You'd have to be an Islamist, an anti-Western tankie or a moron to not wish the fall of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The 1979 revolution was anti-humanist, anti-reason and implemented a regime that - if it were led by fundamentalist Christians - would be called far-right and fascist. It's a theocracy, with law determined by its single interpretation of the one religion, with little tolerance for other religions let alone atheism. It is a tightly controlled democracy, with choice between a preset selection of Islamist candidates. There is little freedom of speech, nobody can campaign for the end of the Islamist regime. Media is entirely controlled by the state. Women are second class citizens, with the morality police controlling what they wear in public, because the men of the Islamic Republic can't be trusted to control their libidos, their hands and their penises if they see a women's head and hair. Of course it's fairly obvious how difficult it is to be openly LGBT in the Islamic Republic.
By any measure the entire Western self-styled "liberal" left would loathe and despise the regime. On top of its fascism, it has long had a nuclear programme which has been enriching uranium beyond that needed for civilian use. It is pursuing nuclear weapons, notwithstanding like north Korea before it, the claims it is not doing so. Its economy is, in part, built on extracting fossil fuels.
However, the Islamic Republic does have several positive points - from the hard-left point of view - it has always called for "Death to Israel" and "Death to America", which reflect the deeply held feelings of anti-Zionists and anti-capitalists the world over. To express this, Iran has funded, armed and trained its proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah. It has engaged in Iraq and Syria, although of course it was wrecklessly attacked by Saddam Hussein's Iraq with Soviet and US endorsement in 1980 and was undoubtedly the victim in that horrendous conflict.
Today, Iran has been a strong supporter and arms Russia, in support of its aggression against Ukraine. Iran mistakenly shot down Ukrainian flight PS752 in 2020, (but then the US mistakenly shot down Iran Air flight IR655 in 1988).
The consequences of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons is potentially catastrophic for Israel, but also may provide access to its proxies for such technology. Iran philosophically is antithetical to the values of open, tolerant secular liberal democracies.
Israel's action against Iran, if it can end its nuclear programme, will help make the Middle East and the world a more peaceful place. If it can result in the fall of the regime, it will be all the better for the people of Iran and for promoting peace for Israel/Palestine, Lebanon and the Middle East more generally.
Israel has done it before. In 1981 it destroyed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor, as Saddam Hussein's first attempt to develop a nuclear weapons' programme. This bought a great deal of time, and potentially saved hundreds of thousands of lives. At that time it was condemned by the UN Security Council, including the US, but it was morally entirely justified.
The only negative to Israel's action is if it fails, if it emboldens the regime further if it is not overthrown, and Iran's allies provide it with more support to develop WMDs. This is why it is important for the US to help it finish the job.
Those claiming moral equivalence between the liberal democratic open Israel, that is not a theocracy, that allows public protests, free press and does not seek "death" to any other countries, and the Islamic Republic of Iran are either morons or despicably evil. The people of Iran deserve better than the calcified misogynistic theocracy in Tehran, and no such regime should feel free to develop nuclear weapons.
There is a pragmatic argument as to whether Israel's actions could prove counter-productive, but that is not an argument against disarming Iran. Those who protest or are openly in support of the Islamic Republic of Iran are actual far-right fascists, and should be called out for it. As Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz said, Israel is doing the West's "dirty work for us". Let us hope it works.
To come back locally. I wonder if one, just one, journalist in NZ might ask any of the hard-left party leaders - Swarbrick, Davidson, Waititi or Ngarewa-Packer, whether they think it would be good if Iran's regime fell over or even....just even, if it would be good if Iran had nuclear weapons.
I doubt any journalists would have the courage to do so, or if any did, the answers would be at best evasive at worst a repulsive eructation of moral equivalency.
If ever there is a display of values by politicians it is how they apply their own values to people abroad.
No rational person would argue that people should be paid differently because of characteristics that have no bearing on their capability and willingness to undertake a particular job. It's rational to be "sex-blind" so to speak, because most employers want employees with the requisite skills, experience, capability and willingness to work, as well as trustworthiness, to do the job. There are a few exceptions to the rule that men and women should, everything else being equal, be paid similarly, for example, historically the porn industry pays women a lot more, although their "working lives" may be shorter than men. Does that mean that bureaucrats should investigate and seek to correct this?
