Vasily Grossman, Everything Flows

From the blurb:

Everything Flows is Vasily Grossman’s final testament, written after the Soviet authorities suppressed his masterpiece, Life and Fate. The main story is simple: released after thirty years in the Soviet camps, Ivan Grigoryevich must struggle to find a place for himself in an unfamiliar world. But in a novel that seeks to take in the whole tragedy of Soviet history, Ivan’s story is only one among many. Thus we also hear about Ivan’s cousin, Nikolay, a scientist who never let his conscience interfere with his career, and Pinegin, the informer who got Ivan sent to the camps. Then a brilliant short play interrupts the narrative: a series of informers steps forward, each making excuses for the inexcusable things that he did—inexcusable and yet, the informers plead, in Stalinist Russia understandable, almost unavoidable. And at the core of the book, we find the story of Anna Sergeyevna, Ivan’s lover, who tells about her eager involvement as an activist in the Terror famine of 1932–33, which led to the deaths of three to five million Ukrainian peasants. Here Everything Flows attains an unbearable lucidity comparable to the last cantos of Dante’s Inferno.

And purchase here. 

Line Lock

This feature is available on the Dodge Hellcat and the R/T Scat Pack. 

Nina Agdal

One of my all-time favorites has been out of the limelight, especially since Sports Illustrated Swimsuit shut down it's annual hotties on YouTube, the losers.

Plus, a country gal in seriously ripped jeans.

Also, Ariel Winter.

Adam Higginbotham, Midnight in Chernobyl

At Amazon, Adam Higginbotham, Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster.

Julia Ioffe Interview on FRONTLINE (VIDEO)

She's an amazing woman. It's especially interesting to listen to her for 45 minutes. Born in Moscow, her family emigrated to the U.S. when she was 7 years old. 

It's just fascinating to hear her pronounce the name of Putin's cronies, sounding so Russian. 

She's lovely:

Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power

At Amazon, Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War.

Putin's War Is Fortifying the Democratic Alliance

I love this.

And remember what I wrote the other day: "Unipolarity Is Not Over."

From Michael Beckley and Hal Brands, at Foreign Affairs, "Return of Pax Americana?":

The United States and its allies have failed to prevent Russia from brutalizing Ukraine, but they can still win the larger struggle to save the international order. Russia’s savage invasion has exposed the gap between Western countries’ soaring liberal aspirations and the paltry resources they have devoted to defend them. The United States has declared great-power competition on Moscow and Beijing but has so far failed to summon the money, the creativity, or the urgency necessary to prevail in those rivalries. Yet Russian President Vladimir Putin has now inadvertently done the United States and its allies a tremendous favor. In shocking them out of their complacency, he has given them a historic opportunity to regroup and reload for an era of intense competition—not just with Russia but also with China—and, ultimately, to rebuild an international order that just recently looked to be headed for collapse.

This isn’t fantasy: it has happened before. In the late 1940s, the West was entering a previous period of great-power competition but had not made the investments or initiatives needed to win it. U.S. defense spending was pathetically inadequate, NATO existed only on paper, and neither Japan nor West Germany had been reintegrated into the free world. The Communist bloc seemed to have the momentum. Then, in June 1950, an instance of unprovoked authoritarian aggression—the Korean War—revolutionized Western politics and laid the foundation for a successful containment strategy. The policies that won the Cold War and thereby made the modern liberal international order were products of an unexpected hot war. The catastrophe in Ukraine could play a similar role today.

Putin’s aggression has created a window of strategic opportunity for Washington and its allies. The democracies must now undertake a major multilateral rearmament program and erect firmer defenses—military and otherwise—against the coming wave of autocratic aggression. They must exploit the current crisis to weaken the autocrats’ capacity for coercion and subversion and deepen the economic and diplomatic cooperation among liberal states around the globe. The invasion of Ukraine signals a new phase in an intensifying struggle to shape the international order. The democratic world won’t have a better chance to position itself for success.

SHOCK THERAPY

The United States has been talking tough about great-power competition for years. But to counter authoritarian rivals, a country needs more than self-righteous rhetoric. It also requires massive investments in military forces geared for high-intensity combat, sustained diplomacy to enlist and retain allies, and a willingness to confront adversaries and even risk war. Such commitments do not come naturally, especially to democracies that believe that peace is the norm. That is why ambitious competitive strategies usually sit on the shelf until a shocking event compels collective sacrifice.

Take containment. Now considered one of the most successful strategies in U.S. diplomatic history, containment was on the verge of failure before the Korean War broke out. During the late 1940s, the United States had undertaken a dangerous, long-term competition against a mighty authoritarian rival. U.S. officials had established maximalist objectives: the containment of Soviet power until that regime collapsed or mellowed and, in the words of President Harry Truman, support for “peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation.” Truman had begun to implement landmark policies such as the Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe and the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty. Yet before June 1950, containment remained more of an aspiration than a strategy.

Even as Cold War crises broke out in Berlin, Czechoslovakia, Iran, and Turkey, U.S. military spending plummeted from $83 billion at the end of World War II to $9 billion in 1948. The North Atlantic Treaty was new and feeble: the alliance lacked an integrated military command or anything approaching the forces it needed to defend Western Europe. Resource constraints forced Washington to write off China during its civil war, effectively standing aside as Mao Zedong’s Communists defeated Chiang Kai-Shek’s Nationalist government, and to draw a defense perimeter that initially excluded South Korea and Taiwan. U.S. statecraft combined sky-high ambitions with a bargain-basement approach to achieving them.

The reasons for this shortfall will sound familiar. U.S. officials hoped that the United States’ overall military superiority—especially its atomic monopoly—would compensate for weaknesses everywhere along the East-West divide. They found it hard to believe that even ruthless, totalitarian enemies might resort to war. In Washington, moreover, global visions competed with domestic priorities, such as taming inflation and balancing the budget. U.S. officials also planned to economize by splitting the country’s rivals—specifically, wooing Chinese leader Mao Zedong’s communists once they won China’s civil war and pulling that country away from the Soviet Union.

That policy failed: Mao sealed an alliance with Moscow in early 1950. Just months before, another strategic setback—the first Soviet nuclear test—had ended the United States’ atomic monopoly. Yet even then, Truman was unmoved. When Paul Nitze, the director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, crafted his famous memo, NSC-68, calling for a global diplomatic offensive supported by a massive military buildup, Truman politely ignored the paper and announced plans to cut the defense budget.

It took a brazen international land grab to shake Washington out of its torpor. North Korean Premier Kim Il Sung’s assault on South Korea, undertaken in collusion with Mao and the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, changed everything. The invasion convinced U.S. policymakers that the dictators were on the march and the danger of global conflict was growing. The conflict also dispelled any hope of dividing Moscow and Beijing: Washington now faced a communist monolith applying pressure all around the Eurasian periphery. In short, the North Korean invasion made the Truman administration fear that the postwar world was hanging in the balance.

U.S. policymakers decided not just to defend South Korea but to mount a global campaign to strengthen the noncommunist world. The North Atlantic Treaty became the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, with a unified command structure and 25 active divisions at its disposal. The Truman administration dispatched additional forces to Europe, where U.S. allies accelerated their military preparations and agreed, in principle, to rearm West Germany. In the Asia-Pacific, the United States created a cordon of security pacts involving Australia and New Zealand, Japan, and the Philippines and deployed naval forces to prevent a Chinese takeover of Taiwan.

