RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18394/putin-misunderstood-rumsfeld

Putin began by calling it “special operations” so that he would not have to obtain the consent of the Russian Parliament (Duma) to wage war.

This may have been because he expected a quick victory and did not wish to share the glory with anyone.

Putin also refused to name a commander-in-chief of the forces unleashed against Ukraine.

But even if we go by conservative estimates based on Russian official leaks, Putin’s army has suffered a 20 percent loss in killed and wounded. This is twice the maximum accepted in classic military doctrines….

Apart from its political impact on the international order, the war that Russia has launched against Ukraine contains countless features that should interest military analysts and planners across the globe.

This is the first time since World War II that the Russian Army (formerly Soviet Red Army) is tested on the battlefield against a medium-sized adversary in a classical war.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18385/russia-iran-axis-of-evil

Now Western security officials believe that Iran and Russia have struck a cooperation deal to work together to evade Western sanctions once a new nuclear deal has been agreed by the Biden administration.

Iran is known to have established a clandestine banking and finance system to handle tens of billions of dollars in annual trade banned under U.S.-led sanctions.

Iran, according to Western security officials, has offered to provide Russia with access to its illegal sanctions-busting network in return for Moscow’s support in getting a new nuclear deal in place.

Russia and Iran are in the process of negotiating a multi-billion dollar arms deal, including the purchase of Russian warplanes and submarines, and Moscow is keen that the deal will not be scuppered as a result of Western sanctions.

Following a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in China this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed that Moscow would work with Tehran to take steps to evade Western sanctions, the RIA news agency reported.

Western security officials believe the outline of a sanctions-busting deal between Moscow and Tehran is already in place, with Iran promising not to enforce Western sanctions against Russia. As part of the deal, Iran has offered to use its existing evasion network to help Russia sell its oil on international markets once the nuclear deal is signed, and sanctions have been lifted against Tehran.

The imposition of these measures is certainly a long overdue recognition by the Biden administration that Iran is simply exploiting the nuclear negotiations to further its own regional ambitions. And the fact that Iran and Russia are now actively colluding to evade Western sanctions, thereby forming a new “axis of evil”, should finally persuade the White House to end once and for all its involvement in this gross act of diplomatic folly.

Thanks to the Biden administration’s ill-judged obsession with reviving the flawed nuclear deal with Iran, the world can soon look forward to the creation of a new “axis of evil” between Russia and Iran.

In recent months, as negotiations over reviving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the deal’s official title, have continued in Vienna, Western negotiators have expressed concern about the negative support Iran is receiving from Russia in the talks.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18384/china-takes-over-solomon-islands

China, after years of persistent commercial, diplomatic, and military efforts, is taking over the Pacific.

Beijing is moving from island group to island group, and soon the People’s Liberation Army will be in striking distance of Hawaii.

The five-year deal, subject to automatic renewals, will allow Beijing to use the islands to base its military and to do pretty much what the Chinese military wants.

If implemented to its full extent, the Framework Agreement will give China the ability to sever shipping lanes and air links connecting the U.S. with its treaty ally Australia and partner New Zealand.

For decades, Washington allowed Canberra and Wellington to manage the Solomons and its region…. Beijing, through payoffs now detailed in public, essentially owns Sogavare’s government.

There is now talk that China will ink a security agreement with Papua New Guinea, just north of Australia.

Moreover, China wants to upgrade an airstrip in Kiribati. Beijing says the improvements are for civilian purposes only, yet the military uses are apparent and no one believes the Chinese assurances.

The facility is just 1,900 miles south of Hawaii. In Pacific terms, Kiribati is America’s next-door neighbor.

On March 25, the Solomon Islands announced it was “expanding” security arrangements, “diversifying the country’s security partnership including with China.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/03/nato-needs-reset-bruce-thornton/

Last week Joe Biden and his foreign policy team attended the NATO Heads of State and Government summit in Brussels. This gathering was more consequential than usual given the ongoing brutal war Russia is waging against Ukraine. Though Ukraine is not a member of NATO, this conflict on the borders of several NATO nations highlights the long-evident dysfunctions of the treaty, some of which are only now being acknowledged.

Yet little went on last week to suggest that NATO member-states are serious about making the deep reforms that should have taken place in the decade after the Cold War ended.

The official NATO statement was certainly filled with “rules-based international order” clichés typical of large bureaucracies suffering from professional deformation and fossilized narratives. It spoke of Russia’s “assault on international norms” that don’t exist, any more than the “international community” it implies will “hold accountable those responsible for violations of humanitarian and international law, including war crimes.” No more substantial are phrases like the “values and norms that have brought security and prosperity”; or “the foundations of international security and stability”; or the “international order including the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, as enshrined in the UN Charter.”

