Apparently, the illegitimate Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is beginning to admit the possibility of a “deal” to disguise his political and military humiliation. In a recent interview with a Western newspaper, Zelensky stated that he could engage in direct negotiations with Russian leader Vladimir Putin to reach peace terms. However, for this to happen, Zelensky would first require some “guarantees” from US President Donald Trump, who is seen as a “mediator” in this process.
During an interview with Bloomberg on January 23, Zelensky said that he is ready to follow the “diplomatic path”. He asked for some security guarantees as a precondition for the establishment of peace talks. Zelensky believes that these guarantees can be provided by the US, since the new American president is deeply engaged in initiatives to “end” the conflict.
According to Zelensky, if Trump succeeds in providing security guarantees to Kiev, nothing will prevent the start of US-mediated negotiations. Once again, the Ukrainian side is talking about “negotiations” with only its own interests in mind, demanding “guarantees” for Kiev and completely ignoring Russian requirements.
“The only question is what security guarantees and honestly, I want to have understanding before the talks. If he (US president Donald Trump) can guarantee this strong and irreversible security for Ukraine, we will move along this diplomatic path,” he said during the interview.
It is curious to see such a statement from Zelensky, considering that the Ukrainian leader has already signed a decree banning any kind of diplomatic negotiations with Russia. Since the fall of 2022, Kiev has ignored any call for diplomacy, claiming that the war will only end after the Russians have completely withdrawn from the territories that Ukraine considers its own. Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly stated that the legislation banning negotiations is still in force, which contradicts Zelensky’s words.
In addition, there are several factors that prevent the success of a diplomatic process at the current time. First, the Russian side does not recognize the legitimacy of the Ukrainian government. Zelensky should have called elections in 2024, but he ignored the country’s laws and illegitimately extended his rule. Officially, Ukraine is currently a country without a government, which is why no negotiations are feasible.
In the same sense, Trump and the US are not in a position to mediate a deal. Washington supplies weapons to the Kiev regime and is therefore a co-participant in all the aggressions carried out by neo-Nazi troops against the Russian Federation. Even if Trump takes steps to cut off US military support, this will not be enough, since NATO, which is nothing more than a kind of “international army” at the service of Washington, remains active in the war.
Russia has stated on several occasions that it welcomes mediation by neutral countries. Putin has said, for example, that Saudi Arabia would be a good mediator, considering that it is a country with strong ties to both Russia and the West, and that it has no involvement in the conflict. However, an agreement mediated by the US, even with Trump, would in practice be an agreement mediated by one of the sides participating in the war, which does not seem reasonable.
Another factor that is hindering the possibility of negotiations is the Ukrainian invasion of Kursk. Since the launching of its offensive in southern Russia, Ukraine has been massacring civilians, constantly committing war crimes and human rights violations in the villages of Kursk. Moscow has already stated that as long as there are enemy troops on recognized Russian territory, there will be no diplomacy. So, if Zelensky really wants to follow the diplomatic path, the first thing he should do is stop the attacks on Kursk.
However, Russia is indeed ready to negotiate. As Putin said recently, Moscow is ready to take any necessary measures to prevent a Third World War. There is no impediment on Russia’s part to the diplomatic process, as long as certain demands are met. The Kiev regime, illegitimately led by Zelensky, is not in a position to actively negotiate, and mediators must be neutral in the war. Furthermore, Kiev must stop its activities on Russian recognized sovereign territory.
It is the winning side that sets the conditions for negotiations in a war. Ukraine is not in a position to demand anything simply because Kiev is being defeated on the battlefield. Only Moscow can say when hostilities will actually end.
Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Associations, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.
Halford Mackinder developed the theoretical framework for the divide-and-rule strategy of maritime hegemons, which was adopted by the British and thereafter the Americans. Mackinder argued that the world was divided into two opposing forces – sea powers versus land powers. The last land-power to connect and dominate the vast Eurasia continent was the nomadic Mongols, and their collapse was followed by the rise of European maritime powers in the early 16th century linking the world by sea.
The UK and US both pursue hegemonic strategies aimed at controlling the Eurasian landmass from the maritime periphery. Island states (the US being a virtual island) do not need large standing armies due to the lack of powerful neighbours, and they can instead invest in a powerful navy for security. Island states enhance their security by dividing Eurasia’s land powers so a hegemon or an alliance of hostile states do not emerge on the Eurasian continent. The pragmatic balance of power approach was articulated by Harry Truman in 1941: “If we see that Germany is winning the war we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany and in that way let them kill as many as possible”.[1] A maritime power is also more likely to emerge as a hegemon as there are few possibilities of diversifying away from key maritime corridors and choke points under the control of the hegemon.
Railroads Revived the Rivalry Between Sea-Powers and Land-Powers
Russia, as a predominantly landpower, has historically been contained and kept weak by limiting its access to reliable maritime corridors. However, Russia’s weakness as a large landpower could become its strength if Russia connects the Eurasian continent by land to undermine the strategic advantage of the maritime hegemony.
