The Peace it is not valuble without war. The Romans have one expression: Si vis pacem, para bellum! =If you want the peace, prepare for the war! it is translation. Every war finish with one peace. The peace it is the purpose of the war after all.

The journalist Paul Brunton asked the sage of Kanchi about world peace, the sage of Kanchi answered "If you scrap your battleships, and let your cannon rust, that will not stop war. People will continue to fight even if they have to use sticks". Another sage from the scientific world this time EO Wilson, founder of sociobiology understood very well the deep driving force that governs human nature. He said, "The real problem of humanity is this: we have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and divine technology."

Terri Purvis

Strechie Mădălina Nice Post which provides food for thought. Thank you

All my best wishes Sir!

On TOLSTOY'S ABC BOOK: First edition issued on Nov. 13, 1872. The author (Torresin L., 2016) of this paper "TOLSTOY'S ABC BOOK: A NEW APPROACH TO CHILD DEVELOPMENT. International Journal of Russian Studies, 5(2)." concentrates mainly on the short stories of the ABC Book, which are the best result of Tolstoy’s educational endeavors. In particular, the role of young learners as Tolstoy’s interlocutors and active participants in their upbringing process is emphasized; in fact, pupils are both protagonists and narrators of the stories. In this way, Tolstoy encouraged children’s spiritual growth, since their moral models were other children, the same little heroes of Tolstoy’s tales.

The paper by (Torresin L. (2016) is available on:

https://www.ijors.net/issue5_2_2016/pdf/__www.ijors.net_issue5_2_2016_article_6_torresin.pdf

Man/Woman do not have a monopoly on the art of war. Here is my own translation from French of the article "The war strategies of the Ants, the art of war", available (in French) on: http://nature-extreme.psyblogs.net/2011/04/les-strategies-guerrieres-des-fourmis.html

"As Sun-Tsu foresaw, war is an Art, of which men are not the only representatives and holders. Numbers of species develop warlike strategies that have nothing to envy to the so-called "dominant" species.

Among these species, without a doubt, the most impressive are the species of social insects such as termites, bees, wasps... There are even strange species of spiders (for example, anelosimus eximius) which were thought to be the solitary and asocial habits. Over time, these colonies of insects have developed numerous strategies for attack, defence, demographic control or territory management. In these respects, the animal order of Formicidae, known to everyone as the ant, would make military leaders the world over green with admiration.

The War Effort and Population Control

To protect themselves or undertake war campaigns, the colonies create soldiers, a caste with the aim of safeguarding the colony, by all means, including sacrifice. To create soldiers, the workers overfeed the larvae (food will determine the caste) at the expense of a more advantageous development of the colony... This war effort will therefore temporarily slow down the evolution of the anthill... This is why in times of peace, this production remains limited (except in the large-scale colonies, already installed), but it is enough that a threat of war is perceived by the workers so that an increase in guard appears.

Espionage and Disinformation

Other strategies akin to the control of information have emerged over the course of evolution, as is the case in a monumental war opposing, in the USA, the fire ants "Solenopsis invicta", extremely powerful, and their sworn enemies, the common wood ants or Pheidoles (Pheidoles megacephala). The latter have conquered a large majority of terrestrial ecosystems around the world. The species is particularly invasive and poses many problems, both for dwellings and for small vertebrates or local fauna. While it was thought that fire ants were clearly capable of competing, these being by nature particularly aggressive and dangerous (their sting is very painful and dangerous, so much so that they can hunt small mammals), the reality on the terrain is quite different. Fire ants have nests a hundred times larger than those of pheidoles, very powerful venom and unparalleled strength... and yet, pheidoles abound around their nests... why?

The fire ants send their scouts around the colony in order to spot any possible threat... as soon as a pheidole, even a worker, crosses the path of a Solenopsis invicta scout, a first contact takes place: the pheidole rushes on the powerful attacker to soak up its scent, then immediately flees, returning to its colony secreting orientation pheromones that will redirect its acolytes. She does not fail in passing to jostle her congeners, who, excited by the smell of the assailant which permeates the fugitive, quickly follow the trail to the fire ant, in greater numbers and in growing excitement. .. The powerful fire scout is quickly reduced to nothing... In fact, as no scout returns to the colony, the fire ants simply do not realize the presence of pheidoles...

Total war and genocide

Pheidoles and other warrior species adapt their campaigns according to an effective counting strategy intended to estimate enemy forces: the more clashes between a group of pheidoles and a Solinopsis scout, the more they deduce that the source is powerful, and vice versa. The fewer the clashes, the more the pheidoles extend, get closer to the opposing colony... As soon as the pheidole colony has reached a sufficient number of elements, and the more the clashes become rare, the more the fateful date of the invasion is approaching. If the skirmishes have their strategy, as soon as a colony reaches a number 10 times greater than the rival colony, the total and barbaric invasion takes place: return to weapons and primitive strategies, massacre with the mandible, roll of venom and formic acid... the goal being to kill the queen and devour the baskets, so that the annihilation is total, clean and final.

Terrorism, guerrilla warfare and sacrifice

Another interesting case is that of the kamikaze ants of a species of camponotus (camponotus saundersi) living in the forests of Malaysia: their body is crossed, from the mandibles to the end of the abdomen, by glands stuffed with toxic secretions, which transform them into real walking bombs. When these ants get into trouble in combat, they violently contract their abdominal muscles, shattering their exoskeleton and showering their opponents with sticky, corrosive venom. The explosion of the internal organ and the spilling of the venom can immobilize and kill nearby opponents. This phenomenon, called autothysis (Maschwitz and Maschwitz, 1974) is found in all species of componotus cylindricus, but also in other non-ant species. Termite soldiers Globitermes sulphureus use it in the same circumstances, or during intra-nest wars, to block access to a tunnel.

State of siege and territory management

Other ants, such as the desert ant, flood the entrance to colonies of other species with toxic substances that cause fear of their enemies. They thus besiege colonies and take advantage of this to steal food from the hunting grounds, weakening their adversaries, who are ten times bigger, the honey ants. These have developed reserve strategies allowing them to counter the desert ant: some workers are devoted to a storage task, ingesting the food recovered during good times, inflating themselves until they are immobilized, in order to serve as guards. -eating to other ants in the colony during lean time

Rebellion

Solenopsis daguerri (Santschi), on the other hand, chooses to strike at the heart of enemy colonies, which it invades in the hope of replacing the opposing queen, in order to take control of the colony. Daguerri Solenopsis enter a fire ant nest by emitting pheromones allowing them to go unnoticed (recognized by fire ants as belonging to their colony) and look for the queen: two or three sent are enough: once the queen is found, solenopsis daguerri. climbs on the back of the queen fire ant and holds her firmly with her legs and jaws, then begins to produce pheromones similar to that of the opposing queen. The workers then feed the parasites by abandoning their queen, who etiolates and dies. The daguerri solenopsis can then calmly give birth to new queens. This particularity also makes it, for men, a very interesting weapon in the fight against other species[1].

Larva theft and slavery

In the same spirit, the queen Formica sanguinea is able to kill the queen of another colony, for example of Formica Fusca, to take her place and benefit from her support. The queen is indeed not able to take care of her first generation of workers alone. When its colony develops, it is not uncommon for Formica sanguinea to launch real raids against neighboring colonies, stealing pupae, larvae or cocoons to bring them back to their own colonies and thus increase the work force.

The raid can follow a multi-stage attack pattern: when the sun is at its highest during the day, and a nest of serviformica (formica fusca) has been spotted, several groups of hundreds of Sanguinea workers form and prepare for the attack: one of the groups will invest the opposing nest in search of the brood, exciting the formica fusca whose several workers will try to protect the cocoons and the larvae, fleeing from the nest. Waiting patiently outside, the rest of the Sanguinea armada throws itself on the fugitives to steal the future slaves.

Once integrated into the brood, these new ants in the making will be treated like their genetically different sisters, in order to become slave workers of the colony.

Other species tend to refine the takeover of a slave colony. thus, the queen Myrmoxenus ravouxi will play dead near an opposing colony so that the workers of this colony bring her directly into the nest. Once settled, she kills the queen, impregnates herself with her pheromones and begins to lay her eggs, benefiting from the help of the deception ignorant slave workers.

Similarly, Amazon ants (Polyergus rufescens) have become so dependent on this method that they are unable to rear their brood or develop their nests without the help of slaves from other colonies.

In conclusion

Ants are some of the most aggressive life forms on the planet, basing their foreign policy on relentless aggression, constant territorial conquest, and the annihilation of neighboring colonies by genocide as soon as possible. For 100 million years, ants have waged merciless struggles and conquered almost the entire living surface. They represent a number of some 10 million billion individuals. They correspond in biomass to nearly 4 times the biomass of all terrestrial vertebrates, and nearly 20% of those of all insects. Proof, if needed, of the omnipresence and adaptive power of these eternal builders and warriors".

[1] Drees M.B., Knutson E. (2002). Potential biological control agent for the red imported fire ant. Texas A&M University. College Station, Texas.

I found the paper by Strechie Mădălina (2022) "HANNIBALʼS STRATAGEMS. BULLETIN OF" CAROL I" NATIONAL DEFENCE UNIVERSITY, 11(4), 85-90", outstandingly insightful. Available on: Article HANNIBALʼS STRATAGEMS

Oustanding well-cited essay on revulsion to killing in the name of religion: Cavanaugh, W. T. (1995). A fire strong enough to consume the house: The wars of religion and the rise of the state. Modern theology, 11(4), 397-420. Available on: http://www.jesusradicals.com/uploads/2/6/3/8/26388433/wars-of-religion-and-the-rise-of-the-state.pdf

Excerpt:

"In September of 1993, the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago issued a declaration called "Towards a Global Ethic" meant to locate ethical values common to the world's religions. One of the most emphatic parts of the statement is that condemning wars waged in the name of religion. "Time and again we see leaders and members of religions incite aggression, fanaticism, hate and xenophobia—even inspire and legitimize violent and bloody conflicts. Religion often is misused for purely power-political goals, including war. We are filled with disgust." Is the Parliament of the World's Religions taking a pacifist stand? Well, no. While violence in general is condemned,

the document stops well short of calling religious people out of the armies of the world. Only killing in the name of religion is damned; bloodshed on behalf of the State is subject to no such scorn.

What is wrong, then, with killing in the name of religion? The answer can be derived from the definition of "religion" implicit in the declaration. Religion is assumed to be a matter pertinent to the private sphere of values. The individual's public and lethal loyalty belongs to the State.

My purpose in this essay will be to focus on the way revulsion to killing in the name of religion is used to legitimize the transfer of ultimate loyalty to the modern State. Specifically, I will examine how the so-called "Wars of Religion" of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe are evoked as the founding moment of modern liberalism by theorists such as John Rawls, Judith Shklar, and Jeffrey Stout".

About the book by Patrick Gray, Shakespeare and the Fall of the Roman Republic. Selfhood, Stoicism and Civil War, Edimbourg, Edinburgh University Press, 2019, 308 p

The part of the book devoted to Antony and Cleopatra p. 177-258 deals, among other things, with suicide and stoicism. For Cleopatra, suicide would be a cultural practice of avoiding shame and moral judgment. It is also used to turn a defeat into a victory. The other part of the reflection concerns life after death. For Antony and Cleopatra, death is perceived as a temporary sleep, since they could meet again.

