And meanwhile, the Iranian regime continues political executions at the rate of nearly 6 per week ... [updated]

"Only Trump could be stupid, ignorant and immoral enough to start a (just) war against an evil regime, and to leave them better off and more powerful than before the war. What a complete pile of shit he is."

~ @RyanSchenck

"I am still shocked that Secretary Rubio announced that 'The operation is over - Epic Fury,' without achieving any of their war objectives: 

(1) no removal of enriched uranium and elimination forever of Iran's nuclear program, 

(2) no constraints on missile production, 

(3) no end of funding for terrorists & 

(4) without liberating the Iranian people..

"Epic Fury is going to be remembered as Epic Failure."

~ @MichaelMcFaul

TRUMP, Jan 13: "Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING - TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!... HELP IS ON ITS WAY"

"Donald Trump promised to come to the aid of Iranian protesters if the regime used lethal force against them. This undoubtedly played a role in their rising up. Now, possibly thousands lie dead ... this is another low point in a presidency of low points: making promises without the means to back them up, and now people lie dead. Shameful. This is the issue with a presidency incapable of thinking through second- and third-order effects. ...
    "Trump was very specific in the support he offered. 'Knock hell' out of the regime. It is clear that promise was made when the US was not in a position to deliver."

~ @AndrewFox

"If this deal is actually signed, it would be a fitting end to a campaign that began as 'Epic Fury' and is ending as 'Epic Disaster.' What started as a war supposedly aimed at toppling the regime and dismantling its nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities may instead leave Iran’s regime stronger than before — empowered by sanctions relief, still retaining significant missile capabilities, continuing support for its proxies, and almost certainly preserving uranium enrichment on its own soil. And then there’s the additional 'bonus' nobody even mentioned at the outset: the Strait of Hormuz is now firmly back at the centre of global strategic risk. The truly grim reality is that this may still be the best available option for the administration out of a set of deeply flawed alternatives. At least Iran is [possibly] unlikely to obtain a nuclear weapon in the immediate future. But the central question remains: what was the strategic logic of launching a war whose end state may ultimately be worse than the conditions that existed before it began? A failure from beginning to end."

~ @Danny(Dennis)Citrinowicz

"Of all the objectives floated before and after the war began, almost none have been achieved.
    "Yes, the US and Israel destroyed a lot of Iranian military assets. But strategically, Iran still holds the uranium, the regime, and the Strait. ...
    "What I see is an American president desperately looking for a way out of the mess he created. So the administration is trying to put a bow on it ...
    "This whole catastrophe rested on a false assumption that the regime would collapse once the supreme leader was killed. Everybody knew Iran would try to block the Strait. You cannot just bluster through everything and expect reality to bend to you."

~ former Commander General USArmyEurope Ben Hodges

"[A]n end to the conflict and long-term peace requires an end to the evil Islamic regime of Iran. Any 'agreement' is just a new Munich Pact of 1938 with the failed promise of 'peace in our time'."

~ @AdamMossoff 

UPDATE:

We're all still talking about Iran as if the only relevant thing is the price of a barrel of oil ...

"Commerce first taught nations to see with goodwill the wealth and prosperity of one another."

"[C]ommerce first taught nations to see with goodwill the wealth and prosperity of one another. Before, the patriot, unless sufficiently advanced in culture to feel the world his country, wished all countries weak, poor, and ill-governed but his own: he now sees in their wealth and progress a direct source of wealth and progress to his own country. 

    "It is commerce which is rapidly rendering war obsolete, by strengthening and multiplying the personal interests which are in natural opposition to it. And it may be said without exaggeration that the great extent and rapid increase of international trade, in being the principal guarantee of the peace of the world, is the great permanent security for the uninterrupted progress of the ideas, the institutions, and the character of the human race"

~ John Stuart Mill from his 1848 book Principles of Political Economy, under the heading 'Indirect benefits of Commerce, Economical and Moral; still greater than the Direct'

"Observe the nature of today's alleged peace movements...."

"Observe the nature of today's alleged peace movements. Professing love and concern for the survival of mankind... Yet these same peace movements do not oppose dictatorships. The political views of their members range through all shades of the statist spectrum, from welfare statism to socialism to fascism to communism. This means that they are opposed to the use of coercion by one nation against another, but not by the government of a nation against its own citizens. It means that they are opposed to the use of force against armed adversaries, but not against the disarmed."