The invention of intercontinental railways permitted Russia to emulate the nomadic character of the Mongols and end the strategic advantage of maritime powers. Russia’s development of railroads through Central Asia from the mid-19th century resulted in the Great Game as Russia could reach British India. In the final decade of the 19th century, Russia developed the trans-Siberian railroad that challenged British imperial interests in East Asia. In 1904, Mackinder warned:
“A generation ago steam and the Suez canal appeared to have increased the mobility of sea-power relatively to land-power. Railways acted chiefly as feeders to ocean-going commerce. But trans-continental railways are now transmuting the conditions of land-power, and nowhere can they have such effect as in the closed heart-land of EuroAsia, in vast areas of which neither timber nor accessible stone was available for road-making”.[2]
Mackinder warned about the possibility of a German-Russian alliance as it could establish a powerful centre of power capable of controlling Eurasia. Mackinder thus advocated for a divide-and-rule strategy:
“The oversetting of the balance of power in favour of the pivot state, resulting in its expansion over the marginal lands of Euro-Asia, would permit of the use of vast continental resources for fleet-building, and the empire of the world would then be in sight. This might happen if Germany were to ally herself with Russia”.[3]
US Hegemony from the Periphery of Eurasia
Mackinder’s ideas were developed further with Nicolas Spykman’s Rimland Theory in 1942, which stipulated that the US had to control the maritime periphery of the Eurasian continent. The US required a partnership with Britain to control the western periphery of Eurasia, and the US should “adopt a similar protective policy toward Japan” on the eastern periphery of Eurasia.[4] The US thus had to adopt the British strategy of limiting Russia’s access to maritime corridors:
“For two hundred years, since the time of Peter the Great, Russia has attempted to break through the encircling ring of border states and the reach the ocean. Geography and sea power have persistently thwarted her”.[5]
The influence of Spykman resulted in it commonly being referred to as the “Spykman-Kennan thesis of containment”. The architect of the containment policies against the Soviet Union, George Kennan, pushed for a “Eurasian balance of power” by ensuring the vacuum left by Germany and Japan would not be filled by a power that could “threaten the interests of the maritime world of the West”.[6]
The US National Security Council reports from 1948 and onwards referred to the Eurasian containment policies in the language of Mackinder’s heartland theory. As outlined in the US National Security Strategy of 1988:
“The United States’ most basic national security interests would be endangered if a hostile state or group of states were to dominate the Eurasian landmass- that area of the globe often referred to as the world’s heartland. We fought two world wars to prevent this from occurring”.[7]
Kissinger also outlined how the US should keep the British strategy of divide and rule from the maritime periphery of Eurasia:
“For three centuries, British leaders had operated from the assumption that, if Europe’s resources were marshaled by a single dominant power, that country would then resources to challenge Great Britain’s command of the seas, and thus threaten its independence. Geopolitically, the United States, also an island off the shores of Eurasia, should, by the same reasoning, have felt obliged to resist the domination of Europe or Asia by any one power and, even more, the control of both continents by the same power”.[8]
Henry Kissinger followed the Eurasian ideas of Mackinder, as he pushed for decoupling China from the Soviet Union to replicate the efforts to divide Russia and Germany.
Post-Cold War: America’s Empire of Chaos
Less than two months after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US developed the Wolfowitz doctrine for global dominance. The leaked draft of the US Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) of February 1992 argued that the endurance of US global primacy depends on preventing the emergence of future rivals in Eurasia. Using the language of Mackinder, the DPG document recognised that “It is improbable that a global conventional challenge to US and Western security will re-emerge from the Eurasian heartland for many years to come”.
To sustain global primacy, the “first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival”, which included preventing allies and frontline states such as Germany and Japan from rearming. The DPG also argued for preserving economic dominance as “we must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order”.[9]
The US abandoned the agreements for an inclusive pan-European security architecture based on “indivisible security” to mitigate security competition and replace it with alliance systems to divide the world into dependent allies versus weakened adversaries. Zbigniew Brzezinski authored the Mackinderian post-Cold War policies of the US to sustain global hegemony: “America’s global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained”. The strategy of preserving US dominance was defined as: “prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and keep the barbarians from coming together”.[10]
If Russia would resist American efforts, the US could use its maritime dominance to strangle the Russian economy: “Russia must know that there would be a massive blockade of Russia’s maritime access to the West”.[11] To permanently weaken Russia and prevent it from connecting Eurasia by land, Brzezinski argued that the collapse of the Soviet Union should ideally be followed by the disintegration of Russia into a “loosely confederated Russia – composed of a European Russia, a Siberian Republic, and a Far Eastern Republic”.[12]
The Rise of Greater Eurasia
The US has become reliant on perpetual conflicts to divide the Eurasian continent and to preserve its alliance systems. US efforts to sever Russia and Germany with NATO expansionism and the destruction of Nord Stream have pushed Russia to the East, most importantly toward China as the main rival of the US. The cheap Russian gas that previously fuelled the industries of America’s allies in Europe is now being sent to fuel the industries of China, India, Iran and other Eurasian powers and rivals of the US. The efforts by China, Russia and other Eurasian giants to connect with physical transportation corridors, technologies, industries, and financial instruments are anti-hegemonic initiatives to balance the US. The age of Mackinder’s maritime hegemons may be coming to an end.
