Georgia and Georgia: Aspiring and Settled States

While one Georgia was secure as a member-state in the U.S., another Georgia was finding itself being frozen out of not only accession talks with the E.U., but also being invited as a “NATO partner” to attend the NATO meeting in June, 2026. It is ironic that whereas the first Georgia had delegated some of its sovereignty to the U.S. in 1789, the second Georgia was unhappy remaining fully sovereign outside of the E.U. rather than as one of the semi-sovereign E.U. states. Giving up some governmental sovereignty can be a “step up,” and, with that comes certain requirements in terms of good governance.

Although “Georgia’s ruling party representatives claimed that the [NATO] summit in Ankara did not include the type of meetings Georgia used to attend in the past . . ., Georgian Dream MP Irakli Kirtskhalia told the press in Tbilisi that ‘we have no problem attending the summit, (sic) ask the organizers why we are not represented.’”[1] The party representatives were artfully deflecting, whereas Kirkskhalia was pointing journalists to the real reason for Georgia’s absence. Georgia’s government had not been invited to the NATO meeting, even though other partners of NATO, including Qatar, UAE, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Ukraine, and Australia were. At the root of the problem was a lack of trust.

That Georgian President Mikheil Kavelashvili “travelled to Tehran to attend the funeral of the late Ayatolla Ali Khamenei” instead did not exactly win Georgia much trust in the West.[2] The signal that such an action sent outdid any positive words of potential partnership with NATO. A political analyst in Georgia, Paata Zakareishvili, “claimed that the absence of NATO’s invitation to its regional security debates represents what he called the loss of trust by Georgia’s partners.”[3] In fact, he went so far as to admit, “Georgia is being ignored.”[4] He added that Georgia had been aspiring to be part of the alliance, and that “Georgia and Ukraine used to move toward NATO membership together.”[5] Considering Russian President Putin’s strident opposition to Ukraine being in the international alliance, Georgia should have had an easier way in. Instead, he said, “Georgia is no longer being considered anywhere.”[6] Anywhere turns out to be important, for, according to Georgia’s former ambassador to NATO Levan Dolidze, “what is far more damaging is Georgia’s absence from discussions within the European Union.”[7] Such discussions pertained to Georgia possibly gaining statehood in the Union; and, yes, statehood does indeed imply the existence of a federal political system.

As is clear from Georgia in the U.S., being a member-state in a political union wherein both the union and states are semi-sovereign is much more significant than being invited as a partner to a meeting of an international alliance. Even though the U.S. Senate and the Council of the E.U. (and the European Council) are founded on principles of international law, neither union can be said to be an international organization. Indeed, both the U.S. House of Representatives and the European Parliament are founded on national rather than international political principles (i.e., citizens rather than polities are represented, and by population). Both unions can be said to be hybrids forged from the hard political compromises made in the U.S. Constitutional Convention, when the arrangement of fully sovereign countries under the Articles of Confederation were dismissed as too suboptimal for political agency.

Although near the end of 2025, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze insisted that Georgia’s accession-path to statehood “remains steady and irreversible” such that becoming a state by 2030 was still “both realistic and attainable,” the E.U. froze Georgia mid-stream in June, 2026 after the Georgian government had passed a “foreign influence” law that the Commission “described as Russian-inspired and authoritarian against the backdrop of massive anti-government protests in Tbilisi.”[8] The trip to the funeral in Tehran in July didn’t exactly help speed Georgia along either. It did not matter, as Kobakhidze claimed, that Georgia was ahead of all other prospective, aspiring states in economic progress indicators; the problem was one of trust, both regarding democratic values at home and the choice of allies abroad. Even though technicians—pedestrians really—were doubtlessly focusing narrowly on whether the accession criteria were being met, it is important not to lose sight of the big picture.

Was the Georgia “Western” enough not merely to join in an international military alliance, but also to become a semi-sovereign state in a political, federal union? Or would the Georgian government be a “Trojan horse” whose strings would be pulled by Russia’s autocratic and militaristically aggressive Putin? Although from the strategic standpoint of the West, bringing in as many former Soviet Republics as possible may seem optimal because such a move would deprive Russia of being able to “bring them home,” filtering by applying the “sufficiently Western” test is better because then neither the Western military alliance nor the European Union (and the United States, indirectly) would be weakened from within. 

The Georgia that has been a member of the U.S. since the beginning of that political union (and, even earlier, when the U.S. had just been a military alliance and then a confederation of sovereign countries), had tried to “Georexit” in 1861 but was subsequently brought back “into the fold.” Would the Georgia that was shut out of the E.U. in 2026 follow in the footsteps of Viktor Orbán’s Hungary at the expense of federal foreign policy and the defense of the E.U. itself from foreign threats, and ultimately even accomplish “Georexit”? Already Britain had seceded from that political union, and the vote in favor of secession was mainly a reaction against the fact that E.U. states are semi-sovereign rather than fully sovereign, which pertains instead to a confederation such as that of the American Articles. No significant difference with E.U. foreign policy was involved in Britain’s decision to secede. Georgia, on the other hand, would need to prove its loyalty not only to rule-of-law democracy, but also to the West (rather than to Russia or Iran), besides being willing to cede some of its sovereignty in order to be considered and ready for statehood in the E.U.

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1. Peter Barabas, “Georgia Left Off NATO Summit Partner List as Critics Decry Isolation,” Euronews.com, 10 July, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA): Europe Living in the Past

In the midst of the ongoing military invasion by Russia in Ukraine, countries in Eastern Europe could hardly afford to dwell on the past and react against each other at the expense of being proactive and united in pushing Russia back to within its borders—coloring within the lines rather than unrestrained. Therefore, the E.U.’s parliament can be criticized for having spending time and effort on 8 July, 2026 on a resolution that criticizes Ukraine’s then-sitting president, Voladymyr Zelenskyy, for having renamed an elite military unit after the World War II-era Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). Even though a large majority of representatives in the Parliament voted in favor of the resolution, the legislative chamber could have been oriented constructively to combatting Putin’s push into Ukraine rather than play into his hands by stoking division between Ukraine and the E.U. state of Poland. Generally speaking, European culture may be criticized for putting much weight on the past at the expense of the present and future. “The past will never change, but tomorrow is still open” should be taught in European classrooms as a maxim. In 2026, as in the immediately preceding few years, the E.U.’s self-handicap in responding sufficiently to helping Ukraine militarily can be chalked up to not letting go of the past to embrace the present in a way that is oriented to the future.

Regarding the resolution that a vast majority of elected representatives in the European Parliament viewed as being worth their time and effort, whereas in Ukraine, “the UPA is widely commemorated for its role in opposing Soviet rule and fighting for Ukrainian independence,” in the E.U. state of Poland the UPA “is widely associated with the Volyn massacre of 1943-45, during which tens of thousands of Poles were killed under Nazi occupation. Poland has recognized the massacre as a genocide, a label Ukraine has rejected.”[1] Debating whether it was or was not a genocide, and, moreover, how opposing Soviet rule stacks up against the Volyn massacre is a luxury that Europe’s anti-Russian powers could not afford when Ukraine was still being occupied by the invading Russian army and eastern E.U. states fretted that they might be next for dinner by the empire-hungry Russian bear. In fact, engaging in a historical obsession rather than moving on to the twenty-first century implies that the E.U.’s political elite was not taking Putin’s invasion seriously enough. It was not as if dislodging the Russian army from roughly 20% of Ukrainian territory would require just little thought and a bit of easy effort, so the opportunity cost to thrashing over the previous century was high. An opportunity cost (in economics) is the benefit that is given up from an alternative course of action that is not taken. Besides the opportunity cost in terms of lost time and energy devoted to thwarting Russia’s invasion, squabbles between Ukraine and a state of the E.U. stood to benefit Putin’s military position and strategy because both thrive if the opposition is divided. As the old adage goes, a house divided cannot stand.