In reality, all these laws, institutions, and principles are the result of treaties made among sovereign nations that join them not because of shared “norms” or “values,” but because they serve those nations’ interests. And when a treaty stops doing so, those nations will ignore or violate them. That fact of history calls into doubt the statement’s claim that “Our commitment to Article 5 of the Washington Treaty is iron-clad.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/03/russia-is-screwed/#slide-1

Even aside from the war in Ukraine, a demographic crisis and climate change threaten Russia’s future.
 I n the short to medium term, Russia is fairly screwed. But in the long term, Russia is really screwed.

We all know that the Russian economy is in dire straits as it faces unprecedented sanctions from the West, and that countries pulling out of the Russian market now are unlikely to return for a long, long time. The ruble is now almost worthless outside the country, interest rates jumped to 20 percent, and inflation in Russia could rise to a jaw-dropping 20 to 30 percent. Even the longer-term outlook for Russian oil production is darkening.

The Russian military is performing badly, has lost its fearsome reputation, and will need a major expenditure to replace all its lost tanks and transport trucks in addition to its expended precision-guided missiles, artillery, and other weapons.

But the Russian invasion is exposing other weaknesses that Moscow would rather the world didn’t notice.

Douglas London, a former CIA operations officer, writes in the Wall Street Journal that the outlook for recruiting Russians spies has rarely looked better: “Some of the CIA’s best agents have been volunteers who finally are pushed over the edge by a life-altering event and offer their services to an intelligence service. Tolkachev, Polyakov and Kuklinski were volunteers. Thanks to Mr. Putin’s deplorable behavior, I expect an increase in Russian volunteers who have toyed with the idea of doing something to better Russia’s future and might now be receptive to an encouraging nudge.” The FBI is sending Russian-language recruitment ads to cellphones in and around the Russian embassy that read: “If you have information that could help the FBI, please contact us.”

But it is in the long term — say, a generation from now — that Russia is screwed . . . really, really screwed.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18360/persecution-of-christians-february

Authorities called on ten other Muslim converts to Christianity, who were earlier cleared of all charges, to take “re-education” classes led by Islamic clerics… Earlier, the prosecutor in the case against these Christians had said that “apostasy” from Islam was punishable under Islamic law, or sharia, “and in the hereafter,” even though it was “not criminalised in the laws of Iran.” . – articleeighteen.com, February1, 2022, Iran

“It’s not clear why or how he [a Christian] came to be arrested. Other charges, relating to violations of Egypt’s cyber-crime law and using religion to promote extremist thought, were added later without offering Gerges or his defence team an opportunity to respond…. A law banning ‘insulting the heavenly religions’, criminalising blasphemy, has been repeatedly used to silence Egypt’s religious minorities….” — worldwatchmonitor.org, February 9, 2022, Egypt

“He accused me of being an infidel by converting to Christianity, and that Allah will reward them in Jannah [garden paradise] if they kill me. He said to me that it is now the right time for me to receive punishment from Allah, whereby I was going to be burned alive and the birds of the air will enjoy me as their meat….They started beating me up as others gathered firewood, while another was sent to go for petrol because they wanted to use it to burn me alive…. They found me behind the house about 100 meters away, tied and with firewood around me.” – Morningstarnews.org, February 16, 2022, Uganda

“Jihadists came by motorbike….The invaders told the Christians that “they don’t want to see crosses.” – catholicnewsagency.com, February 11, 2022, Burkina Faso

“The man, Mohammed Derrab, remains in detention for anti-conversion charges brought against him.” — –International Christian Concern, persecution.org, February 28, 2022, Algeria

“The threats come as a result of failure to comply with the 2006 ordnance that requires non-Muslim worship to operate only in licensed buildings. However, the licensing commission has yet to issue a single permit.” –International Christian Concern, persecution.org, February 28, 2022, Algeria

The following are among the abuses Muslims inflicted on Christians throughout the month of February, 2022:

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18359/mariupol-guernica

To justify his invasion, Putin has cited irredentist demands coupled with kith-and-kin claims and national security interests. If adopted as acceptable behavior, Putin’s scenario would be applicable to numerous other cases across the globe.

The most obvious example is that of China, where the Communist regime can threaten Taiwan on the basis of Putin’s arguments. But the same arguments could also be used against Russia by China and Japan. Russia occupies large chunks of Chinese territory along with the Japanese Kuril Islands archipelago.

And what about Mexico trying to “liberate” California and Texas from the Yankee Imperialists?

If we adopt the Putin Doctrine, we end up with a lawless world in which Hitler’s slogan “Force is Right” operates. We would take a giant leap back into an age in which war was the principal arbiter of relations along nations.

It would be absolute folly to ignore the message of Mariupol and not to try and stop the spiral to global hell created by a senseless war.

Whatever the outcome of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the crisis it triggered may have one lasting effect: the return of war as a routine instrument of politics on a global scale.