Jeffrey Sachs, Fred Weir and Anatole Lieven, three brilliant men

Of course Europe and Great Britain must make a settlement along with the USA with Russia, rather than rearming. How can the chanceries of Europe be so obtuse? 

You probably know some of what Jeffrey Sachs said in his brief speech at the European Parliament by now, if you don't form your views from the reporting in the traditional media, which are propaganda vehicles for CIA and M16. 

Sachs is invaluable on most subjects. One of the best minds in the world. He is incapable of being dull.

Here is Fred Weir who is a veteran Canadian correspondent in Moscow.

'We know that Donald Trump perfected his schoolyard bully persona, shouting "you're fired!" over and over during 14 seasons of an awful reality TV show that he co-created. It's quite apt that the Times of London headline this morning reads: "Trump fired Zelensky like he was a loser on The Apprentice."
So it's unsurprising that he brings the same public grandstanding, hectoring style to diplomacy. I suppose he thinks it will work. But Volodymyr Zelensky is the elected leader of Ukraine, and publicly humiliating him is going to alienate the people he represents. I'm a Canadian, and I'm pissed-off, on principle, over the way he belittles our prime minister and ruminates about annexing Canada. Even in Moscow, where wrecking the US-Ukraine relationship should have a popular following, I don't think anyone is much impressed by that spectacle.
It's bad, bad, very bad diplomacy

'But someone has to set the histrionics aside and calmly analyze the underlying dynamics and suggest what, if anything, can be salvaged for the sake of the peace process. So, here's a good stab at that by Anatol Lieven and George Beebe, of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.'

I asked him did Zelensky up the ante in Donetsk in November 2021 provoking a reaction, as people tell me?

He gave me permission to quote his reply.

I have no special knowledge about all that. I know what the Russians say, and can make some general observations from having been talking with them, and watching events, for years. First, Zelensky was elected on a clear peace platform. I was in Ukraine to cover the election -- I went to Mariupol to take the temperature -- and there is no doubt that people voted for Zelensky on the belief that he would implement Minsk II and negotiate peace with Russia. The Russians began to give up on him, and any hope for Minsk implementation, in the months after Putin and Zelensky met in Paris in December 2019. Second, the refusal of the West to negotiate a new security architecture for Europe, which would have kept Ukraine neutral, among other things, was probably the final straw for Putin. I'm not advocating for him -- I would have thought he had lots of options short of war -- but at some point in late 2021 he and a small circle of advisers clearly made the decision to invade, in the belief that they could effect a quick regime change and solve all their Ukraine problems at one fell swoop. That failed, in an epic way, and Moscow negotiated that abortive peace deal with Ukraine. He keeps referring to it. So, the main terms would have been Ukrainian neutrality, substantial demilitarization, and rights for Russian speakers. I'm guessing those will be the same bottom lines now, plus territory.

Hope at last

Trump's Ukrainian policy is very hopeful. America isn't interested in Nato. Is this a good moment for the United Kingdom to lose interest in Nato and European entanglements? To trade with everyone but not to get involved in wars in faraway countries between people of whom we know nothing?

What Germany and France and the European Union should do is join America and Ukraine in making a durable permanent settlement with Russia. Russian interests and those of the EU and Nato and Ukraine can be teconciled. Also please let us not have a cold war. No cold wars with Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela or Afghanistan please.

Theatre of the absurd

Was Zelensky ambushed by Trump and Zelensky or was Zelensky on what lawyers call a frolic of his own? 

I am broadly in favour of Trump's Ukrainian and even Nato policy but the press conference, though huge fun, was disgraceful. It made Trump look small not big. 

And how does this strengthen America's position negotiating with Russia?

Zelensky is annoying certainly but should have been treated respectfully as a head of state. 

World leaders in future should refuse to take part in press conferences with Trump. 

The London crowd will not cheer Trump's second State Visit to London but nor would they have done anyway nor will the King enjoy it.

But his mother hosted Ceaușescu.

Still is politeness better than telling the truth?

Trump intends to bring peace and Zelensky wants the war to continue. The Observer today explains that Zelensky is to blame for the disastrous press conference. He should not have visited Washington.

<The officials believed that had all been communicated to Ukraine, as was the advice that senators gave Zelenskyy on Friday morning to praise Trump and not litigate the issue of wanting stronger security guarantees to his face.

To Trump’s aides, Zelenskyy did not heed that advice when he expressed skepticism at JD Vance’s view of making peace with Russia and, in their view, lectured the US vice-president on the history of Russia’s aggression towards Ukraine that started in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea.

That set off a downward spiral in the Oval Office as Vance took issue with being questioned about his description of diplomacy, and clapped back at Zelenskyy: “I’m talking about the kind of diplomacy that’s going to end the destruction of your country.”>

Vance though aggressive was right, of course.

Quotations

"We have to believe in free will; we have no choice." Isaac Bashevis Singer

Everything is different now

I was shocked, disgusted even, by the way Trump attacked Zelensky but just heard this interview in which left-wing journalist Max Blumenthal supports Trump 100%. I start to rethink. The Russians have not won and their cause was not just but yes we need peace very quickly and a neutral Ukraine. We did from the start. America is hugely to blame for this. So is the EU.

