RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2025/02/24/trumps-ukrainian-tightrope/

To find an impossible peace between Ukraine and Russia we must understand the recent history of the war and the European and American roles in it. So, Americans should revisit some fundamental realities and questions from which to remember before going forward:

Why Did Putin Invade Ukraine in 2022?

Putin did start the war. Trump’s trolling aside, he knows that because he correctly pointed out that Putin invaded his neighbors in three of the last four administrations—but not his own, given Trump’s deterrence.

The most obvious answer why Putin did is that he thought he easily could. But why in 2022—as he had in 2008 and 2014?

Putin has nonending opportunistic desires to recombobulate what he thinks properly is and will always be Russian—whether territories to be formally absorbed or as coerced satellite states. But he moves on them only whenever he thinks the benefits outweigh the costs.

And by February 2022, he certainly felt they did.

The U.S. and NATO had lost all appearances of deterrence vis-à-vis Russia. Joe Biden had been part of the Obama-Biden administration that had naively appeased Putin for some eight years. Remember their 2009 reset by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that was based on numerous flawed and disastrous assumptions:

The prior Bush sanctions against Putin for invading Georgia and grabbing parts of South Ossetia were overly harsh, reflective of his supposed cowboyism evident in Iraq.
The Obama mystique, coupled with criticism of the prior Bush administration, would win over Putin. Remember Obama’s 2012 hot mic appeasement in Seoul, when Obama promised Putin “flexibility” (i.e., cancellation of Eastern European defense, if Putin gave Obama “space” for his “last election” (i.e., please don’t invade and embarrass Obama until after he was reelected in 2012).
The U.S. thought it could act unilaterally in Libya and Syria, talk of expanding NATO in Europe, and expect a humiliated Russia to keep silent and distant.
Once rebuffed by Putin, who took Obama’s measure, an angry and rejected U.S. would cajole, beg, and finally try to force European Union democratic values onto the Putin regime—by sanctions, by aiding Russian dissident groups, and by claiming Putin was America’s archenemy.

The flawed working theory was that an either compliant or defiant Putin could acquiesce and begin liberalizing Russia, in emulation of EU and US democracy.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/rubio-exempts-taiwan-and-philippines-security-programs-from-aid-freeze/

Secretary of State Marco Rubio exempted from his department’s ongoing aid freeze over $1 billion in foreign security assistance for Taiwan and the Philippines.

“The Secretary approved exemptions for defense aide to the Philippines and Taiwan, which is a strong message for China deterrence in the region,” a senior State Department official told National Review. The exemption covers $870 million for Taiwan and $336 for the Philippines, the official said.

Reuters first reported on the exemptions, which the outlet said were part of a broader tranche of $5 billion worth of State Department programs that received exemptions.

China’s military intimidation targeting these U.S. partners — both major recipients of U.S. security assistance programs — has continued, even as Beijing signals that it wants to enter into trade talks with the Trump administration.

Last week, Manila lodged a diplomatic complaint with Beijing after a Chinese helicopter engaged in “unprofessional” maneuvers near a Philippines jet over the Scarborough Shoal. Meanwhile, Chinese military aircraft and vessels continue to swarm near Taiwan every day, per daily updates published by Taipei’s ministry of defense.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/__trashed-3/

JD Vance was about to say “European Commissioners,” but he stopped himself, and instead said “European Commissars.” This was no slip of the tongue. Vance clearly had in mind the commissars of the old Soviet Union, and as he was addressing, at the Munich Security Conference, a roomful of their intellectual children and heirs, his choice of words was entirely apt. Vance was there to call out these cosseted elites, who aren’t used to being called out, and the predictable rage has ensued. But the vice president’s message was prophetic. If European leaders were interested in maintaining their countries as free societies, they would heed him.

“Unfortunately, when I look at Europe today,” Vance said, “it’s sometimes not so clear what happened to some of the Cold War’s winners. I look to Brussels, where EU commissars warn citizens that they intend to shut down social media during times of civil unrest the moment they spot what they’ve judged to be, quote, ‘hateful content.’ I look to my own country, where police have carried out raids against citizens suspected of posting anti-feminist comments online as part of, quote, ‘combating misogyny on the internet, a day of action.’”

