(This article first appeared in the Charleston Mercury: A talk with John Wohlstetter: Nuclear threat, Beethoven and N.Y. pizza (charlestonmercury.com)

By: Emily Havener

The first thing John Wohlstetter and I talk about is pizza. He’s originally from New York City, and he’s picked up a slice or two at New York City Pizza before our interview. He tells me about his childhood pizza spot growing up in the Carnegie Hill district, Hav-a-Pizza on 86th Street, which sold slices for 20 cents. It closed when pizza was up to 75 cents a slice because the son of the owner figured out he could make more money driving a cab.

John lived in Manhattan for the first 31 years of his life, then moved to Washington, D.C., for 37 more and now finds himself in Charleston as of 2015. He is a true renaissance man, and his career is storied: trading on Wall Street, corporate law, authoring books on war and nuclear proliferation, radio appearances and columns in The Wall Street Journal, American Spectator, The Daily Caller and the National Review online, to name just a few. He is a senior fellow at two think tanks — the Discovery Institute and the Gold Institute for International Strategy. Of immediate importance to our Charleston readers, he is an amateur concert pianist who will be giving a Beethoven concert on May 21 at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.

“I was born in Sodom, moved to Gomorrah and now I’m in paradise,” he tells me with an air of being very pleased. “Now, the sidewalks are another matter. They’re a little bit picaresque for my taste.” I explain it’s because we don’t have any mountains, so people who enjoy hiking can come down here and feel at home.

I’ve asked him here to talk about serious topics, though, and soon enough, we move on to D.C. statehood, which he, as an American history lover, legal mind and former resident, has a clear opinion on: “D.C. statehood is, in my view, contradictory to the Constitution. If you look at the 23rd Amendment, it says the district shall never have more than one vote in the House.” States, he says, can gain and lose votes; constitutionally the district can do neither.

However, he agrees that the people living in the D.C. area are disenfranchised voters. His solution is to bring D.C. into Maryland as a county. Residents would be able to vote for Maryland’s senators and gain a seat in the House of Representatives, as well as vote for the state’s governor.

Then he tells me another thing he likes about Charleston: “You can go a week and not have a discussion about politics.” When I respond that some would say it’s a privilege, even perhaps a dereliction of duty, to go that long without discussing politics at this point in time, he disagrees.

“What do you think totalitarianism is? Everything is a political question. It’s not good to be headed in that direction.”

The Ukraine question

Of course, we talk about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In addition to his work with the Discovery and Gold institutes, John tries to produce at least one article a month — and we discuss his recent one for the Spectator entitled “Ukraine Outcomes: Promise and Peril” in which he outlines demands that must be met for Putin not to view his invasion as a victory.

John’s first trip to Russia was in 1985, where he witnessed first-hand the information control of the USSR. But he says that even though we’re seeing something new in terms of Putin’s direct threat of using tactical nuclear weapons in an ongoing conflict, the Russian president doesn’t hold enough sway over his commanders to carry out that threat.

John says the Russian military has a similar chain of command to ours in terms of deploying its nuclear arsenal. “The leader may give the order but it goes through five operational layers. Putin already would have used nuclear weapons if he could have gotten his commanders to actually fire them. I think the risk of nuclear war is as close to zero as it gets in these things.”

The other difference he sees in this conflict is that it’s being broadcast on social media — “and in this case, social media is showing how savagely the Russians fight. It’s the way they fought for a thousand years.” He says the shock of this clouds our judgment of the situation. “We can’t mirror image and project onto them how we look at these things.” He illustrates this with the story of Stalin telling Walter Bedell Smith, first chief of the CIA in 1947 and ambassador to Russia, “We are no more interested in war than you are, but we are less interested in peace and that is our advantage.”

Then John offers a powerful metaphor: “If I put it in in a slightly different context, let’s go from nations to people. We’re sitting here, and sitting over there is a psychopathic serial killer and a sociopathic professional assassin. They kill for different reasons, one by profession and one under a compulsion. Suppose we say, ‘We have our common humanity. We have common interests in peace.’ How far do you think that’s going to get with those two people? The answer is, not very.”

His assessment is that we must keep pushing Putin back so that he asks for a ceasefire, but John fears that the U.S. and other European countries will pull their support and pressure Ukraine to make a less-than-beneficial settlement so as to end the conflict sooner, and Putin will get concessions, such as additional territory in Ukraine.

“That would be a victory for Putin, which is the wrong message to send people like that,” John says. “That’s what happened in the 30s when the British and France gave up Czechoslovakia to Hitler, and he didn’t stop there.

“What NATO and the U.S. can do is increase the supply of weaponry and ammo and basically shore things up. The more they give the Ukrainians, the better chance they have. They’re fighting for their homeland and the Russians are conscripts. I didn’t know in advance how good the Ukrainian army was, let alone that they would built their own anti-ship missiles. I knew that the Russian technology had a relatively thin layer of top technology, but it turns out the systems have significant vulnerabilities.”

Although he agrees with the assessment that a no-fly zone isn’t the answer –— “No fly zone takes too much to impose. Nobody’s ever imposed one on a superpower” — he argues that President Biden, and other world leaders, have not done enough in terms of providing materiel that could have prevented the widespread destruction in Ukraine and ended the conflict in its earliest days. In addition to a misguided assessment of the nuclear threat level, this is due to fear of being seen as provocative.

“That’s a word that should be taken out of the lexicon,” John says with as much heat as I’ve heard yet in our measured conversation. “Everything the free world does that strengthens its position against the unfree world is provocative. So what?” He addresses Putin: “You just put 170,000 troops on the border and you’re telling us it’s provocative if we move some up?”

He also blames the administration for hedging its bets in hopes that Putin will assist in U.S. relations with Iran, but Biden’s recent gaffe put even that distant hope in jeopardy. “If you want this guy to help you, why are you calling him a war criminal and saying he should be put on trial? This is not the brightest idea. I was annoyed when Biden said he’s going to be tried in The Hague and all that. Win the war first; if you don’t win the war, there are not going to be any trials at all.

He has an astute assessment of the American mindset about war: “It’s because we hate war so much that we’re reluctant to get into it, and we’re up against people who don’t feel the same way, and they use our reluctance, at times, to considerable strategic advantage.”

“So let’s say we do get Putin in retreat and he calls for a ceasefire,” I respond. “Where do we go?”

“If Putin gets pushed back across the border, and even if he keeps Crimea, but especially if he loses that, he will not be in office.”

Love of humanity

At this point, John deliberately changes the subject: “We’ve solved all the problems. Now we need to end on an upbeat thing.” Throughout our conversation it’s become clear to me how important music is to him; he’s been playing the piano since childhood, but it was in middle adulthood that something clicked and it took on the priority it holds for him now. He tells me how much he’s looking forward to the concert he’s giving in coincidence with his 75th year: “We’re going to celebrate, two years delayed, the 250th anniversary of one of the greatest human beings who ever lived, one of the greatest creators who ever lived.”

He will be playing his three favorite sonatas by Beethoven, whom he says “brought music out of the aristocracy and sent it out to all of us.” He calls the “Ode to Joy” an expression of Beethoven’s love of humanity.

Beethoven’s eventual deafness makes him something of a kindred spirit as well; John is deaf in his right ear, although he also has perfect pitch. “Beethoven had tinnitus. It was a huge handicap, and when he practiced he had the ability to concentrate, to shut out noise.” Not only that, John says: “He had far hearing; he could hear into the future. The instruments of this day were not capable of producing this sonorities we hear in the ‘Appassionato’ today. It wasn’t till the late 80s that the modern piano was perfected. He may have been the only one of his day who could hear what his compositions really sounded like.”

Music got John through the long, isolated days of the pandemic. “I didn’t want to spend my time staring at flickering images, so I decided to double my practice time and see if I could raise my piano chops. I’m playing 100 percent better than I played two years ago.

“At the piano those first two months, it was the quietness of Walden Pond. There was no traffic, no construction cranes — and I concentrated. And the wonderful thing is, when the sounds came back, my concentration still stayed. I’m going to have a great time finishing the prep for this concert. I am so looking forward to it.”

This story originated in VOA’s Kurdish Service (https://www.voanews.com/a/turkey-launches-new-offensive-against-pkk-rebels-in-northern-iraq/6536148.html)

WASHINGTON — Turkey announced the start of a new ground and air campaign in northern Iraq Monday, targeting the armed rebels of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Dubbed Operation Claw-Lock, the Ankara government says the offensive is a pre-emptive measure to prevent the PKK from using Iraq as a base to carry out attacks in Turkey.

Founded in 1984 to fight for Kurdish self-rule, the PKK is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

The new operation comes days after Iraqi Kurdistan Prime Minister Masrour Barzani met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara. The two leaders discussed ways to improve security, business and trade ties, according to a statement by Barzani’s office.

Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar was quoted by the state-owned Anadolu news agency as saying, “Our operation is continuing successfully as planned. The targets identified in the first phase have been captured.”

Meanwhile, in a statement, the PKK fighters claimed to have downed two Turkish helicopters and killed more than two dozen Turkish soldiers.

VOA cannot independently verify the conflicting reports.

The Turkish military has carried out several operations against the PKK in recent years, both inside Turkey and in northern Iraq. The latest operation targets areas near Amedi city’s Shiladze district.