The Korean War thus turbocharged the emergence of the global network of alliances and the enduring military deployments that constituted the backbone of containment. It precipitated the revival and rearmament of former enemies, Japan and West Germany, as core members of the free world. Underpinning all this was an enormous military buildup meant to make Soviet aggression unthinkable. U.S. defense spending more than tripled, reaching 14 percent of GDP in 1953; the U.S. nuclear arsenal and conventional forces more than doubled. “The Soviets respected nothing but force,” said Truman. “To build such force . . . is precisely what we are attempting to do now.”

To be sure, the Korean War also showed the danger of going too far...

Keep reading.

 

Corporate America's Now the Bastion Radical Leftism (VIDEO)

Here's Vivek Ramaswamy, for Prager University:

Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands

At Amazon, Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin.

Janet Yellen Says No Danger to U.S. Dollar's Reserve Currency Status

I've been reading about the prospects of the greenback remaining the dominant money in global trade and finance. See, Benjamin J. Cohen, Currency Statecraft: Monetary Rivalry and Geopolitical Ambition.

Yellen says no fear, the dollar's still here.

At Bloomberg, "Yellen Rejects Notion Sanctions Could Undermine Dollar Dominance":

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the U.S. dollar is in no danger of losing its status as the world’s dominant reserve currency as a result of sanctions imposed against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

“I don’t think the dollar has any serious competition, and is not likely to for a long time,” Yellen told reporters in response to questions following a speech in Denver on Friday.

Some commentators, including Credit Suisse Group AG interest-rate strategist Zoltan Pozsar, have warned sanctions that blocked Russia’s access to its foreign currency reserves could drive other countries away from the dollar.

“When you think about what makes the dollar a reserve currency, it’s that we have the deepest and most liquid capital markets of any country on earth,” Yellen said. “Treasury securities are safe, secure and immensely liquid. We have a well-functioning economic and financial system and the rule of law. There really is no other currency that can rival it as a reserve currency.”

 

Thirty-Five Killed as Russia Strikes Ukraine Military Base Near Polish Border (VIDEO)

War is hell. Bloody fucking hell.

At WSJ, "Russian Missiles Strike Ukrainian Military Training Base Near Polish Border":

Attack kills at least 35 and increases risk of war encroaching on NATO territory, after Moscow says arms shipments to Kyiv won’t be tolerated.

A Russian airstrike on a Ukrainian military training center close to the Polish border threw into sharp relief the hazards of the Western push to deliver arms support to Kyiv while avoiding direct conflict with a nuclear adversary.

The airstrike killed 35 people at the facility in Yavoriv about 10 miles from the Polish border early Sunday, far to the west of where the conflict has been concentrated, one day after Moscow warned the West that it would consider arms deliveries to Ukraine as legitimate targets.

A large portion of the military aid from the West—one of the largest transfers of arms in history—passes through Poland into western Ukraine, part of the fine line the U.S. and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, allies are walking between aiding Ukraine militarily while steering clear of providing troops or enforcing a no-fly zone that Ukraine has called for.

The expansion of Russia’s aggression to a target close to Poland also increases the risk of the war encroaching on NATO territory, which the U.S. has warned would be treated as an attack on the alliance. Any strike on Poland would bring “the full force of the NATO alliance to bear in responding to it,” Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, said in an interview Sunday on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry said more attacks aimed at supply lines and foreign mercenaries supporting Ukraine were in the offing. Armaments supplied to Ukraine by the U.S. and its European allies—especially antitank and antiaircraft weapons—have played an important role in checking the advance of Russian ground troops, who have suffered heavy casualties in the north as they have tried to encircle the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that military aid alone might not be enough to enable Ukraine to fight off Russia’s invasion, and has made increasingly urgent calls for a no-fly zone that would protect the supplies entering the country and the refugees fleeing to neighboring countries.

The U.S. and its European allies have said a no-fly zone that involved other countries’ air forces risks escalating the conflict because it would only be effective if it were empowered to deter Russian planes. The U.S. also last week declined to support a Polish plan to give the U.S. Soviet-built MiG-29 combat jets after the U.S. had broached the prospect of Poland supplying the planes directly to Ukraine.

While the West aids Ukraine, Russia has asked China for military equipment and other assistance for its war effort, according to U.S. officials, who didn’t specify what Russia had requested.

News of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s request for help from Beijing, first reported by the Washington Post, comes as Mr. Sullivan heads to Rome on Monday to meet with a top Chinese official to discuss Ukraine.

Mr. Sullivan spoke on CNN on Sunday of the growing concern inside the Biden administration that Russia might be looking for help in the conflict, though he didn’t acknowledge a specific request from Russia to China.

“We are also watching closely to see the extent to which China actually does provide any form of support, material support or economic support, to Russia,” Mr. Sullivan said. “It is a concern of ours, and we have communicated to Beijing that we will not stand by and allow any country to compensate Russia for its losses from the economic sanctions.”

In addition to supplying arms, the Biden administration and its allies have shared intelligence with Kyiv and inflicted sweeping economic sanctions against Russia. But they are facing calls from some quarters to do more...

 

CNN's Nic Robertson Leaves Russia in Despair (VIDEO)

Here, "After over three decades of covering Russia, I leave in despair. One man has extinguished the bright hope many once felt."

Andrew Bacevich, After the Apocalypse

At Amazon, Andrew Bacevich, After the Apocalypse: America's Role in a World Transformed.

Stunning Cindy Crawford in 1995

Crawford's still absolutely gorgeous, but damn --- back in 1995? Hoo boy. 

See, "Cindy Crawford 1995 Stunning Body."

Cockpit View from U.S. Air Force B-52H Stratofortress (VIDEO)

Following up, "Take a Peek Inside the Massive 'Stratofortress' B-52s Currently Doing Laps Around Eastern Europe."

Joe Biden's Dangerous Energy Policy

It's Newt Gingrich, at Newsweek, "Biden's Energy Policy is Helping Dictators and Harming Americans."

Taylor Lorenz, Pushing 40, Jumps to Washington Post, Still Grooming Teenagers for Clicks

This is a bad woman. Very bad.

At Free Beacon, "MEME GIRL: Taylor Lorenz Unites New York Times, Washington Post in Opposition to ‘Cringey’ Influencer Journalism."

'So Clearly There's an Intention for the United States to Be in Ukraine...' (VIDEO)

Following up from last week, "Victoria Nuland, Biden's Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Claims Ukraine Has 'Biological Research Facilities' (VIDEO)."

Here's Glenn Greenwald on Tucker's: 

Sunday Cartoon

From A.F. Branco.

More at Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies." 

Demand for Bomb Shelters and Iodine Pills Skyrockets in Europe

As noted earlier, I seriously doubt World War III is imminent, but the Europeans aren't taking any chances.

At NYT, "Pandemic Fears Give Way to a Rush for Bomb Shelters":

Since Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, European anxiety has shifted from Covid to nuclear annihilation. Bunkers, survival guides and iodine pills are flying off the shelves.

BAGNOLO SAN VITO, Italy — Across a footbridge from a busy shopping outlet surrounded by verdant fields in northern Italy, workers in a nondescript warehouse are preparing for a nuclear attack, its radioactive fallout and the end of the world as we know it.

“We have found ourselves in the midst of this giant cyclone of demand,” said Giulio Cavicchioli, as he showed off an underground air filtration system that “cleans” radioactive particles, nerve gas and other biological agents and played a video tour of a nuclear shelter that was “ready to use.” His company, Minus Energie, has gone from working on 50 bunkers in the past 22 years to fielding 500 inquiries in the past two weeks.

“It’s a hysteria for construction of bunkers,” he said, driven by the fear of Russian nuclear warheads reaching across Europe. “It’s much scarier now.”