[1] Gaddis, J.L., 2005. Strategies of containment: a critical appraisal of American national security policy during the Cold War. Oxford University Press, Oxford, p.4.
[2] Mackinder, H.J., 1904, The Geographical Pivot of History, The Geographical Journal, 170(4): 421-444, p.434.
[4] Spykman, N.J., 1942. America’s strategy in world politics: the United States and the balance of power. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, p.470.
[6] Gaddis, J.L., 1982. Strategies of containment: A critical appraisal of postwar American national security policy. Oxford University Press, New York.
[7] White House 1988. National Security Strategy of the United States, White House, April 1988, p.1.
[8] Kissinger, H., 2011. Diplomacy. Simon and Schuster, New York, pp.50-51.
[9] DPG 1992. Defense Planning Guidance. Washington, 18 February 1992.
[10] Brzezinski, Z., 1997. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geopolitical Imperatives. Basic Books, New York, p,40.
[11] Brzezinski, Z., 2017. How to Address Strategic Insecurity In A Turbulent Age, The Huffington Post, 3 January 2017.
US President Donald Trump has said he hopes to hold talks with Russia and China about reducing nuclear weapons stockpiles. According to Trump, the idea of denuclearization was previously backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump made the remarks on Thursday during an address via video link to the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.
Recalling talks he had with Putin ahead of the 2020 US election about denuclearization, Trump said “I can tell you that President Putin wanted to do it, he and I wanted to do it.”
“We had a good conversation with China, they would have been involved, and that would have been an unbelievable thing for the planet,” he added.
Trump also pointed to the expense of keeping up America’s nuclear arsenal as a motivating factor behind the idea to limit how many weapons are deployed.
“Tremendous amounts of money are being spent on nuclear, and the destructive capability is something that we don’t even want to talk about,” he said.
In May 2019, Trump told reporters he and Putin had discussed the possibility of a new accord limiting nuclear arms that could eventually include China, in what would be a major deal between the world’s top three atomic powers.
That meeting was held as the ‘New START’ treaty – the only arms control pact between Moscow and Washington that required them to cut their deployed strategic nuclear warheads to the lowest level in decades – was about to expire in February 2021. The treaty was extended for five years to expire in 2026.
However, Russia formally suspended its participation in the treaty in 2023 due to Washington’s military support for Ukraine. Moscow then said it would continue to abide by the limits set out in the treaty.
Since then, the Kremlin has warned that a continued US military buildup near its borders and the deployment of nuclear-capable missiles globally could trigger a proportional response.
Moscow has the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, though Russian officials, including Putin, have repeatedly stated that they consider the use of such weapons to be a “last resort.”
Last year, Russia announced updates to its nuclear doctrine after the US and several Western nations allowed Ukraine to use foreign-made long-range weapons for strikes deep into Russia. The revised doctrine now states that aggression by a non-nuclear state or by a group of states supported by a nuclear state, could be viewed as a “joint attack” on Russia.
Major scientific organizations’ statements on “climate change” and the conclusions therein form the basis of much of the scientific foundation for governmental, scientific, media, and public concerns on the use of fossil fuels. Trillions of public and private dollars are currently being spent on alternative fuels to “save the planet” from the alleged harm of increasing CO2, a gas which is vital for life on earth. If the evaluations of these societies are erroneous, these measures could impoverish much of the world, to say nothing of wasting trillions. Economic damage and social unrest are already evident in some countries, including the United States. It is therefore imperative for all that their views be based on sound science, and if not, these societies should change their statements.
A recent publication and podcast have examined the scientific organization’s climate statements, and have found numerous errors, errors which are easy to find by simply comparing the societies’ statements with data from such reliable sources as NOAA, NASA, and others. These societies are the American Physical Society (APS), American Meteorological Society (AMS), National Academy of Science (NAS), American Chemical Society (ACS), and American Geophysical Union (AGU).
Here is one example. The AGU states “Greater CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are also affecting the growth and nutritional value of land plants…” Numerous studies, including measurements of terrestrial plant life from space, and measurements of crop production, have shown that if anything, increasing CO2 has increased both plant life and crop production. After all, CO2is a vital nutrient for plants, and the slight warming we have experienced, possibly in part due to the increased CO2, has increased the growing seasons in the temperate latitudes.