As to be expected, RNZ found plenty of "howls of outrage" and of course nothing beats the now much more famous Andrea Vance, who is now one of the country's best known and paid vulgarians. Those who are outraged undoubtedly think that there is some great injustice being perpetrated which can be fixed by the state either making taxpayers or making employers take money away from elsewhere to make pay "fairer".
Both demonstrate the fundamental flaws in the argument about pay equity. They assert that it is possible to fairly and reasonable assess different jobs based on "comparable levels of skill and training" and "similar amounts of responsibility" which should therefore mean that those jobs should be paid similarly.
Donnell said:
Though it’s been highlighted in government comms, the librarians’ claim didn’t just look at fisheries officers. It also compared their pay and conditions to property surveyors, teacher aides, customs officers, corrections officers, parking compliance officers, and administration staff. That analysis was carried out using a government-issued assessment tool Te Orowaru, which provides a lengthy set of criteria to help claimants compare work responsibilities in seemingly disparate fields.
Think a bit more about that. A tool, accepted by the public sector, seeks to analyse bureaucratically how jobs ought to be compared with one another. It is central planning par excellence which appears to have nothing to do with what is always a key factor in pay in the private sector (you know, the part of the economy that actually generates wealth the part of which is taken for the public sector to tell it what to do) - demand.
In the private sector, employers generally pay whatever it takes to attract employees and retain them. The employer works out how much net income the employee will generate, through sales, productivity or savings in administration, and pays accordingly. Employers will pay what they need to get the people they want. That's an assessment of a number of factors, but most of all it is around productivity, competence and trustworthiness. Levels of skill and training may inform that but aren't decisive. Level of responsibility is a factor, but by far the most important point is whether the persons wanted might not stay in the job, which is a matter for them. Jobs that involve unconventional hours, working away from home, uncomfortable situations of all kinds, will require more pay. Most private employers are small, so are not price setters (unlike the state which, given it has the power of coercion to force people to pay for it, is a price setter), and while some private sector employees are unionised, ultimately the decision to hire and pay is a matter for those who take the risk with setting up businesses in the first place.
The pay equity problem is that academics, bureaucrats and leftwing politicians treat the issue as something fundamentally flawed in capitalism, that employers, including government departments, have paid women historically less than men. The Conversation article claims:
pay equity seeks to make visible and fix the deep, structural inequalities that have historically seen women’s work undervalued compared to men’s work. It’s about ensuring jobs that are different but of equal value are paid similarly, as a way to achieve gender equality.
Equal value to whom? Two people in exactly similar jobs with different employers may be paid differently because of factors that the academics and bureaucrats (let alone the politicians who create legal mandates for this) have little visibility of. The person in the lower paid job may prefer the employer, who may be more flexible around working hours, and may have colleagues who are more enjoyable to work with, and there may be many other "soft" factors that no bureaucrat could identify. Anything from location of employment, to management style, to the working environment. The diversity (a word commonly used but ignored in the case of capitalism) of conditions is almost infinite, but none of this analysis takes this into account.
Is it unfair if someone in a job they chose is paid less than someone else in another job they chose?
The academics claim "Pay equity is about addressing both the objective and subjective elements contributing to that gap". Really? How can they possibly know what those are?
The cost to taxpayers (undoubtedly seen as predominantly men) is dismissed as being "high" but "bearable" apparently (not that taxpayers have any choice), but it is the last statement of that article which is revealing about how bereft of serious critical thinking there is in talk about "pay equity":
Finally, focusing exclusively on reducing fiscal cost risks other costs rising instead. Women who are paid less than they should be will struggle to put food on the table, pay back student loans, get onto the property ladder, contribute to Kiwisaver and afford their retirement.
Without pay equity, in other words, there is less economic activity in general.
Where do these people think the money comes from to raise a small number of womens' pay? It isn't from a magic money tree, it comes from other people who engage in economic activity. The people who do pay for food, pay their student loans, buy property and save for their retirement. Most the talk of pay equity is about transfers from taxpayers to people paid by the state, and as with all talks of collectivised pay it bears zero relationship to the actual performance and productivity of those being paid.
It goes further than this, because the advocates of pay equity have lobbied for pay "transparency" requiring employers to publish what they pay their employees (employee privacy is apparently not important). Why not also lobby for the value of all contracts in the private sector to be transparent, why not tell everyone what everyone is paid for everything? The idea that consenting adults might want their business with other consenting adults around money to be private is an anathema to wannabe central planners who see opposition to their cause as being "resistance to changing or challenging the status quo, benefiting already privileged and advantaged groups", as if it is all a zero sum game. Hints of Marxism of the bourgeoisie vs. the proletariat. Anyone opposing Marxism is automatically defending the bourgeoisie.
