Foreign Policy Alignment in E.U. Enlargement

Threating the E.U. or U.S. as a club and thus as having members rather than states is as erroneous as it is arrogant. Even though the E.U. states are members of the European Council and the U.S. states are members of the U.S. Senate because both federal bodies represent states rather than federal or state citizens, nether the U.S. nor the E.U. has members per se; rather both unions have states because those unions have federal systems. Nor is either political union a “bloc,” as the latter is actually a temporary group of sovereign countries rather than a federal government of semi-sovereign states or even just an alliance. Linguistic semantics matter because they can impact expectations; less is expected of a bloc than a federal union of states. For one thing, the latter, which is theoretically permanent, involves more of a bonding between the polities. To be united, states cannot not be so opposed to each other that passing federal law and regulations faces insurmountable ideological opposition in the chambers in which the states are represented and thus are the members, especially if each one wields a veto! Two words: Viktor Orban. The E.U. is justified, therefore, in insisting on general agreement with the E.U.’s foreign and military policies before approving the accession of a candidate state.  

Asked on 3 November 2026 about the prospect of Montenegro’s statehood in the E.U. including “a 15-year transition period,” Montenegro’s E.U. Minister Maida Gorcevic replied, “We don’t want second-grade membership inside the European Union, because that wouldn’t be fair and that wouldn’t be full membership as well.”[1] Even her aspirations for “full membership” were insufficient, for statehood is something more than being a member of a network or organization of countries. In implying that the E.U. constituted such an arrangement, Gorcevic was unwittingly undercutting the E.U., and in particular its potential in the areas of foreign and military policy. So too had Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron, when he said that the E.U. is just a network to which Britain happened to belong. States do not happen to belong as semi-sovereign states to a political union such as the E.U. or U.S., so Cameron committed a category mistake in how he characterized the European Union. So too was Georgia’s prime minister, Irakli Kobakhidze, in early November 2026, when he spoke on the open breach between his government and the European Commission: “We have to agree with each other, the European Union and Georgia, that we want to se a democratic rule of law-based, human-rights based, economically strong and sovereign Georgia in the European Union.”[2] He added that the Commission’s request that the Georgian government repeal laws that were at odds with the rule-of-law requirement of statehood “interfered with the principle of sovereignty.”[3] Even though Georgia was sovereign at the time, the Commission’s “interference” was in line with the fact that as an E.U. state, Georgia would no longer be fully sovereign because the E.U. itself holds a portion of governmental sovereignty in exclusive and even shared competencies.

Denying the dual-sovereignty feature of (early) modern federalism in either the E.U. or U.S. instantiates a political category mistake with respect to two different types of federalism, which Ken Wheare refers to as modern federalism and confederalism in his text, Federal Government. By the way, neither of Althusius’ plena and nonplena types of federalism, discussed in his text, Political Digest (1603), anticipates modern (dual-sovereignty) federalism, which would not be invented until 1787 in Philadelphia out of political compromise at the American Convention.

Because states do not just happen to belong to a federal union that is both political and economic, as well as being active in social policy, looking out for a degree of basic ideological fit when accessing whether candidate states should be granted statehood is legitimate. The arduous negotiations that took place over years between 2016 and 2020 so Britain could secede from the Union, as well as Viktor Orbán’s use of Hungary’s veto in the European Council when the Commission was sanctioning the state for its rule-of-law violations at home as well as its violations of E.U. law attest to the importance of fit between an incoming state and the other states as well as their Union. A more perfect union means that the federal governmental machinery must not be stymied or even held ransom by a state’s government due to ideological disagreement with a federal policy or, even worse, a refusal to recognize the portion of governmental sovereignty that has been delegated through Basic Law to the Union.

The chair of the European Council, Antonio Costa, wrote in November, 2026 of enlargement in the following terms: “The ambition to join the European Union must help overcome historical grievances, reject nationalist rhetoric, and encourage countries to move towards genuine cooperation.”[4] So Gorcevic was clever to speak of Montenegro’s government as not wanting to “argue with Croatia.”[5] She added, “We want to solve the bilateral disputes.”[6] North Macedonia’s president, Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, however, was not so clever, assuming she was in favor of statehood, in saying North Macedonia’s “EU accession hopes” were “being held hostage by Bulgaria,” which was “demanding constitutional changes [in North Macedonia] to recognize the Bulgarian minority.”[7] To be sure, the E.U. state of Bulgaria’s concern for Bulgarians in North Macedonia did not take into account, and thus respect, the E.U.’s own requirements that rule-of-law safeguards exist in the states. Again, statehood involves more than merely membership; the constraints on states are greater. Also, the accession of states should not be leveraged by existing states to score points or remake another country’s system of government. For its part, the E.U. justifiably did not want to add a state that is in disputes with existing states, for such internecine “warfare” could impede unity in the Union, and thus block important federal foreign policy and legislation.