The horror! The horror!

Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East, said of Gaza on CBS’s “Face the Nation” programme on Sunday that “the facts suggest that nobody can really live there in a safe environment for probably at least 15 years.”

Patriotism has nothing to do with values

Anne Maria Waters  (former leading figure in the British party UKIP) said today:

"It's very interesting to discover that "patriots" in Europe and America actually hate our beautiful Western civilisation and would prefer to live under the tyranny of monsters like Putin." 

I largely agree but want to say something about patriots.

I do not like Putin or what I suppose is his tyranny, but patriotism is nothing to do with civilisation - or democracy or values. 

It's simply love of ones country and ones forefathers.

Mr Trump reminds me of Enoch Powell talking about this with Margaret Thatcher at the Conservative Philosophy Group at Peterhouse, Cambridge (the college I wish I'd gone to), as described by John Casey.

'Edward Norman (then Dean of Peterhouse) had attempted to mount a Christian argument for nuclear weapons. The discussion moved on to ‘Western values’. Mrs Thatcher said (in effect) that Norman had shown that the Bomb was necessary for the defence of our values. Powell: ‘No, we do not fight for values. I would fight for this country even if it had a communist government.’ Thatcher (it was just before the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands): ‘Nonsense, Enoch. If I send British troops abroad, it will be to defend our values.’ ‘No, Prime Minister, values exist in a transcendental realm, beyond space and time. They can neither be fought for, nor destroyed.’ Mrs Thatcher looked utterly baffled. She had just been presented with the difference between Toryism and American Republicanism. (Mr Blair would have been equally baffled.)'

Quotations

'What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass..' Lord Melbourne (Queen Victoria's first Prime Minister, for readers who do not have the luck to be English).

'Theologians talk about a prevenient grace that precedes grace itself and allows us to accept it. I think there must also be prevenient courage that allows us to be brave – that is, to acknowledge that there is more beauty than our eyes can bear, that precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honour them is a great harm. And therefore, this courage allows us, as the old men said, to make ourselves useful. It allows us to be generous, which is another way of saying exactly the same thing.' Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

Stephen Kotkin, an eminent historian of Russia, gave an interview in which he observed that to achieve stated Ukrainian war goals – the total recovery of lost territory, Putin on trial – “you have to take Moscow”. In fact the Ukrainian leaders knew those goals were not going to be realised.

One page from Philip Short's magisterial 'Putin: His Life and Times' (2022) explains the Ukrainian war

I was travelling a lot and wanted to blog about my travels but have failed to do so. Perhaps I shall find time to write about it. 

Meanwhile, I recently reread the parts of Philip Short's long and magisterial Putin: His Life and Times (2022) that touch on Ukraine and want you to read this one page, about the situation in late 2013.

Quotations

'Here's a direct quote: "If I said what I know about both candidates, they'd have to cancel the election." That's what Jeffrey told me in 2016.' Mark Epstein, Jeffrey Epstein's brother, speaking to The New York Post 1 January, 2025

‘The trick is to survive success. Anyone can survive failure’ Tony Bennett

"If there is a God, his plan is very similar to someone not having a plan." Eddie Izzard

“Losers, like autodidacts, always have wider knowledge than winners, if you want to win you must know only one thing and don’t waste time knowing them all, the pleasure of erudition is reserved for losers. The more things one knows, the more things didn’t go the right way. " Umberto Eco

More quotations

“I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.” 

Kurt Vonnegut

"Trump routinely deploys all the subversive transgressiveness that campus Leftists claim to value."

Camille Paglia

"If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe." 

Lord Salisbury

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” 

Quotations

"What matters, in the end, is less whether a country is democratic or not, more whether the country is pro-American or anti-American."  Tom Cotton, Chairman of the US Senate Intelligence Committee.

"What matters most is how well you walk through the fire." Charles Bukowski

“We’re the first to pay a price for Trump’s election. [The deal] is being forced upon us … We thought we’d take control of northern Gaza, that they’d let us impede humanitarian aid.” Erel Segal, Israeli journalist

"People who think of conservatism as oppressive and dictatorial have some deviant example in mind, such as fascism, or Tsarist autocracy. I would offer in the place of such examples the ordinary life of European and American communities as described by 19th century novelists." Sir Roger Scruton

"When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction." Mark Twain. He wasn't similarly benign to the Indians. He thought them "a good, fair, desirable subject for extermination if ever there was one".

