Chaos in Massive Illegal Crossings into the E.U.: The Case of Ceuta

Even though the default absolutist notion of national sovereignty has consistently undercut global efforts to combat climate change and rid the world of nuclear weapons and even war itself, to disregard territorial sovereignty altogether is also problematic. Interestingly, both extremes treat international relations as a Hobbesian state of nature, and disregarding national sovereignty even extends the state of nature to within a country such that even national government is presumed not to exist. Illegal immigration is a case in point. When sixty thousand North Africans illegally entered Ceuta in the E.U. on July 30, 2026, the utter disrespect for the rule of law as well as the E.U.’s territorial integrity and legitimacy was palpable.

The disregard for governmental sovereignty could be seen visually as videos taken at the time on Ceuta’s Tarajal beach “reveal the chaos that accompanied the crossings, showing large crowds running between the breakwater and the roads around the border area.”[1] Sixty thousand people swimming over to a small city of just 19 square kilometers provides a snapshot of just how easily illegal immigration can spiral into mob-rule. Both Plato and Aristotle situate mob-rule as democratic decadence, and thus, like tyranny, to be avoided. As Hobbes argues in Leviathan, there is a good reason for government, given human nature. His theory differs markedly from Locke’s theory of natural rights, save the right of self-preservation that is inalienable according to Hobbes even though a sovereign has even the exclusive right even to interpret divine writ. For Hobbes, no natural rights exist that would limit the authority of a sovereign. None of these four historical philosophers would claim that illegal immigration between modern nation-states is a natural right. In fact, I suspect the four would be appalled at the utter effrontery in ignoring a country’s territorial sovereignty.

The push-back from North Africa backs up the disregard evinced by the people who illegally crossed into Ceuta. That Morocco had regarded the cities of Ceuta and Melilla as “part of its own territory since its independence from France and Spain in 1956” does not justify the strategy of spinning the illegal crossings as part of a dispute on sovereignty, for the people crossing were not doing so to protest that issue.[2] Neither do the social and economic conditions in Morocco justify disregarding another country’s government as if being unemployed justifies illegally entering another country. “One of Morocco’s most popular news outlets Hespress wrote that ‘the waves of incursions into Ceuta and the attempts to cross that later extended to Melilla have brought back to the fore the debate on the social and economic situation in the areas bordering the two enclaves. . . . What happened once again shines a light on the cities’ connection with their Moroccan environment and the complexities of their historical and sovereignty dossier.’”[3] Dossier? The attempt to primp the statement using misplaced diplomatic language flies in the face of the sheer chaos on the ground in Ceuta on 30 July, 2026. Disagreements on a “dossier” do not justify tens of thousands of illegal crossings in utter disregard for the laws and government of the receiving city, state, and federal union.

The existence of the latter, the European Union, in which Spain, which in turn includes Ceuta, is a state, enabled the North Africans to exploit a vulnerability in the federal system, for states’ rights ideologues (i.e., Euroskeptics) had been successful in blocking a stronger federal role in patrolling the E.U.’s territorial borders. The extant state-centric bricolage of immigration laws could easily be exploited without the Commission being able to fill the gaps. The Schengen Agreement, which allows for the free movement of people within the E.U., is flimsy at best. In the wake of the chaos in Ceuta, “Italy’s Interior Ministry . . . ordered the closure of the [state’s] sea and air borders with Spain, temporarily suspending the Schengen free movement regime” between the two E.U. states.[4] Imagine if Texas were able to close its borders to people coming from California were its government to suddenly open the flood-gates to illegal immigrants coming up from Mexico to California. We don’t have to imagine the government of Texas sending illegal immigrants from that U.S. member-state to Illinois.[5] Were the U.S. border subject only to a Schengen-like agreement between some of the member-states, chaos could be expected not only by interlarding migrants, but also between the states. The refusal of the E.U. state of Italy to accept people arriving from another E.U. state undermines the E.U. itself, and demonstrates just how fragile its state-dominated federal system has was even the case in 2026.

