On the E.U.'s Initiative for Ukraine

In March, 2025 after the U.S. had direct talks with Russia on ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the E.U. stepped up its game in helping Ukraine militarily. This was also in the context of a trade war between the E.U. and U.S., which did not make transatlantic relations any better. The E.U.’s increasing emphasis on military aid to Ukraine and the related publicity inadvertently showcased how federalism could be applied to defense and foreign policy differently that it has in the U.S., wherein the member states are excluded, since the Articles of Confederation, when the member states were sovereign within the U.S. confederation. Although both manifestations of early-modern federalism have their respective benefits and risks, I contend that the E.U.’s application of federalism to the two governmental domains of power is more in the spirit of (dual-sovereignty) federalism, even though serious vulnerabilities can be identified.

The full essay is at "The E.U. and U.S. on Defense and Foreign Policy."

The UN: Israel Guilty of Reproductive Genocide

On March 13, 2025, the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory released a report based on evidence of incessant incidents and Israeli strategic bombings to the UN Human Rights Council. “Israel has increasingly employed sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence against Palestinians as part of a broader effort to undermine their right to self-determination,” Chris Sidoti of the Commission stated.[1] This statement is oriented to particular incidents, albeit recurrent; the report goes on to charge the Israeli government with genocidal methods targeting the ability of the Palestinian population to sexually reproduce itself. Ironically, such methods may bring to mind the methods used in Nazi Germany, including those used by Josef Mengele, the “Angel of Death,” to wantonly kill and strategically sterilize undesirables. It need not be a truism, however, that the descendants of victims become victimizers, though I suspect that studies on intergenerational psychology attest to the phenomenon. Also ironically, culpability with an intergenerational cause is also a theme in the Hebrew Bible. Thirdly, it is ironic too that Yahweh may have the last word on the Israeli transgressions, as this too is a recurrent theme in the Hebrew Bible’s faith-rendering of the history of Israel. It would be odd indeed were Yahweh behind a sort of rendering of justice against the Nazis by having Israel inflict severe pain on Palestinians in the occupied territories. Put another way, that justice did not catch up to every Nazi aggressor does not mean that excessive, and thus unjust, harming of innocents can complete the cycle of justice. In fact, both the literal “overkill” by Israel and Russia’s war crimes in invading Ukraine—both with impunity—raise the question of whether omnipotent Yahweh gives a damn, or even whether it is actually sheer fiction.

In the Commission’s report released to the UN on June 14, 2024, whose coverage includes the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 and does not excuse Hamas for its atrocities against Israelis. Even so, the Israeli government ignored the Commission’s requests for information even on those crimes. That the UN had created the state of Israel must also be considered in assessing the refusal. The report also states that the attack by Hamas “and the subsequent Israeli military operation in Gaza must be seen in context. Those events were preceded by decades of violence, unlawful occupation and the denial by Israel of the right of Palestinians to self-determination”.[2] The “unlawful occupation” is especially relevant, as it attests that the political and military “playing field” was hardly level. The Israeli government had taken advantage of this macro advantage for decades, and the Commission’s report on the genocidal sexual and reproductive crimes against humanity following October 7, 2023 should be put in this context. In other words, those crimes were not part of an even “tit-for-tat” between two equal adversaries. Moreover, 45,000 to 55,000 killed or starved for 1250 Israelis killed on October 7, 2023 is so extremely one-sided that the slant in the underlying geo-political and military paradigm can be reckoned as being culpable, as well as the party enforcing it.

Therefore, it is vital to go beyond particular instances of the crimes. Even as the March, 2025 report includes incidents, the macro-level of genocidal sexual tactics is not ignored. Of the former, “two days of public hearings held in Geneva . . . featuring victims and witnesses of sexual and reproductive violence and medical personnel who assisted them, as well as civil society representatives, academics, lawyers and medical experts” went into the report.[3] The report asserts that “forced public stripping and nudity, sexual harassment including threats of rape, as well as sexual assault” were “standard operating procedure” of the Israeli Security Forces in Gaza.[4] Furthermore, the report maintained that “forms of sexual and gender-based violence, including rape and violence to the genitals, were committed either under explicit orders or with implicit encouragement by Israel’s top civilian and military leadership.”[5] From a human standpoint, it is only natural that the anger of Gaza residents towards Israelis and Israel going forward must be such that any proximity, such as is an aspect of military occupation, is itself problematic and essentially infeasible. That such anger can be expected to be intergenerational also rendered continued occupation unfeasible. This is not to say that the residents of Gaza should be moved; a coalition of the willing globally could step in to see that no Israeli enters the territory, which, fortunately, shares a border with Egypt.