Vance continued by referring to the flashpoint for the freedom of speech today, the point at which it is most heatedly disputed: the burning of the Qur’an. “I look to Sweden,” he said, “where two weeks ago the government convicted a Christian activist for participating in Koran burnings that resulted in his friend’s murder. As the judge in his case chillingly noted, Sweden’s laws to supposedly protect free expression do not, in fact, grant, and I’m quoting, ‘a free pass to do or say anything without risking offending the group that holds that belief.’”

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/02/15/jd-vance-has-signed-the-death-warrant-of-the-status-quo/

Well, that was a delicious spectacle. America’s self-made VP gloriously roasting the wizened technocrats of Europe. A Yank from dirt-poor origins sticking it to Europe’s turbo-smug ruling class. How they squirmed as the boy from Ohio who somehow made it to the top of US politics chastised them for their indecent desertion of the ideals of liberty, democracy and security. It was like an intellectual waterboarding, and I loved every minute of it.

This is JD Vance’s stirring speech at the Munich Security Conference yesterday. But you already knew, given it’s gone wildly viral. For 20 minutes, the millennial vice-president upbraided the assembled grey-faced dignitaries over their backsliding from the virtues of the Enlightenment. He lamented ‘the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values’. He invited us to rediscover ‘the blessings of liberty’. Judging by the fits of pique in certain quarters – Vance ‘shocked delegates’ with his ‘blast at Europe’, wailed the babies at the BBC – many an ear is still deaf to his cry for freedom. But some of us are listening.

It was on the liberty to utter, the bedrock virtue of every civilised society, that he issued his most stinging rebukes. ‘Free speech, I fear, is in retreat’, he said. He recounted Europe’s recent acts of nutty censorship. He reminded his audience that German cops raided the homes of citizens ‘suspected of posting anti-feminist comments online’. The old Stasi felt your collar if you criticised your Stalinist betters – the new one comes a’knocking if you mock PC ideologies.

He spoke, with righteous alarm, about how Sweden recently convicted a Christian activist for the blasphemy of burning a Koran, shortly after his friend was murdered for doing the same. He seemed genuinely aghast, as well he might be, that modern Europe would do something as heartless as convict a man for the ‘speechcrime’ his pal had just been killed for. He reserved his greatest concern for ‘our very dear friends, the United Kingdom’. The ‘basic liberties of religious Britons’ are being sacrificed to PC, he said. He cited the arrest of Christians for the thoughtcrime of ‘silently praying’ close to abortion clinics that have had ‘buffer zones’ erected around them. Prayercrime, if you will.

https://amgreatness.com/2025/02/16/j-d-vances-munich-wake-up-call-democracy-censorship-and-the-will-of-the-people/

Everyone agrees that Vice President J. D. Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference on Friday was remarkable.

I do not mean that everyone liked it.

For example, Boris Pistorius, the German Defense Minister, sniffed—or perhaps “smoldered” would be a more accurate term, that Vance’s remarks were “not acceptable.”

And then there is Bill Kristol, a sort of Greta Thunberg of the rancid former right, who thundered that Vance’s speech was “a humiliation for the U.S. and a confirmation that this administration isn’t on the side of the democracies.”

“The democracies.”  What do you suppose Kristol means by that?

While you ponder that question, note that other people thought rather well of Vance’s speech.  I thought it was excellent myself, but forget about my opinion.  Jonathan Turley said that Vance’s speech was “perhaps the greatest single declaration uttered since ‘Ich bin ein Berliner.’” It was, Turley wrote elsewhere, “truly Churchillian—no less than the famous Iron Curtain speech in which Churchill dared the West to confront the existential dangers of communism.”

How can we explain the discrepancy: the outraged Pistorius/Kristol reaction and what I will call the Kimball/Turley reaction (though many people besides me applauded Vance’s speech)?

I think it comes down to how one understands that overdetermined, familiar yet often only half-understood word “democracy.”

Kristol said that Vance’s speech showed that the Trump administration was not “on the side of the democracies.”

What do you think of that claim?