Regarding the E.U.’s legitimate interest in being “solid” in foreign policy, and thus able to have political power on the global stage, in an 2026 annual report, the Commission assessed Georgia, Turkey, and Serbia as standing out as candidate states “for their lack of alignment, which could limit their access to ‘gradual integration’.”[8] According to a senior E.U. official at the time, “Common security and defense policy has become an increasingly important dimension in the accession process.”[9] Although such policy included “border management, cybersecurity and the protection of critical infrastructure,” alignment “with sanctions against Russia” was “seen as a key indicator.”[10] Therefore, even though “Gorcevic also said she was hopeful that the recent elections in Serbia would help the Western Balkans in the enlargement process,”[11] Serbia’s closeness to Russia in terms of foreign (and energy) policy relative to the E.U.’s negative stance on Russia means that the reformist Serbia’s Student List win in late October would not necessarily facilitate Serbia’s accession. The unlikelihood that Serbia would recognize Croatia also did not help matters, but political ties to Russia, especially in the midst of its militarily unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, can be viewed as the kiss of death as far as accession is concerned.[12] 

My point is that the E.U.’s concern is entirely justified, given tremendous value of broad consensus on foreign policy inside the E.U, and therefore the Commission was not motivated to manipulate countries outside of the Union by leveraging the desire for statehood so the E.U. could have greater influence in the world. The continuance of the state veto mechanism in the European Council and the Council of Ministers, which together can be likened to the U.S. Senate and its committees, renders broad agreement on foreign policy among E.U. states, and thus candidate states too, as pruden and even perhaps even necessary in order to avoid paralysis at the federal level. Viktor Orban's affinity with Russia's Putin during his invasion of Ukraine weakened the E.U. in its ability to provide a united, federal response in defense of Ukraine. 

One of the chief benefits of the E.U. is that the states separately cannot wield such power internationally as the E.U. can. Enlargement should not be so valued by Europeans that it becomes an end in itself, by which means greater strategic-interest and ideological divergence between states, and thus in the European Council and the Council of the Ministers, can make its way in at the expense of a more perfect Union.

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1. Sandor Zsiros, “Montenegro Rejects ‘Second-Class’ EU Membership as It Eyes 2028 Accession,” Euronews.com, 3 November 2026.
2. Luca Bertuzzi and Maria Tadeo, “Georgia PM Offers No Way Out of EU Accession Deadlock in Euronews Interview,” 3 November 2026, italics added.
3. Luca Bertuzzi, “Progress and Pitfalls on the Path to a Bigger EU: Five Takeaways from the Euronews Enlargement Summit,” Euronews.com, 3 November 2026.
4. Ibid.
5. Sandor Zsiros, “Montenegro Rejects ‘Second-Class’ EU Membership as It Eyes 2028 Accession,” Euronews.com, 3 November 2026.
6. Ibid.
7. Marta Pacheco, “North Macedonia Leader Hits Back at Bulgaria’s Demands for Constitutional Change,” Euronews.com, 3 November 2026.
8. Luca Bertuzzi, “EU Tying Enlargement to Strategic Alignment Puts Serbia, Georgia and Turkey in a Tight Spot,” Euronews.com, 4 November 2026.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Sandor Zsiros, “Montenegro Rejects ‘Second-Class’ EU Membership as It Eyes 2028 Accession,” Euronews.com, 3 November 2026.
12. Luca Bertuzzi, “Progress and Pitfalls on the Path to a Bigger EU: Five Takeaways from the Euronews Enlargement Summit,” Euronews.com, 3 November 2026.