The report on the sexual and reproductive tactics also covers crimes against the Palestinian people in Gaza, and this also renders continued occupation untenable. Specifically, the Commission reported “that Israeli forces had systematically destroyed sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities across Gaza, including Gaza’s largest fertility clinic, Al Basma centre, in December 2023.”[6] Additionally, it was no accident, according to the report, that “(t)ank shelling destroyed about 4,000 embryos at the clinic that reportedly assisted 2,000-3,000 patients a month.”[7] According to Sidoti, “certainly, their commanders knew and the commanders would have known that there were tanks operating within that vicinity and firing on buildings and fired on a healthcare facility that was clearly marked.”[8] To be sure, it is possible that the Israeli government had intel that Hamas was using the clinic as a shield. Even if this were so, the report includes other instances of tactics of reducing the number of Palestinians in Gaza, such as direct attacks on maternity wards, “combined with the use of starvation as a method of war,” that have negatively “impacted all aspects of reproduction.”[9] Imagine the reaction were such a design and intent applied by an occupying power on Israel; it would not take long at all for the Israeli government to charge such an occupier with committing Nazi atrocities on the Jews. The asymmetry itself points back to the tilted playing field.

From its collection of evidence, the Commission could detect a systemic pattern. The report “finds that the destruction amounts ‘to two categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention, including deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians and imposing measures intended to prevent births.”[10] The very notion of collective justice (and injustice) is based on the fallacy that there are no innocents in a population. Immediately after the Hamas attack, the president of Israel commited this fallacy and connected it with his stated determination that every resident in Gaza should suffer as a result of the Hamas attack. The reaction of governments around the world was to step back and let this fallacious reasoning be implemented on the ground in Gaza by embittered Israeli leaders and soldiers. It is as in Hobbes’ Leviathan in that a sovereign power can do whatever it wants. Yet even in Hobbes’ political theory, even though a country’s sovereign power has the last word in interpreting scripture, everyone is subject to God’s judgment.

The doctrine in Jonathan Edwards’ sermon, “Sinners in Zion,” is that the “time will come when fearfulness will surprise the sinners in Zion, because they will know that they are going to be cast into a devouring fire, which they must suffer forever ad ever, and which none can endure.” Edwards’ most famous (or infamous) sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” is based on Deut. 32:35: “Their foot shall slide in due time.” This can be said of the Israelis who are culpable in ordering or committing genocidal acts well in excess of reciprocal harm in an eye for an eye. The Palestinians are largely if not all Muslims, so it cannot be believed that Yahweh would be in favor of the killing, starvation (e.g., blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza in 2025), deprivation of utilities (e.g., cutting off electricity), and reproductive abuse. It is not as though the deity were saying to Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu, Go and rid the Land of Israel of those people who worship other gods, as is the biblical story of Yahweh directing the Hebrews to circle Jericho seven times and kill even the women and children who worship Baal because they do not worship Yahweh. Rather, it seems that Yahweh would eventually punish Israel (i.e., collective divine justice) for having violated the Commandment against killing, especially if the magnitude is well beyond tit-for-tat.

For a God-fearing Israeli, and the rest of us, Yahweh once again punishing Israel for its transgressions is not something that any person can or should take on as if delegated by that deity to enforce divine justice. Indeed, such a horrendous assumption renders theocracies dangerous. We are all, human, all too human, and thus we don’t have the omniscience to be God’s enforcers. This is not to say that governments cannot or should not act to enforce international law, especially given the impotence of the United Nations, but absent this, there is faith that Yahweh will have the last word in holding Israel accountable here rather than only in the hereafter. Instead of willful arrogance, humility, self-restraint, and contrition are the appropriate attitudes of people of faith who have so violated divine (and international) law. It can even be said that serving rather than attacking one’s enemies unlocks the door to the kingdom of God, but even this is subject to willful intransigence out of jealousy and spite.

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1. “Rights Probe Alleges Sexual Violence Against Palestinians by Israeli Forces Used as ‘Method of War,” UN News, United Nations, March 13, 2025.
2. “Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including
East Jerusalem, and Israel,” Annual Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Reports of the Office of the High Commissioner and the Secretary-General, The United Nations. June 14, 2024.
3. Rights Probe Alleges Sexual Violence Against Palestinians by Israeli Forces Used as ‘Method of War,” UN News, United Nations, March 13, 2025.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.