I think poorly of it because I believe that a democracy is a political arrangement in which the people are sovereign.

I suspect that Kristol and European bureaucrats of all descriptions believe that it is a form of government in which only the right people, i.e, themselves, are sovereign.

Vance’s speech argued for the former. It also contained several admonitions about what he thought were threats to democracy. For the balance of this column, I’ll gather a little chrestomathy of his observations and let you decide who was right.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21386/qatar-is-hamas

The Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas and other Palestinians on October 7 could have been released a long time ago had the Biden administration exerted pressure on Qatar to use its good relations with the Islamist group to force it to do so.

All Qatar had to do was to summon the Hamas leaders in Doha and give them an ultimatum to release all the hostages immediately or face deportation from the Gulf state. It is hard to see how the Hamas leaders would have been able to say no to their major political and financial patrons and backers….The Qataris were never under the slightest pressure.

“For years, Qatar supported the Taliban, and last year [2021] it helped it in its coup against the democratically elected Afghan government, and 13 American service members were killed in the violence. Today, Qatar is doing everything it can to give the Taliban international legitimacy and aid.” – Yigal Carmon, President and Founder of the Middle East Media Research Institute (memri.org), and served as counterterrorism advisor to two Israeli prime ministers; Haaretz, May 10, 2022 and memri.org, October 8, 2024

“Any Arab who hears American officials say that Qatar is America’s ally would burst into laughter…. Ask Egypt, not just the rulers, but the people and journalists. Ask the Emirates, the government and people. Ask Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan. They all know that for decades Qatar has been promoting Islamist and terrorist organizations. There are lawsuits against Qatar in the U.S. and Europe in connection with its support for terrorism.” – Yigal Carmon, President and Founder of the Middle East Media Research Institute (memri.org), and served as counterterrorism advisor to two Israeli prime ministers, memri.org, November 1, 2023

The Trump administration needs to understand what Arabs have known for years: that Qatar’s support for Hamas and other extremist Islamist groups is the main reason thousands of Israelis and Palestinians have died over the past few years.

US President Donald Trump’s recent statements regarding Qatar’s role in reaching the Israel-Hamas ceasefire-hostage deal surprised many, especially those who are familiar with the Gulf state’s longtime support for radical Islamist groups.

“Qatar is absolutely trying to help,” Trump told reporters in Washington. “I know them well, and they’re doing everything they can. Very tough situation, but they’re absolutely trying to help.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/trump-has-an-opportunity-in-asia/

Marco Rubio’s confirmation for Secretary of State is most noteworthy for its bipartisan acceptance. While his confirmation hearing did not feature clickbait shouting matches, it did include a unique vision for furthering American interests in a region that the United States has largely neglected: Central Asia. During his testimony, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) discussed the region’s potential for realizing President Donald Trump’s policy priorities, especially with regard to energy and containing China.

Central Asia – which includes the countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan – must be a strategic focus of American policy. The region offers a wealth of existing and untapped energy resources, both hydrocarbons and the critical minerals vital for high-tech and green energy. It is bordered by China, Afghanistan, Iran, and Russia – making it crucial to many of America’s core foreign policy priorities.

However, Central Asia has long been a blind spot in U.S. foreign policy. Within the labyrinthine bowels of the State Department, it has been repeatedly shuffled between different bureaus. American diplomats and experts working on the region often do so as a byproduct of prior education in Soviet studies, insufficiently grasping the region’s needs and challenges. U.S. policy in the region needs a shakeup.

After the Soviet Union collapsed, the United States focused on the region’s most urgent necessities. Relations with Central Asia initially focused on denuclearization, economic liberalization, and arms control. After 9/11, the focus shifted towards removing the Taliban in Afghanistan, rooting out al Qaeda, and the Global War on Terror. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and other Central Asian states supported these security efforts by working alongside the United States.

Central Asia remains receptive to American foreign policy. When the trade war with China began, Central Asian states did not help China avoid tariffs. Many states in the region are eager for trade and investment, not handouts, and even when the United States erected tariffs, they maintained a low-tariff regime and welcomed American exports. This is not just for economic reasons but geopolitical ones: to reduce dependency on Russia and China.