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.

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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.

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.

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.

On America’s Dominance in NATO: The E.U. as a Contributory Factor

Just after the E.U. had successfully negotiated (mostly) free-trade treaties with India and a few South American state-level countries, the E.U. and U.S. were at odds on the ownership and control of Greenland to such an extent that the NATO alliance was strained if not fraught. The resulting power-vacuum with respect to military alliances could be filled by the E.U. strengthening its federal foreign policy and defense powers and forming a military alliance with India and even South America in order to put less reliance and thus pressure on the weakened NATO alliance.  This is not to say that new military alliances would necessarily or even probably form; rather, such alliances would be in line with the dynamics and logic of power itself at the international level. I contend that the unbalanced balance of federal-state power in foreign policy and defense in the E.U. was a major contributory factor of the dominance of the U.S. in NATO.

U.S. President’s politically aggressive threats regarding making Greenland a U.S. territory (but not a state) made the American dominance in NATO suddenly unsavory to the Europeans. At the end of January, 2026, the former European Council president Charles Michel was unusually blunt by European (but not American Midwestern) standards. “NATO chief Mark Rutte should stop being an ‘American agent’ and unite the fraught military alliance in the face of the United States’ ‘hostile rhetoric’ and ‘intimidation’,” Michel told Euronews.[1] Whereas his words, hostile rhetoric and intimidation, applied to President Trump were nothing new; it was the expression, American agent, that stood out. Even though the dominance of the mighty American military power in NATO was hardly news, that Michel said it out loud signaled the depth of the Europeans’ displeasure at Trump’s overt messaging on Greenland. Michel was just as blunt about Rutte himself. “I want to be clear, Mark Rutte is disappointing and I’m losing confidence. . . . I’m not expecting Mark Rutte to be an American agent. I’m expecting Mark to work for unity within NATO,” Michel said.[2]

Rutte’s claim that Trump was the “Daddy” of NATO was admittedly over the top (Trump’s ego hardly needed the accolade of Daddy), but Michel’s criticism is weaker concerning Rutte’s efforts to find “an off-ramp for Trump to climb down on his recent threats to trigger a trade war” with the E.U. over differences on Greenland.[3] Dissipating the related economic and political escalations between countries in NATO served the interests of unity in NATO, so Rutte deserves credit for providing Trump with an off-ramp.

Michel also claimed that the E.U. had been a “very loyal partner” to the U.S. and thus did not deserve Trump’s threats.[4] Instead of going on to analyze the relative validity of the positions of the E.U. and U.S. on which continent should own and control Greenland, the road less travelled by analysts concerns the argument that the E.U. would be more likely to reach a parity of power with the U.S. in NATO were the E.U. states willing to transfer more governmental sovereignty to the federal level in foreign policy and defense. This would include (but not be limited to) moving off reliance on the principle of unanimity to hold votes in the Council by qualified-majority. As the executive branch, the Commission would of course have more shared and exclusive competencies (i.e., enumerated powers) in foreign affairs and militarily (with control over more than the 60,000 troops). As in the U.S., both the states and the Union would have armies, and the Commission could temporarily borrow the state militias as needed. That the state governments have direct power in the European Council and the Council of Ministers, whereas the American states are only indirectly represented in the U.S. Senate, means that the E.U. would be less likely to abuse its federal police and even the federal borrowing of state armies as Trump was able to do.

Moreover, that the U.S. had become so violent, in part due to the astounding corruption in local police departments and in part due to the Trump administration is itself a reason why E.U. citizens and their elected representatives have good reason to bolster defense at the federal level. Gone were the days when America stood for the little guys rather than the bullies in the world. Unfortunately, the language that speaks most clearly to Trump, Netanyahu, and Putin is that of counter-force. Were the E.U. not so bottom-heavy militarily (i.e., reliant on the state armies), perhaps a federal force could have gone into Ukraine and Gaza to push the aggressors back. Might-Makes-Right would have suffered a set-back rather than stand to become the default in post post-World War II global order. Therefore, the Europeans could stand to do some navel gazing on why the U.S. has been so dominate in NATO.  

1. Mared G. Jones, “Mark Rutte Should Stop Being an ‘American Agent’ and Unite NATO, Charles Michel Says,” Euronews.com, January 30, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

E.U.-India Free Trade

Early in 2026, “(a)fter months of intense negotiations,” the E.U. concluded “a free-trade deal with India,” which, if ratified by the E.U.’s upper and lower chambers (the European Council and the European Parliament), would sharply reduce “tariffs on E.U. products from cars to wine as the world looks for alternative markets following President Donald Trump’s tariffs.”[1] Signaling that something more than trade was involved in the treaty, “(b)oth countries hailed a ‘new chapter in strategic relations’ as both sides” sought “alternatives to the US market.”[2] The E.U. had just engineered a free-trade treaty with four South American countries. Competition for better, cheaper, trade was reducing Trump’s bargaining power by means of tariffs. Using them to inflict geopolitical harm on other countries, including the E.U., would become less effective as free-trade deals excluding the U.S. materialized. The implications, and even the motive in the free-trade negotiations between the E.U. and India, extend beyond economics.