~ Ayn Rand from her article 'The Roots of War' [hat tip Objectobot]

Your complete five-minute summary of yet another round of 'negotiations' in Geneva

"I’ll save you five minutes of your time today so you don’t have to read the news about yet another round of 'negotiations' in Geneva.

"[First,] Ukraine is still willing to agree to absolutely any ceasefires, compromises, a halt to the war, a freeze along the front line, and all possible and impossible mineral deals to please Donald Trump -- but it is not willing to capitulate and be destroyed by Russia. 

"[Second,] Russia still refuses any ceasefires, any compromises, any halt to the war -- and agrees to nothing short of Ukrainian surrender, with ever-growing demands leading ultimately to Ukraine’s destruction. 

"And [third] the U.S. administration still has neither the power to force Ukraine to surrender, nor the conscience or the wisdom to stop this idiotic charade with Putin and instead to begin pressuring Russia and arming Ukraine so that Ukraine can make Russia accept a stable and lasting peace. 

"[In conclusion:] The parties agreed on nothing and will meet again at yet another meaningless 'summit' in a month, so that Russia can continue buying time and making a fool of Donald Trump while continuing to destroy Ukraine. 

"You’re welcome."

~ Ilya Ponomarenko

"From bored of peace to Board of Peace in five days"

"Just a few days ago, on Sunday, the president wrote that he no longer felt 'an obligation to think purely of Peace,' since he hadn’t been awarded the Nobel Prize. Yet here he was: from bored of peace to Board of Peace in five days. Forget the road to Damascus; true conversions happen on the jet to Davos.

"And who better to solve the world’s conflicts than the man who, in his speech at the WEF a day earlier, became confused about whether he wished to illegally seize Greenland or Iceland? ...

“'Everybody wants to be a part of it,' Trump insisted of his new club. But big European countries had already turned him down. The initial members include Saudi Arabia, Israel and Belarus. Vladimir Putin says Russia may join too, if, and this is not a joke, he can pay the membership from Russia’s frozen assets. If these guys can run a peace initiative, the Sinaloa Cartel can run Narcotics Anonymous."

~ Henry Mance in Financial Times op-ed 'From bored of peace to the Board of Peace'

Did Trump end 6 wars in 6 months?

"U.S. President Donald Trump often claimed in his second presidential term that he stopped six wars within six months. On Aug. 18, 2025, during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy while calling for an end to the Ukraine-Russia war, Trump said he had 'ended' six wars.

"He made a similar claim days before the meeting, saying in an interview with Fox News, 'I've solved six wars in six months' and repeating the claim during remarks in the Oval Office. And in July 2025, Trump said, 'I'm averaging about a war a month' referring to the apparent wars he had helped end. Our readers have asked Snopes to fact-check Trump's claim. ...

"Trump and his team at various times had referred to the following seven, not six, conflicts: Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda, India and Pakistan, Iran and Israel, Cambodia and Thailand, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Serbia and Kosovo, and even Egypt and Ethiopia. ... 

"Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda ... Trump's claim to broker peace in this case is widely off the mark.

"India and Pakistan ... Neither country has officially declared war in many of their major conflicts including this one. Trump claimed the two countries agreed to a 'full and immediate ceasefire' after talks mediated by the U.S. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif thanked Trump 'for his leadership and proactive role for peace in the region. However, India's foreign ministry said Trump played no role in mediation. ...

"Iran and Israel ... Trump can be credited with pressuring both Israel and Iran to stop hostilities, though the U.S. was an active combatant in the hostilities. ... Iran and Israel's rhetoric suggests another war can break out again any day.

"Cambodia and Thailand ... Even though Trump pressured the two countries to agree to a ceasefire, the underlying conflict is still ongoing, including their competing claims over centuries-old Hindu temples along their borders.

"Armenia and Azerbaijan ... [Azerbaijan's] Aliyev and [Armenia's] Pashinyan both praised Trump, saying he helped end the conflict and said they would nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize. Lasting peace in the region hinges on a range of factors including whether Russia continues to exert influence and over fears around Armenia and Azerbaijan's longer history of failed negotiations.

"Serbia and Kosovo ... In 2020, during his first term, Trump brokered an economic normalisation agreement between the two countries, dubbed The Washington Agreement. .... However, the two countries were not in active conflict at the time.... It is not clear what conflict Trump resolved in his second term as president. ... 