Amedi’s mayor, Warsheen Mayi, told VOA by phone that the operation has not targeted civilian areas. But Iqbal Omer, a freelance journalist, said civilian properties had been damaged in the most recent airstrike.

Turkish interests in northern Iraq go beyond combating the PKK. Turkey has a significant economic stake in the region, particularly the energy sector. Turkey is also seeking to expand its influence in the region as a counterbalance to the growing power of Iran.

Some experts have suggested that Kurdistan, which is estimated to have 700 billion cubic meters [25 trillion cubic feet] of natural gas, could become a major energy supplier to Turkey and Europe as the world tries to wane itself off its dependence on Russian gas.

“Europeans are searching for new potentials to supply gas to Europe,” said Nahro Zagros, a non-resident senior fellow at the Washington-based Gold Institute for International Strategy.

“The KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government) can be one of these potentials. Having said that the KRG cannot fill the whole vacuum that Russians will leave in Europe, but it can help in some ways, and this cannot be achieved without Turkish support,” he added.

Safeen Dizayee, head of the KRG’s Department of Foreign Relations, said that after meeting domestic supply, his government was open to the notion of exporting natural gas to Europe.

“The Kurdistan region is not trying to become an alternative to other countries,” he told VOA. “That is why it will in the first stage use most of its extracted gas to supply domestic needs. Later on, some portion of the gas can be exported to other parts of Iraq if they have a need for it. In the coming years, when the Kurdistan region opens up more to the world, no doubt it might export some of the gas.”

Dizayee added that Turkey, which serves as a bridge for the landlocked Kurdistan region to the outside world, will be a major partner in the exportation of gas.

Others, such as Sulaymaniyah-based Izzat Sabir, an economist who led the Finance and Economic Committee in the Kurdistan parliament, say the region first needs to resolve its internal political issues and meet domestic demand before it can focus on becoming an exporter.

Not every Kurdish politician is on board with the idea of exporting the region’s gas through Turkey.

“I think it’s my party’s official decision that we will not allow natural gas to be sold through Turkey the way oil is being sold,” said Rekawt Zaki, a senior leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which controls some of the region’s largest gas fields in Chamchamal.

“The future of the Kurdistan Region is natural gas, not crude oil. Crude is depleting in many fields,” economist Sabir said.

“Iraq imports billions of dollars’ worth of natural gas from Iran and other neighboring countries. While the domestic demand for gas has not been met, we in the Kurdistan region should not think about signing agreements to export natural gas,” Sabir added.

Mutlu Civiroglu, Zhiyar Mohammed, and Rikar Hussein contributed to this story from Washington.

This story originated in VOA’s Kurdish Service.

(This article first appeared in the American Spectator: https://spectator.org/ukraine-outcomes-promise-and-peril/)

Recently, scholar Mark Galeotti published Peace, Partition or Stalemate, assessing prospective scenarios for how the war started by Vladimir Putin might end. The peace outcome will almost certainly entail that Russia keep some of its gains in the east, and possibly the southeast as well. Partition would give Russia formal sovereignty over those areas under its sway. A stalemate would translate into a protracted low-intensity counterinsurgency locked in a long, twilight struggle, either alongside the current Ukraine government, or its successor. Conversely, if Russia extends its gains to Kyiv, the insurgents would fight allied with a Ukrainian government-in-exile (based in western Ukraine or Poland) against a pro-Russian government puppet installed in Kyiv by its Moscow masters.

The War: Geographic and Cultural Factors. At this writing much hangs in the balance: Russia has been unable to consolidate gains in the central and western regions of what is the largest country whose borders lie completely within Europe. It is mostly flatland, average elevation a mere 574 feet, which notable mountains only in the southwest corner, the Carpathians, the highest peak inside Ukraine reaching 6,762 feet; it is bisected from north to south by the Dnieper River, at 1,420 miles the fourth longest in Europe. Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, sits on the west bank of the Dnieper at its northern end; its primary open-sea port, Odessa, sits by the western terminus of the river, which empties into the Black Sea. Its principal products are agricultural—the “breadbasket of Europe” and mineral.

Russia is the largest country in the world, with 23 percent of its land area and 77 percent of its population (some 100 million) considered part of the European landmass. Its European area is 6-1/2 times and its European population 2-1/2 times greater than Ukraine’s. Eyeballing a map, Russia now appears to control some one-quarter of Ukraine, concentrated in the east and southeast sections. Ukraine’s official language is part of a complex historical and cultural tapestry. Ukrainian, which evolved from Old East Slavonic, the original language of Kievan Rus, is the official language today. But in 2012 Ukraine’s unicameral parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, passed a law allowing regions that have more than 10 percent non-Ukrainian populations to adopt a local official language; per this, the Russian-occupied regions in eastern and southeastern regions made Russian their official language. Overall (rounded figures), Ukrainian is spoken by 67 percent and Russian by 30 percent. Western Ukraine speaks mostly Ukrainian; central Ukraine equally speaks both languages; but notably, in Kyiv, the majority, like eastern Ukraine, speaks Russian.

The War: Current Status. While there are conflicting reports of how Russia is doing, and events could suddenly break decisively one way or another, it seems clear that Russia has gotten bogged down, and is trying to use reinforcements to change the war’s course. Hopes on the part of Putin and his military leadership for a quick Russian win and complete subjugation of the country under a puppet government have been shattered. Much credit goes to the NATO countries, but even more goes to the bravura performance of Ukrainians. Their leader has emerged as the closest thing the 21st century has seen to British World War II prime minister, Winston Churchill. Their military is fighting to a standstill a heavily-armed force with thousands of tanks and other armored vehicles, and a larger air force and navy. Their civilian population arose with courage for the ages; it fights with far less weaponry, but far greater tenacity, in defending their homeland against an invader who sent in mostly conscripts.

Yet victory for Ukraine, while possible, seems elusive, and likely will require greater influx of sophisticated weapons and logistical supplies—to say nothing for food and medical care, if Ukraine is to emerge a victor on the battlefield. Already, Moscow has achieved one of its prime objectives: inducing Ukraine’s leaders to proclaim that they are willing to forego the possibility of becoming a member of NATO, as it is a sovereign country, newly recognized as such upon the end-1991 break-up of the former Soviet Union, and thus is legally entitled to apply for membership.

The West: Strategic or Moral Stake? Myriad articles and commentary—from both the political right and left— convey the view that America has no geostrategic interests in getting involved in the Russo-Ukraine War. Why, then, risk World War III to save Ukraine from Russian conquest or, short of actual takeover, dominance? Russia, were are told, has legitimate historical fears that go back to its very beginning, when in the late 9th century Kievan Rus was formed, marking the emergence of Slavic peoples from antiquity; historians date the formation of a Russian state to 988 AD, when Prince Vladimir of Novgorod converted to Orthodox Christianity—albeit what we now know as the modern nation-state awaited the 16th century. Kievan Rus extended only to the Ural Mountains, some 800 miles from Moscow. That range runs north to south, and divides European Russia from Asian Russia—mainly Siberia in the north, and mostly south of Siberia, the five Islamic states that were part of the former Soviet Union.

So, the narrative points to serial great invasions of Russia—the Tatar Yoke (after 1237 invasion), 1240-1480; that same year, the Swedes; the Swedes again in the 18th century; Napoleon’s France in 1812; and Hitler’s Germany, on June 22, 1941. In all, these great invasions spanned nearly a millennium. But what is rarely noted, is that all these great invasions came from distant powers, who were not neighbors of Russia. The Russia historian Richard Pipes once counted all wars Russia was involved in, over a period from the 16th though late 20th centuries. Of 230 wars, he counted 200 started by Mother Russia (no link available, but this is a number one does not forget). Many of these were, to be fair, smaller conflicts. But the point to be made is that Mother Russia’s neighbors have far more to fear from Russia than vice-versa. Further, given that the great invasions came from afar, logic would dictate that Russia would benefit from having strong buffer states surrounding it.

Let’s take the argument one step further. Does the United States today fear invasion from the United Kingdom? In the War of 1812 we fought the British Commonwealth, during which in 1814 the British burned down the original White House. Our national anthem’s lyrics celebrate the American heroes who survived cannon bombardment by the Royal Navy. Now it is the case that Ukraine, and the former satellites of the former Soviet Union, hate the Russians. But no one anywhere—let alone in Moscow—believes that any of these countries would start a war with a nuclear-armed Russia; nor in any plausibly imaginable future would such an event come to pass.

And what picture should we have of Russia? During the thousand years since its 988 AD inception, the Motherland has had a total of eight years—1992-1999, under Boris Yeltsin—when there was an effort at privatizing the economy and establishing some semblance of democratic governance. Consider the portrait of Tsarist Russia drawn by the 19th century nobleman, the Marquis de Custine, in his classic account of his visit to Russia, Empire of the Czar, published in 1839:

The Kremlin, on a hill, gives me the idea of a city of princes, built in the midst of a city of people. This tyrannical castle, this proud heap of stones, looks down scornfully upon the bodes of common men; and, contrary to what is the case of structures of ordinary dimensions, the nearer we approach the indestructible mass, the more our wonder increases. Like the bones of certain gigantic animals, the Kremlin proves to us the history of a world of which we might doubt until after seeing the remains. In this prodigious creation strength takes the place of beauty, caprice of elegance; it is like the dream of a tyrant, fearful but full of power; it has something about it that disowns the age; means of defence which are adapted to a system of war that exists no longer; an architecture that has no connection with the wants of modern civilization; a heritage of the fabulous ages, a gaol, a palace, a sanctuary, a bulwark against the nation’s foes, a bastille against the nation, a prop of tyrants, a prison of people,—such is the Kremlin. Kind of northern Acropolis, a Pantheon of barbarism, this national fabric may be called the Alcazar of the Slavonians.