At the time, India was “facing tariffs of 50% from the Trump administration.”[3] Half of that percentage was a penalty on India for buying Russian oil. The tariffs “severely dented” India’s exports and thus gave India a huge incentive to negotiate with the Europeans. On the European side of the equation, Trump had just threatened to impose tariffs on any country opposing the American purchase of Greenland before relenting at Davos. Such market uncertainty had momentarily stirred Wall Street and shaken European export-oriented businesses. Quite understandably, given such uncertainty, E.U. President von der Leyen was emphatic when the India deal was reached. “We did it—we delivered the mother of all deals,” she said.[4] “This is the tale of two giants,” she added, “who choose partnership in a true win-win fashion. A strong message that cooperation is the best answer to global challenges.”[5] The American president, von der Leyen’s counterpart, was without doubt among the challenges, which also included Russia’s militaristically aggressive president and the wholly unrepentant genocidal state of Israel. The broader message from the E.U.-India trade announcement is that the bad boys can be obviated, and that really good trade deals can be reached as a result.

The E.U.’s trade minister Sefcovic observed that the pressing need to find other markets and thus insulate E.U. trade from whimsical American impediments to E.U.-U.S. trade gave an incentive for negotiations to proceed “with a new philosophy” of avoiding subjecting sensitive goods to free trade. “If this is sensitive for you, let’s not touch it,” he explained as the new modus operendi in the negotiations.[6] I contend the pressing mutual interests to render Trump’s threats powerless fostered this new strategy. That is, both countries looked “to de-risk their economies from the threat of Trump’s tariffs.”[7] The hurdles that had scuttled E.U.-India trade negotiations beginning in 2007 were thus obviated at least in part due to the erratic trade policies coming out of Washington.

It is significant that the E.U. characterized the deal with India as an instance of “rules-based cooperation.”[8] Russia and Israel were both severely breaching international rules, and even U.S. President Trump’s whimsical application and withdrawal of tariffs can be viewed as contrary to the constancy of rules. Business abhors such volatility, and so do most governments. The bad boys are the exception, and the good boys and girls were smart to work around the baddies. Given the extent and depth of corruption (i.e., lies and refusals to enforce criminal law with impunity) and the sheer, unprovoked aggressiveness in the police departments of too many of the U.S.'s member-states and at the federal level, where the aggression directed at Minnesota citizens was nothing short of animalistic in January, 2026, the challenge to a rules-based rather than power/whim-based order was a major American problem beyond “merely” Washington having supplied weapons to Israel to wipe Gaza and its people off the map—literally into cold, wet tents.  

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1. Peggy Corlin and Maria Tadeo, “EU Inks ‘Mother of All Deals’ with India Trade Agreement Amid Global Turmoil,” Euronews.com, January 27, 2026.
2. Ibid., italics added.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.

Distortions of Political Perspective in Foreign Affairs

When the human mind becomes too affixed to a political ideology, rather it is “right,” “center,” or “left,” one way that the excessive attachment can be seen by other people is by perspectival distortion. A very basic illustration of this cognitive-perceptional lapse is when someone claims that only X but not Y is problematic even though both X and Y can be criticized using the same or even related criteria. Besides the fact that ideology is inherently partial rather than wholistic, “sins of omission” concerning X or Y (but not both) due to a cognitive-perspectival distortion, which in turn comes from the partiality of any ideology, can easily be viewed as unethical in virtue of being patently unfair as well as self-serving, ideologically. This very abstract paragraph sprang from news reports of U.S. Senator Linsey Graham referring to Iran’s Khamenei as a Hitler-figure while giving Israel’s Netanyahu a pass even though by January 11, 2026 when Graham spoke, the large-scale killing and suffering of a people had easily dwarfed the few thousand Iranian protesters who had been killed on the street. Even mentioning an equivalence would have been sufficient in terms of which leader comes closer to being a 21^st century Hitler. As a result, the U.S. senator’s credibility undoubtedly took a hit—except, interestingly, to people sharing the senator’s foreign-policy ideology. This too flags political ideology itself as problematic for the human mind.

On the Fox News’ program, “Sunday Morning Futures,” Graham urged regime-change in Iran. “If I were you, Mr. President, I would kill the leadership that are killing the people,” Graham said.[1] On the very same day, activists said that “Iran has killed at least 544 people and even more are feared dead.”[2] That Because Graham had very recently joined President Trump on a flight on Air Force One, the senator’s statements had likely been planned in order to prepare the American people a possible American military action to remove Iran’s dictator, whose democratic legitimacy was probably as great as Putin’s in Russia given all of the hand-picked “opposition” candidates.

Although Graham’s statement, “You gotta end this,” can be thusly construed as having really come from Trump himself, that the line applied even more so to what the Israeli government had been inflicting in Gaza for years by then and yet Graham did not mention this obvious point evinces the sort of ideological distortion that can so easily flag a politician’s credibility. 

With the Qatar News Agency reporting also on January 11, 2026 that the death toll in Gaza had reached 71,412, with 171,314 injured (and with entire cities destroyed, perhaps over a million people homeless and hungry), it is significant that Graham referred to Iran’s leader as a “modern-day Hitler” without even mentioning even the possibility that the holocaustic genocide still going on in Gaza qualified Netanyahu, a war criminal still wanted by the International Criminal Court, for the same infamous title.[3] In fact, with some high officials of the Israeli government having stated that death is not enough for the residents of Gaza—all of whom being presumably culpable for Hamas’ attack in October, 2023 in which less than 1,500 Israelis were killed and/or taken hostage—the holocaustic, extra-suffering, extension from “mere” genocide arguably qualified Netanyahu and his henchmen as democratically-elected “Nazis” for wanting to exterminate a subjugated people. Even though Iran’s government could claim to have been democratically elected through a legal fiction of “opposition” candidates pre-selected by Iran’s highest body of clergy, the case of Israel demonstrates that a democracy is capable of conducting a holocaust, or at least a genocide. Incidentally, German’s President Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor in 1933, so Hitler came to power in a democracy, so the distinction between autocracy and democracy with regard to going on to perpetuate crimes against humanity (and war crimes) is not as clear as politicians such as Lindsey Graham would like to suppose.