The E.U.: A Step Toward a World Federation?

Does the European Union represent a novel paradigm and thus a step in political development? Whether this is so or not, can the E.U. be thought of as a step on the way towards a world federation? In a talk at Harvard in 2025, Anthony Pagden, a professor at UCLA, addressed these questions when the E.U. was just a few years over thirty—comparable to the U.S. in 1820. The question was not whether the E.U. too would lean towards political consolidation around a federal head, but whether the world was making its way institutionally toward the creation by compact of a world federation, which in turn could presumably stave off war. In 2025, the need for global accountability on willful, militarily-aggressive national governments was on at least some minds. The implication is that the global order based on national sovereignty was insufficient, especially given the advanced destructiveness of military weapons.

According to Pagden, the nation-state concept is at its core an ethnic concept that was extended in the 19^th century to include states that had territory extended beyond that of a particular ethnic group.  Although nation-states had existed, the concept came into its own in the 1800s, so the modern notion of the nation-state is ahistoric, and thus perfectly capable of being superseded should political development occur. The related notion of sovereignty only became salient in the 16^th century (e.g., Jean Bodin) and this continued in the next century in Hobbes’ Leviathan.  Hobbes’ assumption was not that governmental sovereignty could not be split like an atom, but that it should not be divided lest civil war break out. Europe was no stranger to war in the 1600s, given the Thirty Years War, which was based on religious differences bearing on political power.

Of course, the atom of sovereignty was split in the U.S. Convention in the following century, with the checks-and-balances in federalism being relied upon to keep the inherently unstable division stable. Although Pagden didn’t mention this point, he did say that relations between nation-states had historically tended to be through empires but more recently (in centuries) has been through federations. In the process, the very notion of sovereignty has been undergoing a gradual transformation. Whereas Russia’s President Putin once claimed that either a country is sovereign or it’s a colony, Pagden claimed that at least as of 2025, sovereignty had reached international organizations. Together with nation-states, the notion of multilevel sovereignty had come into its own. From this notion, Pagden claimed, a world federation would someday be likely. He cited Durkheim’s prediction that at some point humanity would form a global “social order” may be correct, but Kant’s claim that peace would only be possible but not probable under a world federation also deserves attention. Even if the world’s shift from empires to federal governments and international confederations (which actually extend back to antiquity--Sparta and Athens having headed military confederations) makes a world federation more likely, the question of whether having one would stave off war warrants reflection too. I think the key would be whether such a federation has enforcement power, for the U.N. has arguably sidelined itself because it lacks the authority and power to enforce its own resolutions and the veto mechanism on the Security Council is a contributing factor that relegated the U.N. to the sidelines as Russia invaded Ukraine and Israel ravaged Gaza—both cases evincing an utter lack of accountability from beyond the sovereignty of the nation-state.

Pagden stressed that even though historically, empires have shaped the geography of the modern world, federations will likely make an indelible imprint on the world in the future. “Empires and federations have much in common,” he said. Both are legal societies. But with respect to confederal international organizations, including the United Nations, “international law is controversial.” I would add that the lack of enforcement power renders such law de facto impotent in its own right, although such law can be used by nation-states in the exercise of their sovereignty on the world stage.

Even though empires and federations have elements in common—indeed, originally federations were exclusively international--empires are created by conquest, whereas federations begin by consent. In European history, countries that had sovereign states in Medieval times became political sub-units of federal nation-states in the early-modern period. Pagden characterized Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium as “centralized federalism.” U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin once told me that Congress delegating functions to the state governments is “decentralized federalism.” Relatedly, Pagden said that the notion of subsidiarity comes from Roman law; only legislation that affects all of the political sub-units should be at the empire level. In his Political Digest (1603), Althusius relates this point to his claim that only the members at a level in a federal system are to be represented at the next-highest level: individuals belong only to the first-level. That Germany and Belgium are themselves states in the E.U. federal system resembles the structure of Althusian federalism, which is based on the Holy Roman Empire. By implication, geographically diverse U.S. states, such as California and New York, could federate and still remain as states in the U.S., just as Belgium and Germany in the European Union. Once you get the levels right, comparative federalism gets very interesting (and contentious, for most people compare apples with oranges—a state in one Union with another Union).