Such, then, was the chosen abode of the old Muscovite princes; and yet these formidable walls were not sufficient shelter for the terror of Ivan IV.

The fear of a man possessing absolute power is the most dreadful thing upon earth; and with all the imagery of this fear visible within the Kremlin; it is still impossible to approach the fabric without a shudder.

Towers of every form, round, square, and with pointed roofs, belfries, donjons, turrets, spires, sentry boxes upon minarets, steeples of every height, style and colour, palaces, domes, towers, walls, embattlemented and pierced with loopholes, ramparts, fortifications of every species, whimsical inventions, incomprehensible devices, chiosks by the side of cathedrals—every thing announces violation and disorder, every thing betrays the continual surveillance necessary to the security of the singular beings who were condemned to live in this supernatural world. Yet these innumerable monuments of pride, caprice, voluptuousness, glory, and piety, notwithstanding their apparent variety, express one single idea which reigns here everywhere—wear maintained by fear. The Kremlin is the work of a superhuman being, but that being is malevolent. Glory in slavery—such is the allegory figured by this satanic monument, as extraordinary in architecture as the visions of St. John are in poetry. It is a habitation which would suit some of the personages of the Apocalypse.

Custine’s work has often been compared to that of another French nobleman, Alexis de Tocqueville, whose Democracy in America presented a celebrated 1835 portrait of the U.S.

Tsar Vlad the Bad fits neatly into Custine’s chilling portrait of the dark tyranny that was Tsarist Russia. From this historical list, in the 16th century, there was Ivan IV “the Terrible” (1547-1584), who created the first Russian secret police, the Oprichnina. The 17th century brought Peter the Great (1689-1725) to the throne. Known in the West for his opening Russia to European influence, he was brutally repressive at home. The 18th century saw Catherine the Great (1762-1796) seek a warm water port in parts of the Ottoman Empire. And the 19th century featured two repressive tsars. Nicholas I, 1825-1855, nicknamed “the Cudgel” by his unfortunate subjects, began his reign by crushing the democratic Decembrist revolt; halfway through his rule, he established the Pale of Settlement to confine the Jews; and ended his three decades by starting the Crimean War, in pursuit of Catherine’s dream of a warm water port. Alexander III (1881-1894) established the Okhrana, a restructured secret police, and actively persecuted the Jews. In all fitting pedigree for Vlad.

The moral calculus, beyond traditional humanitarian concerns that often motivate Western powers to act, stems from events that, per a recent WSJ article, sealed Ukraine’s Fate. The intense pressure actually began in 1992. James Baker, Bush 41’s secretary of state, feared that all 14 Warsaw Pact nations would then wish to join NATO (which ultimately proved true). In what a contemporary observer called a “blistering” phone call, Baker blasted Ukraine’s president, Leonid Kravchuk, for signing but not ratifying the 1992 Lisbon Protocol, which sought to disarm three newly-minted, former Soviet republics—Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine—of their nuclear arsenals, by having them ship their weapons to the Russian Federation. President Kravchuk resisted such a transfer, fearing that Russia would conquer Ukraine; he sought but could not get agreement to join NATO, where if bereft of his own nukes he could take shelter under NATO’s extended deterrence nuclear umbrella. Per the accord, Ukraine surrendered its 1,900 strategic and 2,275 tactical nuclear warheads—then the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal. One central limitation, however, on Ukraine’s freedom of action, was that although their nuclear arsenal (which included ICBMs), was located physically on Ukrainian sovereign soil, Moscow retained control over authorization, arming and and release codes. Without control over these the arsenal could not be used—albeit reportedly it may have been possible for Ukraine to bypass them.

Enter one William Jefferson Clinton, on Jan. 20, 1993, the new Oval Office occupant. Within six days of taking the reins, Clinton demanded that Ukraine give up its nuclear weapons—not even waiting for the results of a couple reviews of the situation that were underway. Clinton’s minions, with rare exceptions, were adamant about disarming Ukraine—and not so insistent with Russia. They ignored a prescient warning from Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, an expert on Russia and the Soviet bloc countries. “Zbig” said: “Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire. But with Ukraine, suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire.”

The ultimate result was the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, ostensibly guaranteeing Ukraine’s territorial integrity, signed by the U.S., UK and Russia; but the latter made no new commitments, beyond those continued in earlier East-West accords. In effect, the U.S. has no legal obligation, as it does with its fellow NATO members, per Art. 5 of the 1949 NATO Treaty. As for the Budapest Memorandum it may be said, per Samuel Goldwyn’s famed malapropism, “An oral contract is not worth the paper it is written on.” In fact, Clinton’s overarching Eurosecurity goal was embodied in his 1993 “Partnership for Peace” program—an all-encompassing East-West mutual security initiative, envisioning even Russia as a member—conjoined to NATO. In the event, for Ukraine to join NATO, per the 1996 Constitution of Ukraine, would require an amendment to said Constitution.

What Should Ukraine Seek? Ukraine has already conceded that it is willing to forego NATO membership—albeit, President Biden has extended NATO-level Cold War-era nuclear deterrence to include Ukraine. Ukraine is also willing to pledge neutrality. Thus, the keys for Ukraine/NATO are that:

(a) Ukraine be formally recognized by Russia as an independent country;

(b) any territory occupied by Russia be formally recognized as autonomous regions–NOT legally part of Russia;

(c) Ukraine be guaranteed unfettered access to the sea via Odessa and other ports;

(d) Sevastopol (the naval base on the island of Crimea) remain jointly accessible to Ukraine and Russia;

(e) Ukraine receive from NATO concrete security guarantees, in light of the Budapest Memorandum fail–buttressed by massive rearmament by NATO and domestic forces near the border–albeit, likely with a demilitarized zone.

(f) Sanctions relief must include commitments by Russia re energy supply and agricultural trade.

Anything less gives Russia a win, unacceptable after the massive destruction inflicted on Ukraine—which can never accept a formal partition.

Hence if peace talks fail, a long low-intensity war will most likely result. A special nightmare scenario for NATO is if the Russians occupy the Suwalki Gap, a 104 km. (65-mile) strip of land that runs southward from the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad from the Baltic Sea, along Poland’s border with Lithuania; thus, it cuts off the three Baltic states from the rest of NATO.

The “X” Factor: Mismatched Leaders. President Biden’s stupefyingly incoherent bluster and retreats—best summed up as an inversion of Teddy Roosevelt’s “speak softly and carry a big stick—during his stay in Europe, and frantic serial efforts by the White House to clean up his improvised sallies, left everyone confused on both sides of the Atlantic. No one outside the administration senior staff knows who is running the show, and how far the president’s mental state has declined.

Making matters worse is that Biden’s threat to use chemical or biological weapons runs afoul of the U.S. having in 1997 signed the International Chemical Weapons Convention Treaty, committing to eliminate all such agents by 2007, a date later extended to 2012. And the U.S. is a party to the 1972 Biological Warfare Convention, which went into effect in 1975.

The mess was starkly illustrated by the sharp reactions of French president Macron and voices in Moscow. Macron tartly said: “I would not use those words.” He added that “everything must be done to stop the situation from escalating.” Moscow reactions included one source describing Biden as “weak, indecisive and sick”; and the head of the State Duma (Russian parliament) calling for Biden to “undergo a medical examination.”

Paradoxically, whereas normally a feeble, feckless leader spells disaster, in this instance Moscow’s choosing to dismiss Biden’s rhetorical wanderings suggests that Moscow is cutting him slack, by not taking Old Joe seriously. Else they could have used his unhinged open call for regime change as a pretext for escalation. This further suggests that Russia still holds out hope of gaining additional ground without a WMD escalation.

Bottom Line. While many developments look promising for Ukraine, there is increasing peril due to: (a) the unreliability of the shifting, often contradictory U.S. responses; and (b) the volatility of Vladimir Putin, who shows no sign of looking for an off-ramp. Add to this the ultimate extraneous wild card: Team Biden has engaged Putin, whom they (accurately but imprudently, in the midst of a crisis) call a war criminal, to represent U.S. interests in negotiating a new nuclear deal with Iran. Put another way, Team Biden is trusting a war criminal to faithfully represent America’s interests in talks with our mortal terror-state enemy; the administration seems to assume that Putin’s interests are congruent with ours. They are not. Putin does not fear a nuclear strike by Iran on the Russian homeland, as Putin’s certain nuclear response would extinguish Iran. Iran’s threat is to Israel and the U.S. Especially in light of our aid to Ukraine, Putin is happy to give us more vexing security issues to deal with.

It would, it seems, take Putin declaring that his off-ramp is the annexation of Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach “Little Odessa”, to bring the administration to its senses.

John Wohlstetter, a senior fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy is author of Sleepwalking with the Bomb (Discovery Institute Press, 2d. ed. 2014).

