Ukraine Beseeches the NATO Alliance

On 7 July, 2026, speaking at NATO’s Summit Defense Industry Forum in Turkey, Ukrainian President Zelensky made the case that Ukraine should be in the NATO military alliance even though that country was still being invaded by Russia, so the activation of the alliance’s article 5’s mutual-defense mandate would be dicey to say the least. Accepting an existing “hot spot” into the alliance would be risky not least because of any immediate expectations of having to join a fight already in progress, but also because of what Russia’s President Putin’s reaction might be. Zelensky’s remarks can thus be regarded as partial, or one-sided, from the standpoint of a full geo-political and military-strategic analysis.

The full essay is at "Ukraine Beseeches the NATO Alliance."

The E.U. as a Mediator between Russia and Ukraine: A Conflict of Interest

To be a neutral arbitrator of a conflict between two other countries, a government cannot favor one of the two; otherwise, the veneer of neutrality is undercut by the interest of preferring one position over the other. The duty to act neutrally, which the role of arbitrator includes or implies, can be exploited by the subterranean—or even explicit!—non-normative, private-benefits interest to support one of the two sides. To put one’s own private interest above a broader-benefitting interest, such as in entailed in a duty to act neutrally, is to exploit a conflict of interest. Governments can exploit conflicts of interest. With regard to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the E.U.’s foreign minister (or de facto commissioner) disabused the public of any thoughts that the E.U. could, and thus would, be a neutral arbitrator between Russia and Ukraine. Such transparency lies in stark contrast to the illusory impression by the U.S. that it was in any position to arbitrate between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, for the U.S. was firmly on the side of Israel.

The full essay is at "The E.U. as a Mediator between Russia and Ukraine."

Guidelines Puffed Up as Law: Should under the Subterfuge of Must

During the coronavirus pandemic (2020-2022), Arizona’s Ducey administration allowed bus and light-rail employees to go maskless even though they were in close contact with the public. Bus drivers were even getting sick. The “rationale” of the Phoenix transit authority was that the federal regulation is “just a mandate.” Because the word mandate means “an authoritative command,” the rationale that being a mandate renders a law or government regulation as optional can only be spurious at best; this is a case of arrogant ignorance that can’t possibly be wrong about itself in the member-state that ranked 49^th out of 50 on public education. As an authoritative command, a law, even as implemented in regulations, has what Kant called necessity in that law itself cannot be bent; it stands firm in itself as law. In contrast, a guideline connotes flexibility rather than necessity. It follows that enforcement must pertain to laws (including regulations) but not to guidelines. I contend that what are commonly referred to as international laws are actually international guidelines. Such “laws” lack viable enforcement mechanisms and thus are actually guidelines for governments engaged in international relations.

The full essay is at "Guidelines Puffed Up as Law."

A Big-State Governor Usurps the Role of the European Council's President

The governor of a large state, if speaking for the E.U., risks not only undercutting federal officials who can speak for the E.U., but also subtly orienting federal policy in the interest of that state rather than the entire union. It is important, therefore, that the president of the European Council be tasked with speaking publicly for the Council, rather than usurped.

The full essay is at "Big States in the European Council."

Russia’s Bottom-Line on Ukraine

As American, Ukrainian, and Russian negotiating delegations were flying around the world in early December, 2025 to conduct various negotiating sessions, all the while without the presidents of Russia and Ukraine meeting, it was difficult for bystanders to keep an eye on the proverbial ball as it was being kicked around by offers and counter-offers, and complicated by the high-profiled presence of the businessman, Jared Kushner, who happened to be married to one of U.S. President Trump’s daughters. Kushner was also highly visible in the negotiations on Gaza, which almost certainly included real-estate development. To be sure, commercial and investment deals can easily remain subterranean while the public discourse stays on the political relations between nations, and even just the latter may lack transparency. Democratic accountability in democratic republics as concerning the conduct and results of foreign policy can be difficult. Especially difficult to gauge was the hand being closely held by Russia’s President Putin. I contend that his willingness to negotiate was consistently overestimated by the West and Ukraine.

The full essay is at "Russia's Bottom-Line on Ukraine." 

