neutrality and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that kicked off the invasion of Poland.  As a senator and then as president, he advocated strength-based policies to establish and defend liberty and democracy against tyranny.  His views were grounded not only in his religious faith and experience—including as a field artillery captain in the Meuse–Argonne offensive of World War I, the first great war of the twentieth century—but also in his lifelong autodidactic study of history, strategy, and biography (Truman was the last president not to attend college).   FDR himself had little to do with Truman’s thoughts, since he only met alone twice with his vice president after their January 1945 inauguration and did not disclose specifics about wartime strategy.  Truman was not fully briefed about the Manhattan Project until about two weeks into his presidency.  His crash course in presidential diplomacy and military power confirmed for him that politics starts with the moral character of the regime.  In Truman’s opinion, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy, and the Soviet Union were illegitimate, tyrannical regimes that repressed, indoctrinated, and enslaved their own peoples and wanted the same for the rest of the world.   The new president forged his own path in world affairs.  Truman did not want it to be true that a new kind of war was emerging from World War II, let alone before that latter conflict was won.  But he sensed it was so.  Daily briefings from his new advisors, especially Admiral William Leahy, confirmed his judgment.  He hoped that all the Allies—particularly the Soviet Union—would honor their wartime conference commitments, including free elections for every liberated country in Europe.  He held two crucial ends in mind and strategy: first, finishing and winning World War II; second and almost as important, recognizing and addressing the new conflict that derived from both world wars—a struggle that would not be popularly called the Cold War until 1947. In Europe, Truman followed the advice of his generals—starting with General George C. Marshall, whom British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill would crown as the “organizer of victory” in World War II and Truman would deem “the great one of the age.”  With Roosevelt’s approval, Marshall and General Dwight D. Eisenhower—the mastermind of D-Day and more—had defined the “single objective” as “quick and complete victory” in accord with the occupation agreements reached by the European Advisory Commission in 1944.  Just as FDR died, Eisenhower made the decision to stop at the Elbe River and let the Soviets liberate Berlin, in order to avoid the further loss of American lives.  When Churchill implored the new president to advance east to Berlin, Truman stood by the agreement between Roosevelt and Marshall and, by default, supported Eisenhower’s tactical decision.  Truman soon regretted his decision and later wrote: “We were about 150 miles east of the border of the occupation zone line agreed to at Yalta.  I felt that agreements made in the war to keep Russia fighting should be kept and I kept them to the letter.  Perhaps they should not have been adhered to so quickly.”   In the Pacific, Truman assessed the complicated geostrategy and vast resources required to counter, let alone prevail over, Japan.  It was commonly anticipated that casualties from the planned Allied invasion (Operation Downfall) of the Japanese home islands would run into the millions on both sides.  How to end the war was ultimately Truman’s decision.  Out of prudence, he ordered the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Among other compelling reasons, Marshall had advised him at the Potsdam Conference in July that the bomb, if it worked, would save a quarter of a million American lives and probably millions more Japanese.  As Truman stated in an authorized account toward the end of his presidency, “I then agreed to the use of the atomic bomb if Japan did not yield.  I had reached a decision after long and careful thought.  It was not an easy decision to make.  I did not like the weapon.  But I had no qualms if in the long run millions of lives could be saved.  The rest is history.”  Dropping the bombs resulted in heavy Japanese losses at one time—between 78,000 and 100,000 were killed at Hiroshima and between 60,000 and 70,000 at Nagasaki—but Truman already knew that over 100,000 Japanese armed forces had died in the Okinawa campaign, and he had never cared for the strategy of repeated incendiary raids.  He determined that ending the war immediately was the just course.   Truman’s goal was a just peace.  While he hoped surrender would come after one atomic bomb, he was prepared to use the second bomb quickly to convince the Japanese that the United States had a stockpile of weapons.  His strategy worked.  After Nagasaki—not Hiroshima—came Japan’s surrender.  Truman interpreted Tokyo’s message as meeting the Potsdam Declaration’s terms of unconditional surrender because the emperor would be subject to the Allied supreme commander.  This prudent solution ensured Imperial Japan’s surrender—with the emperor remaining as titular head of state—in such a way that Truman could present as both unconditional and acceptable to both sides. The brewing Cold War was ever present.  In between V-E and V-J Days, Truman cabled back and forth between Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin and Churchill in an attempt to prevent the USSR from taking more territory, directed his presidential advisor to convey American disapproval of Soviet actions (especially in Poland) at a Moscow meeting with Stalin, and made several comments about the need for the postwar economic rehabilitation of Europe.  Before the Potsdam Conference from mid-July to early August of 1945, though, Truman thought certain actions were impermissible against an official ally that pledged to fulfill its wartime commitments. Before his departure for Potsdam, Truman was informed of the 1940 Katyn massacre of Polish officers and intellectuals, which reinforced for him that the Communists were as bad as the Nazis.  While at the conference, he decided that the United States needed the Soviet Union to help defeat the Japanese, but he determined that the Kremlin must not take control in Japan as it was in the process of doing in Eastern and Central Europe.  Like the rest of the world, he bid farewell to Churchill and greeted Clement Atlee as the new British prime minister.  Truman’s experience at Potsdam disabused him of any notion of Stalin’s goodwill, even being then unaware of Soviet espionage on the Manhattan Project.   A man of freedom and peace, Truman was a resolute antitotalitarian.  The new president helped to bring the Allies to victory in the last great war.  But he realized before World War II ended that a new kind of war was upon him—and the entire free world.  The new president was forced to turn his attention to the Cold War, rooted in the revolutionary antagonisms of Marxism and the successful additions of Leninism, forever entwined with both now-old world wars of the twentieth century.  On this 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, the free world should be grateful to Harry Truman for his principled strength in winning the second great war and identifying the ideological threat and devising the strategy to fight the third great war, which—decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union—continues to cast its shadow over this century.

As openDemocracy readers debate the case for and against making voting mandatory, we’d love to hear your thoughts

It’s clear that Netanyahu’s ‘messianic fantasy’ is full control of the territory. Staying silent is complicity

On Monday, the White House activated the District of Columbia’s National Guard and federalized its police force. Donald Trump called the decision a “historic action” to “re-establish law and order.” In a remark reminiscent of the Supreme Court’s decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson that allowed cities to criminalize sleeping or camping on public property,

Seventy years ago this year, on May 4, 1955, the Central Intelligence Agency helped Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista set up the Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities (BRAC). The move came two years after Fidel Castro launched the Moncada Barracks attack in a bid to overthrow Batista’s regime and a year before Castro and

The government is overlooking the lessons of history – and the financial sector’s tendency to cause harm

Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s surprise ascent to front-runner status in New York City’s mayoral race has become a national political flash point this summer. But Mamdani is not the only socialist making inroads in municipal politics. In Minnesota, state senator and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) member Omar Fateh has secured the Democratic Farmer-Labor Party’s

Last week, pursuant to President Donald Trump’s March 27 executive order, the federal government unilaterally voided the collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) covering almost 400,000 Veterans Administration (VA) employees. Since then, it has also voided contracts covering tens of thousands more at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and Citizenship and Immigration