(This article first appeared in the American Spectator: https://spectator.org/25th-amendment-disability-can-we-quickly-boot-joe-kamala/)

Recently, Yale Law School professor E. Donald Elliott, a first-rate lawyer and regulatory expert, wrote in TAS that a little-known provision in the 25th Amendment can be used to swiftly toss the sitting president and vice-president, and replace them with competent, trusted leadership for the remainder of the Biden-Harris term. The provision, in the Amendment’s involuntary disability paragraph, sec. 4, contains the following sentence, the last 11 words of which one might call section 4’s Emergency Clause:

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide. . . . (Emphasis mine.)

In support of his idea, he argued: Most voters, across the political spectrum, see Biden and Harris as manifestly unable to govern—the former clearly beset by cognitive deficiency; the latter—like many vice-presidents—chosen for political appeal, despite lacking basic issue knowledge or executive ability. Hence, Congress should call upon Biden and Harris to both resign voluntarily. If either or both refuse, Congress should activate section 4’s Emergency Clause, and schedule a plebiscite. The House and Senate should each vote by simple majority for a recall election, asking a majority of the electorate to vote that neither is capable of discharging the “powers & duties” of their respective offices, and to replace them with a caretaker national unity government. If a majority votes to recall both, Congress would pick two replacement leaders who are trusted by both sides. An illustrative example Professor Elliott offered was to have top Democrat Leon Panetta serve as president, and respected Republican Robert Gates—who served in the Bush 43 and Obama cabinets, to serve as Panetta’s vice-president. Other respected figures could well fill the bill.

The genesis of this Emergency Clause was during the debates on presidential succession in the Eisenhower administration. Whether to craft either a Constitutional or statutory provision to remedy what was by then universally regarded as a gaping hole in the collection of laws—in the text of the Constitution and laws that Congress enacted—governing presidential succession.

In a series of five TAS articles published last fall I examined presidential succession in detail: Part I, historical antecedents; Part II, 25th Amendment genesis; Part III, 25th Amendment implementation today; and Part IV, possible first-ever use of the 25th Amendment’s involuntary presidential disability provision — focusing mostly on Constitutional issues, dipping down into legislative enactment (in legal shorthand parlance, “statutory”) issues only when necessary. Finally, I discussed problems for today’s situation, created by flawed presidential succession statutes. What follows in the next two sections is a summary extracted from my five articles.

Presidential and Vice-Presidential Disability, 1789-1965. By 1965, when Lyndon Johnson was sworn in for his full presidential term, there had been seven presidencies terminated by death—William Henry Harrison (1841), Zachary Taylor (1850), Abraham Lincoln (1865), James Garfield (1881), William McKinley (1901), Warren Harding (1923), Franklin Roosevelt (1945)—by eerie coincidence, six of the seven were originally elected in a year divisible by 20. Ronald Reagan, first elected in 1980, narrowly escaped the “20” jinx in 1981, breaking the spell.

The two most notable presidential disabilities were those that struck James Garfield (1881) and Woodrow Wilson (1919-1921). Garfield’s illness lasted 80 days, from being shot July 2, until his death September 19. Wilson’s was far more consequential, his massive stroke coming in the midst of his two biggest fights: (a) win ratification of the Versailles Treaty that he had negotiated in Paris with the European members of the Big Four; (b) his push for the U.S. to join the nascent League of Nations. He failed on both counts. Many regard first lady Edith Bolling Gault Wilson as the first—albeit de facto—woman president; she headed a triumvirate that from behind the scenes ran the executive branch for 18 months, from Wilson’s September 25, 1919 stroke until Warren Harding was inaugurated March 4, 1921.

And as if all that were not enough, from April 30,1789 to January 20, 1965 the vice-presidency was vacant, either by death or illness, 37-1/4 years—roughly one-fifth of the time. As vice-presidencies were derisively regarded as a useless appendage for much of that time, it did not seem to matter. But when Harry Truman, largely unknown to the public, succeeded to the presidency in 1945, HST was woefully unprepared to assume the Oval Office. FDR had neglected to brief Truman on the Manhattan Project, then nearing its goal of producing the world’s first atomic bombs. The war in Europe was less than one month from V-E Day; V-J Day in the Pacific was 4-1/2 months away. And it was this untried vice-president who, now in the Oval Office, had to decide whether to unleash upon Japan the moist lethal weapons ever created.

Fortunately for America—and the world—Truman rose magnificently to the occasion, ending the most destructive war in world history, and then meeting the Soviet challenge at the start of the Cold War. Winston Churchill later told HST:

I loathed your taking the place of Franklin Roosevelt. . . . I misjudged you badly. Since that time, you more than any other man, have saved Western civilization.

The Push for Succession Reform, 1956-67. Thereafter, it occurred to many that the next time in a crucial turn of history presidential succession was uncertain, or a vice-presidential vacancy left unfilled, America might not be so lucky.

It was President Eisenhower himself who pressed for a solution to the problems of succession, after his 1955 heart attack.Then, on November 25, 1957, Ike suffered a paralyzing stroke. Thinking he would not survive, he asked his chief of staff to alert the vice-president; Nixon was told that he might be president in 24 hours. But Ike rallied, and was back at work in one week. The effort for reform, led by his attorney-general, came to naught, for want of agreement on how to deal with the myriad complexities attending presidential involuntary disability. The 1960 presidential campaign saw a contest between two able men in their forties, and a sense of crisis gone.

Circumstances dramatically and tragically changed on Nov. 22, 1963, with the shocking assassination of JFK, a president in the apparent prime of life (his many serious health problems concealed from the public with the acquiescence of the press corps of the time). Lyndon Johnson took office determined to find solutions to the problems of presidential and vice-presidential succession. From LBJ’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 1964, it was to be just over three years to the 38th state ratifying the 25th Amendment.

Spurred by urgent necessity, in the aftermath not only of the JFK assassination, but also in the wake of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the world was poised on the precipice of possible nuclear war, the best legal, political and medical minds were assembled to find a solution. Those advocating a legislative remedy touted the great flexibility that would enable rapid resolution of a succession crisis. But such flexibility gave much room for political mischief, and politicians, like Oscar Wilde, notoriously can resist anything but temptation. Conversely, while encasing the succession process in a Constitutional amendment would ward off opportunistic mischief, that risked leaving no quick solution if the text did not expressly cover a particular set of circumstances.

The compromise reached in 1964 was to add the Emergency Clause language to section 4 of the 25th Amendment. In doing so flexibility was introduced and, inevitably, commensurate opportunities for expedient political exploitation. Supporters of the 25th conceded this, but added that absent some sense of civic virtue during a crisis, no free republic could survive. An overwhelming majority of both Houses of Congress decided that the gravity of the crisis would likely induce gravity of civic purpose.

In his 1968 memoir, One Heartbeat Away, Birch Bayh, who led the Senate effort to adopt the 25th, recalled how President Eisenhower said that those considering presidential succession crises must assume that the necessary civic purpose would bring forth “men of honor, men of integrity, men whose concern is the welfare of their own country and not of their own personal ambitions.”

Can A Recall Election Realistically be Held? The Crisis of 2022-2025. Only 14 months into the Biden-Harris term, we find ourselves transformed into a nation that reels from banana-republic inflation whilst sliding into stagnation—the worst stagflation in 50 years; that sees “woke” district attorneys aid criminals while undercutting the police, and an attorney-general who regards activist school parents opposing teachers’ unions as domestic terrorists; that traded a secure southwestern border for an open-border welcome mat for unvaccinated economic migrants and massive lethal drug smuggling by the cartels; that traded energy independence for the first time in 70 years, for importing oil and gas provided by Russia (just halted) and Iran; that faces an emboldened China determined to replace Pax Americana with Pax Sinica, as our military atrophies from the twin constraints of omnibus budget limits and 30 years of continuous oversees operations. Most sinister of all: Washington labels opposing views “misinformation” over which it asserts, in league with “woke” tech oligarchs and mainstream media allies, the right to censor the views of political opponents. George Orwell, call your office.

Accepting the premise that a recall of the current administration is needed, there is a need for procedural and substantive policy safeguards, if the recall proposal is to have any chance of passing. The first set covers limits upon those who accept a caretaker role.

National Unity (NU) Procedural Prerequisites: Six safeguards must be implemented to minimize the prospect that a caretaker government seeks to exploit an emergency by enacting permanent legislation:

(1) NU members serve to 1/20/2025, when President and VP are sworn in.

(2) NU members recuse themselves from campaigning for anyone.

(3) NU members agree not to join the next administration.

(4) NU members work with Congress on an interim “caretaker” program.

(5) NU members work to rapidly restore proven successful policies.

(6) NU’s top priority: Avoid big wars by shoring up nuclear/cyber defenses.

The second set covers limits upon what those caretakers can do:

NU Substantive Prohibions–“must NOT”—Pre-Empt Matters Properly Reserved for the Voters or those elected by them:

(1) Aim to resolve long-term structural disputes (abolishing Electoral College; packing Supreme Court; admitting D.C./PR by statute; abolishing Senate filibuster for legislation; federalizing elections).

(2) Aim to permanently resolve major substantive policy disputes (energy/environment, market/socialist economy, amnesty/return of illegal migrants, teacher/parent control of education, health policy, etc.).

(3) Aim to permanently resolve bedrock constitutional issues (1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 14th).

(4) Lifetime appointments must be reconfirmed by the new administration.

(5) All interim measures expire 4/30/25 (100 days into the administration).