U.S. Foreign Policy on Russia: On the Importance of an Educated Electorate

Shortly after the sudden and unexpected death of Lindsey Graham, South Carolina’s senior (and hawkish) U.S. senator, on 11 July 2026, the Congress passed, and U.S. President Trump signed, the Graham Act, which is legislation that gives the federal president discretion in adding economic sanctions and higher tariffs to weaken Russia’s military machine by hurting Russia’s economy—especially its lucrative oil industry—because Russia was still invading Ukraine. By Columbus Day, however, President Trump and Russia’s President Putin had made a deal wherein Russia would sell 300,000 tons of diesel to the U.S. and global markets immediately, with an additional 500,000 tons in November and then one million more. President Trump, using his discretion as allowed in the Graham Act, “issued a broad sanctions waiver for Russian diesel until April 2027.”[1] Euronews reported at the time that this move was “raising concerns in Ukraine and among its allies,” most notably the E.U. and in its state capitals.[2] The fact that the deal undercut the Western strategy of pressuring Russia economically so it would withdrawal its military from Ukrainian territory means that the diesel sale and broader waiver did more than raise concerns in Europe. Zelensky was probably hitting his head against a wall in utter disbelief at one point. For his part, Putin, formerly head of the KGB in the U.S.S.R., may have been relieved, and dumbstruck, that the Americans could be such suckers. As is often the case in foreign policy, domestic politics play a role in the motivation of key actors on the world stage. President Trump was facing an upcoming Congressional election in early November and whether Trump’s Republican group would continue to control the U.S. House and U.S. Senate was preoccupying the president in October because if even just one of the two federal legislative chambers would be under the control of the Democratic group, Trump’s legislative will would be compromised at best in getting through Congress. Trump’s political calculus had a lot to do with his knowledge of his base—the voters who would be likely to vote for Republican candidates in November. That base is often a “black box” to many Americans and Europeans alike, and this impedes accurate analysis of Trump’s political calculus in making a deal with Putin that would be sure to anger government officials both in Ukraine and the E.U.

The E.U. foreign minister, Kaja Kalla, responded to the deal by holding firm to the pro-Ukraine Western strategy of trying to weaken Russia economically so it would decamp from Ukrainian territory. “The US is our biggest ally,” she said, “but our message is clear: if we want to end this war, the only way we can do this is (by) putting more pressure on Russia.”[3] Paying for diesel by sending dollars to Putin’s Russia not only does not add to the pressure; Russia’s military “hand” is strengthened financially and even emboldened psychologically. Adding, “Russia has started this war” and “We should not forget about this,” Kallas “urged the White House to enforce [the Graham Act] that envisions  r-reaching sanctions and tariffs” on Russia—not less.[4] Kallas predicted that if the Americans would enforce the Act, enough economic pressure could be put on Russia for it to end the invasion. Trump’s waiver makes the opposite more likely, and if Russia seizes Ukraine, the Russian bear would be on the E.U.’s eastern door-step, emboldened by the weakness not only in the E.U. retaining the veto-power that states enjoy on foreign-policy and European defense legislative proposals in the European Council and the Council of Ministers, but also in the American President refusing to “stay the course” and even augment economic sanctions against Russia.

So why did Trump make the deal and issue the waiver? Lots of ink was used as various opinions were subsequently unleashed on Americans and Europeans alike. Generally, the view was that Trump stupidly thought that the release of 300,000 tons of diesel in October would lower food prices in grocery stores—as the hike in the market price of diesel, which is used by trains, trucks, and ships, had already been passed onto consumers of groceries—in time for the election in early November. Although automobiles typically do not use diesel, perhaps the president thought that the prices of gas in gas stations would fall too. That 300,000 tons of diesel covered just half a day of demand in the U.S., and thus the announcement of the deal hardly touched the world market-prices of diesel, was generally taken to show just how stupid the president was in making the deal in order to get more Americans to vote for candidates of Trump’s group. But such a view is superficial, as it misses what Trump may have known about his voters.