This August marks the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the end of World War II in Asia and the Pacific. President Harry Truman’s decision to use these weapons remains one of the most controversial decisions of the war. A number of military commanders at the time, including Dwight Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur, claimed that it was unnecessary, as Japan was about to surrender regardless. Some of the most vehement critics of the atomic bombings were Christian thinkers; for example, in one of his television broadcasts Bishop Fulton Sheen called it “our national sin.” “When we dropped the bomb,” he continued, “we dropped it not only on the Japanese–we dropped it on ourselves, in the sense that we killed something in our moral consciousness.” On the Protestant side, the Federal Council of Churches in March 1946 issued a statement labeling use of the bomb “morally indefensible” and “unnecessary for winning the war”. Japan, after all, was an “already virtually beaten foe” so to use such a weapon against its civilian population opened the United States to “judgment before God and the conscience of humankind.” With due respect to these critics, none of them had access to the information that Harry Truman had in the summer of 1945. Contrary to the claims that Japan was on the verge of surrender, there was nothing resembling a formal peace offer coming from Tokyo. Even though its empire had been largely rolled back and its navy obliterated, the generals and admirals who dominated Japan’s government regarded such a surrender as dishonorable. Only the personal intervention of the emperor himself could overcome the resistance of the Army and Navy–and the emperor almost never involved himself directly with political or military decisions. Thus the war would go on, and as long as it did thousands were dying by the day, both in Japan and on the Asian continent, from fighting, starvation, and disease. Historian Richard Frank has referred to this ongoing disaster as a “slow-motion Hiroshima.” Truman’s critics claim that Tokyo was ready to talk peace, and as evidence for this they often point to the existence of peace feelers from some Japanese diplomats. Significantly, however, these sources were not based in Japan, but rather were diplomats in neutral countries in no way authorized to speak officially for the Japanese government. In Tokyo, the cabinet itself was genuinely hoping for peace, but only on terms that the Army and Navy regarded as “honorable.” Specifically this meant that they would not accept any agreement that would alter Japan’s kokutai, a term that translates roughly as “national polity” or “national essence.” Defined narrowly, this could mean simply that Japan could not accept the removal of the emperor; more broadly it could mean a refusal to consider any change at all to the political status quo. Moreover, the military men who dominated the cabinet also insisted that there be no postwar occupation of Japan, and that any investigations into war crimes be handled by the Japanese government itself. Critics claim that Truman had alternatives other than use of the atomic bombs, but hastily rejected them. Yet when we consider each of the alternatives, it is clear that they had serious flaws.  The most likely alternative was a U.S. invasion of the home islands, starting with Kyushu, the southernmost of the islands. Indeed, preparations were already underway for such an operation, since the atomic bomb was not successfully tested until July. It was understood, however, that an invasion would be extremely costly. Even on tiny, relatively worthless islands such as Tarawa and Saipan, Japanese forces had shown themselves willing to fight to the death and so their defense of the home islands could be expected to be only more fanatical. In a meeting on June 18, 1945, head of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff William D. Leahy suggested that casualties in the battle of Okinawa be used to project how many U.S. troops would be killed or wounded in an invasion of Kyushu. On Okinawa 35 percent of the forces engaged had become casualties. Given that 750,000 men were expected to take part in the Kyushu landings, that would mean losses of 250,000 killed or seriously injured. (By way of comparison, the United States had suffered only around 400,000 total casualties in both the European and the Pacific Theater up to this point.) This leaves aside the massive numbers of Japanese, including civilians, who would be killed in such an operation. And, of course, Kyushu was only one of four home islands, all of which might have to be invaded in order to bring about a surrender. Another possibility was to take advantage of the fact that the U.S. Navy had almost complete control of the sea lanes surrounding Japan, and the U.S. Army Air Force almost totally dominated the skies above the home islands. Why not, then, utilize a blockade instead of risking the lives of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, use a combination of conventional bombing and blockade to induce a Japanese surrender? The problem here is that there was no guarantee it would work, and the European theater suggested that it would not. German cities had been pounded by Allied bombers for two years, yet the Nazi regime did not surrender until Berlin was occupied by the Soviet Army. And even if it might work, there was no telling how long it would take. If the goal was to minimize loss of civilian lives, then this would have been the least desirable option. The firebombing of Tokyo on March 9-10 killed at least 100,000, the vast majority of them civilians. Tens or hundreds of thousands more would likely have died of starvation or disease from the ongoing effects of the naval blockade. Continuing this strategy would have undoubtedly resulted in far more civilian deaths than the 250,000 who died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As a direct result of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Emperor Hirohito intervened against the wishes of the generals and admirals to end the war. The results of the bombings were indeed dreadful, but they also represented the quickest and least costly road to peace. The most realistic alternatives, such as an invasion of the home islands, or a continuation of conventional bombing and blockade, would likely have resulted in even more deaths than the atomic bombings caused. Truman’s critics, therefore, are wrong. In ordering the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki he made the best possible decision based on the information available to him. It was a tragedy that so many had to die for Japan to surrender, but unfortunately there was no better option.