Essentially, Graham ignored the elephant in the living room—the invisible elephant in plain view—while abhorring just over 500 Iranian protesters having just been killed. This slight, I contend, was no oversight, and it demonstrates just how culpable political ideology itself can be when firmly held by the human brain. The resulting distortion, or warping, can enable even enormous suffering and death unleashed by a state with impunity. By implication, no one power in the world can be counted on to play the role of the global “policeman.” Rather, the U.S. could go in to protect the Iranian protesters while another large power, such as China, could go in to exterminate the Israeli troops in Gaza, and perhaps even in the West Bank. This would be superior to a partial action, but even more superior would be a world federation with enough delegated military power of its own or on call to protect civilians in any country or occupied territory, and thus fairly, in which the scale and severity of unmitigated and unjustified atrocities committed by a military reach a threshold.

Lest a world federation with limited governmental sovereignty checkable by a qualified-majority of countries, whether sovereign states or political unions, seem too far-fetched, it is worth reflecting on the enabling by large-scale organizational management (i.e., efficiency) and military technological “progress” (i.e., bigger, more powerful weapons) of the drastically increased scale and severity of the genocidal holocausts of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Eichmann’s application of efficiency to the network of trains going to and from the concentration camps, and the Israeli ability to bomb or bulldoze each and every building even in large cities in Gaza demonstrate just how large the destructive capacity of humans directed at entire peoples can be. So the value that a world federation—one that would be unlike the UN and the ICC in that enforcement powers would be included—in the 21^st century is much greater than in the eighteenth century when Kant wrote his treatise on perpetual peace. In that book, the European philosopher argues that the establishment of a world federation would make world peace possible but admittedly not probable. Although such odds may apply three centuries later, human nature remaining constant, the need for a world federation has become much greater. 

The President Trump’s government giving Netanyahu’s Israeli government a pass and negotiating with Russia’s Putin on the  latter’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, while extracting the sitting president of Venezuela and hinting that Iran might be next is so dogmatic in the sense of being arbitrary from a global rather than self-interested perspective that leaving the world order in the hands of impotent international organizations (i.e., the U.N. and the ICC) can be considered to be downright reckless. The ideological and related self-centered vulnerabilities of the human mind, together with the enhanced scale and severity of the infliction of suffering and even death, render a world-order based on absolute sovereignty at the nation-state and political-union levels as antiquated, and yet we continue to rely on just such an order. That’s the idea.

1. Lee Moran, “Lindsey Graham Urges Donald Trump to Kill ‘Modern-Day Hitler’ in Iran,” The Huffington Post, January 12, 2026.
2. Jon Grambrell, “Death Toll in Crackdown on Protests in Iran Spikes to at Least 544, Activists Say,”

3. Lee Moran, “Lindsey Graham Urges Donald Trump to Kill ‘Modern-Day Hitler’ in Iran,” The Huffington Post, January 12, 2026. On the report on Gaza, see QNA.org (accessed January 13, 2026).

A Hobbesian World of Might-Makes-Right

In his famous text, Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes describes the state of nature as one of might, or raw force, being the decider of what is rightly and determinatively so. If one person physically harms another person such that the latter’s food may be taken by the former, then that food belongs to the victor even without any overarching normative, or moral, constraint that says that the food still belongs to the vanquished. If Trump's statement that Putin has "won" some regions of Ukraine by military means is correct, then those occupied lands will have been decided by might as if that constitutes right. That Israel has physically decimated Gaza's cities and placed its indigenous residents in concentration camps without enough food or access to medical care with impunity means that the plight of the Palestianians has been decided by might, not right. 

In short, possession is really 99 percent of ownership. Might makes right. Stephen Miller, Trump's deputy chief-of-staff, described this world "order" in responding to questions on whether the U.S. planned to invade Greenland. "Nobody's going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland. . . . We live in a world, in the real world, . . . that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time."[1] In this system, the International Criminal Court, or ICC, simply does not exist or is a target. Evolution has not changed human nature from the hunter-gatherer “stage.” To be sure, not all of humanity is on board with this sort of global order, even if guns have a way of pushing down or even silencing the more progressive elements of the species. The Trump administration’s attacks on the ICC represent a case in point.

The absolutist interpretation of national sovereignty feeds into the functioning of a might-makes-right world. “Global standards for how civilians must be treated and how to wage war are often, in the eyes of the Trump administration, a hindrance and a violation of national sovereignty.”[2] The implication is that unimpeded national sovereignty not only comes without danger, but is also the best system for international relations and thus the prosperity and happiness of the species. Rather than merely criticizing Trump’s “unprecedented campaign against a core institution of international law, the International Criminal Court,” the assumptions underlying a global system of unfettered national sovereignty merit critique, given the unnecessarily unheeded power-aggrandizing actions of Stalin and Hitler in the twentieth century. The military exploits of the Empire of Japan can be added to the list as well. In the next century, the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the mass-killing and starvation of Gaza’s indigenous residents by Israeli Zionists demonstrate the fallacy of a stable world to be brought about by unrestrained national sovereignty, given the underlying human nature that manifests too easily as the instinct of power-aggrandizement. In short, the Israeli genocide in Gaza demonstrates that the Nazi holocaust was not a “one off” deviation from human nature, but rather is closer to mainstream human nature than was realized during the last half of the twentieth century. Indeed, the genocide in Gaza may be reckoned by history as yet another holocaust writ large.