The ECJ says that the EU treaties evince a constitutional order, so common law from the ECJ is indeed law. Pagden disagreed with the European Court of Justice on this point, whereas I agree with the court. Even so, he said, “The E.U. is a federation even if not in name.” The contradiction is only apparent. The E.U., according to Pagden, is an exception—thus instantiating a new paradigm and thus a step in political development. He could have cited the Athenian League and Sparta’s confederation as evincing the close association that federalism has had with distinctly international rather than national political entities. The British Commonwealth too is international, but it being voluntary differentiates it from federalism, which has tended to be treaty-based.

I contend that to classify the E.U. as an international organization is incorrect. Unlike NATA, the UN, ASEAN, and the AU, the E.U. has a federal government of three branches: the European Court of Justice, a legislature (the Council of the E.U., the European Council, and the European Parliament, which represents E.U. citizens rather than states), and an executive branch (the European Commission). Like the U.S. the E.U. has federal institutions based on national (e.g., the ECJ, the Parliament and the Commission) and international (e.g., the European Council and the Council of the E.U.) principles. The U.S. House is based on national principles whereas the U.S. Senate is based on international principles—the same ones that the UN is based on). Both empire-scale federations, the E.U. and U.S., fall under the rubric of federalism wherein governmental sovereignty is “dual,” or split, whereas the UN and NATO are not, for full sovereignty is retained by the countries. Applicable to the E.U. as well as the U.S., John Stuart Mill claimed not only that federations are not stable over time, but also that a federation can become a nation-state. Indeed, the E.U. and U.S. effectively split the very notion of nation-state between two governmental systems over the same territory.

The basic paradigmatic likeness of the E.U. and U.S. flies in the face of Pagden’s argument that the E.U. evinces something politically sui generis; this point in turn he uses to claim that the new type of federalism is more useful than the American type as a basis for a world federation constructed by regional federations. I submit that the E.U. and U.S. are empire-scale federal systems and thus can be characterized as regional with respect to the global level. The E.U. doesn’t need to be unique for the construction of a world federation by consent to be achieved; the U.S. and E.U. both evince the useful step in that both federations fall under “modern federalism,” which Ken Wheare distinguishes from confederalism because only in the former type is governmental (not popular!) sovereignty split, whether by treaty, basic law, or constitution. Furthermore, that the interstate heterogeneity in both the E.U. and U.S. is a leap from intrastate diversity whether in terms of political ideology or culture qualifies both unions as being a useful step potentially if a world federation is someday to be constructed. The diversity within the E.U. is much greater than is the diversity within Germany, for example. The same applies to France. Hence federalism, in being able to accommodate differences, is more useful at the level of the E.U. (and the U.S.).

Pagden rightly points to Europe’s shared political and legal culture from Roman law, and all of the delegates at the U.S. convention were of European extraction at some point. A world federation would be another leap in terms of inter-state diversity because no such common cultural basis would apply. The distinction between British common law and the French code pales in comparison between ancient Roman and Chinese law. Also, the absolutist interpretation of sovereignty by the governments of Russia and China is a world away from the notion of dual sovereignty that characterizes “modern federalism” as evinced in the E.U. and the U.S, both of whose federal institutions are based on national and international principles depending on the institution. This hybrid is precisely what a world federation might need, and yet the notion of applying federalism to making a nation-state and yet one whose members are semi-sovereign (with residual sovereignty!) was even by 2025 foreign to a Hobbesian notion of sovereignty as unitary and absolute.

Therefore, I do not think that a new paradigm or type of federalism will be necessary for a world federation to be constructed. In fact, the hybrid that is at the federal level in the cases of the U.S. and E.U. can be useful, and even perhaps necessary, for such a federation not to succumb to impotence on enforcement. Yet I suspect this would be the sticking point for countries like Russia and China. Simply put, the absolutist view of national sovereignty must give way to make way for Wheare’s notion of dual-sovereignty in federalism for national governments, whether federated or not, to consent to a global federation. Staving off war is arguably worth scrapping the absolutist view, but try convincing Presidents Xi or Putin of this; after all, a very intelligent man, Immanuel Kant, thought that world peace would only be possible—not probable.