In the days since President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia launched his war on Ukraine, and put his nuclear forces into “special combat readiness,” the intensifying violence and the legacy of two world wars has revived fears in Europe of nuclear calamity for the first time in decades.

Europe has already spent two years on high alert against the pandemic. But now the manifestations of its anxieties and desires for self-defense have shifted from the masks, vaccines and lockdowns of Covid to the bunkers, iodine pills and air raid sirens of nuclear war.

From Italy to Sweden, Belgium to Britain, the specter of nuclear war, which had seemed a relic of the past, is permeating a new generation of European consciousness. And it is prompting a new look at defense infrastructure, survival guides and fallout shelters that not long ago were the purview of camouflage-wearing, assault-weapon-toting survivalists or paranoid billionaires.

“We are extremely concerned by the nuclear safety, security and safeguards risks caused by the Russian invasion on Ukraine,” the European Union said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Since the fall of the Soviet Union, we’ve all forgotten about it and put it to bed, until, you know, the madman invaded,” said Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, the former commander of the United Kingdom’s and NATO’s Chemical, Biological and Nuclear Defense Forces, and now a visiting fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge...

 

Central Bank Digital Currency

Whoever this guy is, N.S. Lyons, he's bloody amazing.

Here, "Just Say No to CBDCs":

You awake to find that today is special: it’s Stimmie Day! When you roll over and check your phone, you see a notification from your FedWallet app letting you know that another $2,000 in FedCoins has just been added directly to your account by the U.S. Federal Reserve.

To be honest, part of you would love to save that money for the long term, given that things have been getting rather uncertain and actually kind of crazy lately, what with the war and the economy and all… But you can’t, since these FedCoins are coded as usable for consumer purchases only, and will expire and vanish in seven days. So you’d better spend em while you’ve got em!

The latest PlayBox it is then. Everyone says Elden Ring 3 is the hottest VR game on the Metaverse right now, and you’ve really wanted to join in. Since you’re stubbornly old fashioned, you decide to check it out at BezosMart on the way home from work today before you get it delivered by drone to your tiny apartment.

But first you begin your day as you always do, with a quick stop at the local Starbrats’ automated, no-contact drive-through latte dispensary. Opening your FedWallet app and vaguely waving your smartphone at the machine is enough to complete the transaction. $14 in FedCoins are instantly deleted from your digital account at the Fed and recreated in Starbrats’ corporate account, well before the sweet, coffee-flavored milk beverage is deposited into your eager, grasping hands.

Your morning starts to go downhill quickly, however, when you realize that your SUV is almost out of gas. You pull the old clunker, with its antiquated combustion engine, into the nearest open station you can find – it looks pretty run-down – and roll up to the pump. A dull-eyed teenager in a facemask inserts a nozzle into your vehicle and waits for you to pre-pay. You wave your phone at the pump. Nothing happens. You try again. Your phone buzzes, and you look at it. There’s a message from the Fed: “You have already spent more than the $400 maximum weekly limit on fossil fuels specified in the FedWallet User Agreement. Your remaining account balance cannot be used to purchase non-renewable energy resources. Please make an alternative purchase. Have you considered a clean, affordable New Energy Vehicle? Thank you for doing your part to build a more just and sustainable world!”

You have in fact considered purchasing a clean, affordable New Energy Vehicle. But they still aren’t very affordable for you, what with the supply chain shortages. Despite the instant credit the Fed would add to your balance when buying an electric car – plus the permanent ten percent general subsidy you automatically receive on every purchase as a BIPOC individual thanks to the Fed’s Reparations Alternatives for Comprehensive Equity (RACE) program – the down payment on a new car would still be more than you can afford, even with your new stimmie coins.

Well, you’re not going to be able to make it to work at the warehouse on what you have in the tank. How could you be so foolish? You’re going to have no choice but to park here and blow a bunch of money on hailing one of those sleek, incredibly expensive self-driving electric cabs to take you there instead. But, as you’re about to tap the screen to do so, you notice there’s a classic fast-food joint next door. Might as well head there first to unload a little stimmie money. Nothing makes you feel better like a greasy breakfast sandwich.

Entering the establishment and sidling up to the old touchscreen kiosk, you order a McKraken with extra bacon. But when you wave your phone to pay, an error message pops up again. “You have exceeded your weekly purchase limit for complex animal protein, as stipulated in the FedWallet User Agreement. Have you considered purchasing a delicious vegan or mealworm alternative? Thank you for doing your part to build a more just and sustainable world!”

This is a sandwich too far for you during an especially hard week. “Ugh FedWallet is so fucking lame!” you post on Twatter as you idle hungrily in front of the kiosk. “Your message has been flagged for review,” says an immediate notification. “As a reminder, using ableist hate speech may impact your ESG score and future financing opportunities. Thank you for doing your part to build a more just and inclusive world!” “Omg this is absurd, life was so much better before FedCoin, when we still had cash!” you post again to Twatter, unable to control yourself. “Your account has been locked pending national security review,” says a notification from FedWallet. “As a reminder, the proliferation of false or misleading narratives which sow discord or undermine public trust in government institutions is classified as a potential domestic terrorism offence by the Department of Homeland Security. We value your feedback.”

You jerk awake, fumbling at your phone with trembling, sweaty fingers. Oh thank God, it was all just a terrible dream! You just dozed off while reading Rod Dreher’s blog. You can still eat all the steak and bacon you want. There’s nothing to worry about…

But no, you’re actually reading Politico, and see with horror that President Biden has just released a “sweeping” executive order directing the government to immediately begin moving to comprehensively regulate cryptocurrencies while developing a digital dollar issued by the Federal Reserve. “My Administration places the highest urgency on research and development efforts into the potential design and deployment options of a United States CBDC,” he declares, in a line probably narrated in a creepy whisper.

You are wracked by foreboding amid the sudden cawing of ravens.

At least you should be, because everything about central bank digital currency (CBDC) is the stuff of totalitarian nightmare...

Still more at the link.

 

Russia Asked China for Military Assistance in Ukraine

Thus making Putin's regime look all the weaker. 

And China's supposedly guarded in its newfound partnership. 

At the Financial Times, "US officials say Russia has asked China for military help in Ukraine":

Russia has asked China for military equipment to support its invasion of Ukraine, ​according to US officials, sparking concern in the White House that Beijing may undermine western efforts to help Ukrainian forces defend their country.

US officials told the Financial Times that Russia had requested military equipment and other assistance since the start of the invasion. They declined to give details about what Russia had requested.

Another person familiar with the situation said the US was preparing to warn its allies, amid some indications that China may be preparing to help Russia. Other US officials have said there were signs that Russia was running out of some kinds of weaponry as the war in Ukraine extends into its third week.

The White House did not comment. The Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for a comment.

The revelation comes as Jake Sullivan, US national security adviser, heads to Rome for talks on Monday with Yang Jiechi, China’s top foreign policy official.

Before leaving Washington on Sunday, Sullivan warned China not to try to “bail out” Russia by helping Moscow to circumvent the sanctions that the US and its allies have imposed on President Vladimir Putin and his regime...

The apparent request for equipment and other kinds of unspecified military assistance comes as the Russian military struggles to make as much progress in Ukraine as western intelligence believe they expected.

It also raises fresh questions about the China-Russia relationship, which has grown increasingly strong as both countries express their opposition to the US over everything from Nato to sanctions.

China has portrayed itself as a neutral actor in the Ukraine crisis and has refused to condemn Russia for invading the country. The US has also seen no sign that Chinese president Xi Jinping is willing to put any pressure on Putin...