Many voters still inclined to vote Republican in 2026 may have thought that the U.S. buying diesel and thus increasing the supply in the U.S. would mean that gas prices would soon drop substantially. The connection to food prices would be a tougher hurdle, but Trump making this connection in his speeches campaigning for candidates in October would likely be sufficient. Why is this likely so? According to the Pew Research Center, “voters were sharply divided in [the presidential election of] 2024 by whether they have a college degree. Voters with a four-year [college] degree or more education—who constitute about 40% of all voters—favored Harris by a double-digit margin (16 percentage points), which those without a college degree favored Trump by nearly as much (14 points).”[5] The Pew report includes a graph entitled, “Wide divide between voters with and without college degrees continues to be a major factor in Trump-era elections.”[6] A major factor. This is not to say that college graduates have the knowledge and intelligence of an Einstein. Educated political commentators and non-Trump voters alike likely dismissed Trump’s political calculus by failing to realize that many, but not all, voters still in Trump’s “MAGA” base would not think out the problem far enough to include the likely impact on diesel and food prices that 300,000 additional tons of diesel on the world market, especially just weeks before the election. That MAGA and non-Trump voters, and their associated media outlets, are well-known to have very different perceptions of social reality does not account for the differential impact that such a gap in education has in terms of voters’ electoral judgments. That a voter would be more inclined to keep one’s House representative or U.S. senator in office or vote for a new Republican simply off the news that Trump is making deals to increase the amount of gas because the price will then fall a lot is not something that would necessarily occur to a college-educated person who is used to analyzing and thinking through, and has more of a knowledge base in general. In fact, even such a person, already graduated, may not realize that one of the chief benefits of four years of college lies in the improved use of reasoning (i.e., logic) that results from following the train of thought of professors in class, and of scholars in books, and especially in studying material for exams. After such improvement, a person may have trouble recalling what one’s own reasoning was like prior to going to college, and thus realizing how people without a college education think.

In short, Trump knew his base. It didn’t matter that the price of gas would not go down by election day. It didn’t matter that the voters would not see lower food prices in grocery stores. In fact, Trump’s announcement of the deal could outweigh even the most recent release of economic statistics—even that the monthly inflation rate in September was 3.4 percent. 

It is not for naught that Jefferson and Adams agreed that a viable republic—a representative democracy—requires an educated and virtuous self-governing citizenry. After World War II, a college degree rather than just a high school degree became the basic, or assumed, level of education: the base. That 60 percent of the American electorate had—at best—graduated from high school without going on to college in 2024 can thus be taken as the proverbial canary in the coalmine, for demagogues know how to exploit voters whose education is not sufficient for good self-governing (i.e., electoral judgment) that is the basis of any republic. To be sure, ideology plays a role too—voters are not merely rational beings. Values should also play a role in voting, but demagogues can take advantage of a voter’s lack of knowledge and hardship in reasoning through policies and legislation, either already enacted or proposed, even in contorting values. Hence, a poor person could be misled, for example, in voting for a candidate for office who campaigns that he would cut government aid to cover medical insurance and even necessary treatment, or for a candidate who says she would vote against a middle-class tax cut and increasing the earned income tax credit, and vote for a tax cut for people making over $200,000 a year. It is very hard for educated people to comprehend how any voter could be so easily tricked. Even if an anti-government ideology, which, to be sure, is a valid political philosophy, is firmly in place for such a voter, accepting to take most of the hit of government spending-cuts oneself is more difficult to justify, especially if one is barely getting by economically.

Even college educated voters may not reason beyond determining the nugatory price-impact of Trump’s deal with Putin to consider, for example, the impact of the refusal of the U.S. Justice Department to enforce anti-trust law on the relevant industries so market competition could exist and bring down prices to the extent that major oil companies and grocery companies, as well as seed producers and large agri-businesses (e.g., poultry). Ironically, the anti-intellectual prejudice in Trump’s “MAGA” base discouraged such advanced reasoning and analysis from gaining much spotlight (and credibility) in the media. Rule by mob, which both Plato and Aristotle considered to be the bad form of democracy, is antipodal to (i.e., inconsistent with) a meritocracy. This is not to advance Plato’s preference for philosopher kings, wherein a just polis is one wherein reason rules the passions (i.e., of the mob); rather, that both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams—two very different politicians, with different visions—agreed on anything is reason enough to pay more attention to their joint view that an educated citizenry is important if, as Ben Franklin said, Americans can keep the new republic. Viewing Trump as a threat to democracy is thus entirely too superficial; the threat is much deeper, and much more difficult to correct. The American member-states getting rid of heavy tuition bills foisted on students willing to put in the hard work of years of study would be a good start, but such an investment in civics would require an ability to reason beyond today and immediate self-interest, especially that which is economic. I submit that the state-members of the U.S. should be begging rather than charging their respective citizens to go on to college as a matter of necessity for the republics themselves as viable representative democracies. Moreover, to reason well, to be able cognitively to think things through, can be regarded as a virtue, and, furthermore, particularly in utilitarian America, it is worth mentioning that engaging in reasoning-training by studying knowledge for a sustained period of years (not just two) is useful in all walks of life, rather than just vocationally. Admittedly, I sacrificed too much of my youth to such refining and fortifying, so there is a limit to everything, but getting the U.S. to 60% of voters being college-educated is not asking too much of a citizenry.