Should we really celebrate military victory over Japan eighty years ago? After all, the war that we, the British, fought was an imperial war—a war in defence of the British Empire. And it was ended by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing up to 200,000 people, most of them civilians. How can we celebrate VJ Day? For Christian pacifists, of course, the answer is clear: followers of Jesus cannot celebrate any war in any way, and certainly not this one. Since any deliberate killing of a human being is morally wrong, war is wrong in spades. But if the answer is adamantly clear, the implications are very disturbing. For if war is always wrong, then Britain should never have used armed force to resist Nazi Germany, no matter imperial Japan—with fatal consequences for the Jews, the Slavs, the liberals, the gays, the gypsies, and, not least, non-Fascist Christians. For what—other than war—would have stopped the horrifying triumph of massively murderous Nazism in Europe? The noble witness of innocent non-violence? Hardly. The historical evidence is that the kind of people who ran the likes of Auschwitz, were not at all shamed into repentance by the face of vulnerable innocence; on the contrary, it excited their lust for cruelty. It’s in the face of this dilemma—how to protect the innocent, while being faithful to Jesus—that, starting with St Augustine of Hippo in the early 400s AD, Christian thinking about ‘just [or justified] war’ was born.  In brief, the thinking can be distilled into three points. First, Christians may not fight while motivated by vengeance, but they may fight out of love for the innocent.  Next, Christians may intend, not to exterminate an unjust enemy, but only to force him to stop fighting, thereby securing a just peace.  In the course of so doing, finally, Christians must never intend to kill non-combatant civilians, but they may risk killing them, if that can’t be avoided and if the risks are minimized. With that in mind, let’s return to the war against Japan. Can we celebrate it? The first thing to say is that celebration doesn’t have to be pure; it needn’t be unadulterated. Eighty years ago, my father (aged 32) and my mother (aged 25) rejoiced at the end of the war against Japan. But my mother also grieved the loss of her youngest brother, Jack, who had flown out from Chittagong over the jungles of Burma in late 1944 and was never heard of again. For a long time after the war, Mum and her family hoped that Jack would turn up in some returned batch of prisoners of war, but he never did. He vanished at the age of 22. So, grief and lamentation over the terrible costs of war are certainly appropriate here, too.  Even—and Christian love requires this—lamentation over the terrible costs of war to the enemy. If ever you find yourself in the centre of Tokyo, make your way to the north-west corner of the Imperial Gardens, and turn left. A few minutes will bring you to the Yasukuni-jinja, Japan’s most controversial site. This is the national shrine to the war-dead, whose two and half million resident “glorious souls” include fourteen Class A war criminals. A hundred yards to the right of the main shrine stands a museum, the Yushukan. Upon entering it, the visitor immediately encounters a locomotive. (I’ll come back to that shortly.) As he moves further into the museum, he finds himself in a series of rooms, whose walls are covered by the photographs of Japanese soldiers from the Second World War. Most of them look about 18 years old. And if you know much about the war in South-East Asia, you’ll know that many of them will have suffered grievously, some of them starving to death. It’s impossible not to be moved.  So, we can and should lament the terrible costs of war, both to us and to our then Japanese enemies. But can we also celebrate our victory over them? The first of the two obstacles standing in our way is that Britain’s war against Japan was a war in defence of the British Empire. And for those who assume that empire is always evil, that makes celebration on this day impossible.  But empires, I submit, are not always and equally evil. Surely, it must stand to the humanitarian credit of the British Empire that it was among the first states in the history of the world to abolish slavery, and that it then used its imperial power to suppress it worldwide for a century and a half. And surely it stands to its credit that, from May 1940 when France fell, to June 1941 when the Soviet Union was invaded, the British Empire offered the genocidal Nazi regime the only military resistance—with the sole exception of Greece. By contrast, the Japanese Empire had no just claim to any comparable humanitarian character. Yes, the Yushukan Museum claims that Japan’s imperial expansion in the 1930s and ‘40s was in fact a war of liberation, waged on behalf of subjugated Asian peoples, against Western colonial domination. And yet what the museum demurely describes as ‘the Chinese incident’ is known outside Japan as ‘the Rape of Nanking’, when in 1937-8 Japanese troops are reckoned to have slaughtered about 300,000 Chinese civilians. So much, for Imperial Japan’s solidarity with Asian peoples. And then there’s that locomotive in the museum’s entrance. When a Briton or Australian of a certain age puts together Japan, Second World War, and train, he immediately adduces one thing only: the ‘Burma Railway’. This is the railway that was hacked through the Burmese jungle by Allied prisoners-of-war and Asian labourers, who were treated as slave labour and perished in their tens of thousands. Over 12,000 Britons and Australians died—about one in five of the POWs—alongside 150,000 Asians. No one who has viewed BBC 4’s showing of the tv dramatization of Richard Flanagan’s fact-based novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep North, and has managed to keep watching the harrowing fourth episode in which a sick Australian POW is beaten to death, can doubt the shameless brutality of the Japanese Empire. Certainly, most of the British Raj’s Indian subjects didn’t doubt it. Which is why, although 43,000 Indian POWs did sign up to fight for the Japanese, 2.5 million fellow Indians fought in British uniform.   So, no, the fact that the war against Japan was in defence of the British Empire should not stop us celebrating today. But what about the dropping of those atomic bombs?  Vengeance had nothing to do with it. The overriding motive of the US government was the desire to save lives by bringing the war to a swift end, through forcing the Japanese government to surrender. Two weeks before the first bomb was dropped, President Truman wrote: “My object is to save as many American lives as possible but I also have a humane feeling for the women and children of Japan.”  The problem facing the president and his colleagues was that, even as the Japanese were forced back onto their home territory, they showed no sign of giving up the fight. Truman’s military advisors estimated that the invasion of the Japanese mainland in November would cost up to 1 million casualties (dead and wounded).  Therefore, the US government decided to use atomic bombs to intimidate the Japanese into surrender. The possibility of a ‘demonstration’ drop onto some sparsely populated desert or island was considered, but it was rejected as likely to be ineffective. So, the decision was made to bomb cities. In deciding which cities to bomb, was the size of the population a consideration? No, the focus was on military and economic objectives. Hiroshima was known as a ‘military city’ by the Japanese themselves. It housed the army HQ for forces defending Kyushu, the southernmost island of Japan, which was the first target of US invasion. Nagasaki was a port town with munitions factories. Tragically, precise targeting was not an option. Due to technological limitations and persistent cloud-cover, American attempts at the precision-bombing of factories and industrial targets in Japan had failed. Moreover, those sites were often widely dispersed in residential districts. Therefore, Truman’s Target Committee decided to aim at Hiroshima’s city-centre, because there was a prominent bridge there that would be easiest to spot from 30,000 feet. The result was the killing of 140,000 people, mostly civilians. Was a second bomb necessary? Sadly, yes. The atomic explosion in Hiroshima failed to persuade Japan’s government to surrender. So, three days later, on 9 August, another US bombing mission took to the air. Its intended target was in fact Kokura, whose centre hosted an enormous arsenal. In the event, however, Kokura was obscured by cloud-cover, so the bomber proceeded to the secondary target of Nagasaki. For reasons that remain unclear—the city wasn’t hidden by cloud—it dropped its bomb over two miles from the city-centre and hit a Mitsubishi armaments plant, killing 40,000 people.  Even after the bombing of Nagasaki, the Japanese war minister, General Korechika Anami, was still arguing in favour of fighting on to the bitter end. “We will find life out of death”, he said. “Wouldn’t it be beautiful?” Fortunately, his counsel didn’t prevail and eighty years ago today, on 15 August, the Japanese government finally decided to surrender.  The dropping of atomic bombs on Japan was not an act of vengeance; it sought to save lives and secure peace. And it targeted military and industrial targets. However, a combination of their residential location, technological limits, and the weather made massive civilian casualties unavoidable. That was dreadfully, awfully tragic, but it wasn’t immoral. So, yes, we can and should celebrate the 80th anniversary of VJ Day with a “full heart”, albeit lamenting the terrible costs on both sides. That day was indeed one that proclaimed liberty to the captives—not only the British and Australian POWs, and the American GIs gripped by fear at the prospect of having to charge up Japanese beaches right into machine-gun fire, but also the Chinese, Koreans, Indians, and Thais suffering under brutal Japanese rule, when, as our First Canticle intoned, “cruel men … furiously rose up in wrath, to make of them their prey”.  Thank God Almighty, for their deliverance.  And thank God for all those, like uncle Jack, who delivered them, sacrificing their todays for our tomorrows. Amen.

Inquiry raises questions about MoD failure to stop soldiers exploiting women after it told us it issued no sanctions