 

Brent Renaud, Renowned Filmmaker and Journalist, 'Gunned Down' by Russian Forces in Ukraine

The Washington Examiner links Nick Stylianou, who reports, "Head of the Kyiv Police Department says that Russian troops opened fire on a car with foreign journalists in and shot dead 51-year-old New York Times videojournalist Brent Renaud in Irpin. One of his colleagues is injured and is in hospital."

The Times' story is here, "Brent Renaud, an American Journalist, Is Killed in Ukraine." The report indicates, "The Ukrainian authorities said he was killed in Irpin, a suburb that has been the site of intense shelling by Russian forces in recent days, but the details of his death were not immediately clear." 

You'd think the Times might have mentioned that Renaud's auto came under fire by Russian troops. Folks on Twitter are peeved by this section of the story:

Mr. Renaud had contributed to The Times in previous years, most recently in 2015, but he was not on assignment for the company in Ukraine. Early reports that he was working for The Times in Ukraine circulated because he was found with a Times press badge that had been issued for an assignment years ago...

Renaud was on assignment for Time. The magazine's statement is here, "A Statement from TIME on the Death of Journalist Brent Renaud," via Memeorandum.

Origins of the Nuclear Taboo

I heavily discount Russian threats to deploy nuclear weapons against the U.S. and its allies should the latter intervene militarily in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. That's not to say Vladimir Putin is dishonest or insincere in his threats (just bluffing). His rocket-test saber-rattling rightfully sows fear in countries involved in the conflict.

It's more I don't believe nuclear weapons are usable in the current day and age. Nuclear deterrence doctrines are so well-developed it'd be national suicide for a state to launch a first strike against the U.S. (and other nuclear armed states with concomitant deterrence capabilities.) But there's more: Since 1945 it's been, how do you say?, politically incorrect to use nukes. The international moral prohibitions and political consequences of first use of are overwhelming.

An entire "peace movement" developed during the Cold War to stigmatize and delegitimize states possessing nuclear weapons --- and protest activism worked as a powerfully constraint on the deployment of strategic capabilities. Popular culture, and especially the 1983 film, "The Day After," bombarded, if you will, the U.S. population with completely real and terrifying images of nuclear holocaust. The endless debates on nuclear war among state leaders, diplomats, and the military sector, severely complicated political decision-making. 

During the 1950s, when France fought an anti-colonial war in Vietnam, the notion of deploying the bomb horrified President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who exclaimed, "You boys must be crazy. We can’t use those awful things against the Asians for the second time in ten years. My God." Nuclear use is, basically, "racist." Atomic bombs were dropped on Japan --- not Germany --- to bring about the end of World War II. While it was the necessities of wartime planning and strategy that dictated the U.S. decision on when and where to drop the bomb, wartime diplomacy and U.S. peace efforts failed to induce Japan to surrender in 1945. At the time, fear of "Japs" and the "Yellow Peril" conditioned public acceptance of dropping the bomb on the Japanese people. The emperor gave us no choice. 

Over time there developed a powerful normative prohibition on the use of nukes, known as the "nuclear taboo." This concept is tested by ideational and normative theories of international politics. See, Nina Tennenwald, "Stigmatizing the Bomb: Origins of the Nuclear Taboo":

In 1958 Lt. Gen. James Gavin, a principal promoter in the U.S. military of the development of tactical nuclear weapons, wrote, “Nuclear weapons will become conventional for several reasons, among them cost, effectiveness against enemy weapons, and ease of handling.” Indeed, during the 1950s numerous U.S. leaders fully expected that a nuclear weapon would become “just another weapon.” Secretary of State John Foster Dulles accepted “the ultimate inevitability” that tactical nuclear weapons would gain “conventional” status. Adm. Arthur Radford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Dwight Eisenhower, predicted in 1956 that the use of nuclear weapons “would become accepted throughout the world just as soon as people could lay their hands upon them.”

These leaders were articulating a view with a long tradition in the history of weapons and warfare: a weapon once introduced inevitably comes to be widely accepted as legitimate. In reality, however, nuclear weapons have come to be defined as abhorrent and unacceptable weapons of mass destruction, with a taboo on their use. This taboo is associated with a widespread revulsion toward nuclear weapons and broadly held inhibitions on their use. The opprobrium has come to apply to all nuclear weapons, not just to large bombs or to certain types or uses of nuclear weapons. It has developed to the point that uses of nuclear weapons that were once considered plausible by at least some U.S. decision makers—for example, tactical battlefield uses in limited wars and direct threats to deter enemies from conventional attack—have been severely delegitimized and are practically unthinkable policy options. Thomas Schelling has argued that “the evolution of that status [nuclear taboo] has been as important as the development of nuclear arsenals.” Evidence suggests that the taboo has helped to constrain resort to the use of nuclear weapons since 1945 both by reinforcing deterrence and by inducing restraint even in cases where deterrence did not operate.

What gave rise to this taboo? Schelling attributes the taboo to a general sense of revulsion associated with such destructive weapons and the perception that nuclear weapons have come to be viewed as different.6 He does not, however, trace the evolution of this process. Historian John Lewis Gaddis has argued that moral considerations help to explain the nonuse of nuclear weapons by the United States in the first ten years of the Cold War, but he does not specifically connect this sentiment to the development of a taboo.

Within the field of international relations, there has been little systematic analysis of the nuclear taboo. Traditional realists, of course, would be skeptical of the existence of a taboo, tending to see it as largely indistinguishable from prudential behavior. To the extent that a tradition of nonuse existed, it would reflect the interests of the most powerful (nuclear) states. Rationalist approaches, which are often sympathetic to norms, could easily incorporate the existence of a taboo. They would emphasize the uniquely destructive nature of nuclear weapons, the impossibility of defense, and therefore the (obvious) of having a social convention on their use.

As I show in this article, although there is some truth to these explanations, they are inadequate. The nuclear taboo was pursued in part against the preferences of the United States, which, for the first part of the nuclear era, opposed creation of a taboo because it would deny the self-proclaimed right of the United States to rely on nuclear weapons for its security. I argue for a broader explanation that emphasizes the role of a global antinuclear weapons movement and nonnuclear states, as well as Cold War power politics, in the development of the taboo.

The model of norm creation here highlights the role of antinuclear discourse and politics in the creation of the taboo. Although rationalist variables are important, the taboo cannot be explained simply as the straightforward result of rational adaptation to strategic circumstances. The larger questions are: where do global norms come from? How and why do they develop? And how are they maintained, disseminated, and strengthened? The case of the nuclear taboo is important theoretically because it challenges conventional views that international norms, especially in the security area, are created mainly by and for the powerful. The case is important practically because it illuminates an important source of restraint on the use of nuclear weapons.

In this article I locate the origins of the nuclear taboo after 1945 in a set of domestic and international factors and trace its subsequent development. Elsewhere I have analyzed how the taboo has influenced U.S. decision making in specific instances, but here I focus on what accounts for the rise of the taboo and how it developed in global politics and U.S. policy. Ideally, a full account require an examination of how the taboo came to be accepted and internalized in the decision making of other countries as well. The central role of the United States in the development of the taboo, however, makes it a particularly significant case...

Keep reading.

Rebekah Koffler, Putin's Playbook

At Amazon, Rebekah Koffler, Putin's Playbook: Russia's Secret Plan to Defeat America.

Batya Ungar-Sargon on 'Real Time with Bill Maher'

She appeared last night, "Catch Up on the Latest."

On Twitter.