On the Impact of Personalities on Diplomacy: The Case of Trump and Zelensky

One of the many advantages that democracy has over autocracy (i.e., dictatorship) is that the dispersion of political power among elected representatives and even between branches of government (i.e., checks and balances) reduces the impact that one personality can have on diplomacy. Even in a republic in which power is concentrated in a president or prime minister, one personality can matter. Given the foibles of human psychology, the risks associated with a volatile personality “at the top” in a nuclear age are significant. Kant’s advocacy of a world federation includes a caveat that world peace would only be possible rather than probable. Given the probability of anger and associated cognitive lapses in even an elected president or prime minister, a world order premised on absolute national sovereignty is itself risky; hence the value of a semi-sovereign world federation with enforcement authority. The impromptu press conference between U.S. President Trump and Ukraine’s President Zelensky on February 28, 2025 demonstrates the risks in countries being in a Hobbesian state of nature (i.e., not checked by any authority above them).

In the Oval Office at the White House, “a remarkable scene was unfolding. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance had begun berating their guest, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a hitherto unseen public implosion of a key global relationship.”[1] The implosion was between two people—the two presidents—rather than of the alliance itself, but the former was indeed capable of impacting the latter. Put another way, two people, rather than two countries, were arguing. “The state is moi” is not a relation of identity in a republic. That it was a host who was shouting and berating a guest went largely unnoticed in the press, in part because the host was on the offensive in pivoting from an (orchestrated?) question from a journalist; his question contained the insult that Zelensky’s wearing of his military uniform in the sacred Oval Office was disrespectful even though Elon Musk had worn t-shirts there even that month. Unlike Musk, Zelensky was at war—one caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Showing visual comradery with generals and troops by wearing a uniform is laudatory rather than indicative of an intent to disrespect other presidents. Ironically, Trump had installed flags of all of the U.S. military branches in the Oval Office.

In short, the Ukrainian president may have unwittingly walked into a pre-arranged “turkey shoot.” That Trump had his counterpart thrown out of the White House—the invitation to lunch notwithstanding—evinces not only anger, but sheer rudeness in place of hospitality. That such human foibles could upend a deal between two countries even though one stood to gain access to rare earth-minerals with commercial applications and the other country was in dire need of a third-party to broker an end to the devastating war. The political philosophy of international business, wherein commercial interests reduce the likelihood of war, was implicitly reputed as Trump shouted accusations at his guest.

What enraged Trump was Zelensky’s claim that if the U.S. (and the E.U.) don’t stand up to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia would not stop with that country. As in the case of World War II, an ocean could not keep the U.S. out of war as Hitler was invading countries. That Zelensky had a valid point was utterly missed by the angered American president. Adding insult to injury, Trump refused to let his guest speak, and Vice President Vance accused Zelensky of being ungrateful, even though the president had thanked America for its military aid on several occasions.[2] Any implicit disrespect in Zelensky’s military garb in the Oval Office was more than made up for by the dignity of that president in constraining himself from insulting Trump and Vance. In contrast, it was Vance’s rudeness and Trump’s verbal hostility toward a guest that were below the dignity of the American presidency and the sacred room.

Zelensky’s point that American could eventually be drawn into another European war is valid—this point should be made perfectly clear. It was not Zelensky who was risking another world war; rather, it was Trump’s lack of emotional self-control that made such an event more likely, for Trump’s rash cancelation of the agreement for U.S. military and diplomatic help in exchange for access to rare earth-minerals in Ukraine made it more likely that Russia would absorb the Ukraine militarily and perhaps then go into the Baltic states and perhaps even Poland. It was Hitler’s invasion of Poland that brought Britain into war with Germany, and that in turn involved the U.S. militarily in its lend-lease agreement with Britain. Trump did not grasp this point that Zelensky was making, and this cognitive lapse in turn triggered Trump’s temper. This is precisely why a world-order founded on absolute national sovereignty is dangerous.

As titillating as a brawl is to watch, I contend that a wise electorate looks beyond such flash-points to keep one eye on fundamental implications. The structure and foundation of the world order was vulnerable to rash personality conflicts between presidents of sovereign countries even in the context of war, especially since post-World War II institutions such as the UN were waning given their lack of enforcement authority. Fortunately, the world was shifting off of the bi-polar hegemony of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War, and it was not lost on the E.U.’s foreign minister, Kaja Kallas, who wrote on the day of the brawl, “Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge.”[3] She even reminded the world that Russia, not Ukraine, was the aggressor, as Trump implicitly contracted this point in accusing Zelensky of risking World War III by not being grateful. A world order in which the U.S. is the world’s “police department” was, fortunately, becoming antiquated, for, given President Trump’s lack of emotional self-control, such a unipolar structure with the U.S. at the hub was indeed dangerous, given the impact that personalities can have on diplomacy.