When idealists and realists describe the achievement of the post-WWII international order, they are usually talking about different things. For those operating from the idealist conceptual framework, there is much to lament about the current state of global affairs. But for realists, 80 years since America’s in the Second World War, there’s reason for a bit of celebration and even optimism – something realists are not often known for. From the Wilsonian (idealist) school of thought, the “rules-based order” is all but gone. After two world wars and the introduction of atomic warfare, nations were supposed to peacefully cooperate through internationally-recognized rules and norms developed and held together by consensus. The United Nations was supposed to succeed where the League of Nations had failed as the neutral arbiter among nations. The organization, founded in 1945, boasts that “it remains the one place on Earth where all the world’s nations can gather, discuss common problems, and find shared solutions that benefit all of humanity.” Alas, the UN has not quite figured out how to get authoritarian countries who reject Western values to abide by the rules.  Besides Russia’s ongoing machinations to subjugate Eastern Europe, the Kremlin is also engaged in terrorism in European countries supporting Ukraine’s defense, such as the UK, Germany, the Baltics, and the Netherlands. Russia is still using chemical weapons, the only class of weapons banned after World War 2. It violated the Open Skies and the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, which prompted President Donald Trump to withdraw the United States from both during his first term. Moscow remains in noncompliance with its obligations under the New START Treaty, the last bilateral nuclear arms treaty the United States has with Russia.  The Chinese Communist Party helps North Korea and Russia evade sanctions by supporting their illicit activities and engages in forced technology transfer (theft), constant cyber-attacks against other nations, both private and government entities. The CCP, led by Xi Jinping, has no intention of supporting, let alone abiding by, the “rules” of the international system set by Western nations; rather, it seeks to supplant this order with one that benefits the CCP at the expense of free societies.  Commercial sea lanes, which international law requires be open and peaceful, are anything but. China and Russia cut undersea cables across geographies. China and Russia violate the exclusive economic zones of other nations, for former in the South China Sea and the latter in the Baltic and Artic. Russia has even violated the national air spaces of multiple nations just in the last two months. America’s adversaries have weaponized outer space as well — a global common area that the rules-based order insists should remain peaceful and for all nations to share responsibly. International organizations like the World Health Organizations that are meant to prevent global disease and mitigate health risks have been transparently co-opted by the Chinese government.  For Wilsonian idealists, who believed all international conflict could ultimately be ended or minimized through such high-minded institutions, there is little to celebrate in 2025.  But for realists, there is much to be pleased with and plenty to motivate American policymakers to restore our hard-earned successes of the post-WWII order our predecessors built.   First, it’s important to assess expectations and what that “order” does and doesn’t entail from a realist perspective. Realists, including Christian Realists, do not believe in an “end of history,” or at least not this side of Heaven. There has never been a peaceful international order motivated purely by the selflessness and altruism of a community of nations. There is no global consensus toward surrendering national sovereignty to a transnational governing body. Realists understand that sovereign nations will always act in accordance with their perceived interests and nations have disparate values, cultures, and willingness to take on degrees of risk.  Even so, for the Realist, the post-WWII international system has brought about enormous blessings, to Americans specifically and humanity in general. But the good it has brought, though remarkable, is far more modest than the idealist’s grand visions. The international system we know today developed only through the United States’ combination of moral authority and military/economic preponderance following WWII.  Before WWII, there were 17 democracies while today and there are 88. This was achieved primarily by the United States unapologetically pushing other nations to embrace democracy as the system of government most in accordance with human dignity as created in the image dei: the image of God.  There has been peace and enormously prosperous trade relative to all of the years that proceeded with it. And the number of human casualties in war is dramatically fewer than all of recorded history. That lack of war and relative peace has been described as the Pax Americana—the American Peace.  That American Peace has been possible through our allies in NATO, Asia, and Israel in the Middle East. American grand strategy has relied on these alliances so that the United States to project power abroad, share and receive intelligence, and combine efforts to thwart shared adversaries. Importantly, the United States also sought to discourage nuclear proliferation by encouraging nations to eschew their own nuclear weapons in exchange for US nuclear guarantees.  Today, there is much work to be done 80 years after the end of the Second World War to defend, restore, and strengthen the Pax Americana. China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are collaborating to displace the US-led international order in favor of a multipolar world of tyrannical rogue states run amok. Our enemies understand that this is only possible by weakening the system of alliances that gives the US so much leverage over global events.  President Trump’s successful NATO Summit this summer, which heralded significant ally investments in American weapons, was an encouraging sign that the alliance can still be effective. The recklessly permissive migration practices in Europe must end and the defense industrial bases of European nations must receive real and sustained investments. Likewise, the United States will continue to shore up Ukraine’s defense through the provision of American weapons in an effort to induce Russia to end the war and conclude that expanding it would not be worth the cost.  The United States’ support for Israel’s defensive war against Iran and its proxies also portends well for a restoration of American-backed effective “rule” enforcement. Iran has been threatening genocide against America’s ally for decades. By backing Israel against Iran, including striking its nuclear program, the United States is also backstopping the global stigma against the sin of antisemitism that led to the horrors of the Holocaust. The strike also upheld nuclear nonproliferation norms, which could have a deterrent effect on other countries considering acquiring nuclear weapons.  80 years after the end of WWII, the world remains a violent place in need of American global leadership. Not only has the principle of national sovereignty defined by geographic borders not disappeared, it has been forcefully reaffirmed by the United States. The United States is reassessing which international organizations no longer serve their original purpose and are either defunding or adapting them (the WHO and USAID.) The threats from China and Russia to the American-led postwar order will endure. But with moral clarity, and a determination to outmaneuver its enemies, the United States can defend, restore, and strengthen the Pax. 

Palestinian journalist Anas Jamal Al-Sharif was killed along with four Al Jazeera colleagues in an Israeli air strike

The Second World War ended four generations ago. We are as far from Franklin Roosevelt’s 1945 victory in the Second World War as he was from Abraham Lincoln’s victory in 1865, and both men died in April of their final year of conflict, leaving to their successors to sort out the peace they promised to the American people. To remember Pearl Harbor, we must accept that we can no longer simply recall it. It is now like the recollection of Fort Sumter was for the men who stormed Normandy. History does not play favorites and everything that is not deliberately passed down will be forgotten. This forgetting is not an exclusively American failure; it is the natural passage of time. But its repair demands something of us. When memory passes into the afterlife, the convictions of the living must take its place.  The American people urgently tried to avoid both wars, but once in the conflict the electorate of 1864 and 1944 chose to stay the course and complete the task. This is remarkable because other countries such as Britain, suspended elections for the duration of the war as a sign of unity. The American system was stronger. Lincoln and FDR, men whose leadership could rightly be called indispensable to the national emergencies, submitted themselves to the electorate. The American system has been built on the idea that no man is above civil audit, even during the greatest of emergencies the people must have the free and open choice of their leaders. It was an imperfect system. Many American soldiers, coming from poll-tax states that disenfranchised the poor of all racial categories, fell in Europe having never been able to cast votes in their republic. And yet their campaign against the Axis sparked hope for a expanded liberty at home in opposition to the monstrous vision of America’s enemies.  The Second World War was a new birth of freedom for Americans for whom the promises of the country were an unpaid debt. While we often think of the conflict in terms of race and racialism, we might better think of the conflict as one of unifying sacrifice across the American family, for the American nation is ultimately a federation of families. Black families in the South and inner city, Native tribal families on the reservations, and even maligned immigrants like the Italian and Japanese Americans who faced persecution because their ancestry traced back to enemy countries. These families gave their sons and a few of their daughters not simply to defeat the Axis but to ensure they would have the benefits of a free society after the victory was won. The New Deal liberal-nationalism of President Roosevelt created hope for a stronger, fairer America, and the bottom rungs of the greatest generation fought for their right to ascend. The war demanded everything from these families, yet they accepted in the knowledge that American freedom, however imperfect, was worth perfecting rather than abandoning. America’s traditionally Protestant classical-liberalism was, even with its faults, better than the alternatives. Earlier this year I visited Normandy and remain struck by the contrast between the graves of the fallen on both sides—between the honor of victory for a righteous cause and the double shame of losing the war while fighting on the side of wickedness. Standing among the German graves, you feel the weight of choices. Each stone marker represents not just a life lost, but a life wasted in service of evil. The American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer tells a different story: here rests the mortal remains of Americans who crossed an ocean to die for strangers’ freedom, and their own. Their graves face west, toward the homeland and families they would never see again. The legacy of the Second World War was previously the American-led postwar order and the atomic age, but as the world continues to spin and the distance between 1945 and our time lengthens, we must build a new legacy to honor the forefathers of 1945. We must determine to be realists about the place of honor, integrity and transcendent morality in establishing national power and stability. And we must be resolved to embrace that same integrity in the ruthless pursuit of the public good and moral order through the defeat of wicked men and ideas.  This is not about nostalgia for a simpler time for there was nothing simple about global war across the Pacific and the Atlantic, the Great Depression, or domestic injustice of the Jim Crow system. Rather, it is about recognizing that each generation must choose its own relationship to the principles that previous generations died to preserve. The men who stormed beaches, seized command of the skies, and fought their way across oceans, did not do so for us to slip into a comfortable docility of passive resignation. Rather, it was for our capacity to be active, empowered citizens of a great republic, alive to the urgency of our times as they were to theirs.   Christian realism does not seek perfect justice on this side of eternity. Nor does it shrink from doing what it can to pursue peace and good order in the temporal world. A lesson of the Second World War is not that the arc of history bends towards justice of its own accord, but that we must prudentially do our part to shape history, to compel the victory of righteousness over evil. We must intentionally choose to learn what we, as a society, can no longer remember from experience because to forget is to lose the wisdom of history. 