Unipolarity Is Not Over

Folks have been arguing that the American era of superpower primacy is over. Starting with the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, we've had a good run. Things have changed over the last 30 years, and China's now a top peer competitor about to knock the American hegemon off the its pedestal of global preponderance. We're Great Britain after 1914.

Actually, no. 

I mean, in just this last three weeks, the stunning American response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine should be ample indication of how powerful the U.S. remains in literally all aspects of global power and international interactions. The tremendous, crushing U.S. leadership of global financial markets, the international monetary regime --- and NATO in the military arena --- should give hostile nations pause. While sanctions don't always work, events have shown the breathtaking and devastating ability of the U.S. to lead allied states around the world to literally remove a threatening global state actor from the civilization of nations. 

It's near certain that Vladymir Putin will never back down in Ukraine, much less negotiate (in good faith) a ceasefire culminating in a new Russian modus vivendi. What we do know is with the exception of owning the world's largest nuclear arsenal, it's patently clear that Russia lacks the ability to wage a dominant regional war at the periphery of its sovereign authority, much less a continent-wide war against at least 30 democracies organized into the most powerful military alliance in world history.

And you can bet your sweet bippy the Chinese are watching events in Ukraine extremely closely, perhaps regretting the deal Chairman Xi entered into at the Winter Games last month sealing a new strategic partnership with Moscow. Indeed, Beijing's now distancing itself from Putin and the Russians, lest China be pulled into an even more antagonist relationship with the United States. It's been a heady start to 2022. 

The literature of internationalist relations theory sheds some light on the current distribution of capabilities. Professors Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth have published a number of papers (here and here, for example) throwing cold water on claims that China is overtaking the U.S. in global competition. More recently scholars Hal Brands and Michael Beckley have made the case for "The End of China’s Rise." While no doubt structural change is afoot in world politics, it's still much too early to declare the arrival of a multipolar order that hearkens back to the the "twenty years crisis" before the outbreak of World War II. 

Lots of folks will obviously disagree, but I'm bullish on America. I don't believe the U.S. and China are destined for war. 

I write all of this in response to young whippersnapper Josh Hammer's claim, at the American Spectator that, "With the rise of China and the return of great-power competition, that unipolar era is, for all intents and purposes, now over." 

I don't know?

China has two aircraft carriers, one it acquired, ironically, from Ukraine in 2012 and declared ready for combat operations just three years ago. Beijing is decades away from deploying a true blue-water navy capable of challenging the United States Navy on the open seas. We currently deploy 11 aircraft carriers, and the new Gerald R. Ford-class carrier is set to replace the Navy's current Nimitz-class carriers on a one-to-one basis over the next few decades. The USS Gerald R. Ford, the first next generation carrier delivered to the Pentagon, was commissioned in 2017. 

Ten Ford-class carriers are expected to be deployed over the next few decades. The United States can do this --- build the world's largest and most advanced naval warships in world history --- while spending just 3.2 percent of GDP on defense spending. In World War II, U.S. defense spending as a proportion of GDP was 40 percent, and 6 percent during Reagan administration's awesome defense build up in the 1980s. It's nothing, to the great consternation of our enemies. 

The U.S. still retains the world's largest military overall, but we've not been in something like a Cold War posture for 30 years. We lose small wars in place like Mogadishu, and U.S. democracy promotion by force proved bankrupt on the shoals of American intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq. But the U.S. still holds the command of the commons, though it will take wise and judicious leadership to maintain America's world strategic edge. 

Fact is, the U.S. actually needs more carriers than it currently deploys, if it hopes to deter Chinese naval power in the West Pacific. While nowhere near as sophisticated as U.S. naval forces, China now boasts the largest navy in the world. 

As noted at the Amazon page for Tom Clancy'a 1999 book, Carrier: A Guided Tour of an Aircraft Carrier, these ships "are floating cities with crews of thousands. They are the linchpins of any military strategy, for they provide what has become the key to every battle fought since World War I: air superiority. The mere presence of a U.S. naval carrier in a region is an automatic display of strength that sends a message no potential enemy can ignore."

There's much more to be said of the likely and long continuance of U.S. dominance in world politics, on a number of measures. But current financial sanctions against Russia demonstrate the sheer scale of U.S. power in the world economy, and American naval capabilities and technological sophistication won't likely be matched by peer competitor this century.

While this is a very rudimentary, preliminary analysis of the problem, when you hear some cocksure folks telling you our days as the world's Leviathan are over, you might take it with a grain of salt.

Roman Abramovich, Russian Oligarch, Hit by Sanctions

This guy's getting slammed

Chelsea's a diamond on the football world and the team plays in the Premier League, the top division in England.

This is from yesterday at WSJ, "Russian Billionaire Roman Abramovich, Owner of Chelsea Soccer Club, Is Sanctioned by U.K."

And from this evening, "Roman Abramovich U.S. Hedge Fund Investments Are Frozen":

Hedge funds told to freeze Russian oligarch’s assets after he was sanctioned by the British government.

A number of U.S. hedge-fund firms that have investments from Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich have been told to freeze his assets after he was sanctioned by the British government Thursday, according to people familiar with the instructions.

A message from fund administrator SS&C Globe Op to one firm said, “Currently accounts attributed to Roman Abramovich are blocked from transacting, as such any distributions, redemptions or payment cannot be made and no subscriptions or contributions can be accepted.”

SS&C, whose clients include hedge funds and other investment managers, said in the message it was monitoring the situation for guidance from the U.K. Treasury, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation and the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority. Other funds have received similar messages, according to people familiar with the matter.

The guidance likely puts a stop to recent efforts by Mr. Abramovich to sell his interests in a slew of hedge funds, said people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Abramovich, who for years has accessed hedge-fund investments through New York-based adviser Concord Management, had been trying to sell interests in funds including those managed by Empyrean Capital Partners in Los Angeles and Millstreet Capital Management in Boston, the people said.

Mr. Abramovich had been seeking to sell the funds on the secondary market since at least late February, the people said. For at least some of the funds, the investor is Concord, with Mr. Abramovich or entities connected with him being the underlying investor, said people familiar with the matter. People familiar with the matter said Concord was a small investor in Millstreet.

Mr. Abramovich also is invested through Concord in hedge funds including Millennium Management, Sarissa Capital Management and Sculptor Capital Management, SCU -2.09% formerly known as Och-Ziff Capital Management, said people familiar with the matter. It couldn’t be determined Friday if he had tried to sell his interests in those funds as well. Mr. Abramovich’s hedge-fund portfolio includes investments in many small funds betting on and against stocks, one person briefed on the matter said.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Abramovich didn’t respond to requests for comment. Concord didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The New York Times earlier reported Mr. Abramovich’s ties to Concord.

The U.K. on Thursday froze Mr. Abramovich’s assets and prevented him from doing any business in the country or selling assets including soccer club Chelsea F.C.

While managers in the past welcomed Concord’s money—the firm has a reputation for being a thoughtful, long-term investor in the hedge-fund industry–the relationship is proving delicate following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the cascade of sanctions it triggered.

Managers would have welcomed a sale as a way to distance themselves from a sanctioned oligarch, and some had been thinking about forcibly redeeming Mr. Abramovich from their funds, said people familiar with the matter.

One manager had been considering the possibility of replacing Mr. Abramovich with other investors, another person familiar with the matter said...

 

'Hey Jealousy'

Here's the Gin Blossoms. (On Jon Stewart's show like, umm, ages ago. The dude's a young man!)

Have a good weekend everybody!

Poll: Biden's Handling of Russia-Ukraine Crisis Hasn't Boosted His Public Approval Ratings

Evan at 42 percent, I'm surprised he's getting as much support as he is. The poll was conducted March 2nd to March 7th, and thus doesn't capture changing public sentiment over the this last week's rapid rise in gas prices. 