Bottom Line. In my TAS article on statutes governing presidential succession, I called those laws “a ticking time bomb.” With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, its brutal ruler obsessed with recovering all the territory surrendered by the former Soviet Union at the end of 1991, the Presidential Succession Time Bomb has just exploded.

Therein I wrote, of our deepening partisan division:

The state of near open civil war that prevails today precludes bipartisan cooperation — especially given one-party control of the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives. It will take electoral outcomes that alter the balance of power, in order to make possible considering change. . . .

What makes today’s partisanship so dangerous and obstructive is that the divide is not simply over policy. It is over the very structure of government and the balance between governmental power and individual rights — with rising claims of selective group rights for currently favored constituencies.

No recall can happen before the November elections. It will take landslide GOP sweeps in both the House and Senate for it to begin. Yet while that will stymie the Biden administration’s legislative program, and force less partisan judicial appointments, the main administration response will be a broader attempt to govern by executive fiat. Most of these initiatives will ultimately lose in the federal courts, but the administration already has openly stated that it will implement policies struck down in the federal courts, until the appeals process is complete, so as to create faits accompli that cannot easily be undone by a new sheriff in town.

We can live with—however reluctantly—those expedient workarounds. What we should not risk is living with a moribund administration living in its Beltway Bubble, as a raging Vladimir Putin threatens World War III over Ukraine, including possible use of nuclear weapons, not only against Ukraine, but also NATO countries, including the United States, if his aggressive designs are stymied. Ditto Chinese dictator Xi Jinping, who ardently desires to force Taiwan back into China’s orbit, waging war if necessary. And ditto to Iran’s mullahs, who pine for a nuclear weapon to give them immunity from removal, and redouble efforts to destroy Israel.

There is an adage in business: Never bet the company. Allowing Joe Biden and/or Kamala Harris to continue in office for the next 35-1/2 months amounts to betting the American republic, and all the freedoms it stands for.

John Wohlstetter, a senior fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy is author of Sleepwalking with the Bomb (Discovery Institute Press, 2d. ed. 2014).

This paper originally appeared in the New Direction, The European Journal at https://newdirection.online/the-european-journal/article/the_ukraine_crisis_and_the_west)

The Ukraine crisis could be the greatest boost to restoration of Western unity and the reinvigoration of NATO or it could deepen the transatlantic divide and further weaken the West’s standing in the world.

The crisis deepens

Since the seizure of the Crimea and parts of Eastern Ukraine in 2014 the build-up of Russian troops encircling the Ukraine has been in progress for over a year.

In the past four days, the danger of attack has been declared “imminent”. The military procedures, the drills, for changing to combat readiness are well known at both the strategic and tactical levels and well monitored by countries with sophisticated intelligence capabilities such as the United States and the United Kingdom.

The alarm cries from Western governments, predicting the imminent attack by Russia on Ukraine, would have been triggered by clear intelligence indicators. These would include evidence that Russian troops were setting up field hospitals; carrying out final fuel replenishment; loading live ammunition into tanks and other armoured vehicles; pre-positioning artillery ammunition; adjusting artillery fire plans; putting air defence and ground-attack aircraft on a higher alert stage; route marking by military traffic control units; combat units moving from their rear assembly points into tactical pre-battle formations closer to the Ukrainian border; electronic warfare and reconnaissance assets intensifying their activities; changes in the pattern of radio traffic; and overall readiness states reduced from days to hours. These are among the many attack indicators that analysts will note to warn of attack, passing their assessments immediately to war rooms and Governments. They will also know as soon as these measures are put on hold or genuinely go into reverse. But regardless of military capabilities, the missing piece of evidence is locked in President Putin’s head. We do not know his intentions.

Moscow’s claims that it is acting in response to a threat from NATO expansion fall into the category of ‘the big lie’, knowing that there will be sufficient people in Russia and among its allies and client states who will believe this.

The serious enlargement of NATO took place years ago and there has been no change in respect of Ukraine’s status, which lies dormant.

The last major eastwards expansion of NATO took place in 2004. Poland, Hungary and what is now the Czech Republic had already joined 5 years beforehand – that’s 23 years ago. At the NATO Summit in Bucharest in 2008 there was indeed recognition of the Ukraine’s aspiration to become a NATO member. Over the years since, there have been repeated assurances concerning membership but acceptance of the Ukraine’s application would have to be a unanimous political decision of NATO’s 30 member states, and there is little likelihood of this, given the political sensitivities. Last year’s NATO Summit in Brussels maintained this deliberately ambiguous position.

So what does Russia want – and why now?

Putin wants to re-unite the Soviet imperial sphere – only in this way, he thinks, can Moscow be taken seriously as a great power again. This would be his historic legacy. It could take many forms but a key element would have to be the Ukraine whose loss Putin regards as the greatest strategic disaster to befall Russia.

He wants a compliant Ukraine, ideally under full suzerainty of Russia, but if not, then under Russian influence and certainly not part of any Western military or economic bloc. He will not be satisfied with Ukraine merely withdrawing its application to join NATO. He has a wide range of options that might satisfy his appetite at this stage including: rigorous and rapid implementation of the Minsk Agreements, according to Putin’s interpretation (which would effectively give Moscow a say in the government of Ukraine); neutralisation of Ukraine; recognised secession of all Donetsk, Luhansk and the Crimea from Kyiv rule; or at the more extreme end, occupying all the majority Russian-speaking coastal areas including Odessa. Putin believes that now is the moment to achieve his wider ambition to restore Russian greatness after what he sees as the humiliations of thirty years ago.

As in a very serious game of chess, Putin sees the position as a Zugzwang – it is your turn to move and whatever you do will be bad for you.

He sees the West as weak, riven with domestic crises and the economic consequences of the Covid pandemic and ‘Wokeism’ eating away from the inside and casting doubt, particularly among many young Westerners, over the very foundations of the West.

The United States is reeling from the Afghanistan debacle and President Biden is seen to be indecisive and distracted by domestic issues. Boris Johnson’s position is in question. The new left-leaning German leadership hasn’t had time to settle in and would be prone to a soft option, strongly influenced by its energy dependency on Russia.

President Macron has his eyes on the French presidential elections just 4 months away and in any case has another, EU, agenda in play.

The impact of EU misplaced ambitions on Western unity

The EU is adept at turning a crisis into an opportunity and undoubtedly we shall now hear fresh calls for an EU Army. Far from strengthening the unity of the West and its ability to defend itself, the EU-effect, under French leadership, has been to weaken Western capabilities and the NATO alliance. Historically, both France and Germany have, at different stages of history, had special relationships with Russia. French policy since 1940, has been suspicious of the US and, under de Gaulle, often actively hostile. The Gaullist ambition has been to create a united Europe under French leadership without interference from ‘les Anglo-Saxons’, i.e. America and Britain. The latest evolution of this policy has been the idea of EU “strategic autonomy” – by definition separate from America , and by extension NATO, and therefore able to develop its own relations with Russia. This is precisely the Russian intention – to separate Europe from the US.

It is the power of the United States that gives credibility to Western deterrence through NATO, the only alliance capable of defending our democracies and resisting hostile powers such as Russia. So any policies which create divisions in NATO and the transatlantic alliance play into the hands of aggressors and make conflict more likely.

The UK’s Roles

British policy makers do not forget the reference to the 1938 Czech crisis as a “quarrel in a far away country, between people of whom we know nothing”. Today they know nowhere is far away and that Britain is still expected by many countries to lead by example. Russia is a threat to NATO allies such as Poland, Bulgaria and the Baltic states, where Britain has played a key role in providing military reinforcement in recent weeks.

We should not forget Britain’s particular responsibilities to the Ukraine resulting from its role as one of 3 co-signatories to the December 1994 Budapest memorandum. This followed Ukraine’s agreement to relinquish nuclear weapons inherited from the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Ironically, along with the United States, the other co-signatory was Russia, undertaking “to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine”. The co-signatories also committed to seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine if Ukraine should become a victim of aggression.

Nevertheless, Britain was not involved in the 2014 “Normandy Format” (France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine) and did not therefore take part in the negotiations in 2015 of the so-called Minsk 2 Agreement that was supposed to bring conflict in the Ukraine to an end. This agreement has have never been fully implemented largely because of fundamentally different interpretations of what exactly it means.

Britain’s obligations to Ukraine are primarily as the leading European NATO member, aware of how threats to peace in Europe, beyond the immediate coverage of the NATO shield, will have major economic, security and humanitarian repercussions that would rapidly spill over into the NATO area.

The key position of Turkey

Certainly more attention in this crisis should have been given to the role of countries such as Turkey, strongly committed to the Ukraine but with a unique pragmatic relationship with Russia. In spite of her very active NATO membership since 1952, Turkey has been badly treated by her allies for some decades, with hostile EU attitudes led by France and Greece. The United Kingdom has been more positive but has not tried hard enough given the opportunities it seeks for new partnerships, and the importance of Turkey to Western interests. The US showed little sensitivity to Turkish concerns over Iraq; over the Kurdish groups operating in northern Syria; in its handling of Turkish involvement in the F35 combat aircraft programme; and in its response to the 2016 coup attempt against President Erdogan. All the Western players have accepted a bogus and hostile narrative concerning the Turkish intervention in Cyprus in 1974. This has corrupted their approach to the issue ever since and has become a serious obstacle to improved relations with Turkey.