Nevertheless, and as evidence that might-makes-right can continue even amid such atrocities in progress, the Trump administration “used America’s disproportionate global financial power and threats of further repercussions to hinder the [ICC’s] work and create a chilling effect—even as Palestinians [continued] to face U.S.-backed Israeli policies that ICC judges said could constitute grave crimes, and that could undermine Trump’s own stated vision of peace for Gaza.”[3] Rather than focus on the role of private investor-capital in planned development projects being planned for Gaza absent its indigenous population, I want to highlight the disproportionateness of a might-makes-right superpower as itself being a problem unless might-make-right is deemed salvific for humanity. For the ICC, the raw power in the disproportionate military and financial power of the Trump administration over other countries presented “an existential paradox: The ICC’s pursuit of accountability over Gaza is both the reason it has a target on its back, and proof that it [i.e., the ICC] is necessary.”[4] But to be necessary and largely impotent against the power of the disproportionate enabler of Israel (and perhaps even Russia) is to be in the worst of two worlds, as it were.

Put another way, the very existence of a partisan “world police force” presents the ICC with its greatest threat as well as its highest raison d’etre. With such a police force operating on the basis of might-makes-right internationally, that same rationale can be seized upon by other partisans internationally to engage in power-aggrandizement activities of their own, even against the global police-force itself. Such a system is inherently self-contradictory, in other words, and thus weak as a system in which the world order can be in order rather than chaos and upheaval. That the dogma of absolutist national sovereignty sanctions and protects parchment-constraints at the national level (and below) saves such a system from being chaotic from top to bottom, but as Trump’s second presidency demonstrated, a might-make-right foreign-oriented attitude can easily be translated into efforts to walk through constraints at the national level, such as legislatures and courts. 

Arresting and deporting a person deemed to be an illegal immigrant before one has the chance to challenge the actions judicially enjoys the default of a fait accompli. Quelle domage. The Trump administration could simply inform a judge that the suspect is no longer under U.S. jurisdiction so there is nothing that can be done. Such a tactic is well-known to the might-makes-right mentality.  This point should not be taken to excuse or accept illegal immigration as if it were not a crime and one worthy of punishment and expulsion by the rule and thus due process of law. 

Might-makes-right hates to be subject to, or constrained by the rule of law as the mentality sees itself as the law. It is easy for this mentality oriented to foreign affairs to be turned inward while using absolutist national sovereignty as a shield both domestically and internationally. Trump, "himself convicted of felonies, has promoted impunity for various violations of domestic and international law; in addition to opposing the ICC warrant for Netanyahu, Trump is supporting the Israeli leader's bid for a pardon over his corruption charges from Israeli prosecutors."[5]

I contend that such a world of both domestic and international impunity from the constraint of an externally imposed law represents a step backward for the species. Given the foregone benefits that political development could otherwise deliver, the phenomenon worthy to be examined goes beyond the legitimacy and functioning of the ICC and the American foreign policy on Israel and even Russia. The post-World War II international efforts to subject might-makes-right to constraints internationally were being cast off and even attacked a few decades into the next century with the implication being that nothing but might-makes-right might be left standing.

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1. Chris Cameron, "Miller Says Imperialism Is Justified in Greenland," The New York Times, January 7, 2026.
2. Akbar S. Ahmed, “Trump’s Pressure Campaign on the ICC Is Falling Apart,” The Huffington Post, December 3, 2025.
3.. Ibid., italics added.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid., italics added.

Poised to Take on the U.S. Military: All Five Danish Soldiers in Greenland

Even though Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine was prompting E.U. officials to bolster the union’s defenses in 2025, U.S. President Trump’s statements early in 2026 in favor of the U.S. buying or invading Greenland, an “autonomous” part of the E.U. state of Denmark, triggered defensive rhetoric in that state’s government. I contend that the rhetoric was largely, though not completely, hyperbolic, and that more substantial statements could have come from the E.U.’s foreign minister because the E.U. is, as an empire-scale political union of states, equivalent to the U.S.[1] That the E.U. could in principle take on the U.S. is enough to view the Danish state’s rhetoric as hyperbolic, and thus as not credible enough to dissuade an American invasion of Greenland.

In January, 2026, Denmark’s Defense Ministry, which doubtless would be jealous in giving up even any part of its military powers so the E.U. could “walk with a big stick” rather than mere public statements, felt the need to confirm the 1952 military directive that directs soldiers stationed in Greenland to fire immediately, rather than upon orders issued by superiors, upon any other military invading the island. Danish military personnel would be required to “immediately take up the fight” even if their respective commanders are not aware that Denmark has issued a declaration of war.[2] That public confirmation was triggered by U.S. President Trump having “repeatedly threatened to take control of Greenland by force if necessary, describing the Arctic territory as vital to American national security.”[3] Trump had recently directed his military forces to extract the sitting president of Venezuela to face trial in New York City, so officials in not only Greenland, but also Mexico and even Iran in addition to little Denmark were understandably on edge.[4]

The hyperbole was in the Danish governor’s statement that an attempt to take Greenland by the U.S. would mark the end of NATO.[5] “If the United States chooses to attack another NATO country military,” Mette Frederiksen said, “then everything stops. That is, including our NATO and thus the security that has been provided since the end of World War II.”[6] Tellingly, she omitted any mention of the E.U. even though the fact that Denmark was at the time a semi-sovereign state in a political, economic, and social (policy) union is more significant than that Denmark was in an international military alliance. The prime minister’s omission reveals a lot, and is consistent with the anti-federalist ideology in Europe. At the very least, she could have threatened that if NATO would go down, presumably from her insistance alone, she would use her power in the European Council to propose an exclusive competency by which to strengthen the E.U. militarily—something that would displease the sitting American president, who preferred to meet with governors of E.U. states rather than with President Von der Leyen and the President of the Council (the counterpart of the American Vice President, who is the President of the U.S. Senate, which represents the States).