Entire lives and livehoods are being turned upside down by this oil crisis. It's obviously the Democrats' case for full decolonization of the economy has collapse and will burn them in the November elections. This is religion to these folks. Reason cannot break thought. We're about a fanatical adherence to faith doctrines. disconfirming evidence is whisked away with a condescending hand.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Biden, Democrats Lose Ground on Key Issues, WSJ Poll Finds":

WASHINGTON—President Biden and his fellow Democrats have lost ground to Republicans on several of the issues most important to voters, a new Wall Street Journal poll finds, a troubling sign for the party seeking to extend its controlling majority of Congress for another two years.

The new survey showed that 57% of voters remained unhappy with Mr. Biden’s job performance, despite favorable marks for the president’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a recent State of the Union speech, which provided him an opportunity to directly speak to millions of Americans. Just 42% said they approved of Mr. Biden’s performance in office, which was virtually unchanged from the previous Journal poll in mid-November.

Meanwhile, Democratic advantages narrowed over Republicans on issues related to improving education and the Covid-19 response. A 16-percentage-point Democratic edge on which party would best handle the pandemic was down to 11 points, while a 9-percentage-point lead on education issues was down to 5 points.

When asked about which party was best able to protect middle-class families, the 5-point advantage for Democrats four months ago evaporated and left the parties essentially tied on the question.

Voters also gave Democrats poor marks for handling inflation and the economy, which 50% cited as the top issue they want the federal government to address. The Ukraine conflict was No. 2, with 25% of voters saying it was most important. A majority of voters, 63%, said they disapproved of Mr. Biden’s handling of rising costs, the president’s worst rating on six policy issues surveyed in the poll. Meanwhile, 47% of voters said Republicans were better able to handle inflation, compared with 30% who preferred Democrats.

Underscoring the political problem for Democrats: More voters said that Republicans had a better plan to improve the economy, 45% to 37%, even though Sen. Mitch McConnell and Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the party’s leaders in each chamber, have advanced few specific economic-policy proposals they would pursue if they controlled Congress.

Since the last Journal poll, Americans have been confronted with a spike in Covid-19 cases from the highly contagious Omicron variant, bottlenecks in supply chains that left gaps in store shelves in January and surges in gasoline and other consumer prices that have driven inflation to a 40-year high.

“The mood of the country hasn’t gotten any better since the last poll. In fact, it’s gotten a little worse,” said Democratic pollster John Anzalone, who was the lead pollster for Mr. Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign and whose company conducted the Journal survey along with the firm of Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio.

Still, the challenges for Democrats haven’t significantly changed how voters said they expect to vote this year: 46% of voters said they would back a Republican candidate for Congress if the election were today, compared with 41% who favored a Democrat, with Republicans gaining support among Black and Hispanic voters since the last Journal poll...

No Breakthrough in Russia and Ukraine's High-Level Diplomatic Talks

Diplomacy won't work if one side not negotiating in good faith. Nothing I've seen so far demonstrates Moscow's interest in winding down the war, to say nothing of developing humanitarian corridors, relieving besieged cities, and protecting Ukrainian human rights.

At the New York Times, "Russia Batters and Encircles Ukrainian Cities, as Diplomacy Falters":

The top diplomats of Russia and Ukraine failed to make even a hint of progress Thursday in their first face-to-face meeting since the Russian invasion began, while Russian bombardments spread more carnage in a two-week-old war that Ukraine estimated had already inflicted $100 billion in damage.

The Russian side, which has refused to call the conflict a war, insisted that it would not end until Ukraine was “demilitarized,” dousing flickers of hope that the meeting in Turkey of Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba of Ukraine and his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, might lead to even a brief cease-fire. Mr. Lavrov later told reporters that was not even discussed.

“The broad narrative he conveyed to me,” Mr. Kuleba said afterward, “is that they will continue their aggression until Ukraine meets their demands, and the least of these demands is surrender.”

Across swaths of Ukraine, the fighting continued and suffering deepened, especially in besieged and bombarded cities like Mariupol in the southeast and Chernihiv in the north.

Near Kyiv, Russian forces gained control of the town of Bucha and moved southwest in an attempt to encircle the capital. They were also approaching Kyiv from the east, with heavy fighting involving a line of Russian tanks reported in the suburb of Brovary, according to videos posted online on Thursday.

In Mariupol, 70 bodies have been buried since Tuesday, without coffins, in a mass grave, according to video recorded by The Associated Press, and local officials said an airstrike that destroyed a maternity hospital on Wednesday had killed three people, including a child. In Chernihiv, residents lacked electricity, gas for cooking or warding off the winter cold, or even space to bury the dead, said the mayor, Vladyslav Atroshenko.

“Dozens of people have died,” he said. “Dozens of multistory buildings have been ruined. Thousands of people have no place to live.” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, in his latest video message, said the hospital bombing in Mariupol, a port on the Sea of Azov, was further “proof that the genocide of Ukrainians is taking place.”

Despite photographs of the ravaged hospital and victims of the bombing, corroborated by the United Nations, Russian officials denied having hit the hospital, or alternatively said it had not been used as a hospital. Attacks on medical facilities can constitute war crimes.

The chief economic adviser to Ukraine’s government, Oleg Ustenko, estimated that his country had already suffered $100 billion in damage since the invasion began Feb. 24. “The situation is a disaster that is really much deeper than somebody can imagine,” Mr. Ustenko said at a Peterson Institute for International Economics virtual event.

Vice President Kamala Harris, in Warsaw to meet with Polish officials, said Russians should be investigated for war crimes in Ukraine, though she did not name any individuals. Ms. Harris, a former prosecutor, said, “I have no question the eyes of the world are on this war and what Russia has done in terms of the aggression and these atrocities.”

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has insisted that Ukraine disarm, guarantee that it will never join the NATO alliance and officially cede parts of its land by recognizing two Russian-backed separatist regions as independent countries and accepting Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

Mr. Putin’s false claims that Ukraine’s government is run by Nazis and that his goal is “denazification” of the country suggest, as Western governments have charged, that he intends to install a puppet government in Kyiv. But conflicting statements from Moscow have left unclear whether he intends to occupy some or all of the country, or annex more of it, or how far he would go in devastating Ukraine in order to subjugate it...

 

European Union Countries More Reluctant to Cut Off Russian Energy Imports (VIDEO)

Well, deal with the devil, you know?

Look how that's turning out. Under Moscow's thumb.

At Deutsche Welle, "European leaders wary of cutting off Russian oil and gas":

Quickly cutting off energy revenues with oil and gas embargoes would hit Moscow where it hurts. But European leaders have argued for a phased approach, openly admitting their dependency on Russian energy supplies.

The leaders of Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands on Monday said Europe was too dependent on Russian energy supplies to stop imports overnight as part of any eventual sanctions package in response to the invasion of Ukraine. Energy exports are a key source of income for Russia, and there are growing calls for oil and gas embargoes to increase pressure on the Kremlin.

However, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that although Berlin supported tough measures against Moscow, Russian energy supplies remained "essential" for daily life in Europe.

"Europe's supply with energy for heating, for mobility, power supply and for industry cannot at the moment be secured otherwise," Scholz said in a statement.

Russia is the largest supplier of natural gas to Germany, currently accounting for more than half of imports, according to the government. Gas accounts for around a fifth of German power production.

A 'step-by-step' process

On Monday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said cutting dependency on Russian oil and gas was "the right thing to do," however it must be done in a "step by step" process.