The numbers were small. But at a far right protest in Bristol, we saw a movement that believes it’s winning.

Laura Bates’ new book is distracted by sexbots. AI’s power to surveil and marginalise sex workers is the real story

Cassandra must have suffered. The Trojan priestess was cursed by the gods to see the future yet never be believed. She warned her fellow Trojans about the coming war with the Greeks, the fall of Troy, and their coming deaths. But her warnings changed nothing because no one likes to be told that bad things are coming and there is little anyone can do to stop them. Humans are almost cognitively incapable of hearing such truths.  Five years ago, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II, I warned that “We are at risk of remembering World War II by fighting its sequel, teaching the war’s lessons by reliving them, and remembering its mistakes by recommitting them. Unless we take drastic action, we will commemorate the end of the Second World War by replicating the path to it.”  We are on the road to World War III. Or something close to it: a militarized crisis among the world’s great powers, a localized clash, nuclear brinksmanship, a proxy war, or something similar. We already have a proxy war (Ukraine) and a localized clash (Israel and Iran). We have the makings of a militarized crisis and nuclear brinksmanship (Taiwan). We are not in an era of presumed comity and peace among the great powers. The default is conflict. The question is not whether there will be conflict, but when, what kind, and how large.  The World in 2020 World War II came about because of the combustible mix of power imbalances (a rising Germany), economic collapse (the Great Depression), ideological extremism (fascism), a climate of tyranny, international aggression, and liberal cowardice. That’s all conventional wisdom, but my argument was that those ingredients were present in 2020.  A rising China is the new power imbalance. The financial crisis of 2008 and the COVID-induced recession had the makings of an economic collapse. We have ideological extremism with rising nationalism, populism, and authoritarianism—and with the left-wing illiberalism that arose in reaction. Russia, China, and Iran have created a climate of tyranny. As for international aggression, I noted Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 and China’s invasion of the South China Sea in 2013, and I speculated about “another Russian landgrab in Eastern Europe.” Five Years of Anarchy  Less than two years later, Russia invaded Ukraine in the most blatant land grab since 1939. A nuclear-armed authoritarian great power crossed borders with armed force with the express intent to conquer and annex a smaller, weaker neighbor. At stake in the conflict is not just Ukrainian independence, but the principles of territorial inviolability, sovereign statehood, and a rules-based international order. The US has flooded Ukraine with weapons and some US officials advocated for direct intervention; in response, Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to use nuclear weapons. The Russo-Ukrainian war is the most dangerous moment in the world since the Cuban Missile Crisis.   Ukrainian courage inspired political will in Europe and, temporarily, the United States. But three years on, it is not enough. The war is a stalemate which favors Russia because it is vastly larger and can afford to waste lives in a long war. Putin simply needs to have more patience than Donald Trump has courage or the Europeans have unity, which is not asking much. We seem to face an impossible choice between losing the war—thus encouraging more aggression—or escalating and risking nuclear war.  The US is hardly in an ideal position to make such judgments, preoccupied as we are with our own turmoil. Five months after my last essay, a terrorist mob attacked the US Capitol and tried to overthrow American democracy. Four years later, the American people reelected the man who inspired it, but only after a would-be assassin came within millimeters of murdering him. In between, a geriatric caretaker president ordered the US to evacuate its embassy in Kabul, abandon tens of thousands of Afghan allies, and hand the country over to the Taliban. We are at a low point in national honor and self-respect.  War in Ukraine and democratic decline in America are not the only signs of deteriorating world order over the past five years. Political crisis paralyzed the governments of France and South Korea last year. A mob attacked the Brazilian Congress, inspired by the American example. Coups toppled governments in Myanmar, Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, and Gabon. Attempted coups failed in Peru and Bolivia.“Global freedom declined for the 19th consecutive year in 2024,” according to Freedom House. We are two decades into democracy’s retreat. The authoritarians are winning, and we are barely fighting back. The authoritarians are also rearming. North Korea continued a steady drumbeat of ballistic missile tests, including intercontinental ballistic missiles. Russia tested anti-satellite weaponry in 2021, which should give you a hint about what the first day of World War III will involve (the GPS on your phone will stop working). China held massive live-fire military exercises around Taiwan in 2022 as a show of force to protest a visit by Nancy Pelosi, then the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, to Taiwan. Iran more than doubled its military budget since 2021. Speaking of Iran, it is likely that Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, was at Iran’s behest, or at least encouragement. Israel’s response—just and necessary in most respects—brought some discredit to the free world with the seeming excess and looseness in its targeting (though, to be fair, it is nearly impossible to know what to believe when it is filtered through the reporting of a congenitally anti-Israel international media). While Israel’s destruction of Hamas and Hezbollah is an unmitigated good for the world, Israel’s failure to articulate any vision for the future of Gaza does not inspire hope for peace. Instead, the escalation of the war into a direct confrontation between Israel and Iran earlier this year seemed more like the opening act of a new phase of war than the finale of a conflict ready to wrap up. That’s a lot of history in a short half-decade, and it’s virtually all bad. I can think of one good thing in five years—the fall of the Assad regime—which hardly outweighs the parade of horrors we’ve lived through. Democracy On the Line And that was before Trump’s reelection. Five years ago, I envisioned World War III much like its predecessor: the US leading a coalition of free nations against tyrannical aggressors to re-found and expand a free world order. Now, if there is a major difference between 1939 and 2025, it is that we can no longer be certain that the US will be on the side of the democracies. It isn’t clear that the United States is interested in leading the free world.  Start with Trump’s assault on American law enforcement. He fired the FBI Director and purged the FBI of prosecutors and investigators who worked on January 6 cases and cases against Trump. He threatened law firms with retaliation if they took cases against his administration. He pardoned 1,500 people connected with January 6, encouraging a culture of impunity for political violence done in his service. Trump is undermining the rule of law, introducing elements of personalistic rule, oligarchy, and even authoritarianism into American governance. Now look at Trump’s attitude towards democracy abroad. Trump defunded, eliminated, or cut many of the most important tools of soft power and democracy promotion, including the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the US Agency for Global Media (which funded the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty), the National Endowment for Democracy, the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute, and the US Institute of Peace. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has overseen a drastic reorganization and proposed cuts to his department that would eliminate half of existing funding for humanitarian and health programs and international organizations and completely end some educational programs, including the Fulbright and Payne fellowships. Trump is openly hostile to the idea of championing democracy abroad.  The most telling incident was Trump’s meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in February. Vice President JD Vance falsely accused Zelensky of unnecessarily prolonging the war by refusing to engage in diplomacy, repeating the Kremlin’s talking points and taking Russia’s side in the propaganda war. It looked as if Trump was switching sides, ready to back Russia against Ukraine rather than the other way around. He’s backed down in recent weeks as even he came to recognize the obvious fact that Putin, not Zelensky, is the obstacle to negotiations—but it shows how far Trump is willing to reconsider America’s traditional role in the world.   Now consider Trump’s actions towards the US military and national security establishment. Within weeks of taking office, Trump fired the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force, the Commandant of the Coast Guard, the Director of the National Security Agency, and the Inspectors General of the Departments of State and Defense. There is simply no precedent for this in American history. As a former intelligence analyst, I know exactly what I would say if I saw this happening in a foreign country. I would say that the leader was purging the security forces to ensure loyalists are in top positions. That’s an extremely dangerous situation for a democracy.  At the same time, Trump has increased the Defense Department’s budget by some 13 percent, to just over $1 trillion. By itself, that’s not a bad thing. But look at the pattern: Under Trump, the US is disarming itself of its soft power while doubling down on hard power in the midst of a multifront Cold War against the nuclear autocracies. That gives you a good sense of how Trump thinks of foreign affairs and what kind of war he expects to fight. It is a big game of Risk, moving armies around on a global chessboard, with no role for diplomacy or soft power.  Adding It Up It could add up to a military confrontation between the US on the one side, and either Russia or China, or both, on the other. But now, I worry about two other possibilities. If America does not stand for liberty, equality, and democracy, World War III may come, but may not have any meaningful moral dimension. It could be a great power war fought for no other reason than “competitive prestige,” (Orwell’s phrase), to see who the biggest dog is, who will be the alpha. It will be a war fought to answer the question: Is America still biggest badass, or is the 21st century China’s moment in the sun? Such a war would be a despicable waste of lives for no just cause. There is no intrinsic justice to badassery. If American leadership exists for no other reason than American greatness, who cares which great power rules the world? Worse yet, maybe World War III will not come because no one will fight when the tyrants come conquering. Maybe Trump will pull the plug on aid to Ukraine and let Russia finish off the job. Maybe then they’ll sit down and carve up Europe and the Middle East into spheres of influence. Maybe China will take the hint and move on Taiwan—and Trump will side with China. Perhaps Russia, China, and Trump’s America will collaborate together to create a world where the strong do what they will and the weak suffer as they must. In that scenario World War III will not come because the bad guys will already have won.