Zelensky had recently admitted to some “difficulties in our history,” and yet urged all parties opposing Russia’s invasion to live more “in the future than in the past” by uniting against Russia rather than turning on each other.[2] To be sure, he could have easily obviated the diplomatic tension by not having renamed the elite military unit after the UPA; more important than a name is how well a military unit performs on the battlefield. Also, no shame goes with publicly admitting a mistake and moving on, for we are all human.

The proclivity in the European psyche—an admittedly cultured entity, which I admire “across the pond” as a native, gruff Midwesterner—to hold onto the past even when it is antiquated and thus obstructs a stronger present and future has impaired the European Union’s federal system. Most crucially generally and especially in terms of the foreign- and defense-policy domains, the E.U. really needed to reform itself by losing the paralyzing veto that the state governments still held in the European Council and the Council of the E.U. (i.e., the Council of Ministers) when the resolution against Zelensky was passed in the parliament (by qualified-majority). Because unanimity was still required for a federal policy or law to pass in foreign policy and defense, the E.U. can be said to be holding itself back, as if having one arm tied behind the back, from adequately supporting Ukraine’s military efforts, especially given the Trump Administration’s preoccupation with Iran, given the extraordinary power of Israeli money in Washington. How, then, is the state veto in the two Councils tied in with the European tendency to hold onto the past?

The very existence of the veto can be viewed as a residual from when the E.U. states were fully sovereign, before they delegated some of their governmental sovereignty to the Union. Qualified-majority voting itself is such a delegation of sovereignty because a state on the losing side of such a vote is still subject to the federal policy, law, or regulation. Even in the case of having considerable discretion in how to implement directives, the states still have to implement them. Were the states still sovereign, as the U.S. states were before and under the Articles of Confederation (1781-1789), the E.U. states could legally ignore even E.U. laws. Such a lapse in understanding of the dual-sovereignty feature of the E.U.’s federal system had been repeatedly demonstrated by Viktor Orbán when he governed the E.U. state of Hungary. It is no coincidence that he abused the power of his state’s veto in the federal councils, for the veto itself was established to reflect the sovereignty still retained by the state governments in the Union. Similarly, but not as extreme, the filibuster in the U.S. Senate, which is roughly equivalent to the Council of the E.U., is a hold-over from the full sovereignty that U.S. states enjoyed before 1789.

I contend that holding onto the time when E.U. states were fully sovereign countries, even though the future of E.U. decision-making could benefit greatly in turning to qualified majority voting instead of unanimity, is itself a significant problem. In other words, besides the obvious governmental conflict of interest that exists on questions of whether additional sovereignty should be delegated, the resistance of state-level officials to relinquishing the veto at the federal level can be said to at least be intensified because they hold onto the political past excessively. Because the E.U. stood to enlarge in 2026 by adding additional states in the future, the Union could ill-afford to hold onto the “old-sovereignty” veto because it had already been too obstructionist (e.g., Viktor Orbán) at the federal level in the councils. Just as division between the E.U. and Ukraine played into Putin’s hands, the historically-based rationale for retaining the veto power put the states at odds with the Union, essentially handicapping the E.U. from within. A self-inflicted wound predicated on not being willing to let go of the past, politically. Looking backwards while walking forwards, a person is likely to trip and fall. Similarly, self-inflicted political weakness is never good. In his text, On the Genealogy of Morals, Friedrich Nietzsche points to the self-imposed (i.e., voluntary) self-abnegation of impotent Catholic priests as the epitome of weakness. Relative to the U.S. Senate, which admittedly is too prone to political sloth and stalemate at the expense of action, the obstruction occasioned by the veto in the Council of the E.U. and the European Council beats that of the filibuster, which, incidentally, can be overridden by 60 out of 100 votes. Qualified-majority vote is thus consistent with a nod to state sovereignty—plena in the past and non-plena in the present. Perpetuating history need not stand in the way, especially while an invasion is in progress close to the eastern border.

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1. Vincenzo Genovese, “European Parliament Condemns Zelenskyy for Naming Military Unit after UPA Heroes,” Euronews.com, 8 July, 2026.
2. Ibid.

Ukraine Beseeches the NATO Alliance

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

Not coincidentally just ahead of the full NATO meeting, Zelensky claimed that the Ukrainian military had become a “source of extraordinary defensive capability” in Europe due to the country’s rapid advance in military technology involving drones.[1] Ukraine had even become a provider of advanced drone technology as Gulf states sought it to intercept Iranian missiles. “We have completely eliminated the very idea of Russia having a strategic rear,” Zelensky said.[2] One day earlier, according to Euronews, “Ukrainian forces carried out  drone strike on an oil refinery in the city of Omsk, hitting the country’s most important fuel production site more than 2,500km from the Russia-Ukraine border.”[3] In his speech, Zelensky said of the successful military strike, “this is not an exception. It’s the new reality and there is no major oil refinery left in Russia that has not been struck by Ukraine.”[4] Indeed, videos of Russians physically fighting at gas stations amid the resulting gas shortage were being shared on social media around the world.

Nevertheless, U.S. President Trump had ruled out Ukraine joining the military alliance, though the interest of Middle Eastern countries in Ukraine’s drone technology to fight against Iran could find a receptive ear in the White House. Even though Trump had a reputation for engaging in transactional rather than transformational leadership, his opposition to Ukraine being in the alliance could stem from concern as to how the sitting Russian president might react. The invasion was at least in part motivated out of concern that Ukraine would bring NATO to Russia’s door step. Were this to become a reality, Putin might decide to reinvigorate his invasion rather than sue for peace. Rather than joining a Western military alliance, Ukraine could strike a good compromise with Russia by becoming a state in the European Union, which is a political union that is economically rather than militarily oriented, unlike the United States. Furthermore, Putin had little to fear in 2026 from a coordinated and concerted E.U. military intervention in Ukraine, given the veto power retained by the states in the European Council and the Council of the E.U. due to the principle of unanimity applying in matters of defense and foreign policy. That the E.U. had outgrown every state government holding a potential veto, the internal resistance to even necessary reform of the E.U. could be counted on to hold the union back from being a united military threat to Russia.

In short, Russia’s President Putin would be more comfortable with the E.U. moving eastward, as the U.S. moved westward in the nineteenth century, than with Ukraine joining an international military alliance. To the extent that President Trump’s objection to Ukraine joining NATO was based on how Putin would be likely to react, and that Ukraine could become an E.U. state instead, Zelensky’s speech can be viewed as one-sided, and thus as vulnerable to its blind side. In fact, if the first President Bush had promised Russia that reunifying Germany would not result in NATO reaching the Russian border, Putin could become especially obstinate were Ukraine to become a member of the Western military alliance because that would mean that the U.S. will have reneged on its promise. It is best not to provoke a bear even with passive aggression. Were NATO to enter Ukrainian territory militarily to fight against the invasion directly, active aggression would be overlaid on the passive aggression that is inherent to reneging unilaterally on a promise without cause. Zelensky’s citing of the utility to NATO that Ukraine could bring to the alliance in terms of military technology “on the cutting edge” can therefore be viewed as missing the big picture in which Ukraine and NATO can be situated even including an historical context. Whereas narrow, “valued added” utility may suffice for a private business, the political domain is much broader.