As another example, the ACS statement asserts: “Extreme weather and related events, such as floods, droughts… are increasing in frequency and intensity, threatening Americans’ physical, social, and economic well-being.”. The frequency and intensity of floods and droughts is measured by what is called NOAA’s Palmer drought index and this index is displayed as a graph vs of index versus year. It shows clearly, that in the United States the worst sustained droughts in the U.S. were in the 1930s and 1950s, and the worst sustained floods were in the 1970s through the 1990s.
Tens of thousands of scientists, including over 10,000 with Ph.Ds., have critically examined the evidence, and have concluded that a CO2-induced climate crisis is extremely unlikely. They have willingly and publicly asserted this, by adding their names to document such as, the Oregon petition, Clintel Climate Petition, and the CO2 Coalition. Among other things, the societies should not ignore these, professional conclusions of many of their members.
Accordingly, and with humility, I suggest that these societies do the following:
Replace their climate statements with ones that say there is most likely an effect humans have on the changing climate, but its importance for humanity is uncertain and it is still being debated.
Eliminate statements that are demonstrably incorrect, as shown by comparison with easily available and reliable data.
Acknowledge in their statements that fossil fuels cannot be replaced in the next several decades without greatly endangering our civilization.
Acknowledge in their statements that CO2 has obvious obvious benefit for human existence, as well as potential risks.
By changing their statements to ones that are more moderate and scientifically correct, these societies will not only be helping the professions they serve, but more important, will ultimately be aiding humanity. On the other hand, if they keep their statements as they are, they will remain on the wrong side of history, and posterity will not look kindly on them. And posterity may be arriving sooner than they think. With a Republican Congress and President Trump referring to the “green new scam,” these society presidents may find themselves hauled before Congress to receive the university president treatment.
After all, the APS statement says, “Multiple lines of evidence strongly support the finding that anthropogenic greenhouse gases have become the dominant driver of global climate warming observed since the mid-twentieth century.” What will its president say when the congressman puts up a graph showing that for 30 years in the early decades of the 20th century, the warming rate was the same or greater? Or when he puts up a map proving that the northern forests, 4000 years ago extended about 200 miles further north worldwide than they do today. Or shows that 2000 years ago, the Romans had vineyards in England extending all the way to Hadrian’s wall, millennia before cold weather grapes had been developed. Or when he shows evidence that 1000 years ago the Vikings grew barley in Greenland, something not possible today. Surely this proves that the world had many warmer periods without the help of extra CO2 in the atmosphere.
There are many such statements that Congress can quote, to very publicly humiliate these society presidents. As a committed life fellow of the APS, I hope these societies will change their statements now, before the roof collapses on them.
For many years, Joe Biden’s corruption has been as well known as his dementia to anyone remotely out of the Democrat Party and MSNBC messaging zone. Throughout his half-century career as an unimpressive politician, his family has accumulated enormous wealth through influence peddling.
This, of course, came to the fore with his son Hunter’s laptop whose authenticity was denied by “51 former intelligence agents,” claiming it was a Russian operation. The truth is Hunter Biden’s corruption is fairly routine. It’s just that other family members of politicians aren’t whoremongering crackheads and are thus able to avoid notice. Despite this, we were constantly demanded to believe that Joe Biden was a portrait of public service who believed deeply in the rule of law. This was also supposed to present a contrast between the entire Democrat and Republican machines, including Donald Trump.
Then, shortly before leaving office, following his legally dubious blanket amnesty granted to Hunter in December, Biden granted amnesty to Dr. Anthony Fauci, General Mark Milley, the January 6 Committee, and worst of all, the rest of his own family. All of this was done with a professed beleif in a fair justice system, claiming none of them had done anything wrong. As I like to say, we live in unsubtle times.
The history of heads of state holding the power of pardon is ancient. The most famous example in Western culture is of course Pontius Pilate—as Augustus Caesar’s representative—freeing Barabbas while condemning Jesus (notably, after getting feedback from the people).
While the public generally loves to see justice, they also like to see mercy from their leaders. It’s something which makes a king beloved. In the United States, it is technically the people who have the power to convict and execute while the executive, both federally and in states, has the power to overturn these convictions for any reason. This is also a “check” on corruption within the judiciary, and the risk that this may itself be used corruptly to assist family members or other cronies was well known. However, the concept of amnesty is also ancient, and if the president had the power to grant amnesty, as opposed to pardons for convictions, this would have been made clear in the Constitution.
It was expected, among those not brain-broken by the Democrats, that Joe Biden would pardon his son. On a human level, one can’t fault him. While I wouldn’t destroy my son’s character by making him earn corrupt profits for my family, had it come to that point and had I the power, I would pardon my son without hesitation. As president, Biden’s power to pardon Hunter’s convictions was absolute; whether or not he should do it was simply a moral and political question. However, his grant of amnesty had no legal justification. But, it being his son people were willing to let it lie. The only prior modern example was President Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon, which was controversial at the time but had a much stronger justification as a necessity to move forward with the nation’s political life.