The statement at the time by Antonio Tajani, a state official of Italy, relates the state’s unilateral suspension of Schengen regarding the E.U. state of Spain to shoring up the E.U.’s borders: “The temporary suspension of Schengen with Spain is a necessary choice to safeguard the security of our citizens and defend the European borders.”[6] By “our citizens,” Tanjana was referring to those of the state of Italy, the interests of whom are not necessarily the same as those of E.U. citizens throughout the Union. This difference—between the interests of a part and the whole of which the part is just a part—is precisely why the protection of E.U. borders warranted more federal authority, rather than just the Schengen “patch-work” that could so easily be undone by “necessary” choices by state governments. In the U.S., the federalizing of regulating interstate commerce occurred because states such as New York and New Jersey were penalizing trade from each other by instituting duties under the Articles of Confederation. Whereas that confederation, which lasted from 1981-1789, consisted of fully sovereign countries, the E.U. states are semi-sovereign, just as U.S. states are because both the E.U. and U.S. have enumerated competencies or powers reserved for the federal level. By acting like a confederation with regard to border control, the E.U. played into the hands of Morocco and its citizens who illegally crossed into the E.U., such that E.U. citizens were vulnerable even to the excuse that bad economic conditions in a country outside of the E.U. gives rise to a natural right to enter the E.U. illegally as if no governments existed in Ceuta, Spain, and the E.U. itself even with respect to its borders.

Were unemployment a suitable justification to enter another country illegally, there would be chaos in both the E.U. and U.S. as it would be “open season” from Africa and Central America to cross international borders as if they did not exist. To disregard the laws of another country by entering without its government’s permission is so presumptuous in fact that the underlying mentality alone can be treated as a red-flag. The vulnerability in the E.U.’s state-centric federal system was particularly exposed because the government and state media of Morocco enabled such a mentality by citing a sovereignty dispute and bad domestic social and economic conditions as if these justify illegal immigration. In short, the E.U. should not have had to rely on the Schengen Agreement, which was as of 2026 only between some but not all E.U. states anyway. Even treating the sovereignty dispute as a Moroccan-Spanish concern belies the structural integrity of the E.U. as a federal union in which the E.U.’s borders are properly a matter of concern to the Union rather than just its states.

---

1. Chaima Chihi, “Sovereignty, Sarcasm, Blame: How North Africa Reacted to Ceuta Crisis,” Euronews.com, 31 July, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Gabriele Barbati and Greta Ruffino, “Italy Suspends Schengen with Spain over Ceuta Migrant Crisis, Closes Air and Sea Borders,” Euronews.com, 31 July, 2026.
5. In fact, Chicago’s O’hare Airport closed its regional-bus transit facility to accommodate the incoming immigrants from Texas.
6. Gabriele Barbati and Greta Ruffino, “Italy Suspends Schengen with Spain over Ceuta Migrant Crisis, Closes Air and Sea Borders,” Euronews.com, 31 July, 2026.

Castigating NGO’s: An American Israeli-Surrogate on Gaza Reconstruction

Besides international law, international organizations, or NGOs, function internationally beyond the reach of the nation-state. From the standpoint of national sovereignty, the sheer existence of the NGO as an institutional arrangement can be viewed as a potential threat and thus smartly to be expunged. One strategy that a country’s government bent on protecting national sovereignty could use to discredit NGOs is to label them using the turbo-charged “T” word, even in the case of an NGO that is oriented exclusively to providing humanitarian aid. By 2026, Israel had decimated the infrastructure and buildings in its occupied Gaza strip, and Russia had been bombing residential buildings in Kiev and other large cities in Ukraine for four years, so it could not be said that humanitarian aid was not needed in the world. Parts of Africa ravaged by draught and war, such as in Somalia, were also in vital need of humanitarian aid. To discredit NGOs providing such assistance, whether in terms of shelter, food, or medicine, meant being open to the charge of callous disregard for the suffering of very large numbers of people.  The case of Gaza—in particular, the position of the Trump administration on NGO’s being involved in the reconstruction of the strip—demonstrates the harm that is involved in turning the NGO institution-type into a controversial and even suspicious thing in order to do the bidding of a belligerent ally while removing a potential external threat to national sovereignty.

In a closed-door meeting in July, 2026 with European and Arab government officials in Brussels oriented to how nearly €900 million would be distributed to reconstruct the Gaza strip, “US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, called for a radical overhaul of financial support for Gaza.”[1] Although he was not an official of the U.S. Government, he doubtless had the U.S. President’s backing in calling for a fundamental shift from the UN’s standard approach in order to “turn the tide” against the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and other NGOs that the U.S. and Israel believed were aiding Hamas.[2] In fact, Kushner dismissed outright the Gaza aid initiatives carried out so far as being “designed step by step by NGOs and terrorists.”[3] It would certainly be news to the UN that UNRWA was actually so tainted. Of course, Kushner and his two task masters meant to discredit the very existence of the United Nation. The day before, U.S. Secretary of State Rubio had announced that the U.S. would attempt to dismantle the International Criminal Court in what could be interpreted as a wider mission to discredit international law itself and thus give carte blanche to any country’s unimpeded sovereignty.