Paradigm-Change in International Relations: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine as a Primer

“We remain committed to the principle that international borders must not be changed by force.”[1] This statement was signed by E.U. leaders, as well as officials at the state level, and even leaders of sovereign European states such as Britain and Norway several days after U.S. president Trump had met with officials from Ukraine at the White House on October 17, 2025. If only the Europeans had been so unified in 1939; it is difficult to fathom how the world would be 14 years short of a century later had World War II not taken place. Force as a de facto decider of territory has been the default through human history. For the principle of the European political leaders to become the default would represent a step forward in our species’ political development, but the even though principle sounds great, it also looks hopelessly idyllic and not at all realistic.

The full essay is at "Paradigm-Shift in International Relations."

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1. Euronews, “European Leaders Back Ukraine Ceasefire Proposal at Current Contact Line,” Euronews.com, 21 October 2025.

Russia’s President Putin: Political Realism with Lies

As a former KGB agent, Russia’s President Putin could probably write a book and teach a course on the art of lying, or fabrication, as means of doing foreign policy, which manipulation being the not so subtle subtext. The tactic can be reckoned as being expedient, with the loss of value in reputational capital being assessed to be a cost worth incurring. That Putin lied to U.S. President Trump in Alaska in 2025 on the Russian’s intention to “put an end to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine” should have caught the American off guard, if the claim made by Kurt Volker, an American envoy to Ukraine that Putin had indeed lied to Trump about being willing to meet and negotiate with the Ukrainian president is true.[1] The American president was, in short, naïve even in being willing to meet with his Russian counterpart, especially without the president of the E.U. present too, at least to serve as a reality-test regarding Putin’s real game, for Europe had more to lose—more on the line—than did America from incursions from the east. Political realism is the theory that best fits the Russian president.

The full essay is at "Russia's President Putin." 

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1. Sasha Vakulina and Shona Murray, “’Putin Lied to Trump and Made Him Look Weak,’ Former US Envoy to Ukraine Says,” Euronews.com, 6 October 2025.

Russia Damages E.U. Diplomatic Offices: Implications for International Law

Even though the Vienna Convention of 1961 includes protections for diplomatic and consular properties in active war-zones, Russia’s attack of 629 missiles and drones on Kiev, Ukraine, came within 50 meters of the E.U.’s diplomatic offices there late on August 27, 2025, severely damaging them but killing nobody in the E.U.’s delegation. The two bombs that hit nearby were enough to give the Europeans the impression that President Putin of Russia did not consider himself bound by international law in war. To the extent that fighting between two sovereign countries, Russia and Ukraine, fits Hobbes’ infamous state of nature, international law is really not law at all, for jurisprudence, including mutually acknowledged rights, requires an overarching polity to enact and enforce laws. So the E.U. could not enjoy a right to be sparred death and destruction at its diplomatic offices in Kiev during the war there, but the Union could claim another right at Russia’s expense within the E.U.’s territory.

A The full essay is at "Russia Damages E.U. Diplomatic Offices."

Trump Meets Putin on Ukraine: On the Exclusion of the E.U.

Like proud male birds dancing for a female for the chance to reproduce, U.S. President Trump and Ukraine’s Zelensky engaged in public posturing ahead of the negotiations set to take place between Trump and Vlad the Impaler Putin of Russia in Alaska on August 15, 2025. For the public, to take the postures as real positions, set in stone, would be nothing short of depraved naivete. Missing in action in all this posturing was E.U. President Van der Leyen and the E.U.’s foreign minister. Instead, the governors of two, albeit large, E.U. states were busy making demands as if their respective political bases were more powerful than the E.U. as a whole. In short, Van der Leyen missed an opportunity to join the dance of posturing.

The full essay is at "Trump Meets Putin on Ukraine."

Insulting Police in Georgia: Totalitarianism Criminalizing Politics

Whereas the Georgia in North America has been a member-state of the U.S. from that union’s beginning, the Georgia in Europe was still not annexed by the E.U. slightly more than 30 years after that Union’s beginning. Whether to join an empire-scale union of states is a political decision, as a union of states is a political animal. When a prospective state government criminalizes political protest and public discourse on that decision, such a government violates the federal requirement that the state governments adhere to democratic principles, which exclude criminalizing the political opposition. The government of Georgia in Europe crossed this line when a politician of the opposition was arrested for insulting the state police.

The full essay is at "Insulting Police in Georgia."

Beyond Description, Atrocious, Inhumane: The New Normal?