Though modern Democrats are a profoundly shameless political faction, I did not imagine that Biden would take his amnesties as far as he did, and thought the whole thing was idle speculation. Biden only acknowledged that his son had problems with drugs and generally irresponsible behavior, not that he was engaging in corrupt political activities. It should be noted that while Biden’s brother James was deeply involved in the corruption business, the other Biden family members he felt compelled to grant amnesty were not even known to be “in the mix.” We are left wondering what guilt Biden is admitting with these pardons, and it is imperative to find out.
More concerning than the dangerous corruption of what can fairly be called the “Biden Crime Family,” are the pardons of those engaged in official government work. With people like Anthony Fauci and Mark Milley, we are supposed to believe these selfless public servants have done no wrong. This is also true of the January 6 Committee, who were ostensibly only taking part in legally protected political activities within Congress.
I may hate Liz Cheney, but it’s not clear what prosecutable activities she would have taken part in. The choice of a retroactive ten year amnesty for all of these people probably has less to do with any specific activities they were engaging in, and more to do with that being the maximum statute of limitations for almost all non-violent crimes. That said, it sure seems convenient that it covers anything any of them would have done since the beginning of Donald Trump’s rise to power, and also the beginning of Hunter Biden’s work in Ukraine. This covers, of course, not only any laws Fauci broke during COVID, but the entire process of funding labs doing dangerous research. Granting amnesty to the January 6 Committee is meant to prevent uncovering any anti-democratic conspiracies to keep Trump from returning to power.
January 20, 2025 was an incredible day in American political life in that the January 6 Committee was granted amnesty while the January 6 protesters were mass pardoned. It is inspiring because it shows elections do matter. But at the same time, this is all very “Banana Republic” and not the way things would ideally work in a mature, free country. Eight years of using every anti-democratic means to remove Trump and keep him out of power seem to be over, but in attempting to amnesty all of the worst participants—as well as his own family—Joe Biden has has set an insane precedent for protecting every type of corruption. These amnesties must be challenged in the courts and by Congress, because this is completely unacceptable and it’s likely this precedent will haunt our country for decades or even centuries.
On the bright side, with the ultimate, “respectable” Democrat establishmentarian behaving this way, the mask has been pulled back for all to see. Further, we can and should tell the people who write op-eds about “democratic norms” to shut up.
Amongst certain circles in Washington, there is real panic right now about the possibility of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine coming to a halt, with Trump’s help. Some analysts are even speculating that the so-called “deep state” could thus come up with desperate bold measures, such as “false flag attacks” or assassination attempts targeting foreign pro-Western figures in Russia and Ukraine, so as to blame Moscow and inflame public opinion and thereby force Washington into once again stepping in.
In this scenario, some names are suggested as possible “disposable” targets: Yulia Navalnaya (Alexei Navalny’s widow, who chairs the New York based “Human Rights Foundation”), Mukhtar Ablyazov (businessman and key anti-Russian activist in Kazakhstan), or even Salome Zourabichvili (former president of Georgia).
Before giving any thought about such seemingly wild claims, let us first consider their premise, namely that the Ukrainian conflict could end really soon. Trump does seem bent on “ending the war in Ukraine”, as he has phrased it. Consider this:
1. Employing his peculiar gangster-like rhetorical style (which includes the use of uppercase typography), the Republican posted on social media, in a message to Russian leadership:
“Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous War! IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE. If we don’t make a ‘deal’, and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries… Let’s get this war, which never would have started if I were President, over with! We can do it the easy way, or the hard way – and the easy way is always better. It’s time to “MAKE A DEAL”.”
Ironically, the previous Biden presidency already issued a last-minute round of energy sanctions against Russian banks and companies, which have been described as “Trump-proof” sanctions due to giving power to the US Congress in that regard (should the new President attempt to weaken the measures). Biden’s decision was in itself quite ironic, considering that Trump will be ruling with a “supermajority”. Back to Trump, his social media threats (made on “Truth Social”, a platform owned by himself) have more to do with pandering to mainstream conservative Americans (by “being tough on Russia”) while at the same time appealing to “Ukraine fatigue”. But it is, nonetheless, a sign.
2. More importantly, rhetoric aside, as one of his very first acts after his inauguration, Trump has frozen foreign aid to Ukraine for 90 days. Roksolana Pidlasa, head of the Ukrainian parliament’s budget committee responded by saying that Ukraine is “secured” in terms of “budget funding” because Biden had already transferred $50 billion (under the ERA initiative) to the World Bank. Trump’s measure in itself thus has limited efficacy (and applies to “development programs”, not to military aid), but is, nonetheless, quite telling.