Even though Kushner sought to discredit the UNRWA and NGO’s in general, he can be viewed as ethically compromised in that he was, whether in effect or intent, representing Israel, or at least the position of its prime minister, Ben Netanyahu, that the UN was to be a target. Domestically in the U.S., Kushner was widely viewed as partisan, for he was married to President Trump’s daughter and, more directly, was on Trump’s Board of Peace, “the controversial body . . . expected to oversee the Strip’s reconstruction.”[4] That mega-project likely included lucrative financial investments by the Trump Organization and Kushner’s own investment firm related to prospective luxury resorts on the Gaza-coast. Furthermore, Kushner was a close friend of Netanyahu and thus would likely have been doing his partisan bidding as well, especially in casting suspicion on a UN agency as aiding groups that Israel considered to be “terrorist.” In his speech, “Kushner made a clear link between the current humanitarian aid system and the indirect financing of Hamas, claiming that a consistent flow of money has fallen into the hands of Hamas, which used it to buy weapons, build tunnels, and develop rockets.”[5] It is no accident that Israel was accusing “UNRWA of connections with terrorist groups” even though the UN agency had denied “diverting any aid.”[6] Of course, decimating an entire strip the size of Gaza, which included entire cities, could be considered terrorism because civilians tacitly deemed by apartheid Israel to be “subhuman” had been targeted by Israel’s military, and thus government. Therefore, Kushner’s application of the “T” word is itself indicative of his one-sided stance, and therefore of his questionable credibility even besides the financial interest of his firm, in directing, in effect, the international reconstruction effort that was formally launched at that very meeting.

The significance of Kushner’s (and thus America’s and Israel’s governments’) complaint goes beyond the reconstruction of Gaza under American and Israeli supervision, for in castigating a UN agency and other international NGO’s, Kushner can be interpreted as attempting to sideline international organization itself. The unspoken assumption may be that anything beyond national sovereignty is inherently suspicious, or at least a threat to such sovereignty. Moreover, any potential external obstacle is best taken out, or sidelined, in the interests of national sovereignty. Such a strategy protects national actors who are or may be aggressive internationally, as evinced in 2026 by the U.S. in Iran, Israel in Gaza, the West Bank, and even Lebanon, and Russia in Ukraine. It was no accident, in other words, that international organization itself would be sidelined by the Trump and Netanyahu administrations. At the time, the ICC had a warrant out for Netanyahu’s arrest. Whereas the U.S. had been instrumental in the founding of the UN and thus could be regarded as betraying the international body, the U.S. had not ratified the Rome Statute and thus could attack the ICC from the outside, and U.S. Secretary of State Rubio had recent done just that. Again, Netanyahu's fingerprints could be seen upon careful enough inspection.

Therefore, the problem with Kushner’s speech is not merely that he was acting as Israel's surrogate in attacking the UN; even more important is the fact that he included even the UN itself in his attack on NGOs, and was thus urging the collapse of the post-World-War-II global order that had stood for international law rather than unimpeded absolutist national sovereignty. It is indeed telling that “(d)isarming Hamas was a central theme of Kushner’s speech”[7], as this emphasis was undoubtedly as per the wishes of his Israeli friend, Ben Netanyahu, who had been behind the decimation of Gaza and the homelessness of over a million residents. It should not be forgotten that the purpose of the meeting was to begin the task of turning €900 million into real construction “on the ground,” especially as the Gazans had already been relegated to tents and would soon be forcibly sent to heavily-guarded concentration-camp-like compounds in Gaza built by Israel and reminiscent of other camps  on another continent at another time. 

Perhaps the operative question is when humanity would be spared such inhumanity even in cycles, and look forward to international and thus unbiased humanitarian aid and reconstruction. Discrediting international organizations, and especially the UN, was not the way to build confidence globally that any such turn-around would be coming anytime soon. Given Israel’s sordid role in Gaza and the enabling by the Trump administration, those two countries arguably should not have had such a large role in a €900 billion project in Gaza. Afterall, Israel’s occupation itself of Gaza was in violation of the UN, to which Israel was, at least on a de facto basis, still a member.