If we didn’t think we needed wholehearted Turkish engagement as a Western ally before, we certainly do now. For a start, after Russia, Turkey has the largest armed forces in the region, and is the foremost NATO ally on the Black Sea with a very capable and growing naval inventory. She also holds the key to warship movements in and out of the Black Sea through her control of the Straits, albeit regulated by the 1936 Montreux Convention. Turkey has become a strong political and economic supporter of the Ukraine and a leading trade partner. In recent months Turkey has moved to strengthen the strategic aspects of this relationship, condemning the Russian annexation of the Crimea, bolstering Ukraine’s defence industry and, crucially, providing the very effective Bayraktar TB2 drone, which has already seen action in the breakaway Donbas region.

However, spurned by the West, there should be no surprise that Turkey has triangulated its policies to build other relationships, not least with Russia, while remaining true to its NATO commitments. Turkey needs Russian tolerance of the new situation Turkey has created with its ally Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh and in the Idlib province of Northern Syria. There is also strong Turkish reliance on its energy relationship with Russia. It is both a major importer and pipeline facilitator of Russian gas supplies.

But this could change. With major new gas fields discovered off its northern coast Turkey has a vested interest in a peaceful Black Sea. And its claim, along with Northern Cyprus, to be included in exploitation of gas resources in the Eastern Mediterranean could be met if there was a sensible shift in Western attitudes. It may not be too late for Turkey to play a pivotal role in the Ukraine crisis. If we expect little from the EU, the UK should certainly be working more closely with Turkey

On the brink of conflict?

We still stand on the brink of conflict in Europe, in spite of the mixed messages from Moscow – deception or maskirovka being a classic technique of Russia at the tactical and strategic levels. It is perhaps premature to review the mistakes that have already been made and what needs to change.

What is clear is the importance of a unified response by the West and its international partners and the need to improve the understanding and support of our own people in time of threat. And we have to invest more in defence. This is certainly about our ability to field sustainable and credible military forces but also about greater national resilience at a time when conventional warfare may take place in the context of entirely new weapons and techniques on many fronts.

If the crisis passes, all this will again be forgotten, until next time it is too late.

Geoffrey Van Orden is a Distinguished Fellow of the Gold Institute for International Strategy, former British Conservative leader and Defence Spokesman in the European Parliament. As a former senior military officer he served in the front-line of the Cold War including 5 years in Berlin, and at NATO headquarters.

(This article first appeared in the American Spectator at https://spectator.org/evidence-for-policymakers-a-guide-to-making-tough-calls-on-complex-matters/)

Start with a simple empirical proposition: It is rare that one has all the evidence at hand one would like to have when facing important decisions. This holds true for countless big personal choices—marriage, divorce, buying/selling a home, moving to a new location, choosing the best school, embarking on a career, etc. Such decisions involve the uncertainty endemic to life on our planet.

The same uncertainty equally pervades the weighing of policy options, whether to support or oppose, let alone, decide to act. We are constantly calculating odds, assessing trade-offs, estimating plausible outcomes. We also assess their probable impact on allies, neutrals and adversaries—and, in politics as ever, on potential election outcomes. Technology tells us what is or may become possible; markets factor in what consumers and producers see as currently plausible; multi-tiered regulation ultimately dictates what is legally permissible. Many policy arguments feature advocates purporting to apply scientific standards of proof; other arguments center around legal proof standards. And, naturally, many arguments have advocates combining the two.

Standards of Legal Proof: Legal Standards Judicially Applied. One thing that separates executive and legislative branches from judicial branches is that judicial bodies are obligated by law to follow certain rules considering whether evidence suffices to cross the legal threshold of proof and thus decide the case. (For simplicity, I am skipping administrative agencies, which often combine quasi-legislative with quasi-judicial functions.) Unfortunately, decision-makers often clash over what constitutes proof; complicating this is that is it easier to place the onus of proof on one’s opponents, than it is to prove one’s own case.

Imposing high standards of proof can lead to protracted paralysis, making one prisoner of events as they unfold, leaving the initiative to other actors. Conversely, lax standards of proof often carry a greater risk of making catastrophic blunders.

Standards of legal proof aim to match the severity of liability facing defendants. The lowest standard is a mere preponderance of the credible evidence; the highest, famously applied in criminal cases, where defendants face deprivation of liberty—or, in capital cases, life—is beyond a reasonable doubt. (Certain classes of civil cases, were wrongdoing is easily alleged and inherently difficult to rebut, carry an intermediate standard of proof, “clear and convincing”—highly probable or reasonably certain—between the two main standards of proof.) These standards work in legal proceedings, but have little usefulness in guiding empirical policy. The inability to compel production of evidence from many bad actors on the world stage renders all these standards hard to apply in deciding policy matters.

Standards of Scientific Proof: A Key Metric. In a Jan. 24, 2022 article in Tablet Magazine, The Dissidents, author Clayton Fox interviewed many leading scientists, from which he writes: “one quote stood out”:

There is no scientific truth, only replicable science. Then it becomes theory, but not law. And not truth. There are fundamental laws of physics that have been overturned. Law is not truth, law is law, and in science, law can be overturned.

Fox continues:

Somehow in the madness, confusion, and paranoia of our two-year sojourn through Covid-19, that basic definition of scientific truth—that it is ever evolving, and inimical to dogmatism—has been largely mocked, denigrated and ignored, if not met with slogans like “believe science.”

Thus, he writes, does Anthony Fauci aver that “attacks on me are attacks on science”; Pfizer’s single clinical trial of its own antiviral pill induces health policymakers to discount and defame hundreds of clinical trials produced by other firms. Fox blames a coterie of “authoritarian bureaucrats and tech platforms that increasingly function as private arms of the state.”

In October 2020, three leading medical scientists, from, respectively, Stanford, Harvard and Oxford (the GBD3), issued the Great Barrington Declaration. They recommended “Focused Protection” of the most vulnerable, instead of blanket protection that includes many people at near-zero risk to catch Covid. The latter are unlikely to be hospitalized, let alone, die, if they catch it; for them, early therapeutic treatment can be very effective. The GBD has been signed by over 60,000 medical professionals, and has gathered over 920,000 signatures in total. In the entire history of epidemiology, the GBD3 stated, no disease in history has ever been eradicated by lockdowns. While much scientific evidence was slighted or ignored outright, eventually facts came to light that, along with public attitudes, may make them decisive in altering current policies. One key reason that these facts were not widely known sooner is that many mass and social media platforms actively suppressed contrary views as allegedly “misinformation.” I recently came across a Big Word, ultracrepidarian, an adjective that denotes “the habit of giving opinions or advice on matters that lie outside of one’s knowledge and competence.” Its leading practitioners in America today are today’s politically correct mass and social media outlets; with the pandemic they outdid themselves.

Standards of Policy Proof: No Authoritative Arbiter. Disputes over public policy are not governed formally by any standard of proof. Intuitively, one would ask for higher standards of proof for the most serious matters—such as going to war. Yet adversaries with whom we might go to war often have largely opaque societies, with limited information available without necessary cooperation that will rarely be forthcoming.

There is also the human tendency to favor one’s own side, by placing burden of proof on others. In more than half a century of policy disputation, I can’t recall a single instance where someone said to me: “The burden of proof rests on my side, and I hereby accept it.” Thus, no one can divorce oneself from self-interest, in making the other side’s case harder to establish.

From this flow two propositions which in tandem come as close to genuine neutrality as I can propose:

(1) As there may be many problems where neither side can meet even the lowest standard of courtroom proof: Each of us has the burden of making the best case we can for our side.

(2) As none of us can impartially justify deciding standards of proof for others: Each of us may determine what standard we wish to apply.

These are fine in the abstract, but a real-life problem is that people in positions of power routinely impose their preferences on those with less power. Bosses tell subordinates what to do, including, when deemed necessary, what burden of proof applies. Ditto parents, presidents, etc.

Yet pressing issues call for arriving at some realistic mid-point. Two major controversies serve as case studies in the pros and cons of how empirical evidence has been used in support of or opposition to major public policy choices: (a) Covid-19’s origin and consequent policy responses; (b) the potential effectiveness of economic sanctions to deter or punish aggressive behavior by foreign adversaries—Russia, China and Iran—as well as conduct by our allies that may undermine such policies.

Covid-19. What evidence should we require before finding China guilty of hiding Covid-19 to protect itself from being held responsible for unleashing a global pandemic? How should we weigh hazardous research carelessly conducted and thus not contained? How much evidence—qualitative and/or qualitative—should suffice for lifting lockdown and mask restrictions, and targeting discrete population segments for vaccination and treatment?

One avenue of inquiry is determining culpability. State of mind is at the root of these questions. What may have been done intentionally? What activities may show reckless disregard for the safety of others? What acts were grossly negligent, or merely negligent? And what honest misjudgments were made in good faith, and hence not culpable?

A second avenue of inquiry is whether policies were reasonable in light of the perceived threat. What adjustments, if any, were made as more was learned about the virus? What options, if any, were foreclosed? Were any efforts made to suppress qualified medical authorities who disagreed with decisions made?