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1. Jorge Liboreiro, “EU Decries ‘Concerning’ Trump-Putin Deak, Insists Sanctions on Russia Will Continue,” Euronews.com, 12 October 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Hannah Hartig, Scott Keeter, Andrew Daniller, and Ted Van Green, “Voting Patterns in the 2024 Election,” Pew Research Center.
6. Ibid.

St. Francis of Assisi: On War and Greed

St. Francis of Assisi died 800 years before October 4, 2026, assuming that the days dropped in adopting the Gregorian calendar after his death have been incorporated in the calculation. It seems that not only gravity affects time; changing calendars does too. As time passes, how past heroes are viewed changes according to contemporary circumstances and values. Painting of Jesus during the late Roman Empire depict him as a young Roman, with short hair and clean-shaven. During the Middle Ages, when beards and long hair were in style for men, Jesus too was depicted in such terms as we recognize in modernity. Similarly, I contend that Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s genocide in Gaza and violence in the West Bank framed the 800^th death-anniversary of Francis in terms of peace and diplomacy being salient in his mission. I contend that this emphasis unduly relegates something more important to him: his strident stance against greed, and even money itself as a symbol of avarice.

The full essay is at "Francis of Assisi."

NAZA: Dehumanization as Foundational to Genocide

While a student at Yale, I took Charlie Musser’s seminar on documentary films on a whim, after having taken two courses oriented to film narrative (not screenwriting). Because my studies were mainly in philosophy of religion, historical theology, and history at Yale, I think neither Charlie nor I knew quite why I was taking his course. At the time, I would not have thought that I would be writing on the genre thirty years later. The film, NAZA (2026), makes my earlier endeavor entirely worthwhile, and integrated into my main academic areas of study and research, which include ethics and political theory. The documentary “examines ‘the systems behind the mass killing of Palestinian civilians’” in Gaza, and as of October, the theatrical release was being extended due to so many sold-out showings.[1] The Venice Film Festival awarded the film with the Special Jury Prize, and the two filmmakers, Rachel Szor and Yuval Abraham, “received a record-breaking 25-minute standing ovation at the festival.”[2] The film can be interpreted as documenting the magnified harsh effects that unchecked power over other people can have when those others are dehumanized. It is interesting how close “NAZA” is to another word, NAZI.

The full essay is at "NAZA."

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1. David Mouriquand, “Gaza Documentary ‘NAZA’ Beating ‘Avengers Endgame” Encore’ at Box Office,” Euronews.com, 1 October 2026.

2.Ibid.

UN Speeches as Posturing During a Genocide

The UN report, “Gaza Genocide” (A/80/492) states that “the prolonged unlawful occupation of the Palestinian territory” by the state of Israel “has now escalated into a full-fledged genocide” with “the direct participation, aid and assistance” of other countries. Hence, the “collective crime” is “internationally enabled.”[1] Just before I wrote this, two Iranian dissidents sitting next to me in a coffee shop declared to me that the destruction by Israel in Gaza is not a genocide. I looked up the UN report, and replied, “It’s not just a matter of opinion anymore.” The two Iranians, doubtlessly in the US because they opposed their own regime in Iran, quickly left the coffee shop. Rather than being open to something more than their opinion, they left. Doubtless they had not expected the scholar sitting next to them to cite a well-documented source. To be sure, even political officials of governments critical of Israel’s genocide in Gaza (and the wanton violence of “settlers” in the West Bank were too inclined to posture for attention than even to be consistent in symbolic political actions (while refusing to occupy Gaza militarily, standing up to the holocaustic Israeli regime).