Threatening that an American invasion of an autonomous territory of Denmark would cause NATO to collapse is not something that the U.S. State Department or President Trump would (or should) take very seriously, especially with more than a few NATO countries being in the neighborhood of Putin’s military prowess in Ukraine at the time. The hint or outright claim that Denmark could unilaterally “pull the plug” on a giant military alliance reflects back on the state’s government at the expense of the credibility of its public statements. Such hyperbole can actually make an invasion more likely because weakness often tries to make itself look stronger than it is. In fact, even Denmark's threat of military force to repell an American invasion could be viewed as hyperbolic. Stephen Miller, Trump's deputy chief-of-staff, told CNN, "Nobody's going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland. . . . We live in a world, in the real world, . . . that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power."[7] Even if Denmark would not cave once the U.S. has gained actual possession of the territory, the odds in terms of military strength were against the small E.U. state.

The E.U.’s case for additional competencies in defense and foreign affairs is actually strengthened when a small state such as Denmark shows signs of such weakness by overplaying its hand in making threats that it cannot keep. It was not just because of Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine that such additional competencies should already have been ceded by the state governments in the E.U.; small states especially could benefit from collective action in defense and foreign policy at the federal level, irrespective of the Russian threat to the east. In very practical terms, if government officials at the state level in the E.U. truly want to counter U.S. President Trump, strengthening the E.U.’s enumerated powers (i.e., shared and exclusive competencies) even though that would mean delegating such powers would be a prime way to do it. Like the Schengen Agreement and the Growth and Stability Pact, both of which began outside the E.U.’s framework and then were incorporated within it, not every state need be included. Hungary and Slovakia, for example, could be initially excluded and thus not given the power of obstruction that those states’ respective governors had relished too much. Unlike the U.S., the E.U. is more flexible with regard to the coverage of the enumerated powers, or competencies, that are at the federal level. Every state need not participate, though that every state would presumably benefit from a military-defense at the E.U. level is admittedly an argument for unanimity unless “third-party” externalities (i.e., benefits) are acceptable to the states subject to the coverage.

Regarding the American threatened buyout or invasion of Greenland, E.U. President Von der Leyen should have been the official to respond. At the very least, the leverage of the E.U. was being passed up from within. Such weakness is difficult to respect from abroad. In incorrectly viewing the E.U. as an international organization, President Trump’s assumption is that the strategic interests of the U.S. are strengthened by a weakened—even if just by false categorization—European Union. The American federal president apparently was not deterred by the uncomfortable facts that the European Parliament’s representatives are elected by E.U. citizens, who by the way hold E.U. passports, the European Court of Justice is the E.U.’s federal supreme court, and the Commission counts as an executive branch, whose head stands unofficially as the federal president. In fact, because the head of the executive branch is not the head of the Parliament or the Council, the E.U.’s federal level has the same structure as that of the U.S.’s federal level. In other words, neither Trump nor Von der Leyen could be said to be prime ministers in a legislature. Even making this comparison would run counter to President Trump’s stance on the E.U. in terms of the U.S.’s security and dominance in the world. 

By ceding too much obstructionist power to the Euroskeptics, officials at both the state and the federal levels of the E.U. have been enabling President Trump’s short-sighted view of the geo-political interests of the U.S. with respect to Europe. By implication, the Euroskeptics who have been holding offices in the E.U. have been enabling the dominance of the Americans as well as the overblown hyperbole in Denmark, as if that small state could even conceivably stand up militarily to a union of 50 states. Incidentally, E.U. enlargement to the east by the accession of new states, which the U.S. did in enlarging westward during the nineteenth century, is in the Europeans’ geo-political interest with respect to becoming a counter-weight to the United States in international affairs and in dealing with the American government directly.

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1. Skip Worden, Essays on Two Federal Empires: Comparing the E.U. and U.S. (2015)
2. Aleksandar Brezar, “Danish Soldiers Would Shoot Back If Invaded, Government Confirms,” Euronews.com, 8 January, 2026.
3. Ibid.
4. My paternal grandmother’s parents came to Wisconsin from Denmark, so I am not trying to insult Denmark by alluding to the fact that it is a small E.U. state; rather, I am trying to emphasize the benefits for such a state of collective action that the E.U. could provide in defense of the state were it not for Euroskeptic, anti-federalist ideology especially in some of the eastern states of the E.U.
5. Aleksandar Brezar, “Danish Soldiers Would Shoot Back If Invaded, Government Confirms,” Euronews.com, 8 January, 2026.
6. Ibid.

7. Chris Cameron, "Miller Says Imperialism Is Justified in Greenland," The New York Times, January 7, 2026.

Guidelines Puffed Up as Law: Should under the Subterfuge of Must

During the coronavirus pandemic (2020-2022), Arizona’s Ducey administration allowed bus and light-rail employees to go maskless even though they were in close contact with the public. Bus drivers were even getting sick. The “rationale” of the Phoenix transit authority was that the federal regulation is “just a mandate.” Because the word mandate means “an authoritative command,” the rationale that being a mandate renders a law or government regulation as optional can only be spurious at best; this is a case of arrogant ignorance that can’t possibly be wrong about itself in the member-state that ranked 49^th out of 50 on public education. As an authoritative command, a law, even as implemented in regulations, has what Kant called necessity in that law itself cannot be bent; it stands firm in itself as law. In contrast, a guideline connotes flexibility rather than necessity. It follows that enforcement must pertain to laws (including regulations) but not to guidelines. I contend that what are commonly referred to as international laws are actually international guidelines. Such “laws” lack viable enforcement mechanisms and thus are actually guidelines for governments engaged in international relations.