---

1. Vincenzo Genovese, “Exclusive: US Wants ‘a New Approach’ to Rebuild Gaza, Kushner Told EU Ministers,” Euronews.com, 16 July, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

The U.S. Dismantling the International Criminal Court: International Law in the Cross-Hairs

The Rome statute, a treaty that went into effect in 2002, established the International Criminal Court (ICC) in order to bring accountability even to high officials of governments who flaunt international law by committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. As of July 14, 2026, when U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the American high representative on foreign policy and diplomacy, announced the intent of the Trump administration to stop at nothing less than dismantling the ICC, the U.S. had not ratified the treaty and thus was not subject to the court’s jurisdiction. However, Americans on the soil of countries that had ratified the treaty could be arrested there and sent to the ICC in the Hague if charged with having violated international law abroad. Back on U.S. territory, any such culprits would be beyond the reach of the ICC and any of the governments that were obliged by treaty to make arrests on their respective soils to implement warrants issued by the ICC. I contend that U.S. sovereignty was neither diminished or threatened by the existence of the court and the governments obliged to implement the warrants. In fact, the Trump administration may have been acting as a proxy for a foreign regime, two high government officials (at least) had been charged by the ICC and yet were still flaunting their immunity in Israel and the United States. Protecting the accused in another country of such horrendous crimes as a holocaustic genocide and falsely claiming that the ICC was an existential threat to American sovereignty as Rubio claimed on social media are not in the best interests of the U.S. even just in terms of reputational (and political) capital in international relations. Political expediency geared to protecting culprits of such a severe crime is at the very least short-sighted. In steering a large ship, a captain should look beyond the bow, as per the fateful example of the Titanic in 1912 attests. Enlightened self-interest goes a long way, whereas a narrow, contractual self-interest is apt to be hit head-on at some point. In July of 2026, the E.U. warned the world of the reckless American steering, but like a drunk driver, full of hubris liquor, the warning would go unheeded in the Hobbesian ideological belief that there is no such thing as international law in the state of nature. The bigger picture considers whether international law itself would survive the collapse of the post-World-War-II world order, which includes the ICC as well as the enforcement-impotent United Nations even concerning its own rulings and votes! Such self-inflicted impotence evinces Nietzsche’s conception of weakness, which is epitomized by celibate priests who yet seek to dominate even the strong. Netanyahu and Putin could easily flaunt the U.N. and be confident in remaining untouched by the ICC and even the feckless governments that were obliged to enforce the court’s arrest warrants. The global order was backsliding ironically as progress in technology was revolutionizing daily life in the twenty-first century.

In a lengthy op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in 2026, “Rubio vowed to ‘dismantle’ the court, claiming it posed ‘an intolerable threat to US sovereignty.”[1] He viewed the court and its supporters in other governments to be, as he put it, “waging a war against our country, not with bullets or missiles, but with statutes, compacts and the force of so-called international law.”[2] In other words, the court, he claimed, was hardly neutral, as it was very partisan in being anti-American and was determined to eviscerate U.S. sovereignty from the face of the Earth.

Perhaps New York City Mayor Mamdani’s recent threat that he would have the Israeli security minister Ben-Gvir arrested and sent to the ICC in the event of the Israeli official stepping foot on NYC soil, and the related political-monetary power in Washington, D.C. of the AIPAC (American Israeli Political Action Committee) had something to do with motivating the Trump Administration to launch its full-blown attack on the ICC, for the claim that the ICC had or even could impinge on U.S. sovereignty even though the United States had not ratified the Rome statute and thus was not subject to the court is wholly without validity or merit. Accordingly, Rubio’s claim that the ICC “threatens every aspect of our political and legal system” can be dismissed as propaganda intended to protect top Israeli officials from being held accountable for having ordered a genocide in Gaza even though the occupation itself violated international law, if there actually was such a thing.