3. Recently, one may recall, Ukraine’ leader Volodymyr Zelensky has accused the US and the West of embezzlement, by claiming that half of all money sent to Ukraine (that is, only $88.5 billion) ever reached Kyiv. As I wrote, this kind of accusation, if employed for leverage, risks backfiring. Be it as it may, the issue of Ukraine corruption (and the corresponding American shady interests) is very real and could thus be exploited by Republican lawmakers to further pressure the new administration into curbing aid to Ukraine or even ending American support to Ukraine, while blaming the Democrats.
All of the above is therefore plausible enough: Washington has, after all, sometimes signaled a willingness to pivot to the East while shifting the Ukrainian “burden” onto Europe – and even James Stavridis, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, argued, back in November 2023, that a Korea-style “land for peace” deal was the only “hope” for Ukraine. The problem is that there are powerful actors committed to perpetuating hostilities, and the so-called “deep state” is clearly divided and out of control. Again, consider the following:
Speaker Mike Johnson has amazingly confirmed that, while President, Biden, struggling with senility, was not really “running the country” and would often not be aware of the content of the very acts he signed. This means other players were calling the shots in a kind of palace coup (he mentions the CIA).
Trump is openly “at war” with the deep state, while in a quest to increase his own presidential powers. He has appointed loyalists and/or “dissidents” to head key agencies, including the CIA and the Secret Service – not to mention Tulsi Gabbard, appointed as Director of National Intelligence.
During the presidential campaign, there were three attempts against Donald Trump’s life, which is unprecedented. One of the would-be assassins, Ryan Routh, was involved in recruiting for Ukraine.
Suspicions about the role of the Secret Service in the first attempt were so serious that Kimberly Cheatle, then its Director, had to resign amid a scandal, and to this day we don’t know much about shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks or why “someone who regularly visited Crooks’ home and work also visited a building in Washington, DC located in Gallery Place… in the same vicinity of an FBI office”, among many other unexplained angles.
The terrorist behind the New Year’s bombing outside Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, is an active duty Green Beret (with a Special Operations background), and believed to have involvement with, once again, recruiting soldiers to fight for Ukraine and with radical pro-Ukraine activism.
False flag operations are part of the American clandestine operations repertoire. For instance, nowadays it is known that, in 1962, the US Department of Defense planned Operation Northwoods, which called for CIA operatives to commit actual terrorist attacks against American civilians and military targets in US cities (involving bombings and even hijacking airplanes) and then using the panic to justify a Cuban invasion. Then President Kennedy rejected the plan, but the proposal as such existed, and no one denies it today.
The assassination of Kennedy itself, far from being a talking point of “conspiracy theorists” only, remains unexplained to this day, with most documents pertaining to it still being “classified”, which is not quite consistent with a “lone gunman” scenario. Trump has announced he plans to release those, by the way, and it is fair to assume that his reasoning in doing that could involve “exposing” a culture of misdeeds to cause outrage and then justify a series of intelligence reforms in line with his goals.
On top of all the above, the US is still facing a bizarre “UFO” drone crisis spiralling out of control. Military bases and airports have been temporarily closed over the issue, and lawmakers are calling for a state of emergency while counties have already declared one and so on, with people in panic. Authorities have denied the “objects” have a foreign origin, and, unless one wants to take the extraterrestrial hypothesis seriously, this can only indicate chaos amid the intelligence services, with exercises and what-not out of control.
Considering all the above, the idea of a false flag attack to stop Trump from withdrawing American support to Ukraine is not so wild and should not be taken as “sacred victim” provocation. In fact it seems a possible and even likely scenario. This has been the wildest presidential transition in US history and there is no reason to assume the turmoil has ended already.
Uriel Araujo, PhD, anthropology researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.
CNN is planning to axe hundreds of its 3,500 workforce as soon as Thursday, as the US media multinational eyes reorientation towards global digital audiences, people familiar with the matter have told CNBC.
The unit of Warner Bros Discovery is reportedly rearranging its TV production while expanding digital subscription offers. The layoffs are projected to help the news organization reduce production costs and consolidate teams, CNBC claimed on Wednesday, citing anonymous sources.
The cuts are not expected to affect the CNN’S most recognizable names, the sources said, adding that several shows that are currently produced in New York or Washington could move to Atlanta amid cost reduction.
The multinational introduced a digital paywall last October, when it began charging a monthly fee of $3.99 from its frequent users.
NBC News, owned by Comcast, the world’s fourth-largest broadcaster by revenue, is also planning job cuts this week, CNBC noted, citing sources familiar with the situation, who specified that the layoffs will be well under 50 staff.
CNBC noted that the current news media landscape is in transition as watching linear TV is becoming less popular, with more people consuming their news on streaming services and through social media.