Calls that governments need to respect international law even though no enforcement mechanism exists are actually expressions of a moral desire that such “laws” should be respected in the international arena. That what is actually a should is typically expressed in terms of must by government officials around the world only adds to the mistaken belief that a viable world order exists and thus that aggressors such as Russia’s Putin, Israel’s Netanyahu, and America’s Trump—all of whom have wantonly disregarded international law—pose no threat. A law without a credible means of enforcement—and not just by volunteer “enforcers”—is not a law; as in Hobbes’ state of nature, such a “law” can be said to have the force of an ideological moral desire against opponents.

In the wake of the U.S. military’s capture of Venezuela’s sitting President Maduro, E.U. foreign minister Kallas issued a statement, which reads in part: “The E.U. recalls, that under all circumstances, the principles of international law and the UN Charter must be upheld.”[1] The word must implies at the very least that penalties apply if the must is dismissed by a state that violates the law or Charter. As had been clear for decades, even countries in the UN could easily ignore the Charter with impunity within the UN, and the veto-powers in the Security Council need only veto a proposal to see to it that it cannot be violated because it has not passed. So, what Kallas really meant is that governments around the world should uphold the principles of international law and the UN Charter. Notice that she used the word principles, which do not constitute law, so she contradicts herself in applying the word must. For someone to say, you must follow that principle, is not the same as saying, you must follow the law. Only the latter connotes or implies that violations will be punished—not even that there might be penalties. Those exist even if law enforcement does not catch a particular culprit.

Kallas’s statement can be critiqued on moral grounds, which is certainly ironic because her foreign-policy stance is laudable; I submit that militaristic heads of government should be restrained internationally, lest the world falls back into the dark ages. In using the word must, the E.U.’s foreign minister was doing exactly what Nietzsche calls attention to in his critique of modern morality, in which “Thou shalt not” is used as a club of sorts to beguile the self-confident strong into unilaterally not acting on their strength. Were he alive, Nietzsche would probably council the sitting U.S. president not to feel shamed or guilty from Kallas’s infliction of must, which can only mean should in referring to international law and anything to do with the United Nations given the utter lack of enforcement. Without that, the world is left with international guidelines rather than laws, and the UN is left standing on the sideline utterly impotent from the self-inflicted initial wounds of the veto-mechanism in the Security Council and the lack of any UN armed forces or police adequately empowered as force to enforce UN resolutions. The same goes for the International Criminal Court, the ICC, whose arrest warrants for Russia’s Putin and Israel’s Netanyahu were being either ignored around the world or even actively fought against (by the Trump administration). An arrest warrant that depends on voluntary enforcement by third parties (i.e., governments around the world) is not a warrant in any sense of that word. Again, a misleading use of words.

A problem with using words that are bear on a global order misleadingly is that the appearance of there actually being an order internationally, as distinct from “might makes right” as the de facto default, is illusionary. In actuality, when Putin invaded Ukraine, Netanyahu inflicted an inhumane holocaustic genocide on the people of Gaza, and Trump captured the sitting president Venezuela, the status of international law was epitomized by the word should rather than must. The moral desire for international constraints on raw militaristic aggression is of course laudable, but that desire itself does not constitute recognition of there being international law. To portray the former as the latter is dishonest. 

It is also counter-productive from the standpoint of what would be needed for the family of nations, or more practically a coalition of “the willing” among the political unions and sovereign states of the world, to design, approve, and activate institutions, including possibility a global federation along the times described by Kant, that are capable of instituting and enforcing law internationally. Officials of such institutions as have enough governmental sovereignty to enforce international law even with boots on the ground if necessary could indeed say must without merely expressing a moral desire. Out of such self-confident strength at the global level, albeit with institutional checks on tyranny at that level from a qualified majority of countries, which would all be semi-sovereign, the precedents being incurred in favor of “might makes right” by Putin, Netanyahu, and Trump could potentially be reversed and once again set as outliers internationally. Such rogue nations could be relegated and effectively expelled from the family of nations both economically and politically. 

That a holocaustic—yes, holocaustic—severity of suffering was unleashed by a genocidal government in the Middle East for years in the so-called modern era (after the Enlightenment!) is itself testimony enough that the post-World War II global order’s international organizations, including the International Criminal Court and the UN, including its top court, was by 2023 utterly impotent. Out of this power vacuum, militaristic aggressors on the world stage could easily sense that low-hanging fruit could be easily plucked with utter impunity. It is precisely at such a point that the ground is fertile for a new world order to be promulgated and enacted so as to constrain angry men who are bathed in power. Human nature itself is the root cause behind the cycle of world orders through history punctuated by intervals of unimpeded military aggression, such as by the three blind men, driving drunk with power, in the mid-2020s.

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1. Maria Tadeo, “EU Calls for Respect of International Law as Trump Remains Vague on Venezuelan Transition Plan,” Euronews.com, 4 January 2026.

President Nicolás Maduro: Captured by the U.S.