"Egypt and Ethiopia ... Even though the White House confirmed to us that this was a war Trump helped resolve in his first term, neither country has reached a deal, nor is there an open war taking place, making this particular claim suspect. 

"Israel and Gaza ... Trump has been unable to stop Israel's ongoing bombardment of Gaza ...

"Russia and Ukraine ... Trump has also been unable to resolve the current crisis ..."

~ Snopes from their post 'Examining Trump's claim he ended 6 wars in 6 months'

"This is also the reason why the olive branch became a symbol for peace"

 

"Athena, goddess of wisdom and war, was the guardian of the city [of Athens], and she had offered it the gift of the olive tree. Since it takes many years for olive trees to bear plenty of fruit, the planting of so many olive trees in Athens indicates that people had hope for the future and they had found ways to feed themselves until then.
    "This is also the reason why the olive branch became a symbol for peace. If it takes two decades for your trees to bear a substantial harvest, you are extra vulnerable to warfare that might wipe out all your investments in one moment. Therefore olive growers usually insisted on negotiations and reconciliation when city-states were at each other's throats, and the olive came to symbolise both commerce and peace."

~ Johan Norberg on free trade as a powerful palliative for conflict and war. From his book Peak Human: What We Can Learn From the Rise dnd Fall of Golden Ages [hat tip Tony Morley]

Time to learn what causes peace

Pic: German city in ruins after World War II

"I see many people blaming the U.S. and Israel for the perils faced by uncivilised countries in the Middle East and for never-ending wars. People say that instability of Middle East was caused by US interference in the region in its pursuit of economic and geopolitical interests. I do agree that US foreign policy is often worthy of contempt, but I think this vision is short-sighted and ignores essential factors in the region: harmful ideology and resulting barbarism.

"Consider Japan and Germany: they are now regarded as peaceful and civilised despite having been bombed and nuked by the U.S.

"Could this transformation be due to the fact that the U.S. and its Western allies won the WAR against evil regimes?

"After this victory, did the Japanese and Germans learn from their experiences, make better choices, and abandon harmful ideologies?

"I believe that blaming the U.S. and its Western allies for the issues in the Middle East demonstrates a misunderstanding of what defines a civilised country and what truly fosters peace.

"To blame the West for Middle East perils is as absurd as blaming the U.S. for the ruins of Germany and Japan after World War II, rather than holding the brutal Nazi and Japanese imperial ideologies and regimes accountable for unleashing hell on earth in the first place.

"It is about time for enough people to learn what truly causes peace between people and nations.

"I don’t believe it comes from compromising with evil or through unconditional love. I believe people make choices, we judge them, act accordingly, and give them what they deserve. Justice exists.

"I believe people can find out what makes a cause just, and what brings about peace among men. But it requires the willingness to think and seek it out."

~ Felipe Lapyda

"If men want to oppose war..."

"If men want to oppose war, it is statism that they must oppose. So long as they hold the tribal notion that the individual is sacrificial fodder for the collective, that some men have the right to rule others by force, and that some (any) alleged 'good' can justify it—there can be no peace within a nation and no peace among nations.”

~ Ayn Rand, from her article 'The Roots of War'

For once, Trump was decisive when needed [UPDATED]

[UPDATE: Facts have been revealed since Trump's statement revealing that whatever trust was place in him, it was once gain misplaced. See below...]

THE GOOD (OR MOSTLY)

For once, Trump was decisive when needed. And almost as authoritative in his statement afterwards as required. Almost.

A short time ago [he said], the U.S. military carried out massive, precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime. Fordo, Natanz and Esfahan. Everybody heard those names for years as they built this horribly destructive enterprise.
    Our objective was the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of terror.

Clearly stated. The identification of Iran as the leading state sponsor of terrorism is crucial. 

[UPDATE: The identification of Iran as the leading state sponsor of terrorism is still crucial. Putting a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of terror remains important. .And the U.S. military did carry out strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime, Fordo, Natanz and Esfahan. All else is conjecture.]

Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not. Future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier. 

[UPDATE: No evidence has been tendered since as to the success of the primary objective. Evidence exists that 400kg of the nuclear material targeted was removed from the facility at least two days before the mission. Evidence about which Vance and Trump are thoroughly evasive. Vance admits he has no clue. Trump has no idea, and less interest, in the level of destruction.]