As with so many theories in the space of post-modernist critical theory, extraordinarily complicated analysis is surprising reductive and overly simplistic. The complexity of a modern economy of millions of actors, making many millions of decisions, based on endlessly diverse factors is beyond the capability of the best intentioned bureaucrats, academics and politicians to understand. The simplistic reductive fallacy and the conceit (Hayek's Fatal Conceit highlighted this issue) to think that officials can decide what people should be paid, rather that it being about what it takes to attract the right people to a job in particular circumstances, is the fundamental error.
There may be pay equity issues across many different characteristics that, on the face of it, look unfair. Do short people get paid less? Do overweight people get paid less? Do relatively good looking people get paid more and get more job interviews? Do blondes, especially blonde women get neglected for promotions due to stereotypes? All of this may be true, and there are bound to be more cases. For fairness should the state collect data on all of these factors and engage in complex bureaucratic processes to ensure people of "oppressed" characteristics are paid equally?
Politicians on the left are particularly attracted to the power and capacity of the state to "fix" things. The problem is, as the Soviet Union and the significant list of examples that followed have proven, it is impossible to centrally plan an economy and society in a way that is remotely as productive or indeed fair as a relatively free, open, market economy of people largely left to co-operate, compete and work.
Most people think their work is "undervalued" and want more pay. Most people who own businesses think their products and services are undervalued and want more pay. The path to more people being paid more is not through generating complex regulatory frameworks, managed by public servants, designed by management consultants. It's by enabling people to innovate, to create, produce, hire people to support this, and to let people trade.
Central planning and control of pay might give an illusion of fairness, but when the reason salaries are low is because NZ's GDP per capita is amongst the lowest in the OECD, so that employers can't afford to pay what is paid in Australia, the United States, Europe or Singapore, then it's a delusion.
The debate about the compulsorily funded school lunch programme is being characterised by opponents of the government, as one of mean-hearted people unwilling to feed "our" children.
Advocates of the school lunch programme claim:
There are children going to school without breakfast and without lunches, and they will perform worse at school than had they been fed... this is true, but not just for the reasons advocates of state feeding of children claim.
Simply providing food for the children who are in need (and whose parents can't or wont pay for it) is bad, because it makes those children feel singled out because of the negligence of their parents/guardians unlike that of children who would not get such meals. this is likely to be true, but neglect to note that is likely to be the case more generally anyway.
If "we" can't feed "our" children, then what are "our" priorities anyway?
Of course all kids should be going to school having had breakfast and provided lunches, who would argue against that?
The Government is dancing around the key philosophical argument around this, and despite lazy attempts to portray it as a "culture war", it really isn't. It is an argument around both the role of the state and individual responsibility, and it is obvious that there are people polls apart on this.
On one side is what is, in essence, a socialist position, that it is not only morally right, but there is a moral obligation for politicians to force taxpayers to pay to feed all children at school. The argument being that this provides for the best outcomes for children, and demonstrates a kind and caring society.
On the other side is what is both a conservative traditional, but also a classically liberal position, is that the primary moral obligation to feed children arises with those who chose to take responsibility for them - the parents/guardians. There being two reasons why the feeding doesn't happen. First, is if there is genuine poverty, this still obliges the parents/guardians to seek support from the existing welfare system or charitable services to put their children first, and of course people are free to support such services if they want to show kindness to those in need. Secondly, if parents/guardians put their own needs and wants above those of their children, such as simply feeding them, then it is better to address this neglect, either through education or punitive measures.
Those on the left diminish or do not believe that compulsorily funded state meals for children undermines parental responsibility, even though it fairly obviously does by feeding all children at school (as the predominantly middle class moans in recent weeks demonstrates). Their belief is that the utility of children being fed (and of course the argument is on the detail of what they are fed, and cost is not an issue for those who simply think the state should take the tax it needs to do what they want) outranks any other consideration.
Those on the right do not believe that the utility of feeding, essentially children from low-income families, does not justify forcing taxpayers to pay for feeding all children, and are suspicious of what happens next. Will taxpayers be forced to pay for "free" school clothes, "free" school transport for families living close to public transport that goes to the school they choose) or more? All of this would mean less responsibility for parents to think about the needs of their children, and more taxes for everyone to pay. Most would agree that it is ethical to help parents in need temporarily, and for there even to be assistance, whether charitable or not, for kids who don't get fed, but that isn't a universal meal programme.