In the early hours of January 3, 2026, the sitting president of Venezuela was captured by the U.S. military and sent to New York, where he would face a federal indictment involving the trafficking of narcotics to the United States. President Trump’s decision to go forward with the military plan no doubt had to do with the South American state’s tremendous oil reserves, just as President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq surely had something to do with that Middle Eastern state’s oil fields. Elected representatives at the federal level of the U.S. have known since 1974 that skyrocketing gas prices could easily result in voter-resentment. Whether the capture of Maduro was motivated by his drug activity reaching the U.S. or Venezuela’s oil, the invasion and capture by U.S. forces is in line with the Hobbesian notion that might makes right, and even that 90% of ownership of property lies in possession. Lest it be thought that President Trump broke with precedent internationally in capturing the sitting president of another country, his strategy can be understood as being along the trend that had been gaining traction because the post-World War II international order had become hamstrung in the impotence of international bodies including the International Criminal Court and the United Nations.

The various reactions of the leaders of other South American sovereign states provide a sense of the confusion regarding the “new way” that was taking hold internationally amid the power vacuum. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s reaction, for example, treated the U.S. military strike as crossing “an unacceptable line,” and thus as establishing a precedent wherein one country can legitimately invade another.[1] “Attacking countries, in flagrant violation of international law, is the first step toward a world of violence, chaos and instability, where the law of the strongest prevails over multilateralism,” Lulu wrote.[2] Apparently he was unaware of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s genocide in Gaza—both of these cases being flagrant examples of raw military aggression in violation of international law. So, President Trump’s military action can hardly be described as a “first step toward world of violence, chaos and instability.” Furthermore, Lulu’s appeal to multilateralism flies in the face of the paralysis in the UN Security Council due to the five permanent veto-powers—at least one of which had been protecting Russia and another backing up Israel even in committing a holocaust against a people that at least some high officials in the Israeli government viewed as subhuman (i.e., dogs). It was not the first time in modern history that a people has been viewed as subhuman, and thus as deserving, like rats, of extermination. Unlike that case, no coalitions of the willing were willing to take on Russia and Israel in 2023 and even in at least the two subsequent years, which has allowed the naked aggression to take hold and actually become a precedent before the U.S. military captured Maduro.  

Also, apparently oblivious to the intractability of the post-WWII world order, Colombian President Gustavo Petro called for an emergency meeting of the Organization of American States and the United Nations. Because the General Assembly is militarily impotent and the U.S. has veto-power in the Security Council, and the Organization of American States has no actual power, Petro’s plan demonstrates the utter lack of redress against the “new way” of might makes right then gaining even more traction. Perhaps at least China could then stage a military strike in Israel to capture Netanyahu and his henchmen and deliver them to the International Criminal Court. At least then the Hobbesian state of nature would paradoxically be aiding in the enforcement of international law against genocides and holocausts. Waking up to such news on January 3, 2026 would indeed have been quite a Christmas present, albeit delivered late.

Also oblivious to the military aggression of Russia and Israel, Chilean President Gabriel Boric stated, “Chile reaffirms its commitment to basic principles of international Law, such as the prohibition of the use of force, non-intervention, the peaceful settlement of international disputes, and the territorial integrity of States.”[3] Chile’s commitment means absolutely nothing, as that South American state had done nothing to organize an international coalition to push Russian troops out of Ukraine and Israeli troops, who were gangraping young Palestinian boys, out of Gaza (and the West Bank). A precedent for such a coalition can be found in U.S. President George H.W. Bush removing Iraqi forces from Kuwait in the early 1990s, without invading Iraq because the coalition did not support that. Unfortunately, the international community of nations did not act on that basis against Russia and Israel. Hence Boric’s demand that the “Venezuelan crisis must be resolved through dialogue and the support of multilateralism, and not through violence or foreign interference” can be likened to one hand clapping alone in a forest.[4] That such a demand is even made as the post-WWII world order laid wayward largely defunct as regards military invasions and even a genocide begs the question of why no governments were working constructively toward international institutions that could enforce international law against aggressive national leaders.

To acknowledge that the ICC and the UN had become utterly impotent and yet to do nothing to give rise to a new world order, especially as military invasions and even a holocaustic genocide were being allowed to run their respective courses unincumbered, was where the world was as 2026 began. In 2025, a former undersecretary of the UN admitted to me at Harvard that the UN could not be adequately reformed because the veto-powers in the Security Council would never divest themselves of that power. A new institution would be necessary for international law to mean anything more than a guideline for governments to voluntarily follow when doing so suits them. In the meantime, the U.S. and Israel could circumvent the International Criminal Court with impunity, and the E.U., mired in anti-federalist ideology, could not step up to push Russian troops out of Ukraine. President Trump had plenty of precedents for his military strike in Venezuela even though capturing a sitting president was admittedly novel. It is precisely through such incrementalism that a series of precedents becomes ensconced as a new status quo in international relations.

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1. Aleksandar Brezar, “Trump Hails ‘Brilliant Operation’ in Venezuela that Led to Maduro’s Capture,” Euronews.com, 3 January, 2026.

2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

Russia’s Bottom-Line on Ukraine

As American, Ukrainian, and Russian negotiating delegations were flying around the world in early December, 2025 to conduct various negotiating sessions, all the while without the presidents of Russia and Ukraine meeting, it was difficult for bystanders to keep an eye on the proverbial ball as it was being kicked around by offers and counter-offers, and complicated by the high-profiled presence of the businessman, Jared Kushner, who happened to be married to one of U.S. President Trump’s daughters. Kushner was also highly visible in the negotiations on Gaza, which almost certainly included real-estate development. To be sure, commercial and investment deals can easily remain subterranean while the public discourse stays on the political relations between nations, and even just the latter may lack transparency. Democratic accountability in democratic republics as concerning the conduct and results of foreign policy can be difficult. Especially difficult to gauge was the hand being closely held by Russia’s President Putin. I contend that his willingness to negotiate was consistently overestimated by the West and Ukraine.