See also: https://www.researchgate.net/post/Could_Suicide_be_Rational_and_Morally_Defensible

United Nations News, Peace and Security, Released on 26 July 2023, Ukraine: ‘Latest attacks signal a calamitous turn’, Security Council hears "The recent wave of devastating Russian attacks targeting Odesa and other key Ukrainian port cities marks a “calamitous turn” in the 15-month war, a senior UN official told the Security Council on Wednesday".

Read the article on:

https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/07/1139137

This paper by Lundgren, M., & Klamberg, M. (2023) "Selective attention: The United Nations security council and armed conflict. British Journal of Political Science, 53(3), 958-979" tries to respond to the following question: What explains why the United Nations Security Council meets and deliberates on some armed conflicts but not others?. The findings have important implications for debates about the Security Council’s attention, responsiveness to problems and role in world politics.

Paper available on: https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/E447F15892260D4F4783AD1ABC11F151/S0007123422000461a.pdf/div-class-title-selective-attention-the-united-nations-security-council-and-armed-conflict-div.pdf

A remarkable recent text which gives food for thought on war, peace, morals, and conscience, by Robert W. McElroy (2023) "Our New Moment: Renewing Catholic Teaching on War and Peace," The Journal of Social Encounters: Vol. 7: Iss. 1, 266-271. Available at: https://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/social_encounters/vol7/iss1/18

One may read there: "This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of Pacem in Terris and the fortieth anniversary of The Challenge of Peace, the American bishops' pastoral letter on questions of war and peace....The Challenge of Peace set forth the substantive conception of peace that arises from the Scriptures and the tradition of human reason – the same conception of peace rooted in justice and human rights that had been the foundation for Pacem in Terris. It presented both the tradition of nonviolence and the legitimate use of military means to defend human rights as authentic expressions of Catholic faith designed to attain the same goal: the comprehensive protection of humanity under attack. And the pastoral letter consistently presented defensive war as a last resort throughout its analysis of the challenges which the world was facing. Perhaps most importantly of all, The Challenge of Peace addressed the crisis of nuclear confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as the wider questions of nuclear proliferation. The bishops proclaimed that the combination of nuclear threats and the prevalence of conventional war in the world using highly advanced weapons systems had created a “New Moment” that demanded the specific application of Catholic teaching on war and peace to particular policy questions. For this reason, The Challenge of Peace dealt in detail with the issues of counter population nuclear war, the initiation of nuclear war, the concept of limited nuclear war and the pathways to reversing nuclear proliferation. This bishops’ statement deeply informed public policy, educated millions of Catholics about the Church’s teaching on war and peace, and provided an enduring example of how bishops can teach effectively on volatile questions in a polarized environment..."

The author comes to the conclusion: "Discerning the implications of this dramatic shift in Catholic teaching constitutes one of the central tasks for theologians, bishops, policymakers and committed Catholics who work in the area of ethics and nuclear weapons. On this issue the successive moral positions of the Church regarding deterrence and possession have all been consciously framed as interim ethics in anticipation of a better moment. How can we realistically contribute in God's grace to bringing that moment to reality?".

Cardinal Robert W. McElroy is the bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego, California. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University in 1989 with a dissertation on Morality and American Foreign Policy : The Role of Moral Norms in International Affairs. He is author of The Search for an American Public Theology: The Contributions of John Courtney Murray (Paulist Press, 1989), Morality and American Foreign Policy: The Role of Ethics in International Affairs (Princeton University Press, 1992), and articles on Catholic social thought.

See also

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Science_Conscience

Released 3 days ago. This chapter by McLean, D.S., Fleming, A.K. (2023). "Gun Battles and Cultural Warfare. In: Guns and Values. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham" begins with a broad review of gun control policy and politics in the U.S. It then moves into a review of existing scholarship, as well as popular arguments, that try to explain the politics of gun control in the U.S. After concluding that cultural factors must play a central role in any account of American gun control politics, we move on to a discussion of the specific values that are central to the gun debate and how they are used in that debate. Since we see the American gun debate as driven by cultural values, we explore American political culture in detail, with a particular focus on clarifying the concept of individualism. Finally, we outline our theory that American gun control politics is a battle in a long-running war between individualism and the various forces that have sought to limit individualism’s dominance over American political culture

Released 3 days ago. This paper by Kakai, L. (2023) "NATO: From Regional Military Force to International ‘’Peace Keeping’’. OTS Canadian Journal, 2(7), 1-9" is a reflection on the raison d'être of NATO now that the USSR is demised. Available on: https://journal.canadian-ots.ca/index.php/ots/article/download/35/53

At the very end of the Conclusion, one may read: "Hence, it could be seen and due to above discussion, that the only continuation for NATO after collapse of USSR is USA and some European countries as a tool for their own expansions in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Moreover, NATO is one of the problematic global governances in the world due to the name, the organization geopolitics structure, mismatch between regional, international, military, peacekeeping, security and as a logistic supporter to other far away countries".

"Writing in the New York Times in 1997, George F. Kennan — the father of the U.S. “containment” strategy against the Soviet Union — warned that “expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era.” But he was not alone. A host of other Western policymakers and strategists, including Henry Kissinger, Malcolm Fraser, Edward Luttwak, Sam Nunn, Jack Matlock, Paul Nitze, Owen Harries, William Perry, and William Burns (current CIA director), had either opposed NATO expansion generally or Ukrainian membership of NATO specifically, or warned of its deeply dangerous implications. And in May 2022, Pope Francis caused a stir when he said in a media interview that NATO “barking” at Russia’s door might have either “provoked” or “facilitated” Putin’s attack on Ukraine. 4 While there is little question that Putin saw Western liberal values as a threat to his regime security, and that his foreign policy is driven in part by a desire to create a sphere of influence (a much more likely motive than to reassemble the former Soviet Union), it would be simplistic to see these as the main cause for his Ukraine attack. Russia had already conceded NATO expansion considerably closer to its frontiers. Throughout history, alliances like NATO have been known to provoke as much as deter conflict".

Excerpts from the excellent paper by Acharya, A. (2023). A Multiplex World: The Coming World Order1. Emerging World Order After the Russia-Ukraine War. ISO 690. Available on: https://anthologies.newlinesinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/20230301-Anthology-Emerging-World-Order-NLISAP-1.pdf#page=8

About the author:

Amitav Acharya is the UNESCO chair in transnational challenges and governance and a distinguished professor at the School of International Service, American University, Washington, D.C. He is the first non-Western scholar to be elected (for 2014-15) as president of the International Studies Association (ISA). His books include “Re-Imagining International Relations: World Orders in the Thought and Practice of Indian, Chinese, and Islamic Civilizations” (Cambridge, 2022, with Barry Buzan); “The Making of Global International Relations” (Cambridge, 2019, with Barry Buzan); “Constructing Global Order” (Cambridge, 2018); “The End of American World Order” (Polity, 2014, 2018); “Why Govern? Rethinking Demand and Progress in Global Governance” (editor, Cambridge, 2016); “The Making of Southeast Asia” (Cornell, 2013); “Whose Ideas Matter?” (Cornell, 2009); and “Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia” (Routledge, 2001, 2009, 2014). He has received two Distinguished Scholar Awards from the ISA, one in 2015 from its Global South Caucus for his “contribution to non-Western IR theory and inclusion” in international studies, and another in 2018 from ISA’s International Organization Section that recognizes “scholars of exceptional merit … whose influence, intellectual works and mentorship will likely continue to impact the field for years to come.” In 2020, he received American University’s highest honor, the Scholar-Teacher of the Year Award.

Premonitory document [1] on EU-Sahel relations in the light of recent geopolitical upheavals (Released 2 months ago). Excerpts from the conclusion, "Despite the EU’s formal engagement, the challenges to the implementation of its strategy from a political and security perspective remain high. Military coups and multipolar competition, combined with the fragility of the regional architecture on which part of the European strategy relied, have reduced the EU’s ability to foster greater democracy and security, and to guarantee human rights in the region. The military coups, combined with multipolar competition with Russia and the weakening of regional organisations, demonstrate that the 2021 Integrated Strategy was conceived with an optimism about the region’s development that has proved to be detached from reality. Therefore, the political and security objectives of the EU – to strengthen democracy and governance through cooperation with local governments and support for the military – have not been achieved. Moreover, the war in Ukraine has contributed to diverting European attention from the region despite an extremely difficult security and humanitarian context. However, although with different dynamics, the EU has experienced difficulties implementing its foreign policy not only in the Sahel but also in other parts of Africa, such as the CAR and Ethiopia. In addition to multipolar competition and the crisis of democracy, the EU has to face the fact that, today, Africa is part of the so-called Global South, which includes emerging countries like India, China and Brazil. Together with the Middle East and Asia, Africa is a key battleground for those countries that do not subscribe to the narrative that countering Russia is a moral imperative if democracy, territorial integrity and a rules-based world order are to be upheld....

.....Considering the multipolar competition and the willingness of local governments, but also the population generally, to develop new alliances, the EU should both act in concert with other powers – including the Gulf countries, Turkey and China – and strengthen regional organisations. This can be done by avoiding fostering a proliferation of sub-regional organisations or alliances that only create confusion and ineffectiveness, but by supporting the more established ones such as ECOWAS and the African Union – and by funding existing small organisations that have influence on the ground. In this respect, the EU should consider the Sahel region as a litmus test for its capacity to act for peace and democracy in a multipolar world"

[1] Caruso, F., & Lenzi, F. (2023). The Sahel region: a litmus test for EU–Africa relations in a changing global order, THE FOUNDATION FOR EUROPEAN PROGRESSIVE STUDIES (FEPS) European Political Foundation - Nº 4 BE 896.230.213 Available on:

https://www.academia.edu/download/103799239/feps_ps_9782931233177.pdf

Les Echos: Iraq: the wound of the United States, By Jacques Hubert-Rodier, Published on 7 Feb. 2020. "Since March 2003, the war in Iraq has represented 8,000 dollars per American taxpayer for a budget of nearly 2,000 billion dollars, according to "Newsweek".... Also according to the magazine, interest on the war debt Iraqis totaled $444 billion. “Even if the fighting has stopped, and the Trump administration has decided to withdraw the American military from the 'total war on terrorism,' these payments will continue to increase. But the balance sheet is above all human. According to estimates, between 185,000 and 208,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in this conflict. And, in total, the US military lost 4,500 servicemen and more than 32,000 were injured in Iraq alone. In the "total war against terrorism", launched first in Afghanistan in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001 and then two years later in Iraq, 4.1 million veterans had to receive medical services. Which represented a bill of 199 billion dollars. America did not fall in Iraq because of a war launched on the false pretext of the presence of weapons of mass destruction. But, as after Vietnam, she comes out injured. (Own translation from French)".