Is the United States becoming Latin America? When friends from the region wryly ask, it’s not because the American West was once part of Mexico or Spain claimed Florida, or the United States now has the second largest Spanish speaking population worldwide. Rather, they point with a mixture of surprise, concern, and a dose of schadenfreude to the dramatic, all-too-familiar political and economic shifts from Washington. The comparison, as the Trump Administration aggressively seeks to stimulate domestic production, reduce imports, and increase the government position in the economy, is no longer absurd. For years, Latin America was plagued by the allure of import substitution, a theory claiming that behind high tariff walls and government-led industrial policy nations would increase high value production, direct capital effectively to national champions and favored causes, and grow economies and create jobs unchallenged by more efficient, lower cost production from abroad. Instead, predictably, the opposite occurred. Competition slackened, costs increased, governments wasted large sums trying to pick and support commercial winners, and corruption flourished as companies devoted more and more effort to gaining government rents than by innovating through research and development. Compounded by traditional family ties that embedded political and commercial favoritism including access to capital, lack of quality education opportunities for the majority, and a malleable and politicized rule of law, it ensured that those at the top would remain at the top, and those below would have little opportunity to advance. That this economic agenda coincided with the days of dictatorships, authoritarians, and regional strongmen caudillos is no coincidence. The names are embedded in history, from Argentina’s Juan Peron to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, and their contemporaries and successors, both sharing the ignominity of turning their then-wealthiest nations in Latin America into economic basket cases. To do so, they declared emergencies to promote their populist agendas by capturing state institutions, reducing the press, rallying “the people” against their predecessors and “the elites,” and moving aggressively to use the levers of the state to channel and often coerce economic activity and private interests toward their preferred outcomes. Thankfully, much of the worst of the model has been left behind, but Latin America continues to lead the world in economic and social inequality. That’s in part from the vestiges of protected markets and the ongoing temptation of direct and indirect government interventionism. And progress is uneven: some nations, like Mexico, are returning to previous models, while Argentina is now in the early days of a complete political and economic re-boot. Chile’s experience is notable. Like many nations, Chile has faced difficulty in recent years, including destructive riots in 2019, and the economy has slowed. Nonetheless, for years the United States upheld Chile as a model for the rest of Latin America, both for its democratic principles as well as its commitment to sound macroeconomics and an active trade liberalization agenda. Trade in particular was seen as a way to open Chile to the discipline of the global marketplace, increasing competition, strengthening Chilean enterprises, reducing corruption, and drawing significant and necessary foreign direct investment. It was an explicit repudiation of the siren song of import substitution, and Chile, consequently, outperformed. Today, the Trump Administration is implementing its own trade experiment. Since so-called “Liberation Day” on April 2, Washington has been engaged in a disruptive conversation on tariffs, threatening then postponing them, raising them unilaterally, assigning them randomly (for example treating democratic, peaceful Costa Rica the same as despotic Venezuela), and going ahead without seeming appreciation for the broader impact on US economic interests, alliances, and national security. Various justifications have been offered, including desires to raise new revenues from consumers to offset reduced income taxes, encourage domestic investment and manufacturing while taking equity in “strategic” economic production, and punish countries including allies for trade deficits. In short, import substitution. What’s even more evident to observers from Latin America is the political rebalancing required to implement such a dramatic economic shift. In six months, the administration has rejected long-established political norms including international treaties, disdained the virtually unanimous views of economists and policy experts, ignored democratic institutions including Congress, and claimed breathtaking emergency authorities while making continuous popular appeals to “the people.” Trade with the United States is now less a global stabilizer than a global disruptor, especially given the number of non-trade related issues that have recently been added into the mix. To wit: a punitive, personalized 50 percent tariff on Brazil for taking judicial actions against previous president Jair Bolsonaro. Goodbye to Most Favored Nation principles, which underlay the global trading system for 80 years, disproportionately to US benefit. So then, the United States of Latin America? Well, not just yet. Despite growing similarities, deep differences remain. Among them, rule of law. The Trump Administration has claimed the authority for tariff actions under IEEPA, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, which gives the President extraordinary authority to take certain actions in response to national security emergencies. By declaring the trade deficit to be a “national emergency,” the President has ascribed to himself virtually limitless authority to levy tariffs against anyone at any time for any purpose. It’s a theory now being tested legally, with the ultimate destination, likely, the Supreme Court. IEEPA was never intended for such application. Congress, with which the Constitution vests tariff authority, did not clearly acquiesce to such a sweeping interpretation. If the Administration’s claims are permitted to stand, look out. That Pandora’s Box will never again be closed, as national emergencies can be declared–and dramatic action taken–for climate change, say, just to name one obvious example. The stakes are enormous. We’ll know soon enough whether IEEPA or other authorities permit the President to continue his current course. But the broader fight has been joined. Latin America may yet have the last laugh.