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1. Sasha Vakulina, “Zelenskyy Renews Call for Ukraine’s NATO Membership Citing Military Might Ahead of Summit,” Euronews.com, 7 July, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

Russian Patriarch Kirill: A Case of Religion Overreaching

The political separation of “Church and State” in U.S. constitutional law, a doctrine that is of jurisprudence (judicial decision) rather than theology and thus does not straddle and therefore demarcate the political and religious domains as qualitatively distinct from a neutral standpoint. Furthermore, the question of what makes the religious domain distinct (and unique) from all others is the pole from which a religious functionary’s (or religionist) leap into the political garden from the Garden of Eden can be detected. The trouble worsens if the criteria from one domain in imposed and overlaid in the overreaching into another domain, as if the criteria that is determinative in one domain were valid in another. In fact, the eclipsing itself of the other’s own criteria on their own “turf” is unethical. The legitimate sovereignty of a domain’s own criteria in that domain over criteria indigenous to other domains yet superimposed renders any supervening overreaching as both erroneous—as in going off-sides in football (soccer)—and unethical because the criteria indigenous to a given domain should not be disrespected within their own domain. In other words, encroaching is presumptuous. If these ideas strike the reader as novel, even strange perhaps, then I am keeping within the confines of my mission in writing, as I look to a new dawn in which the ideational tyranny of hitherto reigning yet questionable assumptions ist zerstört because they have been discredited, which is not to say that every extant assumption should be eviscerated and expunged for lack of substance. Unfortunately, Russia’s Patriarch Kirill, the head of Russia’s Orthodox Church, went out on a tree limb, far from his religious tree’s trunk, by formulating and spreading “revisionist propaganda to justify the war in Ukraine” while the invasion was underway.[1] The history and legitimacy of a bygone Russian empire (not the U.S.S.R.) properly belong to the political rather than to the religious domain. Being schooled in theology does not give even a high religious functionary the knowledge on which to presume to be an expert in political history and international relations. The resentment in the E.U. and U.S. at the patriarch’s intrusion into a domain that is not an extension of the religious domain was not merely from opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but also from an intuitive sense that the domains of religion/theology and politics/government are distinct and thus require different knowledge-sets and have their own respective criteria and distinctiveness.

The full essay is at "Russian Patriarch Kirill."

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1. Jorge Liboreiro, “Oil, Cod, Kirill: Friction Points Emerge in New E.U. Sanctions Against Russia,” Euronews.com, 26 June, 2026.

Starmer Resigns as British Prime Minister: A Post-Mortem

Two years after winning in a landslide, with his Labour group being given its largest majority in Parliament in decades, PM Starmer found himself polling as the least favored PM on record and was forced by the political reality of his political group to resign. Why? I contend that the actual reason, behind and obfuscated by the headlines, is rather basic, or fundamental.

Unlike Tony Blair, Starmer did not join an unpopular foreign war, and unlike Boris Johnson, Starmer did not hold parties during a pandemic. Neither did Starmer ruin an economy; the secession of the E.U. state of Britain could be blamed for that. According to CNN, Starmer’s “missteps were more mundane: an attempt to make wealthier pensioners pay more to heat their homes; a plan to cut some benefits to disabled people; accepting freebies; and, . . . a scandal over his appointment of Jeffrey Epstein-linked politician Peter Mandelson to the role of UK ambassador.”[1] Even though such policy “missteps alone cannot explain Starmer’s fall,” according to CNN, the American media company conveniently ignores a glaring, and perhaps the glaring, reason for Starmer’s stunning unpopularity.

It turns out that Starmer, who is Jewish, exploited a personal conflict of interest not only in standing up for Israel as it cut off power and water in Gaza, but also in having pro-Gaza protesters in Britain arrested as if they were aiding and abetting terrorists. Enabling a holocaustic genocide and impairing democracy at home are damning moves that the American media company utterly ignores in its post-mortem of Starmer. The combination of defending an apartheid state engaged in decimating Gazan cities and treating protesting British citizens as criminals rather than as heroes for standing up for other people’s human rights resulted in the prime minister falling like a rock in a pond in terms of popularity. When John Kennedy was campaigning for the U.S. presidency in 1960, not a few Americans feared that he, a Roman Catholic, would do the bidding of a foreign state—Vatican City—at the expense of American interests. The fear turned out to be overblown, but Starmer’s unfettered defense of Israel as it was destroying populated cities in Gaza arguably evinces the exploitation of a personal conflict of interest because Starmer is Jewish. This is not to say that every Jew is a Zionist. Noam Chomsky, for example, publicly stated that Israel no longer had the right to exist. U.S. Sen. Burnie Sanders lambasted Israel for its crimes against humanity. In utter contrast, Starmer was ignoring international law abroad and democratic principles of free speech at home. This is why he was forced out by his own political group. That CNN is silent on this rather obvious point speaks volumes about the relationship between giant American media companies and American foreign policy.

 

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1. Christian Edwards, “Why Is Starmer Resigning, Two Years after Winning in a Landslide,” CNN.com, June 22, 2026.

Israel in Lebanon: On the Hubris of Hatred

Hatred warps reasoning as well as ethical judgment along the lines of a warped time-space fabric around a large mass. In other words, the sheer gravitational pull of self-centeredness can bend both thought and judgment. As essentially egoist, this phenomenon can itself be considered to be unethical, for what are actually equivalent ethical harms are perceived as unequal at the expense of other people or peoples. Even though Israel’s military attacks in, and invasion of, Lebanon in 2026 could be said to be in violation of international law, Israel’s national security minister said on June 19^th that all of Lebanon must burn because four Israeli soldiers had just been killed in combat when their tank was hit near Kfar Tebnit. The official’s statement is significant in that it lays bare the false equivalence of the lives of four Israelis and the entire population of Lebanon. The warped judgment and related ratiocination behind such a baseless equivalence can be grasped from the standpoint of utilitarianism.

Along with saying, “all of Lebanon must burn,” Itamar Ben-Gvir added, “For every tear of an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep.”[1] That four Israeli soldiers lost their lives is thus more of a loss than the eighteen Lebanese who died in that particular military action. Moreover, wiping out Gaza, whose Palestinian population stood at more than 1.5 million, is “ethically” justified by Hamas’ attack in which 1,200 Israelis had been killed and a few hundred taken hostage by a subjugated political group. More than Ben-Gvir “taunting detained activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla” whom Israel had kidnapped in international waters, his claims regarding the worth of human lives depending on group-identification are astonishing in their directness in showing the distorting impact of his ideology (and related group-identification as an Israeli) on his judgment on what is ethical and unethical.[2]

The claim that the death of one Israeli justifies the death of a thousand Lebanese runs directly counter to Jeremy Bentham’s ethical theory of utilitarianism, wherein the greatest good to the greatest number is the ethical rubric. If anything, saving the lives of a thousand Lebanese would justify killing four Israelis. That the latter were part of an illegal military invasion renders this verdict all the more justified and legitimate ethically, for violating international law is itself unethical and the government of Lebanon had not invaded Israel.