Read more on (in french):

https://www.lesechos.fr/idees-debats/editos-analyses/lirak-la-blessure-des-etats-unis-1170093#:~:text=Selon%20les%20estimations%2C%20de%20185.000,%C3%A9t%C3%A9%20bless%C3%A9s%20en%20Irak%20seulement

By the yardstick of the recent developments in Niger. In his paper [1], Daouda (2014) "proposes to shed light on the issues and controversies related to the practice of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in sub-Saharan Africa. The paper shows that if multinationals CSR initiatives seek to enroll in a context of economic and social development, they prove to be very poor in terms of environmental requirements as well as social and economic achievements. The case of French nuclear group AREVA in Niger is proposed in illustration to show the gap between CSR strategies and the local environment in which multinational evolve (armed conflict, poverty, social inequalities, air pollution, degradation environment, groundwater contamination, etc.). Therefore, a dual challenge is needed. On the one hand, MNCs should strive to internalize negative externalities in their activities, and to participate in socio -economic projects that improve the quality of the social fabric. On the other hand, in cases where conflicts between multinational and stakeholders (civil society, government, NGOs, etc.) are strongly pronounced, public regulation of CSR (monitoring compliance with certain social and environmental standards, technical expertise, punitive measures, etc.) could help enroll more corporate actions in a process of socially responsible development."

[1] Hamadou Daouda, Y. (2014). Responsabilité sociétale des multinationales en Afrique Subsaharienne : enjeux et controverses : cas du groupe AREVA au Niger. VertigO, 14(1). Available on (In French): https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/vertigo/1900-v1-n1-vertigo01649/1027967ar.pdf

On killing Political Leaders. Some States made political assassination a morally acceptable instrument of executive governance. Moreover, their successive Governments claim political assassination acts under the nose of the international community and all its principles. This paper by Iqbal, Z., & Zorn, C. (2008). "The Political Consequences of Assassination. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 52(3), 385–400", shows that "the assassination of a political leader is among the highest-profile acts of political violence, and conventional wisdom holds that such events often have substantial political, social, and economic effects on states. We investigate the extent to which the assassination of a head of state affects political stability through an analysis of all assassinations of heads of state between 1952 and 1997. We examine the political consequences of assassination by assessing the levels of political unrest, instability, and civil war in states that experience the assassination of their head of state. Our findings support the existence of an interactive relationship among assassination, leadership succession, and political turmoil: in particular, we find that assassinations' effects on political instability are greatest in systems in which the process of leadership succession is informal and unregulated".

Excellent insights are provided in the recent interrogative paper "Alternative World Orders?" by Stefan A. Schirm released few days ago [1]. Excerpts from the Conclusion "Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sharpened the contours of international rivalries and alternative conceptions of world order. These diverging camps, however, are not new, and the Political South had developed its own institutions and policy positions for decades. While the Political West emphasises democracy, market economy, universal human rights and the peaceful settlement of conflicts as guiding principles of the international order, the Political South prioritises national autonomy, sovereignty, non-intervention in internal affairs and state-permeated economies. The countries of the Political South reject military aid to Ukraine and sanctions against Russia, cultivate a close relationship with Moscow and criticise Western conceptions of world order as paternalistic. Core actors of the Political South are the countries of the BRICS group, which promoted the foundation of new international institutions as alternatives to the institutions of the Western-dominated LIO. The PRC is the most important driver of this group. The countries of the Political South, however, have not left the LIO and continue their close economic relations with the West. This double-track strategy is consistent with the plurality of their domestic interests and ideas. Illustrative evidence for the three BRICS countries examined here show that important segments of the economy, such as the export sectors, continue to be highly dependent on close relations with the West, even though these links partly decreased in the last decade. On the other hand, trade with Southern partners increased and partly even surpassed the West as an export destination. This might plausibly further weaken the commitment to the Western-friendly policy track in the future. Domestic ideational predispositions were split as well, with Brazil’s voters apparently more sympathetic towards Western narratives (for instance, on Russia’s Ukraine war), than Indian and Chinese public opinion. Overall, the short case depictions on the societal foundations of governmental positions show a correlation between the diverging domestic ideational-material alignments and the ambivalent dual-track foreign policies of the respective governments. The three countries’ membership of the two world orders correlates with ideational-material alignments of societal groups. Therefore, the basic argument of the societal approach that governmental preferences are informed by competing domestic ideational and material demands is supported by the analysis..."

[1] Schirm, S. A. (2023). Alternative World Orders? Russia’s Ukraine War and the Domestic Politics of the BRICS. The International Spectator, 1-19.

To be requested on: Article Alternative World Orders? Russia’s Ukraine War and the Domes...

Interesting Chapter released 4 days ago "Tsygankov, A., Tsygankov, P., Gonzales, H. (2023). Putin’s “Global Hybrid War”: The Anti-Russian Bias of the Atlantic Council. In: Boyd-Barrett, O., Marmura, S. (eds) Russiagate Revisited. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. Abstract: Despite the reputation of being non-partisan, experts frequently validate concepts and ideas popular within the dominant elite circles. To support this argument, we have taken a closer look into the Atlantic Council (AC), an American think tank with clear preferences for the US-centered international order and NATO as the foundation of security in Europe. We argue that these preferences have translated into anti-Russian bias in AC publications. This is evident in the organization’s reliance on the concept of global hybrid war in describing the goals and means of Russian foreign policy since 2014. We base our analysis on a sample of articles on Russia and “hybrid war” published by the AC’s experts. In establishing the AC’s pro-NATO and anti-Russian biases, we analyze the articles’ frames as well as the political and institutional preferences held by the organization.

A premonitory paper on "France and the Russian Presence in Africa" by Łukasz Maślanka Published by: Polski Instytut Spraw Międzynarodowych, Bulletin, No. 47 (1477), 2020. Summary/Abstract: In 2019, French President Emmanuel Macron initiated a Franco-Russian dialogue aimed at improving bilateral relations, as well as EU-Russia relations. This effort could be confounded by the growing Russian engagement in Africa, mainly through their military, business, and propaganda activities. These are increasingly harmful to France, which traditionally engages in the politics and economies of African states. The French government hasn’t yet prepared any coherent strategy vis-à-vis the Russian challenge, preferring to wait it out.

Available on:

https://pism.pl/upload/images/artykuly/fd0dbd67-94b1-4793-9071-5dc283851b44/1584442716751.pdf

Released two days ago, this Chapter by Ertürk, A. C. (2023) "Understanding the “Balancing Act” of Turkey in the Russia-Ukraine War. In The Russia-Ukraine War and Its Consequences on the Geopolitics of the World (pp. 139- 154). IGI Global" could not be more explicit on mysterious contradictory, confused and intertwined geopolitical issues.

Abstract: Since the beginning of the conflict, Turkey, as a regional powerhouse, has remained intact in its position as the “honest broker.” In a nutshell, Turkey has been trying to consolidate a balance between the resurgence of Russian aggressiveness and the Western aspirations to protect Ukraine at all costs. For so many in the West, Turkish actions were defined as even damaging at some point to the causes of NATO and the EU. Nevertheless, Turkey's role conception in this war is nothing new and rooted very well back to the earlier Republican experience with the Black Sea. In other words, Turkish foreign policy towards the Black Sea and Ukraine/Russia has always leaned toward a strategic behavior of balancing these significant powers. The latest act has been no different from a Turkish way of “sticking with the plan.” Therefore, deciphering the dynamics of this role is undoubtedly a must to undercover the geopolitical interest of Turkey from the region amid a fully-fledged war. This chapter proposes three related sections to understand and analyze the story's Turkish side.

In the same Book released two days ago and in the same vein, this Chapter by Alkan, A. (2023). "Turkey's Role During the Russia and Ukraine War. In The Russia-Ukraine War and Its Consequences on the Geopolitics of the World (pp. 123-138). IGI Global." returns to the geopolitical issues which all show that Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, is the Turkey of the Farce of the war on Ukraine.

Abstract: This study aims to examine the national roles Turkey adopted during Russia-Ukraine War. The national role concept was developed in the second half of the 20th century. Holsti carried the concept from sociology to international relations. According to this concept, every state plays a particular role that its leaders specify as appropriate for their countries. Turkiye also played a national role in the international arena during the war between Russia and Ukraine. These roles have been highlighted by their differing political aims. On the one hand, Turkey has desired to repair its political image as “aggressive.” Turkey adopted a mediator-integrator role between Putin and Zelensky. On the other side, Turkey didn't reject its political maneuvers of recent times which formed in trajectory of being “independent” of western or Eurasian oriented policies. Turkey criticized Russia's invasions acts. It also criticized NATO because it ruled out Russia's existential concerns over NATO's plans.

Could Africa replace China as the world’s source of rare earth elements?

China has a dominant hold on the market—with 60% of global production and 85% of processing capacity. In light of growing geopolitical tensions around China and Taiwan, the U.S, Australia, Canada, and other countries are seeking to reduce their reliance on China as a source of rare earths production and processing. This opens up a window of opportunity for African countries...

Excerpts from: Brookings, December 29, 2022, by Gracelin Baskaran "Could Africa replace China as the world’s source of rare earth elements?".

Read the article on:

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/could-africa-replace-china-as-the-worlds-source-of-rare-earth-elements/

Politico, 08/07/2023, By ERIC BAZAIL-EIMIL, West Africa prepares for war in Niger "....France, which has long seen Nigeria and ECOWAS as threats to its influence in West Africa, announced its support for an ECOWAS-led military intervention Saturday...The U.S. has signaled some support for ECOWAS’ actions, though also hasn’t committed to supporting an intervention. Aid groups are worried that conflict could exacerbate an already fragile situation in Niger. ... 3 million people in Niger are projected to face severe food insecurity before the end of the summer “lean season” in September. Some 500,000 people are also already displaced within the country...."

Read the article on: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/global-insider/2023/08/07/west-africa-prepares-for-war-in-niger-00110083

It is surprising and in some respects disappointing to note that politicians and some professional specialized journalists are more advanced, more objective, and more sincere than certain intellectuals in understanding, analyzing, and presenting the fundamental issues of geopolitics and the driving forces that govern them. That being said, an old proverb says "in the tongue, there is no bone" So to say that is easy to speak; too easy especially when speaking for others. As intellectuals, we should take personal responsibility for our words and for what they may imply in disasters and suffering to innocent civil inhabitants. From where we are with ours, we would have the courage of our words. It is nonsense and cynically hypocritical to say to Ukrainians I'm with you and helping you to defend Ukraine and as proof, here are some weapons to use to defend yourself and your country to the end, if necessary. Be aware, however, these weapons are exclusively to use for defensive purposes precisely because I don't want to be considered belligerent: the summit of cynism and hypocrisy! Meanwhile, the innocent Ukrainian people, who don't give a damn about the geopolitics and geostrategies of the East and the West (which in reality exceeds Ukraine and all of Europe), are toasting by suffering the pangs of war.

In line with the previous post. This chapter, released 6 days ago, "Kapitonenko, M. (2023). Implications for Global and Regional Security. In The Russia-Ukraine War and Its Consequences on the Geopolitics of the World (pp. 46-57). IGI Global" shows how the war in Ukraine is a strength and power balance war, resulting from global competition and its geopolitical implications. The author analyzes with remarkable relevance these implications for global and regional security. One may read within the text "... one might expect considerable impact of the war on international security at several levels. It has a potential to shift the global balance of power; it tests and undermines international institutions; it changes usual patterns of expectations among states, including those linked to the direct use of military force.... In addition, the war resonates with the crisis of international order. The West is once again united in an attempt to protect and restore a rule-based world. Revisionist states, first of all Russia, but not only, are aiming at changing the rules and rebuilding the structure of the international system in a way that would provide them with more advantages and better perspectives. come and will shape the contours of regional security arrangements in Europe...".