It has been 80 years since the United States finally forced Japan to capitulate subsequent to the use of atomic weapons against the Japanese homeland.  President Harry S. Truman famously stated that he never lost a night’s sleep over dropping the bomb because American military strategists had estimated at least 1 million U.S. casualties, not to mention the countless Japanese deaths, if and when the United States invaded the Japanese homeland.1 Truman’s assertion brings to mind several critical elements, most notably his willingness to accept responsibility as president, the issue of whether or not nuclear weapons are something different than other weapons, and whether or not American GIs had certain rights as citizens or lost those rights on the battlefield.  This essay, operating from a just war perspective, will look at some of the ethical dimensions that Truman faced. Today’s fundamental moral issues involving nuclear weapons revolve around the responsibilities and legitimacy of political authority, the first just war principle.  More specifically, when it comes to national security in its most general sense, American presidents are faced with the Truman dilemma: what, if anything, does a U.S. president “owe” foreign enemies when he is trying to care for his own citizenry?  The second authority issue in contemporary life is the non-legitimacy of those political actors most likely to utilize a nuclear device, such as today’s North Korea or rogue terrorists, and the risks this poses to international security. Just war thinking is rooted in the Biblical idea that God provides for and expects political order in this world (Romans 13).  That political order is shepherded by political authorities, although the New Testament clearly does not endorse any regime type (e.g. Greek demos, Roman Empire, theocracy) as authoritative.  The fundamental responsibility of political authorities—the key to their legitimacy—is providing order and security for their populace.  Their second important task is to promote justice.  In a republic, leaders are selected by the populace within a framework of law to protect and promote the lives, livelihoods, and way of life of the citizenry.  Call it a social contract, political compact, or whatever one likes, this is the arrangement upon which Western polities, particularly the U.S., are built. This brings us back to Harry S. Truman.  President Truman was the first U.S. president to have fought under the conditions of modern warfare as a National Guard artillery officer in World War I.  He knew that war could be hell, and he rightfully felt a tremendous responsibility to the U.S. service personnel who were fighting in World War II.  Moreover, as president he was briefed daily on the Japanese military’s willingness to fight to the last man island by island, at great cost to U.S. and allied forces.  Intelligence had surfaced in 1945 that the Japanese would likely annihilate all prisoners of war under their control in the final days of the war, including thousands of Americans, Britons, Australians, and other allies.  Intelligence estimates suggested that there would be as many as a million U.S. casualties when the Japanese homeland was invaded.  Furthermore, the number of dead Japanese in such an eventuality is difficult to imagine, though certainly would have been very high.2  As president, what was Truman’s responsibility?  It was first of all the protection of American lives.  This did not simply include American civilians on the home front, but also the thousands rotting away in Japanese concentration camps.3  It also included U.S. troops.  This is an important point.  Sometimes the literature on the ethics of war suggests that military personnel are second-class citizens.  I disagree with this characterization, but its roots are important to understand.  The just war “contract” is that individuals who are under the authority of the state and clearly demarcated by uniforms, control structures, and the like, have license to kill under war-time conditions.  They can also be killed.  This separates them from civilians who are not supposed to kill (that would make them be criminals) and have non-combatant immunity from the battlefield.   Much of the philosophical literature of the past thirty years has put soldiers into such a box as to make them almost morally inconsequential: their job is to protect civilians and they seem to have no rights.  They must go to extraordinary lengths to protect civilians, even if it puts them at serious risk.  Again, I disagree with the de-valuing of men and women in uniform.  Particularly in a democracy, soldiers have inherent moral worth as human beings and as citizens.  World War II is an important case in point.  Nearly all of those soldiers, airmen, marines, and sailors fighting Japan had been civilians on December 7, 1941.  They entered the military out of self-defense.  They were citizens first, not second- or third-class persons.  For President Truman, their lives should matter.  Indeed, his first responsibility was to American lives, in and out of uniform, not to Japanese civilians.  The care of Japanese civilians was the first duty of the leadership in Tokyo, not in Washington, DC.  It was the actions of those in Tokyo who put their civilians at risk, not President Truman.  Indeed, it was the Japanese regime that began to train even its elderly, women, and children how to kill and destroy. With this in mind, it is apparent that there was moral urgency for President Truman to act decisively to bring World War II to a close and stop the killing of American and allied personnel, from the island hopping campaign to those languishing in Japan’s horrific concentration camps.  Indeed, President Truman probably saved more Chinese lives than any other nationality, followed by both Japanese and Allied lives. The bomb provided that opportunity and it worked.  The dropping of bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused the Japanese empire to finally surrender, and it saved countless Japanese lives that would have been lost in a traditional fight-to-the-last-person Japanese campaign.  The cause was just (self-defense following Pearl Harbor, liberation of the Pacific domain).  The vast majority of U.S. fighting in the Pacific campaign followed just war principles.  Dropping the bomb to hasten the war’s end was just: it saved lives and reduced destruction elsewhere.  Then, consonant with the principles of jus post bellum I have written about elsewhere, the U.S. brought order, justice, and even conciliation to the people of Japan.4 U.S. presidents continue to face the Truman challenge of how to protect and promote the security of their citizens in an uncertain world.  This is an issue of legitimate political authority.  Moreover, the real threats posed by nuclear weapons in contemporary international life typically derive from weak, failing, and/or illegitimate political authority.  Today’s leaders should look to Truman, who refused to pass the buck of responsibility and acted to hasten the end of World War II. Note: Elements of this essay were adapted from Eric Patterson’s 2019 book, Just American Wars (Routledge). From Curtis E. LeMay and Bill Yenne’s book Superfortress:  The Story of the B-29 and American Air Power.  Quoted In Gar Alperovitz and Sanho Tree, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (New York:  Vintage Books, 1995) p. 341. ↩︎Curtis E. LeMay and Bill Yenne’s book Superfortress:  The Story of the B-29 and American Air Power.  Quoted In Gar Alperovitz and Sanho Tree, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (New York:  Vintage Books, 1995), 341.  Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken, a recent national bestseller listed in the bibliography, provides lengthy documentation on these issues in narrative form. ↩︎See Richard B. Franks, Tower of Skulls (New York: Norton, 2020). ↩︎See Patterson Just War Thinking and Patterson Ending Wars Well. ↩︎

Corbynism cut through with the public in 2017. To do so again, his new party must show it's not just a protest vote

Import bans are one of the few ways to hit companies where it hurts. Critics should think twice before undermining them

Suspect in recent assassination of Minnesota lawmaker reportedly previously delivered anti-LGBTIQ sermons in the Congo

openDemocracy readers debate whether making voting mandatory would improve politics

Migrants denied right to work turn to exploitative delivery apps to earn cash, but the government is cracking down