After a meeting at the Kremlin with an American delegation led by special envoy Steve Witkoff, who had recently been caught coaching Kremlin officials on how to win over U.S. President Trump, Putin arrived in India on December 4, 2025 while Ukrainian officials were travelling to the U.S. to hold talks with an American delegation on a proposal to end Russia’s invasion. How close the Russians and Ukrainians were to deal was at the time unknown likely even to themselves. To an extent, they may have been talking past each other and relying too much on surrogates, some of which, the Europeans, were not even at the negotiating table on behalf of Ukraine.

As a case in point on how badly the negotiating was going, Putin’s statement, which he made in India, that Russia would “liberate Donbas and Nororossiya in any case-by military or other means” went along with his stated intention that Russia would finish the special operation in Ukraine “when we achieve the goals set at the beginning of the special operation, when we free these territories. That’s all.”[1] To be sure, such determination and certainty can be taken as a negotiating tactic, but the statements are consistent with Putin’s pattern of ignoring overtures for peace. It is no accident that Putin could afford to do so because Russia was “negotiating” throughout from a position of strength on the battlefield. The law of political physics applied, Putin and Russia stood to gain little if anything by unilaterally giving up the Ukrainian territory that, as U.S. President had said, had been won. Lest it be assumed that Crimea and even Donbas regions would be enough, it is highly significant that Putin “revived the term” Novorossiya that referred historically “to territories toward the west during the Russian empire.”[2] This is just the sort of move that made Poland and the Balkans nervous, and legitimately gave the E.U. a stake at the negotiating table. In short, Putin’s vision of renewing the historical Russian Empire, which predates the U.S.S.R., gives his statements made in India more substance than merely that of being negotiating rhetoric. A historical vision with the political realism of a position of military strength rendered Putin’s real stance rock solid.

Of course, Russia’s position could change were the E.U. to begin in earnest to hold some of its own wayward states back at the federal level and aid Ukraine militarily to an extent that the balance of power between Russia and Ukraine could finally be swayed toward Ukraine’s advantage, but the E.U. remained mired in its own state-centric federal system as the American, Ukrainian, and Russian delegations were moving around and talking in various, indirect combinations.

It is precisely in this context that the following statement made by Ukraine’s President Zelensky as Putin arrived in India can be criticized: “Our task now is to obtain full information about what was said in Russia, what other reasons Putin found to prolong the war and put pressure on Ukraine, on us, on our independence.”[3] Putin was not finding reasons to prolong the war; rather, he stated that he would not stop until his initial military goals have been accomplished. He had no intention of giving up those goals in a negotiated peace.

To be sure, commercial deals spearheaded by Jared Kushner, involving Russian rare earth minerals for instance, could potentially lure Putin into accepting territory less than the whole of Donbas, but such a political-commercial nexus would be a hard sell given Putin’s vision of resurrecting the Russian Empire of old in Eastern Europe. At best, a commercial mega-deal would likely serve as a resting stop for the Russian dictator. Of course, political forecasting is such a plight that smart analysts remain aloof from that occupation. The Europeans could surprise the world and proffer Ukraine with a spurt of military assistance capable of pushing Russian troops back in spite of Ukraine’s shortage of troops. Russia, whose territory was already empire-scale, versus Ukraine, a kingdom-scale country, was never a fair fight. This has been Putin’s advantage all along, and his statements in India are consistent with it. The problem is that Zelensky’s statement seems to display a lack of political realism regarding Putin’s strategy and objectives, given the Ukrainian territory “won” by Putin without being dislodged by Ukraine and the European Union. This doesn’t even count the possible commercial deals being quietly negotiated by Jared Kushner on behalf of silent investors unknown to nearly everyone, including Zelensky.

The invasion was occurring during, and even abetting, the ascendence of militarized political realism at the expense of international constraints on naked power-aggression. It seems that the Europeans, including Zelensky, had not received this memo, and were still expending Putin to give and take as if Ukraine and Russia could reach justice as equals. It bears remembering Nietzsche’s point that justice is only achievable between parties equal in power. That equality itself is an illusion is a point made by Hume. At any rate, the disparity of military power between Russia and Ukraine as 2025 was drawing to a close should dispel any idyllic thoughts that Putin might give in on his initial military objectives not only with respect to Ukraine, but also with the broader Novorossiya too. It bears remembering that appeasement with Hitler didn’t work, and that that strategy gave not only Britain, but also Germany time to militarize. The E.U.’s self-inflicted handicap of the veto-power of its states, and the refusal of the Europeans to make the necessary structural/procedural correction even in spite of the anticipated enlargement, but also Russia’s ongoing aggression to the east, can be viewed as tacit appeasement even though Trump’s enabling of Putin’s government went far beyond appeasement. Indeed, the stance of the Trump administration alone should have bolted the Europeans into reforming their own federal system even though state officials quite obviously didn’t want to give up (i.e., delegate) more power even for collective action to push back Russia’s invasion in Eastern Europe. All of this only fortified Putin in staying the course.  

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1. Jessie Yeung, “Putin Vows Russia Will Seize Donbas Region by any Means, as Ukrainians Prepare for More Peace Talks with US,” CNN.com, December 4, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.