Of course as a libertarian the idea taxpayers should be forced to pay to feed other people's children is morally unacceptable. If you want to help people with feeding their children, then feel free to do so, indeed that is the kind and caring thing to do. There is no kindness in letting politicians raid money from other people, including those who disagree vehemently with the concept, to pay for a scheme organised by politicians and officials, rather than actually making a contribution yourself.
Some conservatives think the socialist objective of free school meals is a plot to undermine the family, and make people more dependent on the state. I doubt that, although the willingness of so many to simply grow the state without any concern for the scale of its presence disturbs me. The more of people's money that simply gets taken for other people to spend as they see fit, the less agency you have over your life, and the less accountability for it. Whereas the more you have, the more options people have to advance their lives and those of their loved ones, and support those they want to.
What I think does matter is the issue of parental neglect. After all, if parents can't do something as basic as provide a meal for their children above their own need for food, what else are they neglecting?
Most parents dedicate their priorities to their children. They think of their children 24/7, they think of what they need and do what they can to provide. It's concerning if parents fail either by their own lack of competence or more insidiously, lack of care.
More importantly, let's define what the problem actually is?
For decades the state didn't feed children at school, and did this generate a systemic problem that was distinguishable from the children routinely neglected by their parents?
Are there parents/guardians in such abject poverty that they haven't got a few dollars to provide a bowl of cereal with milk and fruit each morning (compared to everything else they buy)? There probably are some, and in particular this probably happens over short periods for some families when there is unemployment or an emergency (e.g., having to move home, refridgerator
If so, those people should be helped and targeted, because it doesn't just affect food, it affects everything else needed to raise those children adequately.
Are there parents/guardians who consistently neglect their children? Then they should be identified and appropriate carrots and sticks used to change their behaviour (both rewards and sanctions).
One of the single biggest factors for children failing are parents who neglect them materially and emotionally, and these are directly linked. Parents in material hardship do all they can to provide for their children, whether working or seeking charitable help directly or from family, friends and neighbours, and that should all be encouraged. It is entirely appropriate for people in need to seek temporary assistance. However those that do not do this, are either incapable of being parents or are simply negligent.
The kids in need should be helped, but the posturing over this programme, which papers over cracks that neither side in politics is keen to address (as the hard left regards personal responsibility to be a conspiracy and the hard right fears the state being a parent), is appalling.
It should be gradually wound down and replaced with a targeted programme organised by the schools themselves, out of their own budgets.
Nobody who supports either free markets or the non-initiation of force principles can now think that the Trump Administration is an acolyte of either principle, even in a somewhat flawed way (as all governments that may advance in that direction are). It's an incoherent mash of the feelings of two men who are more upset about their egos being offended, than either projecting an economic policy of demonstrable success or managing international relations based on strength against a weak (albeit dangerous) aggressor that embodies almost everything the United States has been against for decades.
The stupid trade war isn't about leverage to get other economies to open up, it is old fashioned autarky or even Kim Il Sung's fatuous "Juche Idea" (self reliance). It's the economics of hardened Marxists, and the economics of moronic economic nationalists like the bloviator Pat Buchanan. The tariffs wont replace income tax ( a line that some have trotted out) and will push up inflation in the US, and harm consumers and producers there, and the global economy. However, Republicans are now embodying the economics of destroyers like Juan Peron, who helped take Argentina from being a rich country to being a poor one, through this sort of nonsense. It will only be made worse by the EU and other developed countries responding in kind.
However, it is the moral depravity of the line on Ukraine which deserves the most approbrium.
There is no morality in surrendering to an aggressor all that it has won, so you have "peace" while it rebuilds its armed forces, rearms, and at the same time your erstwhile ally has blackmailed you into signing a predatory deal to hand over resources for the sake of vague promises of security. Ukraine doesn't want to do that, but the new appeasers do.
The claim Trump makes about wanting to be even-handed between Russia and Ukraine is a complete moral inversion. Whilst he has been excoriating about Zelensky, he has said nothing negative at all about Putin or the behaviour of Russia. He has said little about what Russia should do, and little about what the US will do if Russia doesn't stop fighting. He has only demanded that Ukraine stop.