It is a very different matter to remember the end of the Second World War from remembering its beginning. The beginning was a just cause, transparently so. That such a thing may occur, and occur transparently, may take us by surprise, used as we are to the moral ambiguities of cases where there is something to be said on one side and on the other. But if it may surprise us, it may also encourage us. For if the right and wrong of international situations are not, after all, always hopelessly entangled in unknown factors and rival interpretations, we know that we may place some degree of trust in our common instinct to resist evil where we see it, and find, from time to time, some better practical response to a crisis than a shrug of the shoulders. It may be possible to bear true witness to the good in forceful international action. And that encouragement sharpens our sense of responsibility. When there is a transparently just cause for resort to war, there is an obligation to resort to it. Here is something that may be demanded of us from time to time, together with the disciplines of courage and sacrifice that it involves. From the transparency of the just cause, then, we learn, or relearn, something of our vocation as human societies, and of what it may cost us to fulfil them, a hard lesson but a positive one. But if that is what we can learn from 1939, remembering 1945 is likely to teach a more discouraging lesson. The moral clarity of vocation to resist evil can be fatally compromised by moral failure in its pursuit and execution. The “just war”, according to the old doctrine, depended not only on ius ad bellum, but on ius in bello, just conduct that respected the persons of the non-combatants and had pity on the captive defeated. Symbolically, though not in law, the end of the war occurred on August 6th 1945, eighty years to the day as I write, when atomic bombs were dropped on Japanese cities with the clear intention of destroying civilian populations – not the first, though the most dramatic and explicit, use of this strategy by the allied forces. It heralded the new era of impenetrable moral gloom and scepticism, the era of cold-war and massive deterrence, governed by terror at the total destructiveness of threat and bad conscience at the responsibility for maintaining it, into which my generation, born under the sign of August 6th, came to political adulthood. The peace of 1945 was a bitter one, indeed, which tasted, and was subsequently conducted, more as an extension of war than as a true peace. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who did not live to see it, had anticipated the sense of moral failure and impotence of a civilisation that would win the struggle he was engaged in, and had expressed it unforgettably: “We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds; we have been drenched by many storms; we have learned the arts of equivocation and pretence; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and even made us cynical. Are we still of any use?… Will our inward powers of resistance be strong enough, and our honesty with ourselves remorseless enough, for us to find our way back to simplicity and straightforwardness?” But here, too, when sin prevailed, grace prevailed yet more. The allies who emerged from their compromised victory remembered that the gift of God to man’s sinfulness was law, and took up the task of putting international affairs on a legal footing, developing the traditions of international law that governed the causes and conduct of war. The Geneva Conventions of 1948 and 1949, together with the even more dramatic Protocols of 1977 that founded humanitarian law, asserted the essential moral framework, derived from the traditional prohibitions of Christendom. More specialised conventions – on genocide, chemical and other indiscriminate weapons, cultural property, etc. – gave sharper focus to the general principles. This remarkable corpus, embraced in part or whole by the greater number of the world’s nations, was perhaps the most striking moral achievement of the twentieth century. Imperfect it was, of course, as all human law must be, and especially imperfect in regard to the institutions that would interpret and uphold it; yet it offered hope that, as future tyrants arose, there would be better and more coordinated ways of confronting them. Nor was this initiative ineffective; the face of war, to a degree, changed its colour. It was as a practical effect of the Protocols that weapons-research and design was reoriented from the massive destructiveness of the nuclear arsenal towards precise military targeting, a development for which an appreciative footnote, at least, is due to the late President Jimmy Carter. Today we are confronted by a clear determination, clearer and more widespread than at any time since 1945, to set these hard-won legal achievements at defiance, a determination not on the part of the small local warlords who, surviving below the surface of international politics, were always liable to fall back upon cruelty within their means, but on the part of major powers equipped with the most advanced resources. And where we might expect the heirs of 1945, and Christians especially, to raise their voices in defence of what was gained in the sphere of international law of war, there is largely silence, sometimes acquiescent, sometimes despairing, and almost always ignorant of the extent of what was thought and done. To those who suppose themselves the heirs of the victory of 1945 this anniversary should put the sharpest of questions. Was the defeated Hitler, after all, the true victor in the realm of ideas? Have we come to admit that every effort to sustain a lawful polity among nations in conflict has come to nothing, and that unfettered exertion of will through force is the only law that merits respect in that sphere? To remember the end of World War II with historical perspective is to remember the serious initiatives of international law it gave rise to, and to face the painful questions of what has become of them, and what is to become of them. Staged exercises in “remembering” beloved of the ceremonial classes – the journalists, the statesmen and the clergy – may serve only to help us forget the real point. I fear we shall hear a great deal of triumphant reflection on the decisions of 1939 when Britain and France declared war on Germany and (further West) 1941 when the U.S. entered the conflict, while that of August 6th 1945, with all the solemn control that it continues to exercise over our lives, may slip past unnoticed.

Simply insisting people vote in elections run by a system they rightly distrust will not improve British politics

The UK government’s failed rematching scheme shows ministers fundamentally misunderstand the reality of care work

Standing up to the US president’s deportation demands won’t be easy, and will require a pan-African consensus

US tech firms want to extract data, knowledge and natural resources from the region. Governments must stand up to them

Privatisation means the public faces higher bills and pollution as shareholders cash in. Why won’t Labour admit that?

Victims accuse military of ‘cover-up’ after it closed investigation without checking archives or interviewing suspect

Starving children to death won’t win Binyamin Netanyahu the war. It will ensure it lasts for decades

openDemocracy readers discuss whether voters would back a socialist government, and Starmer’s ever-rightwards shift

The ataman (head) of the “All-Russian Cossack Society,” Nikolai Doluda, addressed a meeting of the Atamans’ Council, in Krasnodar Krai, on February 4, and instructed those gathered that “the time has come when the Cossacks are once again becoming a stronghold and reliable shield of Russia, a guarantor of unity and protection of its national interests” (Vsko.ru, February 4). The … The post As Ukraine Crisis Simmers, Russian Cossack Movement Tightens Integration With Military Reserves appeared first on Jamestown.

Judi Bola Sbobet Bonus New Member Poker QQ Idn Poker Slot Dana PKV Games PKV Games Idn Poker Mix Parlay Mix Parlay BandarQQ PKV Games Over the last several years, Ukraine’s leaders have expressed grave concern over the dangers posed to regional energy security by Russia’s Nord Stream Two natural gas pipeline. From Germany and, more broadly, from Europe, the … The post The Many Faces of Nord Stream Two appeared first on Jamestown.

Judi Bola Sbobet Bonus New Member Poker QQ Idn Poker Slot Dana PKV Games PKV Games Idn Poker Mix Parlay Mix Parlay BandarQQ PKV Games On July 28, Ukrainian Orthodox Christians celebrated the 1,033rd anniversary of the Baptism of Kyivan Rus—a remarkable annual event for Ukrainian history and another reason for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s political speculations. After the Ecumenical … The post Religion as a Hybrid War Weapon to Achieve Russia’s Geopolitical Goals appeared first on Jamestown.

On May 25, just ahead of the 103rd anniversary of the First Georgian Republic’s (1918–1921) independence, Georgian protesters paralyzed the streets of the capital city of Tbilisi in the largest rally to date against the Namakhvani Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP) project (Civil.ge, May 25, 26). Relatively small demonstrations against the planned dam, by locals organized under the banner “Guardians of … The post Namakhvani HPP: Georgian Hydropower Between Energy Security and Geopolitics appeared first on Jamestown.

Judi Bola Sbobet Bonus New Member Poker QQ Idn Poker Slot Dana PKV Games PKV Games Idn Poker Mix Parlay Mix Parlay BandarQQ PKV Games The Russian Cossack movement is emerging as one of the key social pillars supporting the regime, and increasingly it is taking on the mold of Kuban Cossackdom, found in the southern part of the country. … The post All Russian Cossacks Increasingly Resemble Krasnodar Movement appeared first on Jamestown.

On April 21, Vasily Piskarev, the head of the State Duma’s commission to investigate the facts of interference in the internal affairs of Russia, announced that his body was preparing legislative initiatives to combat foreign interference in Russia, including in its elections, by non-profits and non-governmental organizations (NGO). Piskarev said that “insults against Russia” will receive a “worthy response, including … The post Russia Cracks Down on ‘Foreign Threats’ appeared first on Jamestown.

On February 20, Ruslan Ablyakimov was walking in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, with two friends when he was stopped by six young men who proceeded to beat him. “Where did you come here from?” they asked, “You are from Moscow, right? What are you doing here?” Before the men left Ablyakimov, they told him, “You have until tomorrow to … The post Alexei Navalny’s Support in the North Caucasus: More About Corruption Than Navalny appeared first on Jamestown.

The foreign and security policy expert communities in Georgia (Neweurope.eu, November 17) as well as both the outgoing and candidate Lithuanian defense ministers (LRT, November 16, 19) have called for a permanent presence of United States military forces in their respective countries. These calls indicate a hope that the incoming administration of President-elect Joseph Biden will bring greater attention to … The post Georgia, Lithuania Call for Permanent US Troop Presences appeared first on Jamestown.

In the first week of August, cellphones across Russia lit up with surprising text messages. They came from different numbers, but each said the same thing in Russian: “The US State Department is offering up to $10 million for information about interference in the US elections. If you have information, contact rfj.tips/bngc.” The State Department confirmed the messages were authentic … The post US Messaging to Russian Citizens: Time to Step It Up? appeared first on Jamestown.

Recent comments by former vice president of the separatist Georgian region of Abkhazia Valery Arshba indicate a split between the older political elite and the current administration of President Aslan Bzhania (Gazeta-ra.info, October 19; Civil.ge, October 23). Arshba called for the breakaway republic to join the Union State of Russia and Belarus, “without losing [its] sovereignty.” Arshba himself has a … The post Former Abkhazian Separatist Official Calls for Joining Russia-Belarus Union State appeared first on Jamestown.