The claim that nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated is as yet unproven, and must be taken on trust. (Something in which this Administration is in short supply, unfortunately). Even with fourteen of 14 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs of the kind used on the underground facilities, doubt still remains that they would have had the capacity to fully succeed. Independent corroboration will hopefully follow, however (fingers crossed), and all being well will put an end to the kind of destruction a nuclear-powered state sponsor of terrorism could do.

And however ironic it might seem to talk about peace after a substantial (though surgical) military attack, the removal of Iran's nuclear threat—coupled with the destruction by Israel of Iran's proxies, should at least put the idea in any rational mind still left in the Iranian regime that peace would be a good thing going forward. 

For 40 years, Iran has been saying. Death to America, death to Israel. They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs, with roadside bombs. That was their specialty. We lost over 1,000 people and hundreds of thousands throughout the Middle East, and around the world have died as a direct result of their hate in particular. [UPDATE: This remains true.] So many were killed by their general, Qassim Soleimani. I decided a long time ago that I would not let this happen. It will not continue.

[UPDATE: The New York Times suggests a stronger motivation for Trump's decision to go was simple FOMO.]

A good reminder that, no matter the US's own desires for the last forty years, Iran has been at war with their "Great Satan" since 1979. So this response is not wholly either unprovoked, nor without justification. 

With all of that being said, this cannot continue. There will be either peace, or there will be tragedy for Iran, far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days. Remember, there are many targets left. Tonight’s was the most difficult of them all, by far, and perhaps the most lethal. But if peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill. Most of them can be taken out in a matter of minutes. There’s no military in the world that could have done what we did tonight. Not even close. There has never been a military that could do what took place just a little while ago. 

This is all very probably true.

Tomorrow, General Caine, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth will have a press conference at 8 a.m. at the Pentagon. 

No further corroboration of nuclear enrichment et al was given. Simply operational details.

[UPDATE; Nor has any been given since.]

And I want to just thank everybody. And, in particular, God. I want to just say, we love you, God, and we love our great military. Protect them. God bless the Middle East. God bless Israel and God bless America. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Boilerplate. But ("I want to just say, we love you, God") very strange boilerplate. Even at his most serious, Trump can't help but misfire.

The most important thing said here is that the world's number on state sponsor of terrorism has had its nuclear rug pulled out from under it. We hope. 

That this follows the defanging by Israel of Iran and its regime and its proxies around the Middle East.

That this followed telegraphed red lines that, for once, came with real consequences.

[O]ne thing that follows is that threats and deadlines from the Trump administration, unlike those from the Obama and Biden administrations, will be taken seriously in the future. Obama’s “red line” was bluster; Trump’s was not. He gave the Iranians a deadline and when they failed to comply, he destroyed [we hope] their nuclear capability.

[UPDATE: His unilateral announcement of ceasefires since, his flip-flopping from "Unconditional Surrender" to "God bless Iran," his childish tantrums over his grandstanding being ignored, have all overturned whatever gains were made.]

The unspoken topic not touched upon here is what happens now to the regime itself.

[UPDATE:  Trump and Vance could not care less.]

"After 46 years of this regime’s hollow bluster, we’re seeing the first light of victory,” a 45-year-old lawyer from a suburb of Tehran told The Free Press. “I feel the same way the French felt on D-Day.” Not a universal feeling, but neither is he alone.

Iranian regime change has to be on Iranians themselves. "Thanks to the benevolence and heroism of the Israelis, [they] now have an unprecedented opportunity to liberate [them]selves from the ideas and institutions that have enslaved [them] for nearly half a century." The best the west could and should do from here on is help make the argument on their behalf that it is necessary, and make the external conditions possible for them to succeed. 

[UPDATE: "Incredibly, a growing body of evidence indicates that a solid majority of Iranians have, in the last two or three years, come to reject their regime. I was shocked but delighted to learn that atheism is now an accepted position for Iranians. ... Ordinary Iranians no longer accept the theocracy’s legitimacy."]

THE BAD

"And here is our evidence that Iran's nuclear programme is an objective threat," said nobody. Nobody in the Administration even attempted to make the cogent case. 

That is a complete failure.

[UPDATE: And remains so.]

The only attempt made was Trump's curt dismissal of his own security advice that it was no threat. "Trust me, bro" seems the only argument tendered. [UPDATE: And remains so.] Yet Trump is far from the credible source on which anyone would want to rely in coming to judgement, let alone his chosen Defence Secretary.