The UN report states that third countries (i.e., excluding Israel and Palestine) “may, and in some case (sic) must, use force against [a country] in violation of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter.”[2] That the UN’s General Assembly allowed Israel’s prime minister (Netanyahu) to speak in September, 2026 in spite of Israel’s significant, even blatant violations of the Charter is discrediting enough to the international organization; that the governor of the EU state of France spoke explicitly against the genocide and yet his UN delegation did not join some 70 others in walking out just before Netanyahu’s speech. That EU states had used their respective vetoes to proscribe federal action against Israel meant that the state governments were left to act, or not act, symbolically and/or in terms of trade and even military action against Israel in Gaza.

In his speech, the E.U. state of France’s governor, President Macron, said, “Recognition [of the Palestinian state] is just a piece of paper, look at the reality” in Gaza. “Are we simply to stand by and watch this spectacle that should shame us all?”[3] He should have been pointing his finger at himself, for he allowed his state’s delegation to literally sit by and watch Netanyahu’s speech. Had he really believed that Israel had been committing a genocide in Gaza, he should have opposed Netanyahu’s presence, and speech, at the UN, for committing a genocide clearly violates the UN Charter. Macron himself asked rhetorically in his speech, “But what credibility do we have if we continue to remain inactive in the face of Gaza?”[4] Duplicity even in symbolic political actions may be worse than doing nothing.

The stakes of just posturing were high not only because of Israel’s multi-year genocide, committed with impunity due to the US playing the vital roll of an enabling not-so-silent partner, but also because Russia was still invading Ukraine, a sovereign country. Accordingly, “Macron warned against a global ‘return to the law of the jungle,’ saying countries faced a choice between a world governed by power and coercion and a ‘civilized international society.’”[5] In other words, the alleged international law proffered by the UN and the International Criminal Court (ICC) after two world wars was being openly defied—and the US military actions in Venezuela to kidnap its president and in Iran to unleash bombs unilaterally (without Iran having attacked the US) can be added to the list of defying international law, if indeed law had really existed internationally after World War II (without any real enforcement mechanism) even amid the advent of international organizations.

To be credible—to be believed to be real—international law would have been enforced by third-country militaries entering Ukraine as soon as Russian troops crossed the border and entering Gaza to protect the civilians there as soon as Israel started bombing the enclave. Relative to such action, speeches at the UN against Israel’s genocide without the respective delegations even walking out before Netanyahu’s speech can be relegated as mere posturing and even as hypocritical. 

Macron was hardly alone in his duplicity. Even though the governor of the E.U. state of Italy had announced about six months earlier, “In light of the current situation, the government has decided to suspend the automatic renewal of the defence agreement with Israel,” Italy’s UN delegation did not walk out on Netanyahu either.[6] Meloni could easily have instructed her delegation to make such a symbolic move, especially as Netanyahu used his speech to threaten other countries by reminding them of Israel’s past use of phone pagers to blow up people. Such a reminder adds insult to injury, and even rubs the international body itself in the dirt for being so impotent in the face of a genocide in which Israel decimated entire cities in Gaza with utter impunity. Even though Israel arguably had lost its very legitimacy as a country in the world, the UN not only had failed to kick Israel out and urge militaries of countries (not “member states”) to occupy Gaza, but instead played host to symbolic inconsistency. The sheer severity of Israel’s crimes against humanity in Gaza (and the West Bank, in enabling “settler” violence and theft) dwarfs posturing half-measures even just in symbolic in nature. 

It could be asked at the time whether our feckless, weak species of windpipes deserves international law. Even just the convenient ideologically-based denial in 2026 that the decimation of Gaza constitutes a genocide even though the UN and ICC had determined as much supports the contention that  homo sapiens as a political animal is inherently compromised, and thus that the “family” of nations is in desperate need of international law, which requires automatic rather than only politically expedient enforcement.

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1.“Gaza Genocide: A Collective Crime” (A/80/492), The United Nations, 20 October 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. John Irish, “In UN Farewell, Macron Denounces Trump’s Gaza Diplomacy as Spectacle of Shame,” Reuters, September 22, 2026.
4.Ibid.
5.Ibid.
6. Angelo Amante and Alvise Armelini, “Italy’s Meloni Suspends Defence Cooperation Deal with Israel,” Reuters, April 14, 2026.