To be sure, the American high representative for foreign policy was no idiot. A clue to his rationale, albeit flawed, lies in the U.S. State Department’s statement that the U.S. Government would “systematically disable the ICC’s ability to operate, target American servicemen or officials, or otherwise threaten American sovereignty.”[3] The key lies in the targeting of American servicemen or officials. Because “Americans never signed up for this, and all American presidents since the ICC’s ratification have maintained that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over Americans,” the ICC’s claim to having “the authority to prosecute and even imprison American servicemen and officials operating on behalf of America’s national interest” is invalid.[4] The key here is operating on behalf of, for such language alludes to Americans operating abroad, and thus possibly in countries that were subject to the ICC at the time and thus were obligated by the Rome statute to make arrests on their own soil to implement outstanding ICC warrants. The particular nationality of a foreigner in one of those countries does not matter on whether one can be arrested there; the reach of a foreigner’s home government does not extend so to exempt citizens from arrest; for that would be in violation of another country’s sovereignty. Neither is the more subjective “national interest” of the U.S. sovereign in other countries, which are not even subject to U.S. law.

Rubio is simply incorrect in asserting that ICC-based arrests in countries treatied to the Rome statute threaten “every aspect of our political and legal system” even though the ICC at the time did have jurisdiction over Americans who were (operating) in such other countries (excluding being physically inside a U.S. embassy, which is considered U.S. territory). Because the U.S. had not ratified the treaty, anyone on American soil could not be touched either by the ICC itself or any of the governments obliged to implement ICC warrants on their own respective territories, so the American political and legal system were not in danger of being torpedoed by the court.

In fact, the State Department’s statement’s threat to increase scrutiny of countries “that refuse to reject the ICC’s false authority while relying on US assistance”—meaning that such assistance would be terminatedcan—can be interpreted as a lack of respect or even recognition of the national sovereignty of other countries; at the very least, the U.S. Government was announcing its intent to manipulate other governments even though they were treaty-bound to recognize and enforce ICC arrest-warrants.[5] The sordid nature of the motivation of the Trump administration may go even deeper than encroachment, which was not exactly a new tactic with respect to pressuring and even threatening other governments to do the bidding of the U.S. Government.

Kenneth Roth, formerly with Human Rights Watch, wrote at the time that the Trump administration wanted “to be able to commit war crimes with impunity even on the territory of governments that have joined the International Criminal Court.”[6] Given the support of Israel amid its genocide in Gaza, allies being able to commit even crimes against humanity, which go beyond war crimes, can be added, at least as a possible motivation. Roth, however, saw in Rubio’s position a “quest for impunity for American war crimes abroad” using national sovereignty as a subterfuge to hide his true intent.[7] Ironically, according to Roth, Rubio was ignoring “the sovereign right of other nations to invoke the ICC for crimes committed on their territory.”[8] Not only is American sovereignty unperturbed by ICC arrests made in other countries, as they are not subject to U.S. sovereignty or even American “national interests,” but also those countries are well within their national sovereignty to arrest foreigners on their soil even on warrants issued by the ICC, provided that the country had ratified the Rome statute.

Imagine the Japanese government protesting to the U.S. Government regarding the arrest of a Japanese citizen in New York City who has just unsuccessfully set off a means by which thousands of people would be killed. Certainly Japan would not even attempt to claim that the arrest violates Japan’s sovereignty, because New York (and U.S.) sovereignty, not that of Japan, apply in New York City. The American federal system, like that of the E.U., had governmental sovereignty at both the federal and state levels, with direct effect of both rather than just through the state governments. The claim that Japanese sovereignty trumps either in New York City could not seriously be considered as credible by anyone, and yet Rubio’s piece and the State Department’s statement were taken seriously enough by the E.U. for it to issue a warning against the position against the ICC in Washington. The adage, the emperor is not wearing any clothes, seems to apply well here, and yet high governmental position itself seems to come with the assumption of being fully clothed.

So much for the American case for dismantling the ICC. Hardly noticeable in Rubio’s op-ed in the newspaper, but perhaps the most important part of the piece, is his reference to “so-called international law.”[9] Did you catch that in the quote above? If not, you missed the larger, and much more significant claim by the U.S. Secretary of State that international law is, at best, a misnomer without any actual referent. Overlooking the truly significant in being captivated instead with a political “dog-fight” may be a human proclivity that is hard-wired in our nature, but we also have the ability to reason and reflect, and even to pick out the truly significant even amid sensationalism that titillates our emotions. If I am right, very few people indeed picked up on Rubio’s ideological position on international law itself. He was indicating by the inclusion of “so-called” that nothing that can be called law exists beyond the sovereignty of a country.