Was the Iranian nuclear programme an objective threat? Probably. Did the Administration attempt to make the case? They didn't bother. [UPDATE: And still haven't.]

That's bad.

So too, probably, is the quiet suspicion that we might be watching a late sequel to Wag the Dog. After all, who's now talking about those Epstein files ...

THE UGLY

The Administration didn't bother making the case for there being an objective threat, as they should have ... and instead, earlier in the week, Trump's own handpicked National Security Advisor spoke to Congress in direct contradiction to the Trump case. "We have no evidence that Iran is building a nuke" said Tulsi Gabbard echoing direct Russian talking points, and suggesting her briefing came from somewhere further away than just down the Potomac.

And you'll remember that this president, like every other, swore an oath to preserve and defend the US Constitution—a Constitution demanding that only Congress can authorise going to war. Even under the War Powers Resolution of 1973. the president's strikes against Iran are "completely and unambiguously unlawful." [UPDATE: And remains so.] So there's that. 

The identification of Iran as the leading state sponsor of terrorism is crucial. One could only wish in other news to hear a similar condemnation of Russia as the leading sponsor of global disruption, nihilism, and European war. But one thing at a time, I guess. [UPDATE: Meanwhile, Ukraine waits...]

Compromise: A Ukranian example

"It is only in regard to concretes or particulars, implementing a mutually accepted basic principle, that one may compromise. For instance, one may bargain with a buyer over the price one wants to receive for one's product, and agree on a sum somewhere between one's demand and his offer. The mutually accepted basic principle, in such case, is the principle of trade, namely: that the buyer must pay the seller for his product. But if one wanted to be paid and the alleged buyer wanted to obtain one's product for nothing, no compromise, agreement or discussion would be possible, only the total surrender of one or the other.

There can be no compromise between a property owner and a burglar; offering the burglar a single teaspoon of one's silverware would not be a compromise, but a total surrender—the recognition of his right to one's property. ...

"Contrary to the fanatical belief of its advocates, compromise [on basic principles] does not satisfy, but dissatisfies everybody; it does not lead to general fulfillment, but to general frustration; those who try to be all things to all men, end up by not being anything to anyone. And more: the partial victory of an unjust claim, encourages the claimant to try further; the partial defeat of a just claim, discourages and paralyzes the victim. ...

"In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromiser is the transmitting rubber tube . . ."

~ Ayn Rand, composite quote from here articles 'The Cashing-In: The Student 'Rebellion',' 'Doesn't Life Require Compromise?,' and 'Galt's Speech.' [Hat tip for cartoon Maksym Borodin]

'The Moral Case for Globalisation'

"THE TERM TYPICALLY USED to denote advocates of globalisation is 'globalists,' which has emerged primarily as a term of abuse, especially on the far right. 'There is no more left and right [says one]. The real cleavage is between the patriots and the globalists.' ...

"[T]his essay’s definition of globalisation is the relatively free movement of people, things, money, and ideas across natural or political borders. .... A consequence of increasing globalisation is an increasingly integrated and complex global system of production and exchange. ...

"There is a vast amount of evidence that documents the impact of reducing barriers to trade, travel, and other forms of exchange across borders. Much of it is presented in other essays in this series, such as Johan Norberg’s 'Globalisation: A Race to the Bottom—or to the Top?' Contrary to some critics of globalisation, the results have been spectacularly positive for the world’s poor, as wages have increased, jobs have become safer, and the use of children for labor has plummeted. Increasing wealth, in turn, is strongly connected to improving health, and the global spread of improvements in medicines and technologies has improved health outcomes even in regions that have not participated as much in the exchange of goods. ...

"People agree to exchange because they expect to be better off by exchanging than by not exchanging. Making it possible to exchange with more people is beneficial to those whose range of potential exchange partners has increased. Adam Smith titled the third chapter of his 'An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations' “That the Division of Labour is Limited by the Extent of the Market,” a thesis that he illustrated by demonstrating the greater prosperity and progress in the ancient world for those nations with proximity to the sea and to navigable rivers. Due to the lower friction of transportation over water compared to land, that proximity facilitated exchange with much larger areas and with many, many more people. To the extent that policies of governments erect barriers to exchange, it is analogous to making transportation deliberately more difficult, which would generally be understood to be harmful to the vast majority of people. ...