Summarizing these planetary issues to a simple Russia/Ukraine turf war is an intellectually untenable cynical and hypocritical simplification. It is simply say to the Ukrainians that this war has a considerable impact on international security at several levels, go win it; on your own because we don't want to take part in it but we are going to arm you and support you until the end.

Meanwhile, the innocent Ukrainian people are toasting by suffering the pangs of war so much so that it sends thrills down your spine.“The thrill is a response of the soul to an unconsciously rejected situation.” (Michelle Harrison). Own translation, French version: “Le frisson est une réponse de l'âme face à une situation inconsciemment rejetée.”

"Peace is a blessing and war a curse! no one doubts this truth. But if war is often a necessity when one has a great cause to defend, it is, on the contrary, a crime to wage it on a whim, without having a great result for the purpose, an immense advantage for the reason". (Own Translation) Original text in French: "La paix est un bienfait et la guerre un fléau ! personne ne doute de cette vérité. Mais si la guerre est souvent une nécessité lorsqu'on a une grande cause à défendre, c'est au contraire un crime de la faire par caprice, sans avoir un grand résultat pour but, un immense avantage pour raison". Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte - Les œuvres de Napoléon III (1854-1869)

On the Currency War. The Changing Role of the US Dollar in the Global Monetary System of a Multipolar World, by A.I. Ilyinsky (Financial University, Moscow, Russia) & A.S. Magamedov (McKinsey & Company, Redwood City, USA), Review of Business and Economics Studies. 2023;11(2):6-14. The authors came to the main conclusion "that the second multipolar scenario resembles the current dynamics the most and is considered the baseline. However, the answer depends on the forecasting horizon as the scenarios have a certain sequencing. The dollar will probably maintain its supremacy in the short term. Its decline in the mid-term will give rise to a multipolar world, which can then, theoretically, lead to the emergence of a new dominant currency in the long term. The results might be used as a framework for further structured analysis of possible outcomes in this domain".

Read the paper on:

https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/the-changing-role-of-the-us-dollar-in-the-global-monetary-system-of-a-multipolar-world

Review Essays. Published online: 04 Aug 2023. John Jenkins (2023) The US in the Middle East: Stupid or Merely Fallible?, Survival, 65:4, 139-152

Abstract: The broad story that Steven Simon’s Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East tells is one of arrogance and ignorance on the part of American leaders. In essence a realist, Simon is engagingly opinionated, sharp and judgemental. For him, 1979 is the moment the United States abandoned any previous caution about direct involvement in Middle Eastern conflicts and began to act as if it believed the region mattered more than it actually did. This is a serious charge. Simon makes the case for the prosecution robustly and with ample evidence from first-hand experience, archival research and contemporaneous press reporting. But energy, extremism and the preservation of the rules-based international order could still explain and justify US involvement. It may not be that America got stupid, but rather that the rest of the world got smart.

About the Author

John Jenkins is a retired British diplomat, having served as the United Kingdom’s ambassador to Burma, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, among other senior positions. He was Executive Director of the IISS–Middle East from 2015 to 2017.

When I was a child (I live in the UK), older relatives were all still remembering the second world war. They spoke of rationing (I think as a baby, I still had a ration book??) and bombing and sadly losing friends and relatives.

I'm so glad that there is peace at the moment and long may it continue.

Thank you Dear Mary C R Wilson for this moving testimony which recalls what war is in daily life and the simple benefits of everyday peace.

Prof Dr Jamel Chahed

Thank you for this; let there be peace!

When I was a teenager in 1967, there was 'the summer of love' in the UK and I was at boarding school. But we all got involved in the call for peace, and I have felt the same ever since.

I don't like arguments in my day to day life and feel much happier when everyone is getting on. We don't argue at home, just express our opinions in an intelligent way. Sometimes his point is more relevant and do-able and sometimes mine is!

Cyber war & Cyber Security. POLITICO, August 11, 2023. By JOSEPH GEDEON, For the first time, U.S. government lets hackers break into satellite in space "Hacker groups are on a military-endorsed mission to infiltrate an orbiting U.S. satellite. Five teams of hackers are competing at the DEF CON cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas to remotely seize control of SpaceX satellite Moonlighter, currently spinning in Earth’s low orbit. The U.S. Air Force and Space Force are hoping the effort, the first-ever attempt to use hackers to break into a live, orbiting satellite, will help them build more secure space systems and identify security gaps that could be exploited by China or other adversaries...."

Read the article on:

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/11/def-con-hackers-space-force-00110919

An article that sounds like a premonitory testimony to recent catastrophic developments for Niger, by Vidal & Desquesnes. The uranium of françafrique – CADTM, 2023. Extract (own translation): "In Arlit, in the north of Niger, it is not the chemical industry that makes the rain and the sun time, but the French nuclear industry, which has been exploiting huge uranium mines there since the end of the 1960s thanks to colonial agreements guaranteeing it the best prices.At the time, French miners benefited from control measures and medical follow-up, while their African colleagues, who were not considered nuclear workers, had no protection, no information, no medical follow-up. safety at work, the extraction of atomic ore remains an ecological and health disaster suppressed in the name of the economic and diplomatic interests of France.

But prices collapsed following the Fukushima nuclear accident: yellowcake is no longer worth a kopeck. In October 2019, Orano (ex-Areva) announced the closure in 2021 of Cominak, which hired 800 people, while Somaïr, also a subsidiary of the French atom giant, drastically reduced its staff. “What will become of us? we ask ourselves in one of the poorest countries in the world. In Rouen as in Arlit, the same score is played. Multinationals that condemn populations to a double penalty: first to suffer the pollution and cancers caused by their production and then to find themselves unemployed, when profitability no longer follows. What if it was possible to resume non-industrial activities? This is the question that the Nigerian director and daughter of a miner Amina Weira asks at the end of her film "Anger in the Wind" (La Colère dans le vent)..."

Read the article (in French) on:

https://www.cadtm.org/L-uranium-de-la-francafrique

War is a human relic of the animal kingdom, i.e. it is based on territorial instincts. The only characteristic that distinguishes humans from animals is ethics; the main pillars of ethics are rationality (logic) and morality (intuition).

The only way from war to any type of peace is fair (win/win) trade; while we will not see dogs trading bones, we are able to trade bones.

——

The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.

Leo Tolstoy

https://www.sociostudies.org/almanac/articles/empathy_and_conflict_strategy-_an_inquiry_into_t-_schelling-s_-the_strategy_of_conflict/

"In addition, actual policy breakthroughs towards an integrated European security and defence policy have but slightly accelerated. They do not constitute a sea change to the incremental pace that was characterizing this area for more than 60 years. As recent Franco-German disagreements on European defence demonstrated, for example on the German proposal for a European Sky Shield, a real coordinated push towards common European defence is still not visible (Besch, 2023). The EU has not become the focal point to turn to when common defence is considered: it competes with the national level and with NATO, and more often than not is relegated to a second or third rank option. Differences about which option to privilege to what extent have not diminished in the past two years (Wang and Moise 2023). While Putin’s War has strengthened European ‘we’ feelings noticeably which will translate in increased cooperation further down the line, it has not yet (and will hopefully never) achieved the status of existential threat that creates a true European state". This is an excerpt from the conclusion of the Chapter by Zimmermann, H. (2023). Russia’s war and EU peace: The role of the Russian ‘other’, In European integration. The Political Economy of Europe’s Future and Identity, Page 276. (Released 2 weeks ago)

Available on (See Chapter 25, from page 276)

https://kalypsonicolaidis.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/The_Political_Economy_of_Europes_Future_Book_2023.pdf#page=286

Moral: One may only pity Europe "Lamentable" from the Atlantic to the Urals

Le Figaro (released 8 hours ago). After the coup in Niger, France fears being overtaken by its American ally, By Stanislas Poyet, Niamey. (Own translation) "DECRYPTION - Refusing the military option, Washington seems to be considering speaking with the perpetrators of the coup. "With allies like that, we don't need enemies," it is whispered in Paris. At the Quai d'Orsay, as during the French presidency, the American diplomatic choices in Niger went badly. The United States has been very present since the crisis in Niger. Too present even, when the number three of American diplomacy, Victoria Nuland, sat at the table of the putschists on August 7th. “They did the exact opposite of what we thought they would do,” continued.

Since the beginning of the events, France has held a clear line and without hesitation: that of the restoration of Mohamed Bazoum to the presidency. “It was too much,” adds a diplomat in Paris. For Emmanuel Macron, the credibility of France, particularly in terms of discourse on democracy, was at stake. For the Americans, even if they are also concerned about a rapid return to constitutional order, the priority is the stability of the region", he pursued..."

Read the article (in French) on: https://www.lefigaro.fr/international/apres-le-putsch-au-niger-la-france-craint-d-etre-doublee-par-son-allie-americain-20230813

"The US has maintained close relations with numerous states while they were committing genocide, ... Thus, it would seem that genocide is a crime committed primarily by ‘enemies’ of the US...". Excerpts from: Bachman, J. S. (2019). A ‘synchronized attack on life: the Saudi-led coalition’s ‘hidden and holistic’ genocide in Yemen and the shared responsibility of the US and UK. Third World Quarterly, 40(2), 298-316. Available on: https://www.academia.edu/download/60712511/A_synchronised_attack_on_life_in_Yemen20190926-84457-1v1n4fe.pdf

About the author:

Jeff Bachman is a Professorial Lecturer in Human Rights and Program Chair for the Ethics, Peace, and Human Rights MA Program at American University's School of International Service. His research interests focus primarily on critical genocide studies.

Books by Jeff Bachman on:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Jeffrey-S.-Bachman/author/B07TZ5GQLL?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

The horrific state of affairs in Ukraine finds roots in a Russian narrative of "National Security" which is of course not that of the EU and NATO. Geopolitics configurations are generally larger than one population (or countries) consideration. Situations today are the result of past general geopolitical decisions. Future situations of war or peace will be the result of today's geopolitical decisions.

Jamestown Foundation. Interesting article by Pavel K. Baev, August 14, 2023, Hard Georgian Lessons for Ending the War in Ukraine, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 20 Issue: 130. Excerpt from the conclusion: "Georgia failed in its attempt to stand against Russian aggression, but even half-hearted Western support sufficed for deterring Putin’s desire for a regime change in Tbilisi and dissuading Russia from annexing other Georgian provinces. Ukraine is much more capable of defending itself against Russian attacks, and the West has found a moral imperative for providing the necessary material support for this courageous effort. Initiatives for the cessation of hostilities may appear a natural response to the tragedy and costs of the long war, and they correspond to the interests of many actors in the Global South who are affected by the European calamity."

Read the article on:

https://jamestown.org/program/hard-georgian-lessons-for-ending-the-war-in-ukraine/

The inextricable actual situation at the doors of Europe was expected long before. Just re-read, for example, the column "The new cold lwar" by Serge Halimi (Editorial director of Le Monde Diplomatique), Sept. 2014, to understand that the issue is first and foremost a geopolitical one. To learn from historical facts we have to remind and forecast as Serge Halimi did almost eight years ago. I am recalling here his promontory column: "In 1980 Ronald Reagan expressed his idea of relations between the United States and the Soviet Union in one short sentence: “We win, they lose.” Twelve years later, his immediate successor at the White House, George H W Bush, was satisfied that the task had been accomplished: “A world once divided into two armed camps now recognizes one, sole and pre-eminent power, the United States of America .” The cold war was officially at an end.