For two years now, the public health establishment has ignored or denigrated critics, demonstrating that bureaucratic attitudes and perceived imperatives can triumph over even a vast storehouse of contrary empirical evidence. The Covid-19 scorecard was in many respects a dismal one. Virtually worldwide, the authorities chose total lockdowns; mandated vaccines and wearing of masks; dismissed opposing views; demonized dissenters; and revoked emergency authorization for monoclonal antibody treatment despite awareness of successes with it, enraging Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who said at a Jan. 25 presser:

Without a shred of clinical data to support this action [President Joe] Biden has forced trained medical professionals to choose between treating their patients or breaking the law. . . . There are real world implications to Biden’s medical authoritarianism—American’s access to treatments is now subject to the whims of a failing president. . . . this is not how you help people. The government is going above and beyond to deny access to people. . . . Now [patients] are being told that it would be illegal for a provider to give it to them—all based off one observational non-peer reviewed study.

Johns Hopkins Dr. Marty Markary slammed CDC for ignoring the superior results documented for natural immunity, and misled the public when it finally issued a report; the result was serious harm to millions of Americans:

Public-health officials ruined many lives by insisting that workers with natural immunity to Covid-19 be fired if they weren’t fully vaccinated. But after two years of accruing data, the superiority of natural immunity over vaccinated immunity is clear. By firing staff with natural immunity, employers got rid of those least likely to infect others. It’s time to reinstate those employees with an apology.

For most of last year, many of us called for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to release its data on reinfection rates, but the agency refused. Finally last week, the CDC released data from New York and California, which demonstrated natural immunity was 2.8 times as effective in preventing hospitalization and 3.3 to 4.7 times as effective in preventing Covid infection compared with vaccination.

Yet the CDC spun the report to fit its narrative, bannering the conclusion “vaccination remains the safest strategy.” It based this conclusion on the finding that hybrid immunity—the combination of prior infection and vaccination—was associated with a slightly lower risk of testing positive for Covid. But those with hybrid immunity had a similar low rate of hospitalization (3 per 10,000) to those with natural immunity alone. In other words, vaccinating people who had already had Covid didn’t significantly reduce the risk of hospitalization.

Similarly, the National Institutes of Health repeatedly has dismissed natural immunity by arguing that its duration is unknown—then failing to conduct studies to answer the question.

It was left to the Johns Hopkins team to conduct the study, which confirmed the superiority of natural over vaccinated immunity.

As if all the above were not enough, the health authorities covered up much wrongdoing by the Chinese Communist Party and the Wuhan researchers—in which the CDC and NIH appear complicit. Last fall President Biden claimed that in a meeting with Xi Xinping he pressed the Chinese president for more Covid transparency; as the two were alone when this exchange allegedly took place, we have only Joe’s word for it. His long record of fabrications does not inspire confidence.

The fact that the CCP refused to allow timely access to the lab, for health authorities to come in and help contain the outbreak, speaks volumes. Given such refusal, we should conclude that the CCP has done bad things that they are hiding to avoid being held accountable. It is unrealistic to demand a high standard of proof when the guilty party denies access to the evidence that could definitively determine the causes of the outbreak.

And perhaps moist infuriating of all, many leaders, and other entitled elites, ignored the restrictions they dictatorially and capriciously imposed upon the general population. Nor was much effort made to evaluate the harm caused by the virus, versus the harm caused by lockdowns, masks—especially, to kids. NYP columnist Karol Markowicz offered a graphic portrait of how school lockdown and mask mandates harmed her children.

Arguably, excepting the two world wars that earned the 20th century the sobriquet, the Bloody Century, the collective failures associated with Covid-19 amounted to one of the most globally ruinous, in terms of human suffering and immense economic expense, in modern history.

Sanction Strategies. Historical evidence can guide policymakers in choosing sanction strategies that have a realistic chance to bear fruit. Collectively it suggests five principles of targeting and timing that can govern when adversaries might be brought to heel by a sanctions regime:

1. Markets: Control by a sole supplier or group of suppliers of goods or services for which there is no available substitute, and who equally agree on the sanctions to be imposed;

2. Precision: The ability to direct pain at the regime and its leaders, by withholding goods and services deemed essential to the regime’s ability to stay in power and carry out its policies;

3. Vulnerability: A regime weak enough to be unable to circumvent sanction or endure under them;

4. Implementation: Honest, effective administration of the sanctions;

5. Timing: Enough time for sanctions to achieve their intended purpose.

President Reagan lifted the grain embargo imposed upon the former Soviet Union by the Carter administration after the December 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Reagan did so because the only adverse impact had been on American farmers. Substitute suppliers—Canada, Australia and Argentina—had stepped in to export the grain. In 1982 Reagan imposed a high-technology embargo—including products that only the U.S. made—that denied the Soviet military essential technology. This precisely targeted items essential to the regime’s survival, and for which there was no circumvention or endurance option available to the Soviets. The vehicle for administering the sanctions was CoCom, a coordinating committee established by NATO; though not completely airtight, it proved sufficiently so, and honestly and competently administered, to accomplish its intended objectives. The time frame needed for the Reagan sanctions to work was remarkably brief; the Berlin Wall was taken down in 1989, and the former Soviet Union dissolved at the end of 1991.

Conversely, the post-Gulf War oil-for-food embargo imposed upon Iraq failed all five tests. Not only did it abjectly fail, but Saddam Hussein co-opted the UN into undercutting the sanctions by diverting billions to pay for illicit goods he sought, including parts to build missiles.

Bottom Line. Generally accepted standards of proof often have little utility versus adversaries in public policy disputes—and little chance of prevailing over strong contrary political headwinds. This holds especially true if mass and social media align themselves with one political party. Yet in minor or even middling cases our ensuing policy paralysis is merely a nuisance.

With Covid-19, and when weighing imposing sanctions upon geostrategic adversaries, such indulgence is dangerous. Making matters worse is a mainstream media mob heavily invested in favor of whatever helps Democrats and hurts Republicans. Unless we shake off our lassitude, vigorously contest suppression of contrary views by media minders, and adopt reasonable, realistic standards of proof—whether mine or some other formulation—our security, freedom and prosperity bids fair to be smothered by dictatorial elites.

https://thefederalist.com/2021/03/10/bidens-national-security-strategy-aims-to-take-the-leftist-culture-war-global

By: Matthew R.J. Brodsky, Senior Fellow

The Biden administration released its “Interim National Security Strategic Guidance” last week in a 24-page blueprint for reordering American society according to leftist dogmas that will also be applied as policy abroad.

A central theme of the text is “democracy,” a word mentioned 24 times. According to the “Guidance,” democracy is the solution at home and abroad, it is under assault, and it must be “revitalized.” One must dig a little deeper and connect the loose threads to understand how the Biden administration imbues the word “democracy” with meaning that goes far beyond what most people would assume.

While lamenting the global rise of authoritarianism, the document argues that our democracy and national strategy were “reinforced by the 12 initial executive actions issued by President Biden in his first two days in office,” which the administration argues “centers on restoring trust with the American people.” In the administration’s version of “democracy,” then, presidential authority that bypasses Congress is considered more democratic.

The national strategy says “a vibrant democracy rejects politically motivated violence in all of its forms,” which most Americans could agree on. It also states, however, that “millions of Americans have braved COVID-19 to demand racial justice.” So not only has history been re-written to remove the most obvious features of reality — such as the violence, burning, and looting that raged across the country during 2020 — but all those who participated are considered brave for having done so while violating local lockdown orders and curfews.

The “Guidance” sees democracies across the world — including our own — as under siege but not from the aforementioned “brave” protestors, which is why U.S. cities from Washington, D.C., to Minneapolis to Seattle remain boarded up. Instead, it identifies the chief causes of this siege as “nationalist and nativist trends,” which is to say that America’s new version of democracy rejects the very concept of a nation-state that pursues national interests while prioritizing the welfare of its citizens.

Another theme repeated throughout is that the United States “will lead with diplomacy” while “renewing our commitment to global development and international cooperation.” In practice, global development means that nation-building projects are back on the list of priorities. For example, it pledges “to provide Central America with $4 billion in assistance over four years,” which is designed, among other expectations, “to address the root causes of … irregular migration.”

Even as we make Central America Great Again, the strategy seeks to keep the red carpet unfurled to its citizens: “We must renew our promise as a place of refuge, and our obligation to protect those who seek shelter on our shores.”

While the document repeatedly references threats that don’t respect national borders, the White House can’t admit that illegal immigration is one of them, much less suggest that it is best addressed by strengthening our border, as that would be a nationalist solution. The answer they offer is to keep America’s borders open while investing in failing countries to make them a better place to live, which would presumably cause fewer people to want to immigrate to the United States.

At least the Guidance admits, “We will not be able to solve all of the challenges we face at the southern border overnight,” because this approach will exacerbate the problem. Likewise, the thematic focus on international cooperation in the context of “principled diplomacy” also reflects a new Democratic Party norm where we don’t have a genuine foreign policy as much as a domestic wish list on how to remake our own country, which we then preach abroad.

If one is unconvinced, the report spells it out clearly:

Because traditional distinctions between foreign and domestic policy — and among national security, economic security, health security, and environmental security — are less meaningful than ever before, we will reform and rethink our agencies, departments, interagency processes, and White House organization to reflect this new reality.

To be clear, nothing has changed the distinction between foreign and domestic policy. What changed is how this administration chooses to see them. One must utterly redefine “national security” to justify the Biden administration’s priorities. For example, one of the few enemies we will aggressively combat is “systemic racism”:

Combatting systemic racism requires aggressive action to address structures, policies, and practices that contribute to the wealth gap, to health disparities, and to inequalities in educational access, outcomes, and beyond.