Relatedly, Hobbes wrote in Leviathan that rights, except that of self-preservation, are conditional on there being a sovereign power. Arguably, Russia’s Putin in Ukraine, Israel’s Netanyahu in Gaza (and even the settlers in the West Bank), and even America’s Trump (and Israel’s Netanyahu) tossing bombs into Iran evinces a refusal to recognize the validity of international law. What counts is national power in political realism; not even international norms can or should get in the way of governments single-handedly advancing the strategic interests of their respective countries. This is tantamount to a return to Hobbes’ state of nature, internationally.

In a world in which governments have and have exclusive control over nuclear weapons, nature can indeed be nasty, brutish, and short. Furthermore, the lack of any respected international “requirements” to limit carbon emissions could also be expected to push the planet beyond even the inhabitable zone of humans, as the 2021 film, Silent Night, suggests. More immediately, however, draught, flooding, heatwaves, and even sub-optimal food production (and thus starvation, as in Africa) could be expected as governments continued to ignore the voluntary targets set in the Paris Accords even as the species’ global population continued to increase at an annual rate estimated by the UN of roughly 0.8% to 0.9% when the population stood (in July, 2026) at approximately 8.3 billion. Just a century before, that figure was estimated to be between 1.75 billion and 1.93 billion. The exponential growth rate itself may suggest that humanity was out of control with respect to its population on Earth, given its natural resources and ecosystems. According to Gregory Bateson’s Steps to an Ecology of Mind, a maximizing, schizogenic, variable can pierce the equilibrium, homoeostatic, steady-state of an ecosystem, and even the Earth’s atmosphere itself. Our species had become such a variable amid the economic engine of commercial revolution, which gave rise to climate change, as industry greatly expanded during the twentieth century. Even so, the Paris Accords were voluntary, given the value (and priority) put on national sovereignty.

An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) by Thomas Malthus, interestingly known both as a political economist (whereas Adam Smith had been known as moral philosopher!) and Christian clergyman, predicts dire consequences from a species failing to restrain its own population growth but being hemmed in by nature through starvation, war, and disease. Indeed, the Romantic period of intellectual history in the 1800s would see nature portrayed even in Turner’s paintings as having the last word over the classics steeped in reason and human intentionality.

Therefore, both with respect to nuclear war and climate change, both of have their basis at a time when national sovereignty was still absolute and nationalism was so in vogue, especially in Europe, international relations in the twenty-first century could not afford to be based on and confined to the sovereignty of individual countries. Rubio’s political stance on the very existence of international law even as a concept is therefore dangerous, and at the very least is not in line with the sapiens in homo sapiens, for sapiens, sapientis is the form of the Latin adjective, wise. Dismantling the ICC, and thus giving impunity a free hand in war crimes and crimes against humanity, is a move in the direction of Hobbes’ state of nature, in which everyone lives in fear of being killed.

Perhaps in a Hegelian-modified way of looking at the broad expanse of human freedom and responsibility through history, our species is perhaps hardwired, or habituated, to taking a step back after having taken a step forward, before being willing to take yet another step forward. Putin, Netanyahu, and even Trump can be viewed as representing a step back, in aggressive fear, but this too shall perhaps pass, hopefully before humanity obliterates or exterminates itself. But lest we rest too assured that a new, stronger, and thus better enforced international order of institutions arise like a phoenix from the ashes of the fire being set by the Trump administration, a well as those set by Russia’s Putin in Ukraine and Israel’s Netanyahu in Gaza and even the West Bank (by refusing to hold violent settlers accountable), Kant’s claim that world peace would only be possible, but not probably, were a world federation, presumably with enough governmental sovereignty of its own, albeit with checks and balances to obviate tyranny, to enforce its laws on governments that have abused their national sovereignty that has been retained. A world federation wherein all sovereignty resides in the national governments, a non-plena federation in the Latin of Althusius’s early seventeenth-century theory of federalism based on the Holy Roman Empire, would be an exercise in futility and thus not worth even attempting, as already demonstrated for the world by the conduct over many decades since World War II of the veto-wielding powers on the UN Security Council at the expense of the very credibility of that international organization. Indeed, the decimated credibility played right into Rubio’s coded allusion to international law being not worthy of the label. Therefore, what might a real global order look like, once the full step back has run its course?  