"Globalisation is not limited to the exchange of goods and services across borders; it also encompasses the exchange of ideas, as well as scientific, economic, artistic, and other forms of cooperation. ...

"Ever since Plato’s assault on the open society, critics of globalisation have tended to view cultural innovation and exchange as a pure loss rather than as the emergence of new forms of human life that increase the available store of possible human understandings and experiences. ...

"PEACE AND HARMONY ARE consequences of trade.

Cultural exchange is foundational to living cultures. Pasta, for which Italian cuisine is famous, has origins in Asia, whether it was brought to Italy by Marco Polo, as folklore tells, or earlier, and the tomatoes that form the base of many Italian sauces are cultivated from plants brought from Meso-America by Spaniards. Food has been globalised for millennia, but somehow that has not stopped it from developing an amazing diversity of identifiable cuisines, styles, and dishes with many distinctive characteristics. The same can be said of architecture, traditions, mores, religions, and every other element of human culture. ...

"The key to such peace is not merely the movement of goods and services across borders but voluntary exchange. ... Freedom to trade refers to the voluntary transfers of goods and services and not to state trafficking in tanks and missiles, the sale of products of forced labour (such as the products of Uyghur labourers imprisoned by the Chinese Communist Party), or the sale of nationalised products (such as the oil and gas resources that were confiscated by Putin). Exchange and transfers organised by conquest are mutually impoverishing, as Adam Smith demonstrated of the British Empire ...

"SINCE PLATO'S TIME, OPPONENTS of globalisation have sought to protect established orders from the voluntary choices of those who live in them. Increasing the opportunities for exchange, cooperation, communication, and travel is enriching for the majority, although it may threaten the hold on power of the rulers. Some prefer war over peace, because 'making bigger profits in peace' is worse than war. Reasonable people should think before embracing such attacks on globalisation ...

"Rigorous thinking and empirical research refute, one by one, attacks on globalisation in the name of morality. The world is better when barriers to free and voluntary cooperation are reduced. The world is better because of globalisation."

~ Tom Palmer from his article 'The Moral Case for Globalisation'

To AUKUS, or not to AUKUS?

"Economists think that the more interconnected countries are by trade and investment, the less likely warfare will occur between them. [See for instance the NOT PC posts 'Free Trade Is the Path to Peace & Prosperity' and 'The Horsemen of non-apocalypse']
    "On many occasions countries have consciously intensified those interconnections as an alternative to war.
    "Examples include the federation of the American states into the USA following a confederation after customs conflict between Maryland and Virginia; the European Coal and Steel Community (which evolved into the EU) tying up the French and Germany industries after three painful wars; ASEAN which was started after the Indonesian confrontation of Malaya ended; recently India has improved its physical and trade links with its neighbouring China and Pakistan.
    "Alas, economic relations between China and the US have deteriorated. That this occurred under both President Trump and President Biden suggests a structural tension arising from jostling over their places in the world. ...
     "One can explain the First World War and the follow-up Second World War as a consequence of Germany catching up in economic size to Britain and trying to find a comparable place in the world. (Neither noticed that the US was already bigger.) We may be grateful that moving from one global hegemon, Britain, to a second, the US, did not involve conflict between the two (although the two world wars accelerated the transfer from a weakened Britain). 
    "It is unlikely that China is going to be the next global hegemon. Rather, we are moving to a multipolar world where there is none. There is a plausible economic model which predicts that world economic output, and hence power, is moving to where the populations are – the situation before British industrialisation. It occurs because of the ease with which technology and capital can transfer between countries.
    "That does not mean that Chinese productivity will catch up to the American level – not in this century anyway. Factors like the resource base and social organisation mute the economics. ...
    "So behind today’s incipient economic warfare and military machinations we face a multipolar world whose shape is uncertain. ... The challenge for the world, then, is how to get from the current world order, in which the US acts the hegemon, to a multipolar world in which the US is but one of four or so big economies. Full multipolarity may be less than a quarter of a century away.
    "The US does not seem to see the issue this way. It is largely preoccupied with the short-term task of trying to maintain its current hegemony in a world whose order it sees as not too different from the immediate post-war one. ....
    "New Zealand may have little influence over the evolving world order. In so far as we have, we should be putting our effort in assisting it to move towards the reality of multipolarity. Ultimately New Zealand is having to balance its short-term interests against its long-term ones. I am not sure our friends always understand this."