"We have got to make sure we have substitute supply. One of the things we are looking at is the possibility of using more of our own hydrocarbons," Johnson told a press conference following talks with his Dutch and Canadian counterparts in London.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a halt to Russian oil imports last week. However, Canada is the world's fourth-largest oil producer and its imports from Russia were comparatively negligible.

Although the UK relies much less on Russian gas than other countries in Europe, Johnson said it was important that "everyone moves in the same direction."

"There are different dependencies in different countries, and we have to mindful of that," he said. "You can't simply close down the use of oil and gas overnight, even from Russia."

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told the press conference that weaning Europe off Russian energy would "take time" and it was a "painful reality" that Europeans were still "very much dependent" on Russian gas and oil...

 

Ukrainian Forces Destroy Russian Tank Convoy Near Kyiv (VIDEO)

At the New York Post, "Video shows Russian armored convoy caught in Ukrainian ambush on way to Kyiv."

And Sky News, "Ukraine war: Sky News examines drone video from village near Kyiv that shows Russian convoy 'ambushed'."

Can the West Save Kyiv Without Starting a War With Russia?

 From Janice Gross Stein, at Foreign Affairs, "The Ukraine Dilemma":

In the months preceding the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as U.S. intelligence agencies warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin was planning an attack, the United States and its allies pursued two strategies in sequence. First, they tried to control escalation. U.S. President Joe Biden made an early and firm commitment not to send U.S. forces to Ukraine in order to reduce the chance of an all-out war with Russia. Then, he turned to a strategy of coercive diplomacy, combining threats with inducements. Biden warned of severe economic consequences if Putin attacked and offered to negotiate with Russia over its security concerns.

That strategy failed the moment Russian tanks rolled across the Ukrainian border. Now, as Russian forces push closer to Kyiv, Western policymakers have two competing objectives. On the one hand, they want to do everything short of committing military force to help Ukraine survive Russia’s brutal and unjustified attack. On the other hand, they want to prevent a full-scale war between Russia and NATO. What makes the challenge so hard is that the more they do to achieve one objective, the less likely they are to achieve the other. Tradeoffs are the norm in foreign policy, but rarely is the choice as stark as it is in Ukraine. It is no surprise that NATO members are struggling to thread the needle.

Consider the question of a no-fly zone, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has urgently requested NATO establish over his country. A no-fly zone would significantly help Ukraine’s embattled forces, but it would also raise the odds that Russian forces might unintentionally or deliberately attack NATO aircraft, which is why members of the alliance have ruled it out. In other words, the United States and its allies face a tough dilemma: how can they protect Ukraine and push back against Russian aggression, but avoid a war with Russia, a country that has the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear weapons?

SPIRALING OUT OF CONTROL

As attacks on Ukraine go on, it is all too easy to imagine scenarios in which NATO and Russia find themselves in a direct conflict that neither side wants. One pathway to escalation involves the convoys coming in from Poland and Romania to resupply Ukrainian forces with anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons. Russia could attack these convoys in order to choke off the flow of military supplies that are making a significant difference on the battlefield. Although it is not NATO itself that is organizing these shipments but rather individual members, NATO is a collective security organization. An attack against any NATO member is an attack against all. Imagine if a Russian jet bombed French military equipment being unloaded at a base in Romania. Would such an attack justify invoking Article 5, the commitment to collective defense in the NATO charter? That proposition has not been tested, but if NATO leaders concluded that such an attack did justify collective defense, then NATO and Russia would find themselves at war.

Even more alarming are scenarios in which the current crisis could lead to the use of nuclear weapons. In the days immediately preceding the attack and several times since, Russian leaders have spoken about nuclear weapons. Putin has raised the alert of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces twice, and his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, warned on March 2 that any war with NATO would be nuclear. So far, Russian forces have not increased their readiness in response to these alerts, and some argue that Russian nuclear threats are nothing more than saber rattling designed to deter NATO from providing the critical military support in the air and on the ground that Ukraine needs. But no member of NATO, especially those in Europe, is willing to dismiss Russian nuclear threats as a bluff and open the door to deadly escalation.

So far, the West has made little progress on controlling escalation. The negotiations between Ukrainian and Russian officials are moving at a desultory pace. They have agreed only to establish humanitarian corridors for refugees and safe zones around nuclear plants, and Russian forces violated both almost immediately after the agreements were announced. The Pentagon and the Russian Ministry of Defense have also established a new hotline to deconflict U.S. and Russian forces. But all these measures are only weak brakes on escalation.

Deterrence at its current level of punishment also doesn’t seem to be working. Sanctions always take time to work; they don’t stop tanks that are rolling. Russia’s leaders have given no indication yet that they are genuinely interested in a ceasefire or negotiations. To the contrary, they are doubling down on their attacks. After his March 3 conversation with Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron said he had concluded that the Russian president was intent on taking all of Ukraine. Battlefield pressures may push Putin to make an offer, but he has made his long-term intentions clear.

TWO ROADS DIVERGED 

As public outrage over the invasion grows and civilian casualties mount, NATO countries will have to walk a fine line between deterring Russia and escalating the conflict. There are two ways to think about this problem.

The first draws heavily on well-established theories of rationality and deterrence. The only way to stop an aggressive leader, these arguments go, is to raise the costs of military action and demonstrate unshakable resolve, both in words and deeds. That was how the economist Thomas Schelling saw the Cuban missile crisis. Schelling argued that the standoff with the Soviet Union was a game of chicken, in which two drivers are headed straight toward each other on a narrow road. When you’re playing chicken, Schelling argued, the best strategy is to throw away your steering wheel, so that the other driver sees that you can no longer swerve. That driver now has no choice but to swerve in order to avoid a crash.

Since the war began, NATO leaders have reinforced deterrence...

 

American Woman Warns Russians to Back the Fuck Up

Woot!

Right on, baby!

On Twitter.

Biden Democrats Say Americans Should Suffer Astronomical Gas Prices for the Good of Ukraine (VIDEO)

It's Laura Ingraham --- looking hot and on breathing fire at the same time --- slams the kooky Biden administration's demand that Americans lower their standard of living for Ukraine.

REPORT: Chicago Bears Set to Trade Khalil Mack to Los Angeles Chargers

At ABC News.

Dude be like:

pic.twitter.com/yCxYU29nnh

— Los Angeles Chargers (@chargers) March 10, 2022

Russian Airstrike Kills 3 at Maternity Hospital in Ukrainian Port City of Mariupol (VIDEO)

CNN's first out with this report, "3 dead after Mariupol maternity hospital bombing."

Below, Richard Engel had the story this morning, for NBC News.

And from yesterday's Los Angeles Times, "Russia bombs maternity hospital amid evacuation effort, Ukraine says":

KOZELETS, Ukraine — With basic survival in Ukraine growing increasingly precarious, civilian evacuation efforts sputtered yet again Wednesday as Russian bombs slammed into a maternity hospital. Ukraine’s government had announced a daylong cease-fire for several corridors around the country that were designated for the safe exit of residents. The routes covered some of the hardest-hit areas, including the southern port city of Mariupol, where hundreds of thousands of civilians have been trapped for days with no electricity and water and dwindling supplies of food and medicine.

But late Wednesday afternoon, Russia appeared to break the cease-fire when bombs hit a Mariupol hospital complex, injuring 17. Images showed emergency responders carrying a bloodied pregnant woman through a courtyard littered with mangled cars and a heavily damaged building still smoldering.

The bombs added to the misery of a blockaded city where hungry residents have begun breaking into stores and officials dug a mass grave to bury dozens of soldiers and civilians killed in recent days.