“The situation for Palestinians in Gaza is beyond description, beyond atrocious and beyond inhumane.”[1] So wrote Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, on May 17, 2025. He could have been looking at films taken when the Nazi concentration camps were liberated in 1945 at the end of World War II. It was a shock to the world back then. The scale of the inhumane atrocity of over a million people living in rubble and starving by design in the next century raises the question of whether extreme inhumanity toward a group in searing hatred was becoming normalized, and thus tolerated by the world absent even a coalition of the willing to step in and counter what even democracy could inflict.

The full essay is at "Beyond Description, Atrocious, Inhumane."

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1. Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, LinkedIn.com, May 17, 2025.

Malcolm X on Gaza

Malcolm X (né Malcolm Little) visited the West Bank and Gaza during his lifetime, including many refugee camps, a hospital, and a mosque. He had talked on Palestine, and his trip “deeply transformed him.” He wrote a critique of Zionism shortly before he was killed. Black Nationalists in the U.S., including De Bois, had viewed the Jewish fight for self-determination and nationhood as a struggle like that of Black Americans in the United States. Malcolm, however, advocated for the Palestinians because of how the Jewish nation had materialized at the expense of Palestinians, as many had been thrown out of their houses with little or no notice when the state of Israel was founded. Former victims had become victimizers, and the UN had failed to oversee the transition, which could easily have been anticipated to be rough. As tempting as it is to discuss the atrocities being committed in Gaza in 2024-2025, the thread running throughout Malcolm’s political philosophy is also worthy of attention. I submit that the sheer extent of intentional civilian casualties and injuries both in Ukraine and Gaza render Malcolm’s political philosophy anything but radical in retrospect.

The full essay is at "Malcolm X on Gaza." 

On the Potential of International Business to Render War Obsolete: The Case of Russian Gas

In a graduate-level course on international business, a professor sketched out the political-economic philosophy of international business, whose mantra is that if two or more countries have enough trade and foreign direct-investment, those countries would be less likely to go to war. In short, economic interdependence, thanks to international business, can render war obsolete and thus greatly enhance the human condition. Decades after I had taken that course, a business professor at the same university wrote extensively on the role that business can play in facilitating peace. Unfortunately, that economically-sourced theory of international relations downplays or ignores that the reasons or rationales for going to war and the decisions taken by a government for military-strategic reasons during a war can trump the (especially immediate) economic benefits from international business, whether in terms of imports, exports, or foreign direct-investment by foreign firms at home or by domestic firms abroad. This can occur even though revenue from taxes or state-owned enterprises having to do with trade and foreign-direct investment can help a government in fighting a war. The case of Ukraine cutting off Russian natural gas from traveling through Ukraine in pipes to the E.U. as of January 1, 2025 is illustrative of vulnerability in the theory of international business as a way to world peace.

The full essay is at "On the Potential of International Business."

Pope Francis: Urbi et Orbi Against War

Although Pope Francis of the Roman Catholic Church could not amass a countervailing military force, he could use his pulpit to excoriate the world’s military aggressors in moral terms. Gone are the days when popes wielded military forces and whose threats of excommunication and damnation could be used with effect; modern-day popes speaking to a global audience, which includes non-Christians (not to mention non-Catholics), must resort to moral suasion. So it is ironic that as unprovoked military attacks on civilians have become more massive and increasingly against the norm expected of governments, the influence of popes has decreased, both militarily and theologically, in international affairs. Even so, Pope Francis was able to appeal to a theological belief and value in Christianity during his Christmas Day, 2024 public address at the Vatican. Although not in itself enough to thwart the invasions and related crimes against humanity in Gaza especially, but also in Ukraine, the main impact may be said to be in throwing some light on just how antipodal Russia’s President Putin and Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu were from the distinctively Christian the kingdom of God, both as a concept and a spiritual reality fundamentally at odds with the ways of the world. In other words, there is value in the world being able to grasp that two degrees of separation exist between military invaders intent on harming and killing innocent civilians and the kingdom of God as described in the Gospels by Jesus.

The full essay is at "Pope Francis's Christmas Urbi et Orbi Message."