The Washington Post announced earlier this month that it would dismiss around 4% of its workforce, or fewer than 100 employees, in an effort to reduce costs, as the newspaper struggles with increasing losses. In November, the Associated Press announced plans to slash some 8% of its workforce as the news agency seeks to update operations and products.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Thursday that European taxpayers would have to pay for US military supplies to Ukraine if the new US administration agreed to provide them.
“On Ukraine, we need US also to stay involved and to do as much as possible to get Ukraine in a position of strength, whenever peace talks start. But I can tell the Europeans, if this new Trump administration is willing to keep on supplying Ukraine from its defense industrial base, the bill will be paid by the Europeans,” he said at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos.
The NATO chief said during the annual Ukrainian Breakfast event he was convinced that Europeans needed to be willing to pull their weight because, in his view, Americans were paying more despite being farther away from Ukraine than Europe.
Rutte also added that the alliance should increase its support for Ukraine in order to change the “wrong direction” in which the conflict is moving.
“We have to step up, not scale back, the support for Ukraine, we have to change the trajectory of the war which is ongoing, and so far we know the frontline is moving in the wrong direction,” Rutte said.
The annual WEF forum takes place from January 20-24 in the Swiss resort of Davos.
Russia believes arms supplies to Ukraine hinder the settlement process and directly involve NATO countries in the conflict. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said the United States and NATO not only supply weapons to Kiev but also train personnel in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and elsewhere, which he argues is not conducive to peace.
The chances of a peace deal in Ukraine are suddenly a lot higher under President Donald Trump only because he has a realistic sense of a nuclear Third World War happening between the United States and Russia if that conflict is not ended promptly.
Peter Kuznick, an esteemed American professor of history, says that the Biden administration brought the world closer to a nuclear conflagration than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Biden did this by relentlessly arming Ukraine with weapons to strike deeper and deeper into Russia instead of trying to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Indeed, there was no diplomatic effort from Washington under Biden. It was ideologically and propaganda-driven for confrontation, as was the Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris.
Kuznick points out that Trump is no John F Kennedy in terms of the latter’s depth of historical and philosophical knowledge. But in comparison with Joe Biden, Trump has shown more humanity and common sense by not insulting Putin and in reaching out for a peaceful end to the slaughter in Ukraine. Biden called Putin a thug and said he would back Ukraine as long as it takes to defeat Russia. The last Democrat administration spent $175 billion of U.S. taxpayers’ money propping up a NeoNazi regime in Kiev that has lost over one million military casualties since the war erupted in February 2022.
By contrast, newly inaugurated President Trump says that he wants to meet Russian leader Vladimir Putin as a priority to find a peaceful way out of the conflict and to avoid a catastrophic escalation between nuclear powers. Putin has welcomed a meeting with the new president and said he appreciates the urgent concern to avoid a nuclear disaster.
Kuznick is author of The Untold History of the United States, which was coauthored with acclaimed film director Oliver Stone. The book was turned into an award-winning television series aired on Showtime, Netflix and other channels. Kuznick deplores the way the U.S. and NATO partners undermined international security by expanding on Russia’s borders despite earlier promises to the Soviet leaders that would not happen.
If peace is to be found in Ukraine, it must be based on a bigger picture of lasting global security that considers all nations’ concerns.
That means the United States must treat Russia’s national security concerns over NATO’s expansion seriously and respectfully. Can the Trump administration deliver? It is packed with hawkish figures like Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Donald Trump is better placed than the Biden adminstration to cut a deal with Russia for peace in Ukraine and thereby avoid nuclear disaster, says Kuznick.
Trump’s cabinet is filled with billionaires and his mercurial, superficial understanding of the world can be deprecated. Maybe his peaceful aspirations are muddled and not feasible given that Trump is surrounded by hawkish figures.
But at least he is willing to give peace a chance with Russia over Ukraine. That alone makes Trump a welcome change from the vile warmongering of Biden and his would-be successor Kamala Harris.
President Donald Trump fired four presidential appointees that he said did not share his vision for America. Among those dismissed were Brian Hook, who served on the Trump transition team.
“My Presidential Personnel Office is actively in the process of identifying and removing over a thousand Presidential Appointees from the previous Administration, who are not aligned with our vision to Make America Great Again,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday.
“Let this serve as Official Notice of Dismissal for these 4 individuals, with many more, coming soon.” He continued, “Jose Andres from the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition, Mark Milley from the National Infrastructure Advisory Council, Brian Hook from the Wilson Center for Scholars, and Keisha Lance Bottoms from the President’s Export Council—YOU’RE FIRED!”
In 2018, Hook joined the administration shortly before Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal. Hook was tasked with implementing a “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign against Tehran and overthrowing the Iranian government.
In 2020, Hook resigned from his post, after he was unable to achieve either objective.
Hook was a key official in helping to staff the incoming State Department on the transition team following Trump’s second election victory. In November, Hook said the second Trump administration “would isolate Iran diplomatically and weaken them economically.”