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1. Kevin Liptak and Jeff Zeleny,”Inside the 139 Minutes that Upended the US-Ukraine Alliance,” CNN.com, March 1, 2025, italics added.
2. Daniel Dale, “Fact Check: 33 Times Zelensky Thanked Americans and US Leaders,” CNN.com, February 28, 2025.
3. Malek Fouda, “European Leaders Unite Behind Ukraine Following Trump-Zelenskyy Confrontation,” Euronews, February 28, 2025.

A European Army: A More Perfect Union

At the Munich Security Conference in February, 2025, Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy bluntly asserted, “I really believe that the time has come that the armed forces of Europe must be created.”[1] He could have said in 2023 after Russia’s President Putin had sent tanks and bombs into Ukraine; instead, the inauguration of President Trump in the U.S. that was the trigger. “Let’s be honest,” Zelenskyy continued, “now we can’t rule out that America might say ‘no’ to Europe on issues that might threaten it.”[2] At the time, Trump was planning to meet with Putin to end the war without Britain and a number of E.U. states at the table. After all, they had failed to push Putin off Crimea in 2014, and even in 2025, they were not on the same page on how to defend Ukraine militarily. Amid the political fracturing in Europe, Ukraine’s president was urging that the E.U. itself have an army, rather than merely the 60,000 troops for which the union was dependent on the states. Even on being able to borrow on its own authority, the E.U. was hamstrung by the state governments that were more interested in retaining power than in benefitting from collective action. It is difficult to analyze Zelenskyy’s plea without including the anti-federalist, Euroskeptic ideology that was still eclipsing the E.U. from realizing a more perfect union.

At the security conference, Zelenskyy put is finger on the problem: “Europe has everything it takes. Europe just needs to come together and start acting in a way that no one can say ‘no’ to Europe, boss it around, or treat it like a pushover.”[3] With foreign policy splintered—still residing primary at the state level—the E.U. could only stand by while Trump and Putin easily excluded Europe from at least the initial talks to end the war. Instead of throwing darts at the two easy external targets, Europeans could alternatively look inward in order to get the root of the problem as to why Europe was not as powerful as the size of its population would warrant. Europe just needs to come together. Even what seems like Europe coming together may really just be a perpetuation of the splintering, or fracturing, motivated by a states’ rights ideology that has compromised the E.U. since its beginning in the early 1990s.

Rather than meeting in the European Council to respond to Trump’s upcoming talks with Putin, the E.U. state of France invited ten “European leaders” to Paris “to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and strengthen their common position amid the accelerated peace process being promoted by [Trump].”[4] With Britain included, the meeting could not even be considered to be of the E.U.; in fact, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the E.U.’s Commission, and Antonio Costa, the president of the European Council were to be merely on hand, rather than chairing the meeting. Even if the two were in charge of the meeting, the inclusion of Britain would at the very least be awkward.

In short, the parts of the federal system were in charge, while the representatives of the whole were being treated as mere appurtenances. This structure itself belies collective action whose benefits could rival those of the U.S. Rather than defer to von der Leyen and Costa, the governor of the E.U. state of France presumed that his state should take the lead in uniting Europe militarily even beyond the European Union. Concerning any resolved future military action to help Ukraine against Russia, not even von der Leyen could be relied on to reconcile any disagreements on implementation that include Britain, and as merely one of the parts, France’s Macron was in no position to weld authority over the other parts and Britain beyond chairing the meeting.  

It is no wonder that Trump and Putin decided to exclude Europe. In fact, had the two men wanted to sideline the usual fractured suspects in Europe, von der Leyen and Costa could have been invited instead of the governors of the E.U. states. In such a scenario, it would really be indicative of a problem if the governors of some of the E.U. states would meet on their own anyway—even though two of the E.U. presidents would have seats at the talks. This sordid, self-aggrandizing mentality has benefitted from the political agitation of Euroskeptics (i.e., states’ rights in American parlance), but the problem is that of state officials—and their respective governments—too desirous of holding onto power rather than agreeing to delegate some of it to the federal level—by which I mean along with qualified majority voting there rather than unanimity wherein the states can retain their power at the expense of collective action, and the benefits thereof.