Such a warped, unethical perspective as a senior government official in Israel voiced can itself be taken as support for the argument that either the UN should be given its own military force (not subject to any vetoes in the Security Council), or a new, semi-sovereign international federation should be created with enough military power to counter unethical actions stemming from ethically-warped mentalities at the national level. Even with such a reform, Kant’s claim that a world federation would make peace possible rather than probable can be read both as a bit of realism as to the reform and an indictment on just how sordid even high government officials can be in their reasoning and ethical judgment. Indeed, Ben-Gvir’s statements fly in the face of Kant’s ethical imperative formulated as the Kingdom of Ends, wherein rational beings should be treated not just as means (e.g. to Israel’s interests), but also as ends in themselves. Moreover, because human beings are rational beings, the life of a person of one nationality is not worth more than the life of a person of another, even conflicting, nationality. This imperative is like a straight stick against which the warping of Ben-Gvir’s mind can be perceived and measured. Given the severity of the warping, a world order with enough teeth, or enforcement power, to restrain national governments was both needed and justified by 2026.

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1. Nathan Rennolds, “’All of Lebanon Must Burn,’ Israeli Minister Says after IDF Reports Four Soldiers Killed,” Euronews, 19 June, 2026.

2. Ibid.

Europe: Over- and Under-Represented in the G7

I contend that in having both federal and state-level officials attending the G7 international meetings, Europe is over-represented even as the E.U. itself is sidelined. At least this was the case at the meeting in June, 2026 in the E.U. state of France. The staying power of the seven countries comprising the Group could be considered as antiquated, given the relevance and importance of the E.U. in international relations. The very intractability of institutional arrangements (i.e., structures) even in the face of a changing political environment can thus be viewed as problematic. By implication, the exclusion of the E.U. from the United Nations international organization can be viewed as effectively relegating the UN as a structurally-frozen “has been” by the 2020s.

The relevance of the E.U. being at the G7 meeting in Evian-les-Bains can be ascertained by the public statements of federal officials just before the meeting. Speaking on E.U. sanctions against Iran, E.U. President Von der Leyen said that they would remain in force unless or until “real change” occurs “on the ground.”[1] The Iran War was on the itinerary at the G7 meeting, and so too was the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a topic very much on the E.U.’s radar screen.  Nevertheless, at a pre-meeting press conference with the head of the E.U. state of France, Emmanuel Macron rather than with the federal president, U.S. federal President Trump said that his administration would return its diplomatic focus back to Russia’s invasion now that the U.S.’s conflict with Iran had been at least temporarily discontinued. An implication from the visuals of Trump being at a joint press conference with the head of an E.U. state is that the latter could legitimately undermine Von der Leyen in negotiating independently with Russia on the matter of Ukraine. Of course, visuals have nothing to do with politics (i.e., political reality), I write heavily with sarcasm.

Furthermore, even though Macron was “keen to portray the G7 as united in the face of unfair Chinese competition,” international trade is an exclusive competency (i.e., enumerated power) of the E.U. rather than its states. In fact, on the very day on which the G7 meeting began, “E.U. Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic said . . . that EU-China relations needed a ‘reset’ and that engagement with Beijing had to deliver ‘concrete outcomes.’”[2] Noting that the status quo was no longer sustainable, Sefcovic said, “Our trading relationship with China has reached a point that requires a reset, not confrontation, but rebalancing.”[3] Macron would not be in charge of the rebalancing. To quote from the disgraced former head of France, Nicholas Sarkozy, Macron missed an opportunity to shut up; Sarkozy had made the statement in regard to a governor of one of the E.U.’s eastern states as if they were inferior. Such is the danger in the media giving the governors of large states such prominent positioning. It is thus no small measure that E.U. President Von der Leyen spoke before the meeting on the E.U.’s trade deficit with China; interestingly, even she tacitly undermined her position as a federal official in noting “that 2025was the first time in history that all 27 [member states of the E.U.] had recorded a trade deficit with China.”[4] It was the Commission, rather than the state of France, that was “currently looking into ways to diversity supply chains, boost domestic production of strategic sectors and address trade distortions, such as subsidies and coercion” by China.[5] Accordingly, Von der Leyen rather than Macron of France should have been prominent both publicly and at the meeting on the topic of trade with China from the standpoint of the E.U., of which France, as a state, is but a part. That Macron said at the time that he was “’optimistic’ that G7 leaders would reach an agreement on critical raw materials” can thus safely be relegated, for trade is an exclusive E.U. competency. If, as read it, Macron was referring only to the leaders of the seven countries and thus excluding his own federal president (whose competencies include trade!), then something was indeed amiss with the official membership list at G7 meetings. A strong argument can thus be made that the E.U. president, rather than any governors of E.U. states, should have been on the membership list.

As rational as such an argument may be, the staying power of existent institutional arrangements is formidable. The E.U. could thus enjoy being represented several times over by governors of E.U. states at international meetings and even organizations including the United Nations. Governmentally, the fact that the E.U.’s federal system includes dual sovereignty, wherein both the states and the Union enjoy some governmental sovereignty, just as in the case of the U.S. wherein its states too hold residual sovereignty, means that the president of the E.U. should have an official place at the table and sit opposite U.S. President Trump at pre-meeting press conferences. Furthermore, that the U.S. could not be represented in multiples by having governors of large states also have official places at international meetings means that it is only fair that the governors of large E.U. states also be excluded. My argument is thus based as much on the fairness that is implicit in symmetry as on the relevance of the E.U. on the topics of the G7 itinerary at the meeting that ironically took place in the E.U. in June, 2026.

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1. Jorge Liboreiro et al, “G7 Summit: US to Focus Again on Ukraine after Deal with Iran, Trump Says,” Euronews.com, 15 June 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

On the Politics of International Real-Estate Projects: The Case of Albania

During times of global peace, it is easy to suppose that increased economic interdependency between countries reduce the likelihood of war due to the ramifications on the business projects. By a similar logic by analogy, a couple could suppose that by getting married, the increased interdependence would make breaking up more difficult, and thus less likely. What is overlooked here is that emotions, whether in a romantic relationship or between governments, can, if allowed to go unchecked, break through the parchment barriers that we set up as if they could constrain even intense, ongoing emotions. A couple using marriage as a substitute for going to couples-counseling could actually make a break-up more likely once in the marriage. Similarly, peace abroad and domestic tranquility can be thwarted by international real-estate development projects themselves. Such a situation was unfolding in Albania in mid-2026.

In early June, “Edi Rama told Euronews that opposition to a proposed real estate project on [Albania’s] southern coast linked to the Trump-Kushner family is being amplified by bots, antisemitic narratives and hostile external forces to fuel tensions in Albania.”[1] Israel had been incessantly “crying wolf” as if international criticism of Israel’s militaristic aggression against the people of Gaza were antisemitic, so Rama’s label can also be viewed as misapplied hyperbole intended to discredit political opposition. Because the protests against the proposed real estate project came largely from environmental groups, it is unlikely that Rama’s claim that “antisemitic narratives” were “being promoted by the ‘enemies of Israel and Albania’ is true.[2] In actuality, the environmental groups were objecting to the project being located on a hitherto protected small island.

To be sure, that the planned luxury resort’s financing involved Affinity Partners, the investment firm founded by Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of U.S. President Donald Trump, was also rich fodder for the critics, and even though Kushner is Jewish, it would be a stretch to label protests against his involvement to be antisemitic. Indeed, the label antisemitism had ironically been weaponized by Israel’s Netanyahu, who still faced an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court. Rama’s own narrative that there was an alternative narrative sourced in the “enemies of Israel and Albania” that the project was based on a “hidden dean between me and Bibi Netanyahu through Jared Kushner to bring Palestinians to that area, which is a total fantasy,” can be subjected to scrutiny, especially as Rama felt the need to add that Albania “has a very proud history of saving Jews, of never having antisemitic feelings.”[3] Indeed the political-linguistic “red herring” device goes beyond even such statements.