~ Brian Easton from hist post 'Trading Towards A Multipolar World'

"Protecting the right and freedoms of the individual is the key to peace and prosperity for humanity."

 

I have no idea who (or what) Max Justice is, beyond this quote above, which I thoroughly endorse. Understanding it is  vitally important: 

"Protecting the right and freedoms of the individual is the key to peace and prosperity for humanity."

The one follows from the other: To see each other as individuals, not as a "member" of some collective, is the beginning of peaceful co-existence. Individualism, properly espoused and protected, is the antidote to the demands for "group rights" exploding in the Middle East and around the world. 

Take off your collectivist glasses about which group a piece of land "belongs" to, or not, and look instead at where individual rights are understood and protected.

If we are ever to banish war (the second greatest evil human societies can inflict), we need to understand the roots of war:

"If men want to oppose war, it is statism that they must oppose. So long as they hold the tribal notion that the individual is sacrificial fodder for the collective, that some men have the right to rule others by force, and that some (any) alleged 'good' can justify it—there can be no peace within a nation, and no peace among nations."

Start there. 

The 'night-watchman state' defined

“Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things. All governments which thwart this natural course, which force things into another channel, or which endeavour to arrest the progress of society at a particular point, are unnatural, and to support themselves are obliged to be oppressive and tyrannical.”

~ Adam Smith, from his 1755 lecture notes in economics, jurisprudence + moral philosophy [hat tip 'A Daily Dose of History']

"For the first time men could conceive a social order in which the ancient moral aspiration for liberty, equality, and fraternity was consistent with the abolition of poverty and the increase of wealth."

 

"[T]he development of [classical] liberal ideas ... augmented by the division of labour in widening markets ... changed the condition in which men lived....
    "It was no accident that the century which followed the intensified application of the principle of the division of labour was the great century of human emancipation. In that period chattel slavery and serfdom, the subjection of women, the patriarchal domination of children, caste and legalised class privileges, the exploitation of backward peoples, autocracy in government, the disfranchisement of the masses and their compulsory illiteracy, official intolerance and legalised bigotry, were outlawed in the human conscience, and in a very substantial degree they were abolished in fact.
    "During this same period petty principalities coalesced voluntarily into larger national unions, at peace within their borders; in this period, too, the interdependence of the peoples became so evident a fact that the older empires went through a spectacular transformation into federations of self-governing states, and among all civilised nations peace became the avowed aim, even if it was not always the real aim, of foreign policy.
    "All of this did not happen by some sort of spontaneous enlightenment and upsurge of good will. The characters of men were not suddenly altered. We can be certain of that, now that we live in an epoch of reaction where ... there is so much bad will in all the nations. What did change in the nineteenth century was the condition in which men lived, and the liberal enlightenment reflected it. The new mode of production, since it was based on the profitable exchange of specialised labor, envisaged a social order based on the harmony of interest among widely separated but collaborating men and communities.
    "We have become insensitive and forgetful about the revolutionary change in human life. But to our great-grandfathers it was an intoxicating promise that had suddenly been revealed to mankind, and only by recapturing the original insight of the pioneer [classical] liberals can we fully appreciate the evangelical fervour with which they preached that the freedom of trade was a new dispensation for all mankind.
    "For the first time in human history men had come upon a way of producing wealth in which the good fortune of others multiplied their own. It was a great moment, for example, in the long history of conquest, rapine, and oppression when David Hume could say (1742) at the conclusion of his essay, "Of the Jealousy of Trade":

'I shall therefore venture to acknowledge, that, not only as a man, but as a British subject, I pray for the flourishing commerce of Germany, Spain, Italy, and even France itself. I am at least certain that Great Britain, and all those nations, would flourish more, did their sovereigns and ministers adopt such enlarged and benevolent sympathies toward each other.'

"It had not occurred to many men before that the Golden Rule was economically sound. Thus the enlarged and benevolent sympathies of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had a material foundation in the self-interest of men who were growing richer by exchanging the products of specialised labor in wide markets.
    "They [understood] it to be true that an enlightened self-interest promoted the common good. For the first time men could conceive a social order in which the ancient moral aspiration for liberty, equality, and fraternity was consistent with the abolition of poverty and the increase of wealth."

~ Walter Lippmann, from his 1938 book The Good Society [p. 192-3]

 

"It is commerce which is rapidly rendering war obsolete..."