He talks of Ukraine gambling with World War Three which is absurd, given Ukraine alone, with ample military supplies has taken the war to a stalemate - stalemate with Russia, because Russia's fighting capabilities are woeful. Without nuclear weapons, Russia would be easily overwhelmed with Western power, and pushed back. Indeed given the US also has nuclear weapons, it could have simply declared it was controlling Ukrainian airspace given:
Russian military attack on a civilian airliner
Ukrainian Government invitation to protect it.
Would Russia really have launched a nuclear attack at that point, with the US drawing a clear line that it was defending the territorial integrity of the remainder of Ukraine from air power?
Who was gambling with World War Three the non-nuclear armed Ukraine trying to defend itself from a nuclear power??
The claims about NATO expansion being provocative are only claims that are echoed by hardcore communists, who pretend that NATO was a project to attack their beloved eastern bloc, not one to defend liberal democracies from it, or from fascist nationalists, who can't believe that countries that spent half a century under the jackboot of the Soviet Union (which they once professed to loathe) would want to be free of Russian imperialism forever more.
Of course Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechia etc. do not want their independence threatened by an aggressive Russia - again - and if you dont think that is legitimate, then you're either a communist, or someone, like Hitler, who thinks you can make accommodations with a communist for your own political objectives. Hating the European Union or "globalists" is all one thing, but if anyone who claims to believe in sovereign borders, the right of states to control their territory and be independent, thinks surrendering Ukraine is consistent with that, then it shows it up for all it is - desperate tribalist support for a US Administration that doesn't care about your beliefs when it suits it.
If territorial integrity of sovereign states doesn't matter to Ukraine, then maybe it doesn't matter anywhere that the Trump Administration doesn't care about, and that includes any country in Europe, or Australia, or New Zealand etc etc.
Of course everyone wants the war to end. It could end tomorrow if Putin just decided to end it, and withdraw, but he's a psychopathic kleptocrat who feeds young Russian men (from poor backgrounds) and North Korean men to their deaths.
Ukraine has been successful in knocking out much of Russia's military strength including knocking out much of the Black Sea Fleet. Had it been armed more effectively it could have pushed back more inflicting more pain on Russia.
Trump doesn't like that though, because he wants economic relations with Russia.
Had Trump wanted to, he could have demonstrated strength against Russia and demanded concessions or significantly enhanced support for Ukraine, but instead he has demonstrated strength against Ukraine and made it into a supplicant, and emboldened Russia.
If the war ends soon, on the basis of Russia giving up little, and there being no substantial security guarantees for Ukraine (including US direct military support), then it will prolong the inevitable. Russia can spend a few years rearming, and use its renewed economic potential after sanctions are lifted by the US, to steal military capability and be ready for another attack. It knows the US wont do much, and it doesn't fear European power. At that point, the cost not just to the Europe, but the world of letting it be known that the US is isolationist and wont act to protect any nation states from attack by Russia, is going to be much higher than the tens of billions taken to bolster Ukraine.
Even Marine Le Pen is critical of Trump on Ukraine, because by and large, European countries want to sure of defence against the predatory criminal gangster state to the east, which treats its neighbours with impunity.
Perhaps a deal will be struck, perhaps not and Europe will do all it can to support Ukraine, regardless, it is now a time for small countries everywhere to acknowledge that it's all on now - the US doesn't care if you are attacked, you have to fend for yourselves with any other allies.
It's been three years since Russia invaded Ukraine, seeking to take Kyev and reconquer it.
I was, late last year, rather pleased Trump beat Harris in the US elections. It demonstrated that voters wouldn't be treated as if what they think and feel don't matter. With record numbers of black and Latino voters picking Trump over Harris, the identitarianism of the hard left was given short shrift. Domestically, there was some promise that Trump could overhaul the US Federal Government in spending and regulatory terms, and the nihilistic critical constructivist culture that sought to right past wrongs through discrimination over merit. The hard left attempt to replace the identitarianism of the past with an identitarianism of the future, based on a hierarchy of oppressor vs. oppressed (within which Jews and poor white trailer park men are oppressors, and wealthy African American entrepreneurs are oppressed) might be broken down by the Trump Administration.
The biggest negative until this week was the economic illiteracy around tariffs. It's so outrageously stupid the thinking around trade protectionism that it barely deserves a response. If it were about leverage to open up markets and break the back of the protectionist rackets of the EU and India, it might be one thing, but it's a brainless attempt to "bring back jobs" regardless of the cost, and somehow raise revenue. Of course some argue that the US Federal Government was once funded by tariffs with no income tax, but there is zero prospect of income tax being abolished, so it remains a measure to tax imports, hike up inflation, punish consumers and ensure the US is less and less competitive internationally.