That period too is now over. Its death knell sounded on the day Russia had had enough of “losing” and realized that its ritual humiliation would never come to an end, with one neighboring country after another being persuaded — or bribed — into joining an economic and military alliance against it. Obama, speaking in Brussels in March, stressed that “Today, NATO planes patrol the skies over the Baltics and we’ve reinforced our presence in Poland. And we're prepared to do more” (1). Vladimir Putin, addressing the Russian parliament, observed that this was part of the “infamous policy of containment” that the western powers had pursued against Russia since the 18th century (2).

However, the new cold war will be different from the old one. As Obama pointed out, “unlike the Soviet Union, Russia leads no bloc of nations, no global ideology.” The latest confrontation is not between an American superpower, drawing the imperial assurance of a “manifest destiny” from its religious faith, and an “evil empire” castigated by Reagan for its atheism. On the contrary, Putin is appealing with some success to Christian fundamentalism. On annexing Crimea, he suddenly remembered it was the place “where Saint Vladimir was baptized ... adopting Orthodoxy determined the overall basis of the culture, civilization and human values that unite the peoples of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.”

In other words, Moscow will not allow Ukraine to become a rear base for its enemies. The Russian people, inflamed by nationalist propaganda that is even more extreme than Western brainwashing (and that's saying something), won't have it. Meanwhile, in the US and Europe, the supporters of rearmament are raising the stakes, with warlike declarations and a host of assorted sanctions that only increase the determination in the enemy camp. “The new cold war may be more perilous,” warns Stephen F Cohen, one of America's leading Russia experts, “because, unlike its predecessor, there is no effective American opposition — not in the administration, Congress, media, universities, think tanks ” (3). The well-known recipe for every kind of trap..."

Serge Halimi, Editorial director of Le Monde Diplomatique.

Translated by Barbara Wilson

See original column and references on: https://mondediplo.com/2014/09/01coldwar

Australian Institute of International Affairs, 16 AUG 2023, Occupied Palestinian Territories and Illegal Israeli Settlements, By Professor Gregory Rose. What are the “Occupied Palestinian Territories” (OPT), and why are Israeli settlements there illegal? Legal answers to these questions are surprisingly elusive; comparative analysis of Israeli and Palestinian claims in the West Bank reveals competing bases for legal title. On Tuesday 8 August 2023, the Australian government announced that it will refer to the West Bank and Gaza as “Occupied Palestinian Territories” (OPT) and to Israeli civilian residences there as “illegal settlements.” [1]. This Australian government's position conforms to the position taken by a majority of UN members. It was condemned by Australia’s Jewish community and triggered controversy in the mainstream press... The author came to the conclusion that "Australia’s political change of legal rhetoric on Israel is a case study of the interplay between international politics and international laws. It exemplifies the declining relevance of fundamental rules of international law, as they become more frequently diminished by and subordinated to the supreme power of political alliances that can dominate majority voting in UN institutions."

Read the Article at: https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/occupied-palestinian-territories-and-illegal-israeli-settlements/

[1] https://www.foreignminister.gov.au/minister/penny-wong/transcript/senate-question-time-responses-middle-east-policy

About the author: Gregory Rose is a Professor with the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security (ANCORS) at the University of Wollongong. His expertise is in international law and his areas of research cover international law relating to marine resources governance, transnational environmental crime, counter-terrorism, and Arab-Israel conflict

The following text is extracted from "On That Distant Day" By Hillel Halkin, Winter 2023. https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/contemporary-israel/12801/on-that-distant-day/ "I do not make light of the Jewish historical claim to the Land of Israel. I have always favored Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria, because I believed that these were part of my people’s heritage. But I believe that they also belong to the Palestinians who live in them, and I do not pretend to know whose side God is on, or whether he takes sides at all in such matters, or whether he still would be God if he did. There is something, however, that I do know. Zionism aspired to wean the Jewish people off the belief that God was on its side and could be relied on to rescue it from its predicaments—that it should rely on God rather than on itself because it was God’s chosen. This was precisely why most of the rabbis of Europe, where Zionism arose, and especially of Eastern Europe, where it struck its deepest roots, fought it tooth and nail. The bulk of ultra-Orthodoxy remained bitterly anti-Zionist right up to the declaration of the State of Israel, if not beyond that, while modern Orthodoxy, though it took part in Zionist construction in Palestine, contributed relatively little to it or to Israel’s creation.

And now, with Benjamin Netanyahu in tow, these are the forces dragging us into the abyss.

Some saw it coming long ago. In 1879, the Hebrew poet Yehuda Leib Gordon wrote a long poem called “Zedekiah in the Dungeon.” Zedekiah, the Bible’s Tsidkiyahu, was the last king of Judea, imprisoned and blinded by the Babylonian conquerors of Jerusalem. In Gordon’s poem he muses in prison about his conflict, while still king, with the prophet Jeremiah, who insisted he govern by religious law, and about the similar confrontation of King Saul and the prophet Samuel, who first crowned Saul and then brought him down because he disobeyed God’s command to slaughter the Amalekites he had vanquished. Zedekiah reflects:

Since our nation first began to be,

The Law’s upholders and the monarchy

Have been at war. Always the visionaries

Have sought to make the kings their tributaries,

As did, going back five hundred years,

The earliest of all our seers,

The son of Elkanah [Samuel]. . . .

So every prophet in his hour

Has sought to get the king under his power.

What Samuel did to Saul is what

I met with from the man of Anatot [Jeremiah],

And what awaits each ruler of our nation

Until the final generation.

I see how on that distant day

The son of Hilkiah [Jeremiah] will have his way.

His dispensation will prevail;

All governance will founder and then fail;

Our people, erudite in chapter and in verse,

Will go from woe to woe and bad to worse.

I see . . . alas, I see!

What the blind king saw, the king-elect is blind to."

East Europe, from the Urals, should be the natural geographic depth of West Europe till the Atlantic, and vice-versa. The expansion of NATO towards the East, not as a European force but as an Extra-European command is to some extent problematic. From Yalta Conference, Europe had not been involved independently in Europe architecture (See Photo, UK is geographically outside the Continent). IMHO there would be no prospect of appeasement in the whole of Europe without this question being posed honestly and without qualms by Europe. In any case, I think that this nagging question will sooner or later arise: let's hope this will be done in peace. The alternative option is more problematic: the east-west divide at the European level will necessarily strengthen the Asian axis, which we see strengthening irresistibly and perhaps irreversibly.

Photo: February 4-11, 1945, Yalta, USSR — Soviet leader Stalin, American President Roosevelt, and British Prime Minister Churchill seated together during the Yalta Conference, 1945. Behind them stand their respective foreign ministers; Molotov, Stettinius, and Eden. Decisions made at this conference influenced the rebuilding of Europe after WWII. Photo: US Forces Available on:

https://mostbeautifulpicture.com/2017/08/23/yalta-conference-february-1945/

On the History of the Partition of Europe and the Genesis of the Iron Curtain. Insightful paper by Albert Resis (1981) Spheres of Influence in Soviet Wartime Diplomacy, The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 53, No. 3 pp. 417-439. One may read there about the Churchull plan: "The British plan had been unfolded by Churchill in Washington in May 1943, when he proposed that Europe, under a "Supreme World Council" consisting of the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, and perhaps China, be reorganized into some twelve regional federations, confederations, and states, including a Danubian and a Balkan Federation. These would constitute a "Regional European Council" or "United States of Europe" to be policed mainly by Britain, seconded by the USA As for Russia, Churchill merely stated that Poland and Czechoslovakia "should stand together in friendly relations with Russia." October 1944 to change tack: Soviet expansion in Eastern Europe might also be curbed by a secret Anglo-Soviet agreement delimiting their respective spheres of influence in Eastern Europe"

The paper is available on:

https://scholar.archive.org/work/yebd7yywnvgtzcszoysdehsx34/access/wayback/http://www3.nccu.edu.tw/~lorenzo/Resis%20Soviet%20Spheres%20of%20Influence.pdf

To read about the Churchill-Stalin “percentages agreement” of October 1944 I recommend the paper by Roberts, G. (2001). Beware Greek Gifts: The Churchill-Stalin «Percentages» Agreement of October 1944. URL: http://www. historia. ru/2003/01/roberts. htm. Available on: https://www.academia.edu/download/42581415/Beware_Greek_Gifts_-_The_Churchill-Stalin_Percentages_Agreement_of_October_1944.pdf

Excerpts: The Churchill-Stalin “percentages agreement” of October 1944 is one of the most famous deals in diplomatic history. There were contemporary reports and rumours of such a deal, but the full story only really came out in 1954 with the publication of volume six of Churchill’s history of the Second World War. Subtitled Triumph and Tragedy, the book gave an account of Churchill’s trip to Moscow in October 1944. Churchill arrived in Moscow on 9 October and, says Churchill, “that night we held our first important meeting in the Kremlin”2 . The story continues: “The moment was apt for business, so I said [to Stalin], ‘Let us settle about our affairs in the Balkans. Your armies are in Roumania and Bulgaria. We have interests, missions, and agents there. Don’t let us get at cross-purposes in small ways. So far as Britain and Russia are concerned, how would it do for you to have ninety percent predominance in Roumania, for us to have ninety per cent of the say in Greece, and go fifty-fifty about Yugoslavia?’ While this was being translated I wrote out on a half-sheet of paper:

Roumania % Russia 90 The others 10

Greece Great Britain 90 (in accord with U.S.A.) Russia 10

Yugoslavia 50-50

Hungary 50-50

Bulgaria Russia 75 The others 25

I pushed this across to Stalin, who had by then heard the translation. There was a slight pause. Then he took his blue pencil and made a large tick upon it, and passed it back to us. It was all settled in no more time than it takes to set down…After this there was a long silence. The pencilled paper lay in the centre of the table. At length I said, ‘Might it no be thought rather cynical if it seemed we had disposed of these issues so fateful to millions of people, in such an offhand manner? Let us burn the paper.’ ‘No, you keep it’, said Stalin.”

Euro|Topics The European press review, 18 August 2023, NATO: what to think of Jenssen's remarks on Ukraine? (Own translation) "According to the Norwegian newspaper Verdens Ghent, Stian Jenssen, Chief of Staff of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, suggested during a round table to offer Ukraine membership in NATO in exchange of the cession of territories to Russia - leaving however Ukraine to decide under what conditions the negotiations would be started. Kyiv described these declarations as unacceptable. The commentators return to this exit "

La Stampa (IT), August 18, 2023. Warmongering at an impasse. La Stampa welcomes these new sounds...

The Daily Telegraph (UK), August 17, 2023. A wave of disinformation is to be feared. Russian leaders will try harder than ever to work to divide the West...

T24 (TU), August 18, 2023. The West, also weary of war. Western support for Ukraine cannot last forever...

444 (HU), August 18, 2023. Too early to tell. Russia specialist András Rácz sees no reason why Ukraine should compromise...

TAZ (DE), August 16, 2023. A fatal signal. The daily taz shows its indignation: “Imagine for a moment what this scenario would mean in practice for Ukraine, or at least for what would remain of it. ...