---

1. Emma De Ruiter and Gavin Blackburn, “EU Says Threats Against ICC ‘Unacceptable’ as US Launches Campaign to ‘Dismantle’ Court,” Euronews.com, 14 July, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.

Trade or Foreign Policy: The E.U. on Illegal Israeli Settlements

During the summer of 2026, the E.U. found itself at one point trying to make the unnecessarily arduous and utterly artificial distinction between trade and foreign policy as if they were mutually exclusive. This task was foisted on the Council of Ministers due to the domain-specific application of the state veto, which is to say, the requirement of unanimity. The sheer artificiality was outdone only by the absurdity of any of 27 states still being able to veto proposed federal law and policy in some but not all policy domains, and thus hamstring the E.U. even when the good of the whole, supported by the vast majority of states and E.U. citizens, supported action on the federal level. The global context at the time with respect to international relations belied a stark separation of trade from foreign policy.

In declaring a recommencement of a naval blockade on Iranian ports on July 13, 2026, for example, U.S. President Trump also said the U.S. would “be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security” to ships passing through the Hormuz Strait.[1] As a countering move of rhetoric, “Iran’s military command insisted it would not allow the US to ‘interfere’ in the key conduit for oil and gas, while also warning its Gulf neighbours—who have borne the brunt of Tehran’s attacks—against cooperating” with the U.S.[2] Clearly, trade itself, and especially protecting its conduit, can be seen as being closely intertwined with foreign policy in this case. The rising price of oil was clearly on Trump’s mind, especially with the “midterm” elections less than four months away, but also standing up to the Iranian military attacks on ships in the strait was also a probable motive, rather than merely to make “toll” money on shipping in the Middle East. In other words, political economy, rather than just business and economics, best describes the interlacing of trade and foreign policy. 

In fact, historically, the field known today as economics spun out of political economy. Even in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, a non-mercantilist, regulative role of government in protecting competitive markets and even the role of the state in covering the “social” costs of capitalism, such as in providing housing and food to the unemployed, for example, are salient. Left to its own devises, a competitive market could concentrate into an oligopoly or even a monopoly as the refining industry did in the last quarter of the nineteenth century in North America, where oil was first discovered.

Therefore, it can be regarded as a legal fiction of sorts that the E.U. would treat a legislative proposal to ban trade with Israeli settlements, such as covered most of the land in the West Bank by 2026, illegally according both to international and E.U. law, as a matter of trade rather than foreign policy so only qualified majority voting rather than the unanimous consent that is necessary on foreign-policy proposals would be needed to pass the Council of Ministers. Referring to that council, the E.U.’s federal foreign minister Kallas reported, “The option that got the most support was banning the trade with the illegal settlements.”[3] She was referring to the E.U.’s states, which are represented both in the European Council and the Council of Ministers, similar to U.S. states being represented in the U.S. Senate. In American parlance, the consensus among “senators” was to ban all trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, which by 2026 was down to the West Bank as Israel had razed Gaza to the ground in a holocaustic genocide. That the consensus was not instead to ban all trade with Israel as well as its illegal settlements, given the state-sponsored destruction of Gaza, is another question, which presumably would also qualify to be decided in the Council by qualified majority vote rather than unanimity, for trade even as foreign policy is still trade.

That the E.U. still made such a distinction as to the voting threshold in 2026 even as the Union was considering adding more states to the east even though foreign policy and trade had become so integrally related in international relations generally can be said to be artificial, and thus irrationally political rather than having merit in the functioning of the E.U.’s federal system. In fact, even at 27 states, the requirement of reaching unanimity on legislation and policy in the European Council and the Council of Ministers (aka Council of the E.U.) had already made it very difficult to pass even widely favored proposals due to Viktor Orbán’s “Euroskeptic” (i.e., anti-federalist) ideology. In other words, he was able to undercut the E.U. from within, and yet even months after his fall from power in the E.U. state of Hungary, the matter of subjecting the matter of deciding how to vote on whether to ban trade with illegal settlements was still arduous! Even though Kallas was the foreign minister of the E.U. (under the stealth misnomer of “High Representative” to satisfy anti-federalists), banning trade falls under trade primarily, and thus qualified-majority voting rather than unanimity. Perhaps a more robust, courageous, foreign-policy proposal worthy of human-rights and even just international-law proponents would have been to ban trade with Israel en toto, but even such a proposal would fall under trade and thus rightly be subject to qualified-majority voting. Moreover, with 27 states, and thus 27 political opinions of sitting governors, that the Councils still subjected any decision to unanimity especially after Viktor Orbán suggests that the need to distinguish trade from foreign policy anyway could and should have been obviated by common sense. 