Russian Bombs Usher Ukraine’s UN Address

Human nature itself must be attuned to walking out before a speech by political leaders who intentionally have enemy civilians killed and severely injured, and to being attracted to hear leaders who represent the victims. So, at the UN in September, 2026, many delegates at the UN’s General Assembly walked out before a speech by Israel’s Netanyahu, who was wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity in Gaza (and arguably even in the West Bank), and Russia’s Putin did not even attend the opening session of speeches, whereas the address by Ukraine’s President Zelensky was to a full room. The contrast between Zelensky and the other two men could not be starker, and yet the UN was open to all three, serial violations of the UN Charter notwithstanding. The international organization can be said to have its legs wide open, and paradoxically to be impotent even with regard to enforcing its own charter. As a visiting research scholar at Harvard in 2025, I had the opportunity to speak personally with former UN officials, all of whom admitted that, given the vetoes in the Security Council, the UN itself could not even be reformed so the organization could even pass meaningful resolutions against a powerful member’s ally; something stronger at the global level would be needed if international law stood a chance of being enforced rather than merely given lip service. In 2026, even the notion of international law risked being relegated as an oxymoron, assuming that law itself—to be considered law rather than guideline or policy—requires a viable enforcement mechanism. To say that something is a law but is not enforced is to say that something really isn’t a law.

Flaunting the UN appearance of Ukraine’s president, Russia’s president unleased bombs in Kyiv and other cities in Ukraine as if to dare the UN to take action on Ukraine’s behalf. Not by accident, “Russia hammered Ukraine’s capital Kyiv with drones in daylight attacks . . . hours before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to address world leaders at the UN General Assembly. Two people were killed and 23 were wounded in Kyiv, and palls of black smoke floated above the city following the latest in what have been daily Russian attacks that torment Ukrainian civilians.”[1] Whereas Ukraine was targeting Russian oil facilities, Russia was going after civilians. The difference constitutes legitimate war from war crimes. For Russia to committing such crimes just hours before a highlighted address by Ukraine’s president at the UN is as if to dare the UN, and the world, to take military action to stop Russia from attacking Ukraine. That Russia had invaded Ukraine without the latter having provoked Russia militarily is itself a war crime, and in violation of the UN Charter. Indeed, at the time, Russia’s President Putin had an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court, but as no means of automatic enforcement had any credibility, the ability of the ICC to issue warrants deservedly warrants ridicule. Hence Russia’s Putin felt free to dare the UN to take notice and even action.

In spite of representing a people serially victimized by a military aggressor, Zelenskyy could only hope to speak of half-measures at the UN. In his address, he said, “When someone gives Russia more money through trade, they give this war more time. And that is exactly why we insist on limiting trade with the aggressor, and why we are burning Russia’s revenues ourselves.”[2] This strategy differs significantly from that of killing and wounding Russia civilians so the Russian people might pressure Putin to remove his military forces from Ukraine; but going after trade is indirect at best at getting Russia out of Ukraine militarily. Even though insisted, the governments represented at the UN could trade with Russia nonetheless, and with complete impunity from the UN, as Russia held a veto in the Security Council and could thus exploit a conflict of interest by thwarting any resolution contrary to Russia’s geopolitical and economic interests. At the core of the UN’s impotence and thus lack of credibility can be said to be a structural conflict of interest, wherein even violators of the UN Charter (and their allies) could block any unfavorable resolutions.

So, Russia’s President Putin could taunt Ukraine and, in effect, make fun of the world, by serially bombing Ukraine just hours before Zelensky’s address at the UN without worrying in the slightest that the UN or a coalition, or bloc, of sovereign countries might ascend on Ukraine to rid it of Russian military equipment and troops, or even send anti-missile weapons to Ukraine. Thus it could be said that by 2026, the post-World-War-II world order had virtually collapsed even though its institutions were still standing and even moving, like the limbs of some insects that still kick just after death and thus such insects appear to still be alive.

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1. Gavin Blackburn, “Russian Pounds Kyiv with Drones, Killing Two and Wounding 23 Hours before Zelenskyy’s UN Address,” Euronews.com, 23 September 2026.
2. Edith Lederer and Jennifer Pelitz, “Zelenskyy, at UN, Urges Leaders to Keep Choking Russia’s Revenues and Impede Its War Efforts,” APNews.com, September 23, 2026.

Canada as an Associate Member of the E.U.