The Biden administration believes another clear threat facing the United States is climate change. In the 24-page document, the word “climate” appears 27 times (the word “military,” by comparison, only appears 19 times).

You’d also be forgiven for thinking the document was issued by the Department of Housing and Urban Development or the Labor Department, since the word “diversity” appears seven times — the same count as the word “nuclear.” Stunningly, the Biden administration pledges that it “will prioritize defense investments in climate resiliency and clean energy.”

While some national security experts may believe too many cooks in the kitchen can spoil the broth, Biden’s approach is to not only include all the cooks but the bartenders as well. The strategy pledges to “develop new processes and partnerships to ensure that state, municipal, tribal, civil society, non-profit, diaspora, faith-based, and private sector actors are better integrated into policy deliberations.”

President Biden’s Strategic Guidance promotes and redefines a leftist wish list as not only a vital American interest but as a vital global interest. In doing so, it completely erases the line between domestic and foreign policy, replacing it with new dividing lines that pit Americans against one another.

America’s genuine adversaries will likely view this document with a mixture of relief, laughter, and incredulity. Americans who read it carefully will realize it’s a national security document that will not make them one bit safer.

I recently had the opportunity to participate in a seminar in South Korea for future leaders regarding the role and importance of soft power, and the influence that it provides a country globally. No longer are soldiers, tanks and guns needed to fight a war, but other forms of influence known as soft power can have a greater impact with less physical destruction.

<

>The recent – or more appropriately worded, current – U.S. elections have many scratching their heads. While here in the United States, you have Trump supporters wondering how brazen the left has become, across the globe there are many more that are watching in utter disbelief. The United States has been a country of tough rhetoric, but a beacon of honesty – until now. What we have seen in the months leading up to the November 3rd elections is the role of soft power in our own country and its use by enemies of the constitution from within. The loss [at present] that President Trump and more than half the country is experiencing is nothing short of a soft coup.<

> <

>This use of soft power by the rising American socialist left to influence or steal an election has many in Europe concerned. Senator Joe Biden announced his win when it was already November 7 in Europe and to these concerned leaders the coup they see here is reminiscent of the Russian Revolution and specifically the Bolshevik Coup which also took place on November 7 in 1917. Europe was not the same since that event and now they are concerned about United States. For our European friends 1917 was not that long ago, and to many more the impact of that event is not something that they may read in a history book.<

> <

>For years U.S. leaders have urged for democracy in countries that may not have wanted it, and for “free and fair” elections in countries where it may not be possible. In such cases the United States, along with others, have played the role of observer. The country that has been the visible leader in personal freedom and the rights of the individual has always been there to urge the same for all.<

> <

>President Barack Hussein Obama and Democrats in congress have called the removal of the Egypt’s terror supporting Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi from office by as many as 55 million Egyptian a coup, even though the subsequent election of President Sisi was done to the letter of the law. Now that Senator Joe Biden is claiming victory in what can be at best be considered a questionable election, and more appropriately a soft coup, how do we explain to countries like Egypt, that the United States is still the beacon of honesty and integrity? It is clearly time for Joe Biden to stop calling President Sisi “[President Donald] Trump’s favorite dictator.”<

> <

>President Reagan told the story of two people were talking about how lucky they are to live in the freest country in the world. A Cuban refugee said to them, “How lucky you are, at least I had someplace to escape to”. That story tells us everything we need to know today, with the rise of the Socialist left
in this country were to win, they hope everyone has their passports with which to “escape” to another country. What country we can escape as there is no other on God’s green earth that does not rely on a strong United States. Never has there been any other country in the history that has a greater global impact.<

> <

>We must understand that what makes this country great is not our cities or countryside, but who we are. In a message I received from an Pakistani immigrant to our shores, he said “All I will say is that people migrate to this great country, not for the political leaders, not for its lavish landscapes, not for its food, but for its CONSTITUTION. Which in its essence is a road map for the land of opportunities.”<

> <

>Whether you call it voter fraud, or irregularities, there is enough evidence for President Trump to take legal action and Joe Biden to explain. What is at stake here is not just the question of what car you drive, or which doctor you use, but rather the future of our constitution, our nation, our people.<

> <

>Eli M. Gold is the President of the Gold Institute for International Strategy. Prior to creating the Gold Institute Eli was the co-founder a leading foreign policy and national security think tank. Eli Gold has created go-to organization for U.S. policy makers, as well as foreign governments seeking guidance on the most complex foreign policy and defense issues.<

>

Defence Review

Changes in our strategic environment are taking place faster than anticipated and require urgent response and a shift in approach. As a consequence, defence strategy and spending is being reviewed across many of the democracies after years of complacency.

NATO has completed a ‘reflection process’ to consider the shape and role of the Alliance ten years hence. The US Congress ‘Future of Defense Task Force’ has called for a ‘major course correction’ in the US approach to national security. In February 2021, US President Biden referenced a new Department of Defense China task force to look at US strategy and operational concepts, technology, and force posture. In March 2021, the British government published its “Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy”, and announced a huge uptick in UK defence expenditure. An additional £16.5 billion that will include 13 new frigates, an AI Centre and a new RAF Space Command. There are calls in India for a fresh military posture based on a new Grand Strategy. Australia has recently published its Defence Strategic Update.

These reviews share common threads:

– The certainties of the past, the model of successful Western free-market economies, the ambition for democracy, and commitments to the established rules-based, post-World War 2 system are under challenge. This has been driven primarily by the rise of China;

– The binary distinction between war and peace has been eroded by ‘grey zone’ conflict where subversion through social media, cyberattack, economic coercion, unattributable aggressive action and state-sponsored terrorism, undermine and distract our capabilities and the public confidence on which they are based;

– The realms of space and cyberspace have added new and awesome dimensions to the traditional domains of conflict;

– The threat of limited conventional warfare remains, as evidenced by Russian actions and threats against the Ukraine, and many more countries now have access to advanced weaponry, including sophisticated armed drones;

– Weapons of mass destruction, and of mass infection and disruption, in the hands of both rogue states and terrorist groups represent a potential threat to our homelands and people;

– The effects of climate change have major potential security implications;

The Locust Years

Without a strong economy, ambitious defence plans cannot be sustained. That is a truism. But neglect of defence spending is always a mistake. In periods of apparent peace and in difficult economic times, defence budgets are seen as a “regrettable necessity” if not a luxury spend absorbing precious resources and manpower.

For example, after the First World War, the massive British public spending cuts of 1922-23 (the so-called Geddes Axe) fell disproportionately on the armed forces. Defence spending restraint continued into the mid-1930s while the potential enemy was already spending three times as much. Britain was in a state of unpreparedness. The wakeup-call almost came too late.

After the massive and exhausting exertions of the Second World War leading to victory and peace, there were rapid cutbacks. A spike in defence expenditure during the Korean War was followed by massive defence cuts after the Suez crisis in 1956. Defence spending continued its spiral of decline with ‘salami cuts’ that reduced both military effectiveness and international capabilities at cost to Britain’s international standing and effectiveness. A dramatic fall in defence spending was justified following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the removal of the Warsaw Pact threat. But this proved to be far from the predicted ‘end of history’. New threats soon arose and Britain, like others, was slow to respond, hovering on the barely acceptable 2% of GDP on defence –a modest and reasonably achievable spending target for all NATO allies, which most fail to meet. Britain is the only European nation with growing full-spectrum military capabilities, global reach, continual operational experience, and robust political will, confirming its position as the most indispensable ally of the democracies after America

Defence Investment as a Multiplier of Advantages

The relationship between defence spending and economic well-being has been a subject of academic dispute for decades. Defence spending has often been a scapegoat for poor economic performance and ‘balance of payments’ difficulties while insufficient attention has been paid to the wider economic, political, technological and social benefits of defence spending, on top of the primary task of maintaining national security.

The commitment of NATO allies to the defence of the European democracies, the US defence guarantees to the Republic of Korea in 1953, to Taiwan in 1954, and to Japan in 1960, the UK protection of Kuwait from Iraq in 1964, the Commonwealth defence of the newly formed state of Malaysia in 1965, and the fearsome determination of Israel to defend its territory and its very existence, are all examples of credible deterrence, readiness and response.

The attempted communist takeover of the Korean peninsula in 1950, the Argentine invasion of the Falklands in 1982, and the seizure of Eastern Ukraine in 2014, would probably not have happened if the aggressor had thought these territories would be robustly defended.

What needs to be done

If we cherish continued freedom, security and prosperity, more needs to be spent on defence, sometimes differently than before. To strengthen the capabilities and resilience of our armed forces and intelligence services the lessons are clear:

– make a step-change in research, development and efficient procurement, protected from hostile espionage and acquisition, so that we become masters of the new domains of potential conflict;

– strengthen national resilience including critical infrastructure. The Covid-19 plague, for example, has exposed the weaknesses in even the most advanced societies to produce and distribute basic protective equipment, and maintain the confidence of the population;

– revitalise existing alliances, in particular NATO (where there is also a need to resist the divisive military ambitions of the EU, which includes 21 of the 30 NATO members) and generate new, flexible and willing coalitions.

and, most importantly, the much-neglected need to

– regenerate national solidarity and the understanding of our people, particularly the young, of the need for commitment to the defence of our freedom, prosperity and individual liberty.