The whole Albania thing can be viewed as a diversion or even distraction from the more serious case of Jared Kushner’s involvement in luxury real-estate development projects then being put together to turn Gaza into a resort area, sans Palestinian residents. The Trump-Kushner-Netanyahu axis was much more evident in that case than in Albania, and the business and political stakes were much greater than those pertaining to a resort on a small island in Albania. Being a de facto or tacit accomplice to a genocide, even if in standing to gain financially from it, renders Kushner much more culpable than he stood to be in Albania. So, it is interesting that the latter galvanized more political protests than the former, as if the latter were more unethical than the former. To be sure, targeted political protests against one resort stood more of a chance of success than voiced criticism of turning Gaza into a resort area, especially given the sheer political power backing up the latter. Is it ethical, however, to bypass cases of much greater harm just because the chance of success is less? Furthermore, is it ethical to “take the bait” by focusing on a lesser harm at the expense of retaining a focus on the more egregious case?

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1. Marina Stoimenova and Maria Tadeo, “Rama Alleges ‘Hybrid War’ Behind Protests Against Kushner-Linked Coastal Development,” Euronews.com, 6 May, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

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

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

As Russia was bombing civilian housing in Kiev, Kaja Kallas, the E.U.’s federal foreign minister, explicitly ruled out a role for the E.U. in arbitrating negotiations between Kiev and Moscow. “One thing is very clear: Europe will never be a neutral mediator between Russia and Ukraine, because we are on Ukraine’s side and we are defending our own security interests,” Kallas said toward the end of May, 2026.[1] To mediate between two parties requires being neutral as to both sides and their respective positions; otherwise, credibility is zerstoert from day one of any negotiation session. To pretend to be neutral even just by assuming the air as a mediator, such as the U.S. had done not only with regard to Russia and Ukraine, but also, albeit to a lesser extent, to Israel and Gaza, is to exploit a conflict of interest, which is unethical. That proposals by the U.S. in either conflict would be regarded as credible requires a naivety that is itself enabling as to the exploitation. In its direct conflict with Iran, at least the U.S. was not pretending to be a mediator, for surely a direct combatant in a conflict cannot possibly be neutral.

Therefore, Kallas did the world a service in explicitly stating in regard to the Russian-Ukrainian War, “We can’t be neutral, treating them equally, because we have been clearly on Ukraine’s side.”[2] Such transparent frankness may seem unnecessary; however, given the attempts by the U.S. to claim neutrality in conflicts in which the Americans have hardly been neutral, Kallas’ statement is of value. The E.U. need not have assumed neutrality to be of assistance to Ukraine. That country’s foreign minister, Andrii Shyiiba, said that “the E.U. should focus on ‘precise, doable steps,’ such as the demilitarisation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and the establishment of humanitarian corridors.”[3] Therefore, Ukraine was not calling on the E.U. to be mediator. That the E.U. could not be; unfortunately, even helping Ukraine was a tall order—a needlessly difficult chore for the E.U.

To the extent that the U.S. was in favor of Russia gaining Ukrainian territory even though by illegal invasion, Shyyiiba’s instance that the E.U. “must represent one united European voice,” given the direct federal role of the governors of the 27 E.U. states in foreign policy, was important. Put another way, to the extent that the U.S. leaned toward Russian President Putin’s position that a land-grab is de facto valid internationally (possession being nine-tenths of ownership), Ukraine desperately needed the E.U. to take difficult decisions resulting in specific federal policies helpful to Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. The reason for the difficulty can be tied to the requirement in the European Council (and the Council of Ministers), which represents the states (as the U.S. Senate represents states), that decisions on policy and law be unanimous. Just imagine if every U.S. senator could wield a veto on behalf of the residual sovereignty of one’s state!

Unanimity is inconsistent with the dual (or split) governmental sovereignty that is characteristic of early-modern federalism, as distinct from confederalism in which the states retain full sovereignty (nonplena foedus, as per Althusius’s 1603 theory of federalism). Whereas Althusius saw only the alternatives of full and not-full federalism—wherein the federal head or the states enjoy sovereignty, the American compromise of dual-sovereignty “split the atom” of unitary governmental sovereignty and the E.U., but not any of its states, is based on that compromise, rather than either of Althusius’ types of federalism.

With regard to the Russian-Ukrainian war, the foreign minister (i.e., Secretary of State) of the U.S., Marco Rubio, said, “The US stands ready and prepared to help to do whatever we can to help facilitate the end of this war, and hopefully the opportunity will present itself at some point.”[4] However, offers to facilitate, a word that connotes neutrality, do not usually stand back, waiting for an opportunity to arise. Such a tenuous position may implicitly say that the U.S. would step into a facilitating role whenever Putin, rather than Zelensky, wants it. Kallas’ position that the E.U. would complement the role of the U.S. not only is in tension with the E.U.’s partiality toward Ukraine, but also assumes that the U.S. was sufficiently neutral to have credibility in facilitating negotiations between the warring countries, but at least Kallas was transparent as to the stance of the E.U. being pro-Ukrainian—something from which the U.S. could take a lesson.

Just as a person who already has a girlfriend or boyfriend and is doing that one’s bidding should not be assumed to be neutral with respect to a potential usurper’s interests even though that new connection represents a potentially deeper flame of romance, President Trump’s “bromance” with Putin (and Netanyahu—irrespective of what the International Criminal Court had to say about those two “bad boys”) should not have been lost on Zelensky in his endeavors to influence Trump to distance himself from Putin and come closer to Ukraine’s side. Even the promise of a ring made of rare earths could not be assumed to be enough for the gold-loving Trump. If the proverbial card deck is stacked in favor of the existing relationship, the newcomer should look elsewhere for love, especially once he or she sees that the preference and indeed the loyalty of the person being sought lies with someone else who is actually calling the shots behind the scenes. “Distance yourself emotionally and physically from the potential usurper!” an existing boyfriend or girlfriend might say during a visit. From that point on, the usurper is easy prey, being emotionally vulnerable to the new beloved, and should flee from that person, who is actually an agent, to higher ground with haste. Hence, Zelensky turned to the E.U. from having beseeched the U.S. in vain. That deck had already been stacked in favor of Putin, so Zelensky didn’t have a chance. Go to Putin; he is your type, Zelensky could have told Trump before closing the door; I’m going to Von der Leyen. That she and her foreign minister had trouble getting the E.U. to speak with one voice at the federal level is thus truly a hindrance (but Trump would be jealous anyway). Too bad; you had your chance. You’re stuck with the other guy, who holds you at a distance as a trophy, Zelensky could have told Trump harmlessly from a distance. I believe the actual term in the Castro is trophy whore. The pains of hell await anyone who falls in love with such a creature; Zelensky was too smart for that. But enough of subterranean homoeroticism applied to politicians on the world stage; I'll leave to the reader the matter of whether the term translates over to Trump's wives.