However that's small fry compared to the moral turpitude around Ukraine.
Ukraine gained independent with the dissolution of the USSR, a point in history anyone with a belief in liberal democracy, individual rights and freedoms and belief in human self-determination would celebrate. Vladimir Putin didn't of course.
Ukraine inherited borders from the USSR, as did all of the former Soviet Republics. It made sense because there is no shortage of potential disputes around people split between sovereign states. Besides the Governments of Russia, the USA and UK agreed to support the territorial integrity of Ukraine (and Belarus and Kazakhstan) in exchange for the three former Soviet republics surrendering the Soviet nuclear arsenal based on their territory. After all, there was genuine fear of nuclear proliferation.
The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances signed in 1994 was an agreement that the parties would:
Respect the signatory's independence and sovereignty in the existing borders (in accordance with the principles of the CSCE Final Act).
Refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of the signatories to the memorandum, and undertake that none of their weapons will ever be used against these countries, except in cases of self-defense or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.
Refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine, the Republic of Belarus and Kazakhstan of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind.
Seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to the signatory if they "should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used".
Not to use nuclear weapons against any non–nuclear-weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, except in the case of an attack on themselves, their territories or dependent territories, their armed forces, or their allies, by such a state in association or alliance with a nuclear weapon state.
Consult with one another if questions arise regarding those commitments
Russia broke this agreement in February 2014 by invading Ukraine, first to annex Crimea and again in early 2022. The United States broke this agreement by not guaranteeing Ukraine's borders.
Now Trump has decided to shred what remains of this.
Obama was the start, he ridiculed Mitt Romney warning of Russia being a looming threat.
Then Obama did little to respond to Putin's invasion of Crimea. Biden's response to the invasion of the rest of Ukraine was more significant, but ultimately was weak. It wasn't to provide air cover, it wasn't to provide the weapons he could, it was to do enough to constrain what Putin could do, and now its over.
There is a line of US self-styled conservative thinking that ranging from loving to being sympathetic to Putin. Why? Because he's a strong man who "defends his country" against "Islam" and in favour of "Christian values". Values that seem to include rampant kleptocracy and Soviet style oppression of dissent.
Some are actual far-right fascists, who yearn for a strongman to jackboot his way through their country, poison and arrest opponents, shut down protests and enforce a traditional view of the role of women, an avowedly anti-homosexual position and embrace an expansionist shameless view of the power of their beloved nation state. Others are contrarians, who see Putin pushing back against "globalism" (whatever that means), and regard the European Union to be more authoritarian and malign than a virtual one-party state run by a permanent President who runs his country as a mafia state. Of course there is plenty of room to criticise the European Union, but the intellectual vacuum that sees criticism of policy in Western Europe as justifying a war of aggression against Ukraine is eye-watering.
Likewise is seeing the flaws of Ukrainian liberal democracy as being morally equivalent to Russia's kleptocratic totalitarianism. An argument can readily be made to critique the approach of the Biden Administration, but to turn reality into an inversion as the Trump Administration is doing harks of the perversions of the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China.
The idea Ukraine started the war is deranged. Ukraine was not run by a Nazi, and Russians in Ukraine faced no existential threat from the Government. Indeed Russians in Russia face MORE threat from the jackbooted tyranny of the FSB than they do in Ukraine. We shouldn't forget of course that one of Russia's proxies before invading Ukraine proper did shoot down a civilian airliner murdering all of its passengers and crew.
The moral relativists in Washington DC have blanked out flight MH17, just a lot of Dutch people, Asians and Australians after all.
The deluded concern about NATO expansion, as if NATO has ever threatened Russia and as if ANY country actually has an interest in invading it. This is Russian nationalist hysteria. See how Sweden and Finland have joined NATO and Russia barely blinked an eye. Ultra-nationalists are prone to delusions about conspiracies to destroy their beloved people, and this is one. The truth of NATO is that it remains because the Soviet Union's former empire doesn't want to go back to being a part of it, and Russia has not successfully deradicalised itself from its past eras of totalitarian irredentism. Lithuania, Romania, Poland and even Ukraine purged themselves of their past under one of the world's most murderous and morally bankrupt regimes, but Russia is led by a man who misses that.