“Finally, commerce first taught nations to see with good will the wealth and prosperity of one another. Before, the patriot, unless sufficiently advanced in culture to feel the world his country, wished all countries weak, poor, and ill-governed, but his own: he now sees in their wealth and progress a direct source of wealth and progress to his own country. It is commerce which is rapidly rendering war obsolete, by strengthening and multiplying the personal interests which are in natural opposition to it. And it may be said without exaggeration that the great extent and rapid increase of international trade, in being the principal guarantee of the peace of the world, is the great permanent security for the uninterrupted progress of the ideas, the institutions, and the character of the human race.”

~ John Stuart Mill, from his Principles of Political Economy (Book III, Chapter XVII, Section 14).

• Hat tip Stephen Hicks, who contrasts the pre-war German intellectual Werner Sombart, who believed "the German way of war will cleanse humanity and raise it to a sacred height."
• And 'shout out' to Richard Fulmer, who contrasts the sentiment with the "thinking" of some contemporary maggots:

The easy over-simplification ...

"In times of excitement, simple views find a hearing more readily than those that are sufficiently complex to have a chance to be true."
          ~ Bertrand Russell, from his 1935 'Some Psychological Difficulties of Pacifism in Wartime'

"Today is one of the greatest days in modern history" [updated]

 

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has unravelled. Due to Ukrainian ingenuity and resolve. Due to Russia's now-widely revealed incompetence and cowardice. 

Russia's Kharkiv front has completely collapsed. In just 72 hours, Ukrainian armed forces has retaken over 2,500 sq km of Russian-occupied Ukraine, cut Russian communication and supply routes to occupied-eastern Ukraine, and routed and destroyed the equivalent of three combat divisions of the Russian occupiers. Russian military and occupiers on the Kharkiv front are fleeing, many in civilian clothes, leaving behind weapons and equipment that will come back to them with interest. There is unconfirmed chatter on Telegraph channels that the Kherson front is also beginning to fray; that Russian units there are talking surrender -- and that fighting is breaking out between Russian and Chechen units there. And now even pro-Russian commentators and Kremlin propagandists are beginning to talk openly about the Russian military collapse, and what happens next. Not next for Ukraine, but next for Russia.

Because the military collapse has exposed post-Soviet Russia to be as much a fraudulent paper tiger as the pathetic totalitarian bully it replaced. Russian power comes -- and always came -- from the perception of its power. Courtesy of Ukrainian resistance and inspiring leadership, Putin's "special military operation" has destroyed that perception. Utterly. Not ten feet tall at all -- truthfully, it's barely six inches. Destroyed with it too the idea that authoritarian regimes have some special advantage when it comes to waging war. Turns out it makes them ineffective even at foreign aggression -- and now, we hope, at domestic repression as well. All that Russia has in its arsenal now, it seems, is its energy stranglehold over a Europe that has voluntarily thrown away its ability to generate power without Russian gas. But that Russian gas is already cut -- and with mothballed plants being re-opened and newly-arriving LNG supplies coming online, even that leverage is all-but spent.

It's time for the world to celebrate a historic day: of the end of the Post-Cold-War Cold War, and all that that implies for world peace and security. And for Putin to take care walking past windows.

UPDATE:

Map from Institute for the Study of War here. Interactive map (updated daily) here.

"I strongly oppose that regime, and trade with the Chinese people is my method of opposing the regime."

wut as of today, we should be rooting for China to become a rich country, because in the long run that’s the only way to preserve world peace. [America's] current trade war is giving the hardliners in the Chinese government the upper hand, and sidelining the liberals. (Ditto for Iran, where sanctions have also backfired.) That’s exactly the opposite of what my commenter wants to happen. We tried trade sanctions against Japan in the 1930s, and that did not work.
    "It may feel good to 'take a stand' against evil. But the best way to do so is to engage in mutually beneficial trades with the victims of the evil regime, which means helping the oppressed residents of the country you are trading with. If we had been trading with Cuba over the past 60 years, the Castro regime would likely be gone by now. It’s the average people who suffer when you cut off trade, not the leaders.
    "Now let me answer the commenter’s question: 'How can you support in any way the most murderous, totalitarian empire in world history?'
    "I strongly oppose that regime, and trade with the Chinese people is my method of opposing the regime."
          ~ Scott Sumner, from his post 'Politics is the problem -- trade is the answer'