Meanwhile, Ukraine and especially Gaza were being ravaged by hostile aggressors with impunity and perhaps too much testosterone. Of course, Nietzsche claims that our natural instincts are best suited to the state of nature—that our species is “well adapted to the wilderness, to war, to prowling, to adventure” but that within society (and a world order), those instincts have been “disvalued and ‘suspended’” such that “all those instincts of wild, free, prowling man” have been “turned backward against man himself.”[5] Perhaps Nietzsche would applaud the collapse of the post-World-War-II world-order, with the reversion back to Hobbes’ state of nature being accomplished as if by fiat by aggressor states, for Putin, Netanyahu, and even Trump himself doubtlessly felt no “bad conscience” in having commenced unprovoked military maneuvers in the 2020s ironically amid the progress of the species technologically and thus in a narrow sense. Nietzsche would be the first to point out that human nature has not changed, and that our artificial societal/cultural cages are a problem rather than the solution; indeed, they have made humankind into a problem as externally-oriented instinctual urges have been turned inward. But what of the instinctual urge to be humane? What of that of compassion? What of love? Are these instincts not native to our species too? If so, why not restrain military aggressors from being free-wheeling actors jumping into the power-vacuum left by the impotent UN and ICC? Must life be short, nasty, and brutish, as it was for too many people in Ukraine and especially Gaza even when Kallas was making her statement in 2026 after having just met with divided state-level officials in the E.U. on Ukraine?

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1. Jorge Liboreiro, “E.U. Will Never Be a Neutral Mediator Between Ukraine and Russia, Says Kallas,” Euronews.com, 28 May, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Friedrich Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals, in Basic Writings of Nietzsche, Trans and Ed., Walter Kaufmann (New York: The Modern Library, 1968), Second Essay, Sec. 16, pp. 520-21.

An E.U. Envoy to Russia

Should the E.U. appoint and send an envoy to Russia in spite of the fact that E.U. and state officials are not of one mind on a strategy to pressure Russia’s head, Putin, to the negotiating table to compromise? The power of the state governments at the federal level complicates efforts by Commission officials to present Putin with a specific list of sanctions because the governors are not on the same page even after Viktor Orbán’s electoral defeat in April, 2026. Ironically, desperately needed reforms to the E.U.’s federal system itself have been as politically difficult even to propose as has getting Putin to the negotiating table. Focusing on the latter while ignoring the former is a self-inflicted wound that has weakened the Europeans on the world stage. Incidentally, another self-inflicted state of denial involves assuming that such drastic cultural differences exist between two small E.U. states, such as Denmark and the Netherlands, while assuming that all of the U.S. states across a continent and beyond are basically the same, culturally. Recently, a European, who is actually a U.S. citizen, said as much to me! Denial is the main defense mechanism in the E.U. Even painstaking effort to render this political brain-sickness transparent is no match for the underlying ideological fervor that has so severely enervated the European Union from becoming a more perfect union.

Pointing to the intractable problem within the E.U. in formulating foreign policy, the E.U.’s foreign minister, Kaja Kallas, said in 2026, “Before we talk to the Russians, we should agree and talk amongst ourselves what we want to talk to the Russians about.”[1] She was undoubtedly referring to the direct involvement of state officials at the federal level in the Council of Ministers; agreement between relevant federal officials was not sufficient. In the U.S., the state governments’ official direct involvement at the federal level has been through the U.S. Senate, which, like the European Council and the Council of Ministers, represents states. Whereas the U.S. Senate’s filibuster (60 out of 100 vote threshold) is related back to the ongoing enumerated and residual governmental sovereignty of the U.S. states, the semi-sovereign E.U. states, which delegated significant governmental sovereignty to the E.U., have enjoyed veto power on federal foreign (and defense) policy—effectively choking off E.U. foreign (and defense) policy. It is for precisely this reason that in 2026, E.U. President von der Leyen and even the governor of one of the large states, (the E.U. state of Germany) publicly advocated applying qualified-majority voting to every proposed policy, E.U. law, and regulation/directive in the European Council and the Council of Ministers. This eminently reasonable constitutional (or Basic Law) reform of the E.U.’s federal system had to contend with the formidable resistance of the Euroskeptic ideology that the E.U. states were still somehow sovereign. Backing up the denial was the ideological tendency to exaggerate cultural differences between small E.U. states, such as the Netherlands and Denmark, while assuming that the U.S. states across a continent and beyond are culturally similar! Denial on top of denial to support the category mistake of comparing even a small E.U. state with the U.S. as a whole (while rejecting comparisons such as those between California and the E.U. and even between the two empire-scale unions!). The bad odor of denialism was, at least as of 2026, so ubiquitous in the E.U. that the smell may well have been likened instead to that of a freshly blooming flower. Bad air!

The ideological grip on the state-veto in the European Council and the Council of Ministers, held firmly by the states’ governors even though they were exploiting institutional and personal (i.e., power) conflicts of interest, was immune to the plea even of Ukraine’s president Zelensky, who said on May 17, 2026, “It is important for [the E.U.] to have a strong voice and presence in this process [regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine], and it is worth determining who will represent Europe specifically.”[2] The state veto in the councils inhibited the E.U. from speaking with one voice and even being able to sit at the negotiating table with Putin. Regarding whomever might represent the E.U., one implication is that the envoy could have sufficient discretion rather than be limited to the demands of one governor out of 27 who is skeptical. Indeed, the E.U.’s foreign minister, Kaja Kallas, admitted at the time that the relevant officials of the states had “vastly disparate views” on “concessions and conditions” for Russia.[3] Given this state of affairs at the state level, holding onto the principle of unanimity in the councils on foreign policy was quite foolish indeed.

Kallas also said that the E.U. “should not ‘humiliate’ itself by seeking direct talks” with Putin.[4] The humiliation feared was that of the E.U. not having sufficient power to avoid giving in at the very start of negotiations. To be sure, Putin is a touch negotiator, but the seeds of the E.U.’s weakness are within rather than bestowed by the Russian. To be sure, both Putin and Trump could smell political weakness even from a great distance. In 2025, for example, E.U. officials “found, through press reports, a 28-point plan drafted by US and Russian officials that included issues, such as sanctions and assets, that fell under [the E.U.’s] jurisdiction.”[5] Even though the Europeans could blame the Americans and the Russians, a more mature mentality would honestly confront the weakness in the E.U.’s federal system, by which I obviously have in mind the vetoes reserved to the states at the federal level. This is not to say that expunging the veto from E.U. federalism would be sufficient to redress the weakness in E.U. foreign policy. 

As governor of the E.U. state of Hungary, Viktor Orbán belied the Von der Leyen administration by going to visit Putin in Moscow. Direct involvement in foreign policy at the federal level must not permit such a betrayal by the governor of a state, for a house divided cannot stand. This is true, by the way, for couples wherein values clash and neither (or even one) side will compromise; tragically, such clashes blow up even love as if the two people had never even met. If the Europeans can figure out how to retain some direct involvement of the state governments in foreign policy without the veto and direct state involvement with foreign officials if prohibited by the Commission, then the Americans might want to consider how the state governments could have more direct involvement, especially since U.S. senators ceased to be appointed by the state governments, for being elected by the citizens of a state does not mean that the state government is represented, and does not necessarily give a senator a political incentive to represent the state government’s interests if the people thereof would prefer federal preemption. Of course, the European ideological bias would preclude such a comparison, and thus any such benefit obtained by studying the other union.

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1. Jorge Liboreiro, “High Risks, Pitfalls and Snubs: E.U. Envoy for Russia Talks Faces Job from Hell,” Euronews.com, 19 May, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

On Russia Erasing Ukrainian Children

Human rights are typically thought of as applying to individuals, even to groups, but do national-ethnic human rights exist? Do nations having a distinct ethnic culture have the right to their respective citizenries from being indoctrinated by other governments set on erasing even traces of the culture from the minds of citizens?  If so, then by 2026, Ukraine had a legitimate claim against Russia for having violated the rights of the Ukrainian state as protector of the Ukrainian ethnicity in the populous. In particular, as part of its multi-year invasion of Ukraine, the Russian government violated the human rights of Ukraine itself and Ukrainian children not only by kidnapping the kids to Russia, but also in indoctrinating them with the intent of ridding them of their distinctly Ukrainian cultural identity.