What Trump has done is invert the moral order. At the very core of modern international law is the belief that the sovereign state is inviolate and it is a fundamental breach of the international order for one national army to invade the territory of another. This has only happened because the USA and Europe refused to deter Russia invading its near neighbours, and the consequence are where we are. However, it is entirely Russia's fault for being an aggressive imperialist invading force.
If the 21st century international order is that naked aggression by a nuclear power, on a much smaller, benign peaceful country, is to be shrugged about and rewarded by another nuclear power, with that other one seeking to do a deal to literally plunder the victim's property indefinitely, it isn't "order". It is a neo-feudalism of bullies, and the only defence against that is offence. It is the acquisition of the greatest of weapons, nuclear, to deter anyone. It makes the world a more dangerous place.
Trump and Vance claim that Putin is not a threat to the West, that his military operations in Ukraine are simply a defence against attacks by Zelensky’s illegitimate regime. This is wickedly fallacious as a factual account of events, and the conclusion that apparently follows is blatantly self-contradictory.
In the very same pronouncements in which they proclaim Vladimir Putin’s benign intentions, the Trump-Vance team excoriate European leaders for failing to increase their defence spending and properly arm themselves against threats to Nato. But if Russia is an innocent victim and Putin is not an aggressor, where does the danger to Europe come from?
Either Putin is a peace-loving, reasonable interlocutor with whom we (which is to say, Trump) can do business – in which case Europe need not worry about increasing its defences – or he is determined to reclaim as much of Eastern Europe as he can seize – in which case the complicity of the Trump government is shameful.
Which is it? Is Putin a blameless, misunderstood victim and we can all go back to blithely spending our peace dividend on lavish welfare systems, or is he a malign actor who is an active threat to Nato countries, which must rearm as quickly as possible at their own expense?
And how can this instruction to Nato members to rearm at any cost be consistent with Trump’s support for the Russian claim that it is Nato expansion that is the cause of the recent conflict? Surely a rapid rearming of Nato members would justify Putin’s paranoia.
It also makes the United States a fickle ally. This deranged set of contradictions has no coherence. The likely outcome is that European countries will increase their military capability, which will upset Russia, and they could provide more military support to Ukraine as well. The unwillingness to call out any of Russia's actions seems difficult to comprehend, unless it has underlying it, either a sympathy for Putin or an interest in simply surrendering and withdrawing out of fear - the fear that doing anything else will cost the US money or lives.
It is a new isolationism for the US, although this is not new for the country.
Furthermore is the bizarre demand that Ukraine pay the US for the cost of the support the US provided for it to defend itself. It is an inversion of the demands of Germany after WW1, which was forced to pay reparations to the Allies for starting the war. This of course turned Germans to be ultra-nationalists, to resist the economic and national shame. The Nazis came from that.
Should Israel or Egypt be worried? Both have received billions in military aid over decades from the US, but will Trump demand half of Israel's GDP be handed over to pay the US back for its support? If not, why not by this measure? Why should Ukraine be punished for taking what a previous Administration had granted it? Besides, given the US shows little interest in actually protecting Ukraine from a future Russian invasion, it is difficult to trust that the Trump Administration would actually do anything if Russia tried again.
It's simple now The US cannot be trusted to defend its allies, it cannot be trusted to even advocate for the basic rules of the international system. It is no longer a bullwark for liberal democracies, when it judges Ukraine and ignores Russia.
What should happen is Trump should threaten Russia with tougher sanctions, with NATO membership for Ukraine, a no-fly zone and greater help unless Russia withdraws. It should be simple, because it is. It could show the backbone of Ronald Reagan, of JFK, of Harry Truman. It could because Putin is a bluffing minnow.
What looks like happening is that Ukraine will be dismembered, all because of a deranged fetishisation of a short thieving psychopath, and a moronic disregard for an international order that for, better and for worse, kept the peace by and large.
The only real hope is that this is a lot of bluster and rhetoric. If it really is, it's quite some technique in diplomatic bombast and disruption.
Sadly I think it is a New New World Order, and it has no real coherent order at all. What it means for those wanting peace and security, is that they will have to pay a lot more for it.
Yes New Zealand it means 2% of GDP on defence within five years, but it also means Japan, South Korea, European NATO, and many others are going to be spending a lot more.
The peace dividend of the end of the Cold War is well and truly over.