That on 13 July, 2026, “a majority of member states . . . backed framing the measures as a trade rather than a foreign policy tool, which would avoid the need of all E.U. [state] governments to unanimously back the move” should have been enough because, simply put, banning trade is about trade, which is subject to qualified-majority voting.[4] The “move” should not have been needed in the first place, were enough Europeans convinced that the very existence of the state-veto in the Councils is an antiquated notion based on the former days before the E.U. when the states were fully sovereign, rather than semi-sovereign in a political union, which also has some governmental sovereignty. In fact, qualified-majority voting itself is an instance of such sovereignty because states on the losing end of such a vote must obey the decision nonetheless. 

Therefore, the very continuance of the state veto is predicated on denial. Put another way, the world was moving forward; why, then, were the E.U. state governments so utterly intractable, so beheld to their own power, even as the E.U. was poised to add even more states without first jettisoning the requirement of unanimity in the two councils that represent states? Perhaps the Parliament and the Commission should have been delegated more authority at the federal level until the states could get their act together in the two federal councils.

---

1. Aleksandar Brezar and Peter Barabas, “Trump Reimposes U.S. Blockade and Demands 20% Hormuz Shipping Fee,” Euronews.com, 13 July 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Mared G. Jones, “Full Ban on Israeli Settlement Trade Gets ‘Most Support’ from EU Countries, Kallas Says,” Euronews.com, 13 July, 2026.
4. Ibid.

Holding a Congressman at Gunpoint: Israeli Settlers Backed by the IDF

An old saying advises against “looking a gift-horse in the mouth.” Another says, “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” As of mid-June, 2026, Israel had not received either memo, because the country’s military, the IDF backed up the position of Israeli settlers who had just illegally detained—technically “kidnapped”—Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) while he was on a trip in the West Bank. U.S. President Trump had recently told the media that without the United States, Israel would not exist. The lack of gratitude shown to the U.S. by making sure that a visiting Congressman was treated well during his visit was palpable.

“Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) said he was detained by Israeli settlers armed with U.S.-made rifles during a trop to the West Bank . . ., where residents [had been facing] frequent attacks.”[1] The Congressman was with a group that was “at a village that Israeli settlers had destroyed; they had destroyed the school, they had destroyed that village, and we were just looking at it,” he told reporters.[2] The destruction, being in the West Bank, violated international law, so the settlers and even the Israeli government had an interest in attempting to hide the atrocity from the group containing the Congressman. Irony inheres to the words used by Rep. Khanna to describe the settlers’ aggression: “An these hoodlums come in with machine guns—M4, an American-made machine gun—and they detain us. They block off the road. And then they call the IDF and the IDF is on their side, not on the side of the Americans.”[3] The IDF, the Israeli military, even “continued our detention,” Khanna later said before adding, “They made a huge mistake.”[4] The lesson for the U.S. is perhaps:  be careful to whom you sell weapons; the possessors may use them against even members of your Congress.

At least the IDF was an official part of the Israeli government; the settlers were merely private individuals who were presumptuously taking matters into their own hands while being utterly unappreciative of everything that the U.S. had done for Israel even though it was decimating Gaza and its people. At least the Israelis were being consistent: wanton disrespect of Palestinians in the West Bank and an American elected representative. That the military sided with the settlers and thus against the Americans implicates the Israeli government as being an ungrateful recipient of American support. Perhaps all the money circulated to federal elected officials by AIPAC (the American Israeli Political Action Committee) was thought sufficient to allow for such a luxury; perhaps the indolence of the American people with respect to opposing Israel’s mass genocide in Gaza was thought sufficient to guard against any adverse reaction to a member of Congress being detained by means of American guns. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor is said to have awakened a sleeping giant. By the time of Israel’s mass destruction and killing in Gaza, with additional sordid ventures into the West Bank and even Lebanon, the giant was back asleep and with it, its conscience, and, frankly, its self-respect.

---

1. Brianna Tucker, “Rep.Ro Khanna Detained by Israeli Settlers during West Bank Visit,” The Huffington Post, July 11, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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."

---

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.

 

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.