President Volodymyr Zelensky called the hospital attack “beyond an atrocity” and appealed again to the West to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine so Russia “no longer has any possibility to continue this genocide.”

The attack prompted international outrage, with a top U.S. State Department official demanding that Russia “stop these heinous acts now.”

Still, Western officials continued to rule out the possibility of a no-fly zone for fear that it could escalate the conflict.

“If I were in President Zelensky’s position, I’m sure I would be asking for everything possible,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said during a news conference in Washington.

But, he said, the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization want to end “senseless bloodshed” and not provoke Russia by flying in aircraft or launching attacks from NATO countries.

“Our goal is to end the war, not to expand it,” Blinken said.

That is also why the U.S. has said it will not transfer fighter jets to Ukraine as proposed by Poland, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday, saying it was too “high risk.”

American officials were caught off guard when the Polish government said Tuesday that it would send about two dozen Soviet-era MIG-29 fighter planes to the U.S. air base at Ramstein, Germany. Polish officials apparently had hoped the U.S. would then deliver the planes to Ukraine, whose pilots are trained on the aircraft.

Kirby said the aircraft are “not likely to significantly change the effectiveness” of the Ukrainian resistance and warned that the move could “be mistaken as escalatory” and result in a broader conflict with Russia.

U.S. lawmakers and military officials have looked for alternative ways to support Ukraine, with Congress agreeing Wednesday to send $13.6 billion in aid to the beleaguered country and Defense Department officials moving Patriot missile-defense systems to Poland, where Vice President Kamala Harris arrived for a three-day trip aimed at shoring up transatlantic efforts to isolate Russia.

U.S. officials have also continued to combat what they describe as a disinformation campaign waged by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The White House on Wednesday condemned a Russian claim — echoed by Chinese officials — that the U.S. is developing chemical and biological weapons in Ukraine.

“It’s the kind of disinformation operation we’ve seen repeatedly from the Russians over the years,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Twitter...

 

Tone-Deaf Team Biden Responds to High Gas Prices With Electric Car Sales Pitch

From Stephen Kruiser, at Pajamas, "Never have I been more grateful to not have to leave my house much as I am here in Joe Biden’s America, with gas prices hiking up to vertiginous heights. It’s quite economical to only have to travel from my bedroom to my living room office each morning."

Denmark to Increase Defense Spending -- Denmark!

 Wow. 

This is some big change. I mean, does Copenhagen even boast national armed forces? WTF?

It does, it turns out. 

At Politico E.U., "Denmark to increase defense spending and phase out Russian natural gas: Copenhagen latest to join countries around EU rethinking defense strategies in light of Moscow’s war on Ukraine.

Killer Inflation

Margaret Talev just minutes ago on Wolf Blizter's "Situation Room": Gas prices could go double-digits.

Here's the data, on Twitter:

Mass Graves in Mariupol Ukraine (VIDEO)

The city's completely besieged and cut off from all supplies --- medicine, food, and water. It's a desperate situation. And there's been no progress in setting up humanitarian corridors to facilitate evacuation for civilians.

At Reuters, "Ukraine says Russia snubs plea for humanitarian access to besieged civilians."

And at the New York Times, "After a Week of Siege, Bloodied Mariupol Plans Mass Graves":

Under a relentless Russian barrage, there is no heat or electricity, and people are boiling snow for water. A 6-year-old died of dehydration, the authorities said.

LVIV, Ukraine — Marina Levinchuk said she received an alarming text message from the local authorities in the besieged city of Mariupol several days ago, before she decided to flee. “If somebody dies in your family,” she said, recalling the message in her own words, “just put the body outside, cover it, tie up the hands and the legs and leave it outside.”

“That’s what’s going on in Mariupol now,” she said of the city, currently ringed by Russian forces pounding it with bombs, missiles and artillery, and hitting a maternity hospital on Wednesday. “There are just bodies lying in the streets.

“There is no water, no heating, no gas,” she continued in a video call on WhatsApp on Wednesday. “And they are collecting snow, melting the snow, and boiling the snow.”

It has been seven days since Russian forces encircled the city, an important port on Ukraine’s southern coast, and began to lay siege to the roughly half a million people living there. Most communications with the outside world were severed, leaving primarily those with access to satellite phones to alert Ukraine and the rest of the world to the increasingly dire state of affairs.

Having failed to defeat the Ukrainian army in the war’s first weeks, and encountering stiff resistance in major cities like Mariupol, Kharkiv and Kyiv, Russian commanders appear to be resorting to tactics used in previous wars in Chechnya and Syria: flattening cities with overwhelming and indiscriminate firepower.

A video uploaded to Facebook on Wednesday evening showed the center of Mariupol after an aerial bombardment. It looked like a wasteland, with tree branches singed, windows blasted out of entire apartment blocks and the destroyed maternity hospital.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, condemned the strike on the hospital, berating world powers for failing to stop the killing and echoing his calls for NATO to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine.

“Mariupol. Direct Strike of Russian troops at the maternity hospital,” he wrote in a Twitter post Wednesday afternoon. “People, children are under the wreckage. Atrocity! How much longer will the world be an accomplice ignoring terror? Close the sky right now! Stop the killings! You have power but you seem to be losing humanity.”

In all, 17 people were injured in the hospital attack, including staff members and maternity ward patients, Pavlo Kyrylenko, the regional governor, told a Ukrainian television station.

Efforts to negotiate a cease-fire to give civilians a chance to escape have failed repeatedly. For three days, the prospect of relief reaching the city though a “humanitarian corridor” fell apart in a hail of mortar and artillery fire.

The fighting around the city has been some of the most intense of the war, residents who managed to escape the conflict say...

Hayden Panettiere

See, "Hayden Panettiere Poses in Support of Ukraine."

Burning Remains of Russian Fighter Pilot

It's real and it's graphic.

On Twitter.

And here as well, in case it's taken down. 

Damn.

Economic Instability Means More Headwinds for Democrats

It couldn't have happened to a nicer party!

It's Amy Walter, Cook Political Report, "More Sanctions on Russia, Means More Economic Instability and Headwinds for Democrat."

Anne Applebaum, Red Famine

Anne Applebaum, Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine.

Kyiv's Suburbs Look Like the Hellscape of Stalingrad

Illia Ponomarenko, at the Guardian U.K., "Kyiv’s suburbs now look like the hellscape of Stalingrad – but we still have hope: Two weeks ago, Ukraine’s capital and its satellite towns were buzzing with life. Now it’s a ghost city where solidarity is helping us survive."

Incompetent Anti-American Secretary of State Tony Blinken Flip-Flops on Poland's Plan to Transfer All of Its MiG-29s to Ukraine

Following-up, "Pentagon Rejects Poland's Deal to Send MiG-29 Combat Jets to the U.S."

At AoSHQ, "Bear in mind: Poland is a NATO member. So this is a NATO member transferring warplanes to a country fighting a war with Russia...And now, after having signaled his support of a transfer, Blinken reverses himself and says 'No'."

War in Ukraine and the Emerging Post-American Order

The war's definitely not heralding the end of the U.S.-led liberal international order that arose after WWII, bringing a so-called "Post-America Order."

If anything, Putin's awakened a sleeping giant, and by that I mean not just the U.S., but the whole trans-Atlantic community. The NATO countries and the European Union are doing more than their normal thumb-twiddling this time around. It's been stunning. 

A very interesting essay, nonetheless. 

From Peter Sovodnik, at Bari Weiss's Substack, "The Dawn of Uncivilization."