Hook also attacked the Biden administration’s “policy of appeasement and accommodation with Iran,” leading to a “failure of deterrence,” because “no one believes you have a credible threat of military force.”
However, Biden increased sanctions on Iran, refused to enter into serious negotiations with Tehran, and aided Israel in tit-for-tat strikes between Tel Aviv and Tehran.
Along with Hook, chef Jose Andres was fired from the President’s Council. Andres heads the World Food Kitchen (WFK), an international aid organization that often works with Washington.
Last year, seven WFK workers were killed by a series of Israeli strikes on their aid convoy in Gaza. While the White House did not punish or hold Tel Aviv to account for the murders, Andres accepted the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Biden earlier this year.
The problem with political analysis is that it often lacks historical perspective and is mostly limited to recent events.
The current analysis of the Israeli war on Gaza falls victim to this narrow thinking. The ceasefire agreement, signed between Palestinian groups and Israel under Egyptian, Qatari and US mediation in Doha on 15 January is one example.
Some analysts, including many from the region, insist on framing the outcome of the war as a direct result of Israel’s political dynamics. They argue that Israel’s political crisis is the main reason the country failed to achieve its declared and undeclared war objectives – namely, gaining total “security control” over Gaza and ethnically cleansing its population.
However, this analysis assumes that the decision to go to war or not is entirely in Israel’s hands. It continues to elevate Israel’s role as the only entity capable of shaping political outcomes in the region, even when those outcomes do not favour Israel
Another group of analysts focuses entirely on the American factor, claiming that the decision to end the war ultimately rested with the White House. Shortly after the ceasefire was officially declared in Gaza, a pan-Arab TV channel asked a group of experts whether it was the Biden or Trump administration that deserved credit for supposedly “pressuring Israel” to agree to a ceasefire.
Some argue that it was Trump’s envoy to Israel, Steve Witkoff, who denied Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu any room to manoeuvre, thus forcing him, albeit reluctantly, to accept the ceasefire terms.
Others counter by saying that the agreement was initially presented by the Biden administration. They argue that Biden’s supposedly active diplomacy ultimately led to the ceasefire.
The latter group fails to acknowledge that it was Biden’s unconditional support for Israel that sustained the war. His UN envoy’s constant rejection of ceasefire calls at the Security Council made international efforts to stop the war irrelevant.
The former group, however, ignores the fact that Israeli society was already at a breaking point. The war on Gaza had proven unwinnable. This means that, whether Trump pressured Netanyahu or not, the outcome of the war was already sealed. Continuing the war would have meant the implosion of Israeli society.
On the Palestinian side, some analyses – affiliated with one faction or another – exploit the war’s outcome for political gain. This type of thinking is extremely insensitive and must be wholly rejected.
There are also those hoping to play a role in Gaza’s reconstruction to gain political and financial leverage and increase their influence. This is a shameful stance, given the total destruction of Gaza and the urgent need to recover the thousands of bodies trapped under rubble, as well as to heal the wounded and the population as a whole.
One thing all these analyses overlook is that Israel failed in Gaza because the population of Gaza proved unbreakable. Such notions are often neglected in mainstream political discussions, which tend to commit to an elitist line. This line is entirely removed from the daily struggles and collective choices of ordinary people, even when they achieve extraordinary feats.
Gaza’s history is one of both pain and pride. It stretches back to ancient civilisations and includes great resistance against invasion, such as the three-month siege by Alexander the Great and his Macedonian army in 332 BCE.
Back then, Gazans resisted and endured for months before their leader, Batis, was captured, tortured to death, and the city was sacked.
This legendary resilience and sumoud (steadfastness) proved crucial in numerous other fights against foreign invaders, including resistance to Napoleon Bonaparte’s army in 1799.
Even if some of Gaza’s current population is unaware of that history, they are a direct product of it. From this perspective, neither Israeli political dynamics, the change of the US administration, nor any other factor is relevant.
This is known as “long history” or longue durée. Far from being merely an academic concept, the long legacy of resistance against injustice has shaped the collective mindset of the Palestinian population in Gaza over the years. How else can we explain how a small, isolated and impoverished population, living in such a tiny piece of land, managed to withstand firepower equivalent to many nuclear bombs?
The war ended because Gaza withstood it – not because of the kindness of an American president. It is crucial that we emphasise this point repeatedly, rather than seeking inconclusive and irrational answers.
It matters little how we define victory and defeat for a nation still suffering the consequences of a war of annihilation. However, it is important to recognise that Palestinians in Gaza stood their ground, despite immense losses and prevailed. This can only be credited to them -a nation that has historically proven unbreakable. This truth, rooted in “long history”, remains valid today.
Almost three years ago science entered a new dark age.
Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, seems to agree. He has been compiling a list of the examples of anti-science we have unfortunately become used to.
I have listed his thoughts so far but the list is continually expanding... continue
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