On May 11, 2026, the “European Union imposed sanctions on 16 Russian officials accused of helping Moscow in the abduction of tens of thousands of children from Ukraine.”[1] Ukraine’s government had verified the number at 20,500, Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab estimated the number at 35,000, and Russia suggested that the number could be as high as 700,000.[2] Could it be that Moscow was bragging? That would reflect not well at all on the very notion of human rights internationally, as distinct from guidelines that governments need not be ashamed of violating.

Regardless of the number, the abduction and indoctrination of children is arguably among the worst of war crimes. “Of all the horrors inflicted by Russia’s war, the deportation and forced transfer of Ukrainian children is one of the worst crimes,” the E.U.’s foreign minister Kaja Kallas said at the time.[3] Russia’s actions include “indoctrination and militarized education, as well as their unlawful adoption and removal to Russia and within temporarily occupied territories.”[4] A statement by the European Council—rid of the recently defeated pro-Russia Viktor Orbán of Hungary—includes: “These actions constitute grave breaches of international law and a violation of the fundamental rights of the child and aim to erase Ukrainian identity and undermine the preservation of its future generations.”[5] Such preservation over generations arguably involves the interest of the Ukrainian state because the duration exceeds that of the children themselves. In other words, something more than the rights of the abducted and indoctrinated was being violated in the clash between the Russian and Ukrainian governments.

Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said, “This is a deliberate Russian policy aimed at destroying Ukrainian identity. Children are forced to forget who they are, where they come from, and even their language.”[6] Besides the horrific psychological, existential impact on the children in being effectively erased and reprogrammed as Russians, which makes being forced to live with foster parents in a strange land seem ordinary by comparison, the Russian intent is to use the children as part of a larger goal: that of erasing the Ukrainian ethnicity from the face of the Earth. This too reflects back on a legitimate right of the Ukrainian state to preserve that ethnicity. No national legislature would vote to voluntary extinguish its national culture unless forced to do so by another country’s government. In fact, the right is so fundamental that it rarely needs to be made transparent. This is why it may seem strange to refer to a human right of a nation.

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1. Sasha Vakulina, “EU Sanctions Russian Individuals Over Forced Deportation of Ukrainian Children,” Euronews.com, 11 May, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.

Vendetta Violence: Israeli Settlers Sanctioned by the E.U.

What a difference even just a month can make. On 11 May, 2026, the E.U. enacted sanctions against “Israeli settlers over their violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, a move enabled by backing from Hungary’s incoming government.”[1] A month earlier, Viktor Orbán was the sitting prime minister of the E.U. state of Hungary. As a supporter of U.S. President Trump, who in turn supported Israel even in its decimation of Gaza razing entire cities into leveled ground for real estate “properties,” Orbán would have wielded Hungary’s veto in the European Council.

Kaja Kallas, the E.U.’s foreign minister, marveled at the time, “We move from political deadlock that was there for a long time. Violence and extremism carry consequences.”[2] The long time is likely a reference to Orbán’s 16 years in power in the E.U. state of Hungary, and her point overall is that with that governor out of the European Council, the E.U. can inflict consequences on foreign actors who engage in violence under the aegis of some extremist ideology. In the case of the Israeli settlers, the ideology is Zionism, which in coming from a religious text has overreached into the political domain, even circumventing international law.

That the violence occurred in the occupied West Bank renders Israel itself especially culpable, for under international law, “all settlements are considered illegal, with the International Court of Justice describing the State of Israel’s ‘continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory’ as ‘unlawful.’”[3] Both the unprovoked violence of the settlers and the Israeli government’s attempted holocaustic genocide of the population of Gaza are on top of the fact that Israel has no justified basis internationally to even be in Gaza and the West Bank. In other words, Israel is two degrees of separation from being a lawful state in terms of international law. That the Netanyahu government was able to ignore that law so easily suggests that there is no such thing as international law—that only guidelines were by then operating in the collapsed post-World War II global order. In a Hobbesian state of nature, no law exists because no international or global government exists. No world federation certainly, which Kant admitted in Perpetual Peace would only make world peace possible but not probable.

The recurrent violence and theft was being committed even in broad daylight by Israeli settlers against defenseless Palestinians—even walking into their houses and nonchalantly taking appliances and furniture!—because impunity must surely have been assured by means of the tacit approval of a government that, after all, had been determined by the UN to have committed a genocide in Gaza. The violations of human rights occurred on both the societal and interpersonal level. A counter-move international could therefore be expected beyond the E.U. sanctioning individual settlers and related organizations.

Given the harm that was being unleashed directly or indirectly by the Israeli government, Kallas’ claim that violence and extremism abroad would trigger negative consequences by the E.U. rings hollow because those consequences are so inadequate to meet the magnitude and depth of the suffering, both interpersonally and at the societal level (i.e., an entire people). So even though a month made a difference in the European Council, the global “community” was still holding back from enforcing international law. With no other enforcement mechanism, can such law even be called law?

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1. Maia de la Baume, “E.U. Approves Sanctions on Israeli Settlers after Hungarian Backing,” Euronews.com, 11 May, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

Religion and Politics: On the Catholic Church’s Just War Theory

In the Gospels, Jesus is portrayed as an idealist, even other-worldly, from the standpoint of the political domain. To be sure, he knows how to alienate the Temple hierarchy enough to be put to death, but he stays clear of the Zealots in their militaristic rebelliousness against the Roman occupation. Give what it Caesar’s unto Caesar. The just-war theory developed by Augustine and Aquinas seeks to bring that gap—to make the idealist of the Gospels more relevant practically to the politics of international relations. To be sure, Jesus’s refusal to join the Zealots—symbolized by Jesus including Romans among those whom he heals—could be used to argue convincingly that attention to compassion for one’s enemy makes impossible even any just war. Jesus is just as idealistic in the story of the rich man who will not give up his wealth to follow Jesus—it is harder for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man (who will not give up his wealth to follow God) to enter the Kingdom of God, whose very substance spiritually is epitomized by compassion to one’s enemies, according to the American theologian, Samuel Hopkins. So, Pope Leo was on solid ground in April, 2026 in the midst of the U.S.-Iran War when he emphatically insisted that Jesus would oppose any war—not just any unjust one—but where does that leave the Catholic Church’s just war theory as promulgated by two theological giants, Augustine and Aquinas?

The full essay is at "Religion and Politics."

Security Council Vetoes Styme the UN: Oil in the Strait of Hormuz

The United Nations was intended to obviate war, and failing in that mission, at least to safeguard economic trade especially if doing so staves off anticipated belligerent action by countries seeking to restore compromised trade. In 2026, when Iran’s stoppage of the one-fifth of the world’s oil that would otherwise go through the Strait of Hormuz triggered a military threat by the U.S., Russia and China vetoes a resolution in the Security Council aimed at reopening the strait and thereby obviating an escalation in the military fighting between the U.S. and Iran. Because not even a lopsided vote in favor—11 in favor, two against, and two abstentions—could activate the U.N. in its principle role of peremptorily obviating war by protecting trade, we can conclude that the organization had indeed effectively collapsed and could not be reformed from within, given that five members of the Security Council retained veto power. Meanwhile, military aggressors in the world were able to fill in the power-void left by the collapsing post-World War II world order to render might-makes-right the status quo in the twenty-first century.