24TV (UA), August 16, 2023. NATO membership becomes more concrete. The proposal also has good sides, ...NATO membership in Ukraine during the war, by the mere fact of their existence, are a blessing for us...

LIBERAL (GR), August 16, 2023. The end of a taboo. Kyiv's refusal will not prevent the scenario proposed by Jenssen from being discussed...

Pravda (SK), August 16, 2023. Do not decide for the Ukrainians

Pravda rejects this idea on principle: “Should Ukraine give up its lost territories? ...

Moral: The Europeans are far from transmitting on the same wavelength. There is urgency for them to tune the sounds of their violins in the interests of Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals

Read the article (in French) on:

https://www.eurotopics.net/fr/306071/nato-what-think-about-jenssen-about-ukraine#

Le Figaro with AFP, August 17, 2023, "A Russian influencer": Julien Bayou denounces Nicolas Sarkozy's words on Ukraine. In an interview with Figaro Magazine, the former head of state calls on Ukraine to remain "neutral" by not joining either the European Union or NATO. "On the occasion of the release of his next book, Le Temps des Combats (Ed. Fayard), Nicolas Sarkozy delivers his personal analysis on the war in Ukraine, calling in particular for maintaining good relations with Russia. In a river interview granted Wednesday to Figaro Magazine, the former head of state thus pleaded for a "neutral" Ukraine, referring to proposing membership of NATO or the European Union of "false promises which will not be On the subject of Crimea, annexed in 2014 by Russia, Nicolas Sarkozy has also shown that "any return back would be illusory", of which only an "undeniable referendum" could "endorse the current state of affairs". who immediately reacted on the left, where Nicolas Sarkozy is called to respect a "duty of reserve" even after the end of his mandate. Invited this Thursday on LCI, the ecologist deputy Julien Bayou thus denounced an interview of "lunar » and « shocking » of a former president who, according to him, has become « a Russian influencer ». By taking "the opposite of the French position on the annexation of Crimea" and by "sweeping away the war crimes of which the Russians and (Vladimir) Putin are accused", Nicolas Sarkozy is committing "a terrible fault", has insisted the former boss of EELV..."

Read the article (in French) on:

https://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/un-influenceur-russe-julien-bayou-etrille-les-propos-de-nicolas-sarkozy-sur-l-ukraine-20230817

Moral: The French politics all classes included, are far from transmitting on the same wavelength. There is urgency for them to tune the sounds of their violins in the interests of France as well as Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals

The Telegraph, 19 August 2023, by Richard Kemp Nato may be about to sell Ukraine short – and make itself irrelevant, Pushing Kyiv into territorial concessions would be a boon for Putin – and a disaster for the alliance. Excerpts: "NATO appears to have abandoned hopes of a Ukrainian victory... While Jenssen later apologised for the way he had expressed his views, he did not retract them. Stoltenberg’s subsequent insistence that peace talks will happen on Kyiv’s terms will not have quashed suspicions that Jenssen has revealed how the West really sees the war... What we are seeing now, in other words, is the failure of the West to stand by its principles... Washington and Berlin urged Ukraine to fight according to Nato tactical doctrine, while depriving it of the means to do so... Even now, German chancellor Olaf Scholz has been calling for “more peace talks”, while he continues to procrastinate over whether or not to supply urgently needed Taurus cruise missiles. The very idea of peace negotiations in this situation would be farcical if it were not so dangerous... And the alternative plan for Ukraine to join Nato after giving up large swathes of its sovereign territory is ridiculous. Apart from anything else, Putin would not agree to any expansion of Nato. But even if he would, there would be no value to Ukraine in joining an alliance that had made itself irrelevant by effectively surrendering to Russia. For that would be the true meaning of Nato’s failure to ensure its ally prevails in the most significant military conflict in Europe since it was formed."

Read the article on:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/19/nato-about-to-sell-ukraine-short-make-itself-irrelevant/

News-24, August 19, 2023, by Gaspar Bazinetil. US officials admit missing opportunity for peace – Politico. (Own translation) "With the failure of Ukraine's counteroffensive, the White House now recognizes that it should have heeded earlier calls for talks, unnamed sources said. US officials told Politico that they may have "missed a window" to push for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. Speaking anonymously, they acknowledged that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley " was right" when he delivered a grim statement about Kyiv's chances of victory last year. More than two months after the start of Ukraine's counteroffensive against Russian forces, Kyiv has failed to capture more than a handful of hamlets and villages in the Zaporizhia region, and lost at least 43,000 men and nearly 5,000 pieces of equipment in the process, according to the latest figures from the Russian Defense Ministry Although the Ukrainian government still insists it can take back all of its claimed territories by force, Washington is increasingly uncertain. “We may have missed a window to push for earlier discussions,” a US official told Politico on Friday, adding that “Milley was right. ". Speaking in New York in November, Milley said a military victory would likely be unachievable for Ukraine and that Kyiv could use the winter break in fighting to enter into negotiations with Moscow and avoid further casualties..."

Read the Article (in French) on:

https://news-24.fr/des-responsables-americains-admettent-avoir-rate-une-occasion-de-peace-politico/

The journalist Paul Brunton asked the sage of Kanchi about world peace, the sage of Kanchi answered "If you scrap your battleships, and let your cannon rust, that will not stop war. People will continue to fight even if they have to use sticks". Another sage from the scientific world this time EO Wilson, founder of sociobiology understood very well the deep driving force that governs human nature. He said, "The real problem of humanity is this: we have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and divine technology." He arrived at this observation by examining the behavior of ants: different species of ants engage in wars, practice slavery, and various atrocities. However When EO Wilson was asked ten years before his death if humans would be able to solve the crises they would face over the next 100 years. He replied, "Yes if we are honest and intelligent".

It is difficult to apprehend the question of the Ukrainian crisis without asking the nagging question "Have East-West relations been intelligent and honest for the past six-seven decades"? The answer is simple and obvious: not honest at all! absolutely not intelligent! The developments of the Ukrainian crisis do not bode well unless man uses his intelligence honestly.

OE Wilson, who knows ants very well (he is also named "Ant Men"; knows indeed that ants because they are ants, are incapable of being intelligent, they are honest by nature. That is not enough to spare them total extermination wars. Man is not always honest, he is intelligent by nature: will he be intelligent and honest enough today to honestly ask intelligent questions and intelligently give honest answers; that would spare Europe and the rest of the world!

The Guardian (10 hours ago): "Denmark will deliver 19 jets in total,..6 due to be shipped to Ukraine around new year... 8 will be supplied next year.. 5 in 2025..." The nagging question is: Why disclose strategic information of this importance, with a timetable? To remove any war "Surprise Effect"? to inform the Russians so that they prepare for it? To have a clear conscience? to participate in the race of donations?...

I also don't understand why the Europeans (including Ukrainians) want the old F-16s developed in the 70s, to be delivered, knowing that they do not accommodate European missiles delivered to Ukraine (Storm Shadow or Scalp.. ). Why not Modern European jets (Eurofighter Typhoon, Rafale...) instead? Is it to reform old jets and renew the Fleet? is there any technical issue behind it? Is it once again to have a good conscience? Is it a problem of training or of trainers in Europe? Why Europe is unable to speak with one voice on the control of European space?

Read the Guardian article on:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/aug/20/russia-ukraine-war-live-zelenskiy-vows-revenge-over-chernihiv-terrorist-attack-drone-hits-russian-train- station

This Working Paper [1] from Egypt released 2 days ago, analyses "Water, Wheat, and War Nexus" Based on this analysis and the other estimates, the paper came to 15 policy suggestions that need to be addressed to accomplish the country's demand for wheat.

[1] Abdou, D., & Ehad, H. (2023). Water, Wheat, and War Nexus. In Water, Wheat, and War Nexus: Abdou, Doaa| uEhad, Heba| uamer, sherif. [Sl]: SSRN. Available on: https://www.zbw.eu/econis-archiv/bitstream/11159/537310/1/EBP091249910_0.pdf

"What is happening in Ukraine, at the heart of Europe, is horrible and the daily news coming from there recall dark episodes" When EO Wilson the founder of sociobiology was asked if humans would be able to solve the crises they would face over the next 100 years. He replied, "Yes if we are honest and intelligent". It is difficult to apprehend the Ukrainian crisis without asking the question "Have East-West relations been intelligent and honest for the past six-seven decades"? The answer is simple and obvious: not honest at all! absolutely not intelligent! Indeed just after the Cold War, the Western bloc assumed that the Eastern bloc had lost the war and the supposed winners did not hesitate to take advantage of their supposed victory.

The developments of the Ukrainian crisis do not bode well unless man uses his intelligence honestly. OE Wilson, who knows ants very well (he is also named "Ant Men"; knows indeed that ants because they are ants, are incapable of being intelligent, they are honest by nature. That is not enough to spare them total extermination wars. Man is not always honest, he is intelligent by nature: Will he be intelligent and honest enough today to honestly ask intelligent questions and intelligently give honest answers; that would spare Europe and the rest of the world!

Our duty as Scientists is to understand and explain away from any emotion, excess, and/or activism; The media and political authorities around the world are doing it very well and they are playing their part. And I'm not sure that some slip-ups or excesses helped get rid of this nightmare now. Europe (including Russia and other satellites from the former Soviet Union) is taking great steps backward and veiling its face so as not to admit that all of Europe is the turkey of the farce. De Gaulle very early, and even Mitterrand later with Vedrine in particular, understood the geostrategic stakes but after that, it is the decline, in the whole of Europe (including Russia and other satellites of the former Soviet Union), where an entertained irresistible wind of nationalism is blowing which recalls obscure episodes of its ancient and contemporary history. That's said once more I am convinced that we Scholars because we are Scholars, have to speak honestly the truth, It is our duty, and in this respect more than at any time since WWII we have to be intelligent and honest enough to honestly ask intelligent questions and intelligently give honest answers; that would spare Europe and the rest of the world!

In the recent past, world peacekeepers have, rightly or wrongly, claimed to have discovered dictators in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Lebanon in Palestine, and in other lands in Africa and elsewhere. And they have attacked people martyred for decades and sovereign countries leaving behind only destruction and desolation. The same do not see other "bloodthirsty dictators" in other parts of the world and do not hesitate to welcome, feed, and maintain them for nefarious reasons. the free world have no problem dealing with the dictators of the Middle East and other countries by providing them with massive arms sales and other political and economic support. They are claiming that Putin is becoming a dictator as Russia is invading Ukraine. Let the free world get into battle like it did in Iraq Libya and Kosovo and put an end to dictatorship. What is he waiting for? Let's be serious! He never will. And to clear his conscience, he will continue to send military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine and the Ukrainians with fiery messages: Dear Ukrainian, we are with you, go ahead fighting ultimately against Putin and Russia, we support you, but please and above all, do it alone, you know that we do not can/must/want intervene on your side, we will observe you from here. The pinnacle of cynicism and hypocrisy, very harmful for all of Europe. There is no more blind than the one who does not want to see.