"When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set." Lin Yutang

"I used to think I was born in the wrong time... now I understand I'm here to keep the old ways alive." Anonymous internet meme

Political quotations

"France’s ex-Commissioner Thierry Breton thinks the EU should override the German elections if the AfD does too well, citing the recent Supreme Court putsch in Romania as a good precedent." Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Daily Telegraph, 17 January 2025

"After each wave of NATO expansion, for example, Russia became more rather than less threatening. If the purpose of NATO expansion was to make Europe more secure, the contrast between the security environment of 1992 and that of 2025 delivers a damning verdict — all the more so when contrasted with the success a more limited NATO enjoyed in checking the Soviet Union until its demise." Daniel McCarthy, "It's over: Biden is last gasp of failed post-Cold War internationalism", Responsible Statecraft, 17 January, 2025

Quotations

Joseph Fasano

"Your gift is not a gift, it's a loan, a loan to do something extraordinary; it's the paying back of that loan, squaring up with yourself and the universe, that's the gift." Dylan O'Sullivan

Cry the beloved country

The USA is quite unlike anywhere I've been.

I imagined it a dull copy of Europe without the good things like beautiful buildings, ancient peoples and social hierarchy, but isn't remotely like Europe. It has an enormous, strange energy and seems friendly, optimistic and fun. I am generalising from Miami and the staff on the plane. It's a huge culture like Russia or France is a huge culture.

It's where the men of 1848 won their revolution. It is the apogee of 19th century and modern liberalism.

I have always loved and hated America but lived and hated different things at different times. I passed up two chances to come here for free. I might find myself loving it now I finally am here. Let's see. I only arrived yesterday from somewhere I teally loved, the very humid old town in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

It's not very Anglo-Saxon or Protestant in Miami but then the Spanish are reconquering Florida.

Quotations

"May you be surrounded by friends and family, and if this is not your lot, may the blessings find you in your solitude.” Leonard Cohen

'Frommer believed that travel should be demanding, both physically and cerebrally. He saw it as one of the finest methods of self-education. Early on he realised the intrepid traveller’s essential truth: the less you spend, the more you enjoy. Dormitories, hostels and even a geriatric ward were his lodgings of choice. Luxury hotels were to be avoided. “They insulate you totally from the life and people of a country,” he said, while sightseeing was “inane”.' Daily Telegraph obituary for Arthur Frommer

"My ancestors were puritans from England. They arrived here in 1648 in the hope of finding greater restrictions than were permissible under English law at that time." Garrison Keilor

“If you started measuring global temperatures from medieval times there's been a general cooling of about four degrees." Professor Ian Plimer, a geologist, in 2018

Popcorn

Knowing that war would break out in Ukraine President Iohannis put together a coalition of the centre right and left. The Romanian electorate has now rejected the government, the leaders of both the big parties and the whole less than mediocre existing political class including even the so-called far right party, AUR.

It is richly comic to watch all the establishment parties be smashed simultaneously. 

Both candidates who will compete in the final round are anti system idealists, in their very different ways, but Elena Lasconi is only opposed to the Romanian system which she wants to bring into line with Western Europe. She is the anti system and pro system candidate, the candidate of social and economic liberalism, business and the urban university graduates. She represents a European future, Calin Georgescu resembles Viktor Orban, Donald Trump and Robert Kennedy Junior. The European Union will punish Romania very severely if he wins.

That was a surprise

Good lord! I had not even heard of Călin Georgescu until my very interesting and nice young waiter on Friday appealed eloquently to us to vote for him. 

A President who doesn't obey Washington or Berlin? Is it possible? 

No it is not.  

The media and the Americans will try very hard to prevent him winning but the majority of voters would certainly vote against him anyway. 

It's the economy, stupid.

Romanian politicians are happy to obey America and the European Union, which is very good for attracting foreign investors, but many Romanians are not. I knew this from talking to taxi drivers who blame America in part or wholly for the war in Ukraine. I risk sounding like Nancy Pelosi saying 'Donald Trump is - not- going to be President of the United States' but a man who says pre-war mystic fascist Corneliu Zelea Codreanu was a great Romanian will not be President of Romania.

It is not exactly democratic that he did so well because another sovereignist candidate was disqualified on dubious grounds and that he was in trouble with the law for praising Codreanu. What happened to free speech in Romania? 

I wonder if the politicians will listen to the opinions of the 30 percent of the population who back the sovereignists or (more likely) treat them with the contempt Romanians usually have for peasants and the working class.

It's a protest vote and just possibly people in the incoming administration in Washington will hear the protest and take it into account.

The news

My taxi driver blamed the Ukrainian war on Nato expansion (a majority of cab drivers do), blamed America for its intervention in Syria and Afghanistan and divided the blame between Israelis and Arabs. He thought Margaret Thatcher damaged British society enormously. We agreed on most things, especially on the need for women to have more children. I suppose, as Baudelaire said, love is a crime that requires an accomplice. 

Every regime, he said, has its good and bad points. 

He thought Biden the worst US President for thirty years but there demurred. Biden though absolutely terrible beyond words is not as bad as George W Bush.

The Daily Telegraph this morning disgusts me more utterly than normally

It's simply propaganda, whether about Ukraine or Israel, and probably reflects the MI6 line. Its fury at the ICC for issuing a warrant for the arrest of Netanyahu contrasts with its enthusiasm for the one for Putin's arrest. I am trying to cancel my subscription. 

Yesterday I renewed my subscription to Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz to find much more objective news.