The ICC Indicts Israeli and Hamas Officials: On the Perils of Absolutist National Sovereignty

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, Ben Netanyahu, former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and the military commander of Hamas on November 21, 2024. With the world having had centuries wherein national sovereignty has been the basis of the international order, the heads of national governments could be expected to instantly bolt from just being indicted by an international court. Since the world woke up in 1945 to learn of the Nazi atrocities against Slavs (20 million), Jews (6 million), intellectuals and gays, whether murdered in concentration camps or on the proverbial street, as well as reading as years went by of Stalin’s mass-graves from his government’s mass-murders of Ukrainians, Poles, and even Russians, the hegemonic doctrine that the sovereignty of a state should be absolute has been barely subject to any resistance. So when the ICC has issued arrest warrants, it has been up to national governments around the world to enforce the warrants by arresting the heads of other governments charged with having violated international law. This weakness in the constraint on what would otherwise be absolutist national sovereignty attests to the marginal degree to which that doctrine has actually been questioned since 1945. In other words, the international order can be said to occupy a rather uncomfortable ‘betwixt and between’ position with respect to whether the sovereignty of countries should be constrained internationally. Not until international law comes complete with real enforcement powers will the world be able to say that heads of governments (and of state) are no longer in a state of nature as described by Thomas Hobbes in his tomb, Leviathan.   

The full essay is at "The ICC Indicts Israeli and Hamas Officials."

Resolved: The E.U. Should Join NATO

I contend that the European Union rather than its states should be in NATO. Besides eliminating duplication from the E.U. having a nebulous observer status while the states are formally in the alliance, the increasing role in defense being played by the Commission, including there being a Defense commissioner (secretary/minister), calls for being formally in the alliance. Whereas the U.S. began as a military alliance of sovereign states, the E.U. can trace its beginnings to the European Economic Community. Both unions have since incorporated powers or competencies beyond the respective starting points. For the E.U. this has meant moving beyond economics and trade to include social policy and, last but not least, defense. It is in NATO’s interest to adapt to this change. Lastly, that the E.U. and U.S. are both instances of (early) modern federalism, which at its core has the attribute of dual-sovereignty wherein both the federal and the state levels enjoy at least some governmental sovereignty, whereas NATO, as an international alliance, is confederal in that all of the sovereignty resides in the members of the alliance, justifies the E.U. being a member of NATO rather than being misinterpreted as a comparable international organization as the state-rights Euroskeptics like to believe.

The full essay is at "The E.U. in NATO."

On the Reach of the International Criminal Court

Deeply hindered by the lack of enforcement mechanisms, international law can too easily be evaded or violated outright by government officials of countries who easily sense the ability to act so with impunity. Was the president of Mongolia such an official, and thus to be considered as blameworthy, when he did not have Russia’s President Putin arrested as soon as he touched down on Mongolian soil and sent to the International Criminal Court in 2024 for war crimes committed in Ukraine, including forcibly taking Ukrainian children to Russia? Is Mongolia’s acquiescence just another case of the implacable impotence of international law?

The full essay is at "On the Reach of the International Criminal Court."

Putin’s Pals: Billionaire Junkies

Arkady Rotenberg, a former judo coach, became a billionaire industrialist by selling pipe to the state-owned gas monopoly, Gazprom. Meanwhile, owning a minority state in a small bank in St. Petersburg that won control of another of Gazprom subsidiaries, Yuri Kovalchuk gained a net worth of $1.5 billion. Gennady Timchenko, “once the little-known sales manager of a local oil refinery,” went on to become one of the richest men in the world by co-owning “a commodity trading company that moves about $70 billion of crude oil a year, much of it through major contracts with Rosneft, the Russian national oil company.” What these billionaires shared besides getting rich was a certain connection—namely to Vladimir Putin.

Vladimir Putin arrives for a campaign rally in Moscow.  Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

The full essay is at "Putin's Pals."

Russia’s Putin beyond Constitutional Government: The Case of Aleksei Navalny

With a judge handing down a five-year suspended prison sentence, a fine of 500,000 rubles (about $8,400), and a ban on participating in the upcoming presidential election in 2017, Aleksei Navalny could feel just how power can be wielded by high government officials, including even presidents—power ultimately backed up by stern men with guns with the legal right to use lethal force. This, I submit, is what government comes down to—it’s bottom line.

The true look of a government's power. (Sergei Brovko/Reuters)

The full essay is at "Russia's Putin beyond Constitutional Government."