At the time, an E.U. media outlet opined that it was doubtful that even if the resolution had been adopted, it “would have impacted the war” because the wording had been “significantly weakened in a bid to get Russia and China to abstain rather than veto it.”[1] In other words, the existence of the veto power in the Security Council was responsible for the impotence of the UN in protected trade and reducing pressures for war. Just that “Iran’s chokehold during the war . . . sent energy prices soaring around the world” should have been enough of a justification for UN protective action in the strait, but not even that rationale was enough for the UN to be able to use its own forces to protect oil tankers through the strait.[2]

Because higher oil prices were in Russia’s economic and thus military interests as that country continued its four-year invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s use of its veto exploited a conflict of interest, and yet the UN had no means of blocking such a use of a veto-power even though Russia’s invasion violated the UN’s charter, which bars offensive military action being inflicted by one country on another country. In other words, the UN could not even stand up to a blatant conflict of interest whose exploitation enabled further violations of the UN’s own charter.

With Israel continuing its holocaustic genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza, the U.S. having invaded Venezuela to capture its president, and Russia still invading Ukraine, the interest of the global family of nations in establishing an international governmental organization without vetoes and with its own enforcement power was so clear that the lack of any such formative action can itself be reckoned as signaling a problem. In other words, knowing that the post-1945 global order was collapsing while military aggressors were getting away with establishing might-makes-right as the new global default, governments nonetheless failed to actively create a new order institutionally so that could be the new default. That the very concept of international law was rapidly being treated as mere guideline rather than law demonstrates just how serious the UN’s de facto collapse was, and yet not even an informal coalition of governments seriously proposed an international institution—whether an organization or government—to pick up the slack and counter Putin, Netanyahu, and Trump. My point is that the inaction of the bystander governments is itself a choice, which could have been different, especially given the proliferation of war crimes and crimes against humanity being incurred at the time. The political inertia internationally favored malicious national leaders and the false belief that the UN was still operational as per its mission.  

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1. Gavin Blackburn, “Russia and China Veto UN Resolution Aimed at Reopening Hormuz Strait as US Deadline for Deal Looms,” Euronews.com, 7 April, 2026.
2. Ibid.

Vanquishing the Principle of Unanimity in E.U. Foreign Policy: On the Impact of Oil

There nothing like a sudden dramatic spike in the price of oil in Europe from a war in Iran to prompt E.U. leaders to make speeches as if hell is freezing over and drastic action is urgently needed in terms of federal rather than piecemeal-state foreign policy. Behind President Von der Leyen’s call for the E.U. to do more in foreign policy was her point that the union could no longer afford the principle of unanimity in the European Council in foreign policy. The Iran War had raised the price not only of oil, but also of the unanimity requirement in the Council not only in foreign policy, but also defense. With 27 states at the time and an increasingly belligerent international context, including military aggression against Ukraine, Gaza, and Iran, the E.U. could not rely on a world order regulated by international law. The spike in gas prices, even more than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, brought this point close to home.

As the U.S. began its military attacks in Iran, “European benchmark gas prices jumped 80% in two days while brent crude edged closer to 84 dollars a barrel.”[1] When oil prices surpassed €87 ($100) per barrel roughly a week into the war, Viktor Orbán of the E.U. state of Hungary “called on the European Union to suspend sanctions on Russian energy imports.”[2] Never mind that Russia’s 4 year-old unimpeded invasion of Ukraine was a threat on the E.U.’s eastern border; restoring cheaper gas prices was more important, at least to Hungary. The E.U.’s geopolitical interests do not reduce to a state’s economic interests, however, and so President Von der Leyen spoke on the need for a more active E.U. foreign policy.

It was not the first time that the president had warned that the traditional world order was “rapidly crumbling under mounting violations of international law.”[3] In her speech, she said, “Europe can no longer be a custodian for the old-world order, for a world that has gone and will not return.”[4] There had been too many cases of breaches of international law with impunity as the UN and the International Criminal Court stood by utterly impotent. E.U.’s foreign minister, Kaja Kallas “pointed the finger at Russia’s decision to launch the full-scale invasion of Ukraine . . . as the cataclysm that precipitated the ‘erosion of international law’ . . . and enabled the return of what she described as ‘coercive power politics.”[5] In her speech, Kallas said, “That (invasion) did not go unnoticed. Instead, it sent a signal around the world that there is no more accountability for one’s actions: the rulebook has been thrown out of the window.”[6] Netanyahu’s government in Israel could unleash a holocaustic genocide in Gaza with a presumption of impunity, and Trump’s government in the U.S. could forcibly remove the president of Venezuela and kill Iran’s highest figure without fear of being held accountable by the U.N. or the International Criminal Court. Militaristic aggression was gaining a foothold in the world as international organizations stood by in utter impotence. The very notion of law at the international level could be surmised to be a misnomer.

Finally, E.U. officials were feeling a sense of urgency from war abroad because the sudden spike in oil and gas prices in Europe from Trump’s military attacks in Iran could not be ignored. Kallas stressing “that a rules-based international order is vital to avoid the inevitable anarchy” was no longer enough.[7] “Von der Leyen added another key priority on which the EU should focus to reinforce its geopolitical clout: its internal decision-making rules.”[8] Problematically, the E.U.’s foreign policy was bound by the principle of unanimity in the European Council and the Council of the E.U. such that “the 27 member states must agree on a common line of action before moving forward.”[9] So it only took the E.U. state of Hungary to veto the $91 billion loan for Ukraine, and the E.U. was stymied in coming up with a foreign policy on Trump’s military attacks against Iran because of differences between the states. Alternatively, going by qualified-majority voting would have enabled a consensus (i.e., short of unanimous consent) that could have become the E.U.’s foreign policy, which would have been much stronger in the world than were the various positions of the 27 state governments.

The relationship is clear between calls for a rules-based international order “with teeth” and a stronger decision-making rule in the European Council in foreign policy (and defense): a more active E.U. in foreign policy (and defense) was necessary due to the increased militaristic aggression abroad because the latter could have a very significant detrimental economic affect in Europe. Political pressure was thus building for the E.U.’s 27 state governments to finally relinquish their veto-power in foreign policy (and defense). Power is not relinquished easily, so not even higher oil and gas prices could be enough pressure for the states to agree to apply qualified-majority voting to foreign policy (and defense).

The mechanism called “enhanced cooperation,” which I contend elsewhere is a misnomer for what is really increased federal authority for at least nine states but not all of them, could be a means to bring qualified majority voting to the E.U.’s foreign policy that would cover only those states that have agreed to relinquish their veto power in that domain. I suspect that eventually, all of the E.U. states would be included, so “enhanced cooperation” can be understood as a temporary device that gets around the conflict of interest facing the state governments in their decisions on whether to allow the E.U. to become more active in foreign policy (and defense) than the principle of unanimity would permit.

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1. Eleonora Vasques, “Middle East War Shows ‘Europe Must Reinforce Its Autonomy’, EIB Chief Tells Euronews,” Euronews.com,  4 March 2026.
2. Sandor Zsiros, “Hungary Demands EU Lift Sanctions on Russian Energy as Prices Spike amid Iran War,” Euronews.com, 9 March 2026.
3. Jorge Liboreiro, “Von der Leyen and Kallas Call on Europe to Adapt to Chaotic, Coercive World Order,” Euronews.com, 9 March 2026.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.