Zelenskyy was on target: a European—meaning the E.U.—army was needed, and not just because of Trump or Putin. A federal system in which state officials relegate federal officials—presidents no less—not only puts the interests of (some of) the parts before that of the whole, but also imperils the federal system itself from being able to sustain itself as a going concern. For Europeans, its well past time to look within rather than focus on Trump in utter disgust.

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1. Joshua Posaner, “Zelenskyy: ‘The Time Has Come’ for a European Army,” Politico, February 15, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Jorge Liboreiro, “Macron Hosts European Leaders in Paris as Trump Pushes for Peace Talks on Ukraine,” Euronews.com, February 17, 2025.

Russian Electricity Hits a Financial Curtain

On February 8, 2025, the E.U. states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania turned off all electricity-grid connections to Russian and Belarussian supplies of electricity, thus reducing revenues for the belligerent country and its ally. Electricity would thenceforth merge with the Continental European and Nordic grids through links with the E.U. states of Finland, Sweden, and Poland. Europe was taking care of its own, for a price of course, while Russia was increasing trade with China and other countries to make up the difference from decreasing trade with Europe. In short, it can be concluded that unilaterally invading a country has economic consequences that diminish and reconfigure international business.

At the time, European media played up the “geopolitical and symbolic significance” of the “severing of electricity ties.”[1] To these, economic significance could be added. No longer could officials in Russia’s government count on the stable revenue to help finance the military incursion into Ukraine. The economic interdependence between Russia and the E.U. was decreasing. Moreover, the philosophy of international business, which maintains that increasing commercial ties, including trade and foreign direct-investment, reduces the probability of war because such conflict would come with a financial cost. In fact, decreasing economic interdependence can itself make war more probable as there is less to lose financially from going to war.

Moreover, taking the E.U. and Russia as empire-scale countries that in themselves can be viewed as regions in the world, a financial curtain replacing the Iron Curtain of the Cold War could be said to be the “big picture” of which cutting off supplies of Russian electricity is just a part. In the age of nuclear weapons, a financial divide between the E.U. and Russia (and Belarus) could give rise to dangers of much greater magnitude than even Russia’s threats to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Even though the view that if enough international business is established between two or more countries, war can finally be obviated has been shown to be faulty, eliminating trade and foreign direct-investment makes it easier politically for countries to go to war over other matters.

In short, the severing of business relationships can be viewed on the macro economic-geopolitical level on which the severing of ongoing business contracts can itself be viewed as a political weapon and, together with other severings, as part of larger economic wedge between even regions of the world. At that scale, as the world wars of the twentieth century demonstrate and perhaps pre-figure, war can be of a magnitude that the weapons unleased are nothing short of horrendous. Drawing an economic line roughly between Europe and Asia can have very significant geopolitical and military implications. Perhaps it is owing to human nature that we are more prone to drawing such lines in which economic relations are severed than to reinforcing economic interdependencies in spite of the fact that they do not obviate war. It takes some time for a spider to weave its web, especially if the spider happens to be named Charlotte, but only a moment for such a web to be destroyed.

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1. Daniel Bellamy, “Baltic States Cut Russian Electricity Ties, Ending Decades of Reliance,” Euronews.com, February 8, 2025.

On the Establishment of Israel: Return to Haifa

Return to Haifa (1982) is a film in which the political element of international relations is translated into personal terms on the levels of family and individual people. The establishment of Israel by the UN is depicted in the film as being accomplished not only incompetently, but in negligence of likely human suffering. In fact, the suffering of the indigenous population may have been intended, given the operative attitude towards those people as animals. That the human being can be so dehumanizing in action as well as belief ultimately makes victims of all of us, even across artificial divides. This is precisely what the film depicts, with the victims being the active characters while the real culprits remain for the most part off-camera. The viewer is left with a sense of futility that can be undone by widening one’s view to include the antagonists, who are not passive. It is not as if fate inexorably brought about the Nakba (or even the scale of the atrocities in Gaza in the next century, which, as the film was made in 1982, cannot be said to be anticipated by the filmmaker—though perhaps it could have been).

The full essay is at "Return to Haifa."