In the first two decades of the twenty-first century, one trend in the American retail sector involved the creation of a status that had not existed: customers as “members.” The jargon was essentially marketing because managers in corporate headquarters realized that customers would doubtlessly appreciate the more exclusive label of “member” because clubs have members. Would the American political elite pick up on the trick and refer to citizens as members of the U.S. even though such a label so applied would not make sense? Meanwhile, to differentiate the E.U. from the U.S., Europe’s political elite regularly referred to E.U. states as member-states even though the same label could be applied to U.S. states. States of both unions are represented at the federal level, and thus are indeed members, whereas to be a customer is not to be a member of a store. When Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, sought closer relations with the E.U. due to his trade-fight with the U.S. in 2026, he discussed with European leaders the possibility of Canada becoming an “associate member” of the E.U. even though no such status existed. The implication is that E.U. states, unlike U.S. states, are not really states, but rather are members. This implication exposes the underlying category mistake that denies that states pertain to federal systems whereas countries are members of international alliances and trade blocs.

On September 13, The Wall Street Journal reported that Carney had been “exploring closer ties with the European Union, including becoming an ‘associate member’ of the bloc.”[1] Creating such a status would be difficult because the E.U. did not have members; rather, the political union, which is not an informal network of sovereign countries (i.e., a bloc), has states. In fact, the E.U. is beyond being a confederation of sovereign states, as the U.S. had been under its Articles of Confederation; both the federal and state levels of judicial, legislative, and executive governance have some sovereignty. This is what distinguishes a federation from a confederation in modern parlance. So, the E.U. has semi-sovereign states, and thus not “members” as if the E.U. were a bloc or international alliance or trade group.

At the time, Canada was a member of the British Commonwealth of former colonies, so Carney can be viewed as misapplying that relation to the European Union. Similarly, when David Cameron was the prime minister of Britain, he carelessly quipped that the E.U. was just one of the international networks that Britain happened to be in. A federal union that itself is semi-sovereign (enumerated powers or competencies having been transferred from the states) is not a network. It would appear that political category mistakes abound when it comes to the European Union. Like the U.S.’s federal level, that of the E.U. is semi-sovereign and thus that union is not international. Technically, both the U.S. and E.U. have international and national elements/principles of governance at the federal level, but neither union can be labeled as international. Hence the words “member” and “associate member” do not apply to states in either union.

The root cause of the linguistic category mistakes is ideology. Specifically, what had been known as “states’ rights” in the nineteenth century in the U.S. was effectively renamed in the E.U. as “Euroskepticism” two centuries later. The ideology seeks to minimize the governmental sovereignty that has been transferred to the federal level; referring to E.U. states as members intentionally gives the false impression that the states were still fully sovereign. Mislabeling the E.U. itself as a bloc is from the same motive. Whereas members of a bloc are free to act as they please, semi-sovereign states in a federal system in which the federal level’s institutions of public governance also have some sovereign powers are bound by them. It is from precisely that ideology that Viktor Orbán’s state of Hungary wantonly violated E.U. law.

The Wall Street Journal fell for the ploy of implying that E.U. states are actually members. Noting that the status of associate member did not exist in the E.U., the newspaper indicated, according to Euronews, that “the EU could be open to creating special membership arrangements” for Canada.[2] Euronews followed the sentence with another: “The EU and Canada want to bolster trade ties of goods, services and workers, particularly in areas including energy, artificial intelligence, defence and critical minerals.”[3] The E.U. and Canada are represented here as equal parties, however, rather than one being in the position amenable to being an associate member (or state) of the other. Put another way, Canada and the E.U. were negotiating on trade as equals, as per the (limited) governmental sovereignty that both had at the time. If Carney wanted Canada to be an E.U. rather than a U.S. state, Canada and the E.U. would no longer be on the same level because Canada’s accession would have to be approved by the European Union, and Canada would then be a part of the whole rather than another whole. The notion that Canada would merge with the E.U. (or the U.S.) and yet be a state, or worse, a member, is internally inconsistent. So too is the claim that a federal union of states has members, and therefore possibly associate members too. Perhaps Guam (and other U.S. territories) should be labeled as an associate member of the U.S., as if the American states were members of the U.S.

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1. Lucy Davalou, “Canada Eyes ‘Associate Member’ Status with EU amid US Tensions, WSJ Reports,” Euronews.com, 13 September, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.