What is happening in Ukraine, in the heart of Europe, is horrifying and reminiscent of dark episodes. I mean by Europe, the continent from the Atlantic to the Urals, without the United Kingdom of course which is in fact outside Europe. Seen from this point of view, the Ukrainian crisis is an internal Euro-European crisis, and it is up to all Europeans, and them alone, to a) refuse any interference from outside Europe; b) think honestly and intelligently to 1. solve this problem in the heart of Europe, for Europe, with Europe; 2. establish long-term cooperation to build an independent Great independent Europe. Russia and its satellites are in Europe, Russians are Europeans. The Failure of Europe will be the Failure of Russia, both, will in this case, remain indefinitely a) under foreign protection b) Vassal of other powers in the East and in the West c) Theater of tensions according to the interests of these foreign powers, d) the turkey of the farce which suffers and pays dearly for its protection and its dependence.

How War Revealed the Moral Dimension of Trauma is the title of a chapter by Lang, J. & Schott, R., released on 9 August 2023, DIIS: Dansk Institut for Internationale Studier. CID: 20.500.12592/178gc5. The book chapter "... explores the concept of ‘moral injury’ and how the psychological understanding of war has changed over the last twenty years. In 2006, at the height of the Iraq War, the U.S. military found itself in the middle of a mental-health crisis. More American soldiers were committing suicide than were being killed in action in Iraq, while reports estimated that one-third of the troops returning from Afghanistan and Iraq might qualify for a psychiatric diagnosis. The counterinsurgency warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq had often blurred the distinction between combatants and non-combatants, confronting soldiers with difficult ethical decisions about when to use force. Already by 2003, 20% of U.S. soldiers and Marines reported having killed non-combatants. But mental-health experts lacked the vocabulary and methods to address the moral dimensions of trauma. Some psychologists and psychiatrists in the U.S. military began to use the term ‘moral injury.’ The term referred to the anguish of having been betrayed by one’s leaders, as well as the sense of having betrayed oneself, one’s friends, or one’s ideals".

On Political Assasination. In this paper [1] by Gioeet al.2019, Unforgiven: Russian intelligence vengeance as political theater and strategic messaging, the authors wrote "Beyond treating the event itself, we explore Russian conceptions of theatrical murder as a peculiar element of state power. We historicize this development and inquire whether assassination as political theater and strategic messaging is a tool embraced in particular by Vladimir Putin or rather emblematic of the Russian state, to the extent that there is any discernable difference between the two in the context of an autocracy...Given Putin’s professional background as an intelligence officer, betrayal of Russia by its intelligence officers is a particularly odious offense meriting not just death, but symbolic assassination..."

[1] Gioe, D. V., Goodman, M. S., & Frey, D. S. (2019). Unforgiven: Russian intelligence vengeance as political theater and strategic messaging. Intelligence and National Security, 34(4), 561-575. Available on:

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/196599571.pdf

In the same vein as previous post on Political Assassination. In this paper [1] by Gazit and Brym 2011, State-directed political assassination in Israel: a political hypothesis, the authors wrote "...Based on economic or sociological models of human action, these theories attribute the level of state violence, respectively, to the narrow cost-benefit calculations of state officials or the institutionally embedded norms that govern their deliberations. The strength of such theories notwithstanding, this article argues that they fail to account for the willingness of Israeli officials to order the assassination of high-ranking political opponents during the second intifada or Palestinian uprising against Israel...Assassination – the killing of a public figure for political reasons – is among the highest-profile acts of political violence. Although it is an attack against an individual, the motives for assassination are necessarily political. As such, we believe that Israel’s policy of political assassination policy should be seen as a part of its larger strategic outlook and not just as an aspect of its military campaign against Palestinian insurgents..."

[1] Gazit, N., & Brym, R. J. (2011). State-directed political assassination in Israel: a political hypothesis. International Sociology, 26(6), 862-877.

https://www.academia.edu/download/30872852/GazitBrym.pdf

Highlights from [1]: The Economic Costs of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict

• Using our Global Econometric Model, NiGEM, we estimate that the conflict in Ukraine could reduce the level of global GDP by 1 per cent by 2023, which is about $1 trillion off global GDP and add up to 3 per cent to global inflation in 2022 and about 2 percentage points in 2023.

• Russia and Ukraine are important suppliers of commodities, including titanium, palladium, wheat, and corn, and we envisage supply chain problems intensifying for users of such commodities, including car, smartphone, and aircraft makers.

• Europe is the region affected most, given trade links and reliance on Russian energy and food supplies; emerging markets are affected less than advanced economies.

• We expect higher public spending to support a massive inflow of asylum seekers from Ukraine and to bolster military spending, which will limit adverse effects on European GDP, though both are likely to add to pressure on resources and therefore inflation.

• The sanctions costs to Russia are partly offset by higher prices for gas and oil exports but the net effect on the economy will be negative with Russian GDP expected to contract by 1.5 per cent this year and more than 2.5 per cent by the end of 2023.

• Russian inflation is expected to soar above 20 per cent this year.Western inflation to go still higher with recession risks mounting.

• We see the impact on the UK could be to reduce GDP growth by around 0.8 per cent to 4.0 per cent in 2022 and to 0.5 per cent in 2023.

• For the UK, we now expect inflation to average 7 per cent in 2022 and 4.4 per cent in 2023, up from 5.3 per cent and 2.7 per cent, respectively, in our February Outlook.

• The war intensifies the dilemma facing monetary policy makers since it will add to inflation but weaken growth and damage consumer and business confidence, already undermined by Coviddriven price increases.

• Our advice is for central banks to proceed carefully but to use communication to signal that any delays in rate hikes are merely postponements, not cancellations.

[1] Liadze, I., Macchiarelli, C., Mortimer‐Lee, P., & Sanchez Juanino, P. (2023). Economic costs of the Russia‐Ukraine war. The World Economy, 46(4), 874-886. (180 citations). Available on:

https://www.niesr.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/PP32-Economic-Costs-Russia-Ukraine.pdf

Speaking of war costs, the article "Iraq: the wound of the United States", By Jacques Hubert-Rodier, Published in "Les Echos" on 7 Feb. 2020 (in French), indicates incredible figures. Excerpts (Own translation): "Since March 2003, the war in Iraq has represented 8,000 dollars per American taxpayer for a budget of nearly 2,000 billion dollars, according to "Newsweek".... Also according to the magazine, interest on the war debt Iraqis totaled $444 billion. “Even if the fighting has stopped, and the Trump administration has decided to withdraw the American military from the 'total war on terrorism,' these payments will continue to increase. But the balance sheet is above all human. According to estimates, between 185,000 and 208,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in this conflict. And, in total, the US military lost 4,500 servicemen and more than 32,000 were injured in Iraq alone. In the "total war against terrorism", launched first in Afghanistan in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001 and then two years later in Iraq, 4.1 million veterans had to receive medical services. Which represented a bill of 199 billion dollars. America did not fall in Iraq because of a war launched on the false pretext of the presence of weapons of mass destruction. But, as after Vietnam, she comes out injured..."

Read more in French on:

https://www.lesechos.fr/idees-debats/editos-analyses/lirak-la-blessure-des-etats-unis-1170093#:~:text=Selon%20les%20estimations%2C%20de%20185.000,%C3%A9t%C3%A9%20bless%C3%A9s%20en%20Irak%20seulement.

An old proverb says "In the tongue, there is no bone" So to say that is easy to speak. The point is one, and scholars, in particular, have to assume ethical responsibility for what they are saying. For my part, if I advocated a discourse without risk for me and for my family but which could cause disasters for others, disasters that could have been avoided with the help of different discourses, perhaps more honest and more intelligent, I would feel not only guilty but responsible for all the unnecessary suffering my speech would have caused.

See also:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Science_Conscience

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Scientific_Integrity_Research_Ethics_and_Higher_Education_Deontology_The_Senior_Scholars_Duty

An old proverb says "In the tongue, there is no bone" So to say that is easy to speak. The problem is that the free world will not get into battle order like he did in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya... and put an end to Putin, as he did with Saddam, Ghadhafi, and other dictators at the cost of irreversible damage in the decimated populations and suffered the martyrdom during decennaries and still today. What the Free World is he waiting for to enter the war and win it? Let's be serious! Russia is not Iraq and the Free World knows. And to clear his conscience, the Free World will continue to send, parsimoniously and above all on the condition of not being assimilated to a belligerent or even co-belligerent, insufficient military and humanitarian aids. And to clear themselves of responsibility, they will of course, and it's already starting, hold the Ukrainian Martyr people to account, see force them to betray their fighters and those who have fallen.

George Orwell declared: "Those who don't remember history are condemned to repeat it". What is happening in Ukraine, at the heart of Europe, is horrible and recalls dark historical episodes. All wars are always the result of subjective and contradictory interpretations of intelligence and honesty. "All wars are hateful"! in that they leave extreme misery and hopelessness, Examples:

1. The 'war on terror', has caused at least 500,000 dead according to AFP, Washington, 9 November 2018. https://www.ledevoir.com/monde/540962/etats-unis-la-guerre-contre-le-terrorisme-a-fait-au-moins-500-000-morts-depuis-2001-selon-une-etude Translated from French: "At least 500,000 people have died in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan since the United States launched the "war on terror" after the attacks of September 11....Iraq has the highest death toll heavy for civilians - between 182,272 and 204,575 dead -, followed by Afghanistan (38,480) and Pakistan (23,372). Nearly 7,000 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan...."We may never know the direct toll of these wars",...because many of the casualties recorded as combatants may in fact be civilians, or because civilian casualties have not yet been counted. The toll also does not include indirect victims of the conflict, including those killed by disease or lack of infrastructure".

2. The war in Yemen. The death toll has already exceeded 380,000, in the "world's biggest humanitarian catastrophe".

In seven years, the war in Yemen will have caused the death of 377,000 people, by the end of 2021, "Le Monde" with "AFP" Published on November 24, 2021

https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2021/11/24/en-sept-ans-la-guerre-du-yemen-aura-cause-la-mort-de-377-000-people-by-the-end-of-the-year-2021_6103373_3210.html

Translation from French: "The United Nations (UN) estimates that the seven-year war in Yemen will have caused the death of 377,000 people, direct and indirect victims of the conflict, by the end of 2021. Nearly 60% of deaths, or about 227,000 people, are due to the indirect consequences of the conflict, such as the lack of drinking water, hunger and disease, according to a report, Tuesday, November 23, from the United Nations Program for development (UNDP). This means according to these estimates that the fighting will have left 150,000 dead by the end of this year. The conflict pits Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, against Yemeni government forces, backed since 2015 by a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia. Seven years of war have had "catastrophic effects on the development of the nation", underlines the UNDP, according to which "access to health care is limited or non-existent" and "the economy is on the verge of collapse

Most of the indirect victims are "children particularly vulnerable to malnutrition and undernutrition", explains the UNDP. “In 2021, a Yemeni child under the age of 5 dies every nine minutes as a result of the conflict”, it is written.