On the Establishment of Israel: Farha

The establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, being in the wake of the Nazi atrocities, was arguably viewed generally then as something that the world owed to the Jewish people. Perhaps for this reason, the UN did not take adequate measures on the ground to safeguard the Palestinian residents. In retrospect, the possibility, even likelihood, that people who group-identify with (or even as) victims consciously decide to become victimizers should have been better considered. The film, Farha, made in 2021, illustrates the sheer indeterminacy, and thus arbitrariness, of human volition when it issues orders to the body to be violent against other rational beings. Channeling Kant, it can be argued that the decision to shoot a family that poses absolutely no threat impurely out of hatred based on group-identity fails even to treat other rational beings as means—to say nothing of as ends in themselves. The unadulterated deplorability in being unwilling even to use another person as a means to some selfish goal, preferring instead to kill rather than respect the otherness of another person, grounds the verdict of the culprit being less than nothing. In another film, The Brutalist (2024), Laszio, the Jewish protagonist, erroneously concludes that Jews must surely be less than nothing, given how they were treated not only in Nazi Germany, but also in Pennsylvania even after the news of the Holocaust had reached the other shore. Whether brutality or passive-aggressive prejudice is suffered, however, turning one’s victimhood into victimizing is ethically invalid, for such a callous reaction fails to treat other rational beings as ends in themselves, and may even be so severe as to fail to treat them even as means.

The full essay is at "Farha."

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

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

In not allowing the 2019 transit deal between the Kremlin-owned gas company, Gazprom, and Ukraine’s Naftogaz to be renewed for 2025 and beyond, the Ukrainian government faced “the loss of some $800 million a year in transit fees from Russia, while Gazprom [stood to] lose close to $5 billion in gas sales.”[1] At the time, Russian forces were making further incursions in eastern Ukraine, so the Ukrainian military could have used the military hardware that $800 million could have bought, especially with isolationism soon to gain a foothold in the White House. Furthermore, that Gazprom had “recorded a $6.9 billion loss, its first in more than 20 years, due to diminished sales to Europe,”[2] suggests that Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine, largely for a noneconomic, imperial reason, had come with some economic costs. Put another way, Putin’s regime could have used the $5 billion in gas sales to the E.U. to help finance the invasion. International business was clearly not foremost two either government in the war. Rather than the pipeline reducing the chances of war when it broke out in 2023, the international commerce would become a casualty of war. Although international business benefits states, to reduce state interests in political realism to economics misses a lot and thus can lead to bad predictions regarding war and peace.

As for the E.U., at first glance it would seem that Europe would be less supportive of Ukraine in its war, including financially and in terms of sending military hardware because the Ukrainian government had just cut off Russian gas from reaching the E.U. in the middle of winter. Fortunately, the E.U. had anticipated the geopolitical strategic move by seeking out other sources of natural gas, such as the U.S., so the Russian gas through Ukraine only “represented about 5% of the European Union’s total gas imports, according to Brussels-based think tank Bruegel.”[3] A spokeswoman for the European Commission said at the time, “The European gas infrastructure is flexible enough to provide gas of non-Russian origin to (central and eastern Europe) via alternative routes . . . since 2022.”[4] Taking into account the continuing pipeline through Turkey, the E.U. had reduced “Russia’s share of its pipeline gas imports down from over 40% in 2021 to about 8% in 2023, according to the European Council.”[5] I submit that even if the E.U. had not prepared for the rather obvious decision of Ukraine’s government not to renew the transit deal with Russia in the midst of the Russian invasion, non-economic, geopolitical interests would have continued to fuel the E.U.’s desire to support Ukraine militarily, for fear of Russian inroads in eastern and even central Europe can easily be understood to trump even the economic benefits from international trade and foreign direct-investment with Russia.

In short, states are foremost political entities; not that they and the people who run them are not motivated by the economic benefits arising from international trade and foreign direct-investment, and these can admittedly make a difference on close calls on whether to go to war, but geopolitical considerations are primary. War and the effects thereof go beyond economics and business. A town being occupied, whether in Ukraine or Gaza, has existential implications for the people therein that extend beyond how trade is being impacted. In fact, as Israel has demonstrated toward Gaza, economic resources can be weaponized such as by withholding food and other humanitarian relief so as to kill off a population. Such a goal is not economic in nature, and international business is not sufficient to override such ideological goals, or even hatred itself. The limits to peace through economic interdependence stem from precisely this point: hatred goes beyond economics, so the latter can only go so far in constraining the former. The problem, in other words, is not that international trade and business haven’t been extended sufficiently to insure world peace, but that hatred can override economic self-interest.  

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1. Kosta Gak, Alex Stambaugh, and Anna Cooban, “Ukraine Ends Supply of Russian Gas to Europe,” CNN.com, January 1, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.