The "biggest humanitarian disaster in the world"

According to the UNDP, “1.3 million people” are at risk of death if a peace agreement is not reached by 2030. “A growing proportion of these deaths will occur… as a result of the indirect consequences of the crisis on livelihoods, food prices and the deterioration of basic services, such as health and education,” it says. Escalating fighting, including tank battles and regular bombardments by planes and drones, has destroyed even the most basic infrastructure in some areas, the report continues. Millions of people are on the brink of starvation, with two-thirds of Yemenis dependent on humanitarian aid, according to the UN. “Yemen is the worst and biggest humanitarian disaster in the world, and this disaster continues to worsen”, recalled the UN, and “more than 80% of the population” of approximately 30 million inhabitants “ need humanitarian aid”. “Millions of Yemenis continue to suffer from the conflict, trapped in poverty, with few opportunities to find work and a livelihood,” said Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator"

The title of this paper could not be more long, and "politically incorrect" and its summary could not be more direct. Dobrev, P. L. P. M., & Garibova-Dobreva, P. P. M. (2022). THE SANCTIONAL ECONOMIC WAR of the deep mafia in the USA, EU, Great Britain, and other countries against Russia leads to the end of the deep mafia financial system, the end of the hegemony of global neoliberal capitalism, and Russia to become the richest country if it starts selling rubles for gold. American Journal of Multidisciplinary Research & Development (AJMRD), 4(04), 63-82.

Abstract: The consideration of sanctions imposed by NATO, the United States, the European Union, Britain, and other states over Russia must be considered thoroughly, regardless of all the facts, evidence, factors, benefits of these sanctions for which countries.

The paper is available on:

https://www.ajmrd.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/G446382.pdf

The recent paper by Madlovics and Magyar, 2023, "Kacyński's Poland and Orban's Hungary", Journal of Right-Wing Studies, 1(1), gives a lesson on the political and ideological positioning of Poland and Hungary on the chess of Europe and its interfaces. The authors wrote, in conclusion, "In spite of similar ideological frames, the alliance of Poland and Hungary in the Visegrád Four (V4) was more of a tactical cooperation of regimes with different strategic visions. Orbán wanted to strengthen his position against Brussels... while Kaczyński wanted to have Poland’s status as a regional middle power within the EU recognized. The two autocracies cooperated and defended each other in EU forums only as long as .. goals did not contradict each other... The different nature of autocracy that emerged in Poland and Hungary was obscured part by their common right-wing ideological frames, and their cooperation against the EU's criticisms of the state of the rule of law in the two countries. Now the two regimes’ divergent reactions to the Russian invasion of Ukraine have led observers to recognize the divergent paths of de-democratization taken by Kaczyński and Orbán..."

The article is available on:

https://escholarship.org/content/qt1n97x4h2/qt1n97x4h2.pdf

Have the World and Humanity ever been at peace? Only in the last decades, have there been wars, civilians killed by hundreds of thousands, populations exiled by millions, entire generations sacrificed, and unbearable suffering in many regions of the earth. I am not going to name the aggressors, the assaults, the torturers, or the victims so as not to offend the sensitivity of each other. But with all the compassion I have for the Ukrainians, feeling their suffering, and the disasters that are occurring in their country and in their homes (all wars are hateful); the nagging question that should haunt Humanity's Consciousness is: Why does the world seem to discover that war exists and that its horrors are terrible only just after the invasion of Ukraine?

In line with the previous Post: There is no chance for two mathematicians starting from the same postulate or conjecture to get two different answers. In return, two politicians starting from the same history runs may arrive at so totally opposite outcomes that it becomes impossible to restart speculation and it is the war.

"An Israeli raid struck early Monday, August 28 in the morning, the international airport of Aleppo (North), the second city of Syria, for the fourth time since the beginning of the year. According to official Syrian media, the raid caused "material damage to the tarmac which put the airport out of service". "Around 4:30 a.m., the Israeli enemy carried out an air assault from the Mediterranean, west of Latakia, against Aleppo International Airport," the official SANA news agency said, citing a military source". (Own translation). Source: Le Monde with AFP, August 28, 2023, En Syrie, l’aéroport d’Alep hors service après avoir été visé par un raid israélien (In Syria, Aleppo airport out of service after being targeted by an Israeli raid)

Read the article (In French) on:

https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2023/08/28/en-syrie-l-aeroport-d-alep-hors-service-apres-avoir-ete-vise-par-un-raid-israelien_6186809_3210.html

What is indisputable is that all peoples on the planet have the absolute and inalienable right to defend their territory till the last drop of blood if needed, or to make whatever allegiances and/or compromises that serve them the best. Cynicism and the height of hypocrisy is that people from where they are, risking absolutely nothing for themselves or their offspring and not suffering the pangs of war decide or think of what is good or bad for others. We have seen this, in Afghanistan, Balkan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, the Middle East, and in several regions in the world where entire populations and entire generations were sacrificed or disseminated. Geopolitics configurations are generally larger than one population (or country) considerations. Situations today are the result of past geopolitical decisions. Future situations of war or peace will be the result of today's geopolitical decisions. As no real forces engagement is expected to support Ukrainians in their unbalanced war, are we observing, a new cynicism episode?

"Commerce and manufactures gradually introduced order and good government, and with them, the liberty and security of individuals. Adam Smith. 1776. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations." The question of growing economic liberalisation commensurate with ‘globalization’ has reawakened the question of capitalist conditions and social stability. Several scholars of globalisation disagree with Adam Smith´s statement quoted above and attribute the breakdown of civic life, rising criminality, warlordism, illicit markets, trafficking, terrorism, militarisation and civil violence on the spread of neoliberal policies and free-markets..." This is the first paragraph of the paper by Indra de Soysa (2016): Capitalism & the “new wars”: free markets and societal insecurity before and after the cold war, 1970–2013, Civil Wars. Available on:

Article Capitalism & the “new wars”: free markets and societal insec...

FRANCE MEDIATOR? extract from: "I have excellent relations with them" Colonna hopes to rally the countries of the South to the peace plan in Ukraine, By Mathilde Karsenti, Marianne, August 29, 2023 (Own translation) "An initiative that brings together “an increasingly large number of so-called “Southern” countries (…) because we will not act alone and we will not succeed alone,” added Catherine Colonna. She also clarified that she no longer wanted to use the expression “country of the global South” due to excessive use by Russia. “Moscow is obviously seeking to pit these countries against the West and create blocs, which is not the case,” she said. The dialogue for a peace plan will continue in Kyiv and New York during the United Nations General Assembly which begins on September 19. And in this regard, the minister considers herself “able to convince southern countries such as South Africa, India or Ethiopia to position themselves” because of the “excellent links” she maintains with them. Earlier in the morning, before France's representatives abroad gathered in Paris, the Minister of Foreign Affairs declared that "law and morality" were "at stake", as were the interests of France, the European security and international stability. And he insisted: “Russian aggression must be a failure”

Read the article in French on:

https://www.marianne.net/monde/europe/jai-dexcellentes-relations-avec-eux-colonna-espere-rallier-les-pays-du-sud-au-plan-de-paix-en-ukraine

Dear Jamel Chahed

Thanks for your posts. It is good to know that in your previous posts you embrace, as it were, the cause of the disenfranchised. If such cause were universally supported, then we would have a world with more peace and less wars. That in contrast to what happens with the "peace" concept, which is not pluralized., the fact that this is not the case of the "war" concept only compounds the idea that we live in a world pervaded by a culture of war.

Thank you Dear Orlando M Lourenço for your kind comment and wise thoughts.

Regards

CNN, August 29, 2023, By Mariya Knight and Jessie Yeung. Ukraine blasts Pope Francis’ address to Russian youth as 'imperialist propaganda'. "The pontiff made a video address to the 10th All-Russian Catholic Youth Assembly in St. Petersburg on Friday, during which he urged them to view themselves as descendants of the Russian empire. “Never forget your heritage. You are the descendants of great Russia: the great Russia of saints, rulers, the great Russia of Peter I, Catherine II, that empire – educated, great culture and great humanity. Never give up on this heritage,” the pope said. “You are descendants of the great Mother Russia, step forward with it. And thank you – thank you for your way of being, for your way of being Russian.”

On Monday, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oleh Nikolenko lambasted the pope’s speech. “This is the kind of imperialist propaganda, ‘spiritual bonds’ and the ‘need’ to save ‘Great Mother Russia’ which the Kremlin uses to justify the murder of thousands of Ukrainians and the destruction of hundreds of Ukrainian towns and villages,” Nikolenko said in a Facebook post"....

Read the article on:

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/29/europe/pope-francis-russia-ukraine-intl-hnk/index.html

Dear Jamel Chahed

Thanks also for your positive and kind words, I am with you in your defense of the disenfranchised.

As you know, in the XVi th century, philosopher B. Spinosa claimed that peace is not the mere absence of war, but a virtue that comes from the vigor of one's soul and mind. After some centuries, however, the heroes of peace, who many times are assassinated by their own followers (e.g., Mohandas Gandhi), "look pale beside the heroes of war" (Gillet, 1994, p. 421).

The prevalence of the the idea war over the idea of peace is s well documented in the well known Collier's Encyclopedia, which devotes about 30 pages to war and war-related activities and has no entry to the peace concept. Scandal!

PS. Gillet, N. (1994). An agenda for peace and the role of peace education. Peace, Environment and Education, 5, 3-23.

Geo, September 1, 2023 by Benjamen laurent. From India to Russia via Taiwan, China's new official map claims the territories of its neighbors. Beijing has been in conflict with several states over poorly defined borders for several centuries. The Communist Party, however, has just reaffirmed its claim over all these regions, to the great dismay of its neighbors. (Own translation) "The People's Republic of China's border disputes with its neighbors are legion, inherited from the colonial era and the Communist Party's takeover. But Beijing, which unveiled its new official map of the country on August 28, goes as far as 'to claim territory from its own allies, including Russia....".

Read the article in French on:

https://www.geo.fr/geopolitique/chine-nouvelle-carte-officielle-revendique-territoires-voisins-inde-russie-taiwan-ministere-ressources-naturelles-216417

Hilary Putnam Paradox (the bomb). "Hilary Putnam has devised a bomb that threatens to devastate the realist philosophy we know and love. 1 He explains how he has learned to stop worrying and love the bomb. He welcomes the new order that it would bring. (RT&H, Preface) But we who still live in the target area do not agree. The bomb must be banned....

Putnam's thesis is incredible. We are in the presence of paradox, as surely as when we meet the man who offers us a proof that there are no people, and in particular that he himself does not exist. 3 It is out of the question to follow the argument where it leads. We know in advance that there is something wrong, and the challenge is to find out where. If the paradox-monger is good at his work, we stand to learn something; and indeed, I think that Putnam's paradox affords an important lesson...". Excerpts from the introduction of the paper (around 1.1k citations)

Lewis, D. (1984). Putnam's paradox. Australasian journal of philosophy, 62(3), 221-236. Available on:

https://andrewmbailey.com/dkl/Putnams_Paradox.pdf

In the same vein as the previous post: The Liar Paradox. "Thomas Bradwardine was born shortly before the start of the fourteenth century. While at Merton College in Oxford in the 1320s, .., who first came upon something of value concerning the insoluble.... The insolubles are paradoxes or antinomies of language, perhaps most famously expressed in the Liar Paradox: ‘What I am saying is false’... The problem with a proposition like ‘What I am saying is false’, is that we appear to be able to show not only that it is false, but that, in consequence, it is true as well. Briefly, if it were true that what I was saying was false, it would be false and so not true, hence (assuming it must be either true or false) it is false. But if what I was saying was false, then what I said was true, as well as false. If we think to avoid this contradiction by suggesting that what I said was neither true nor false, the revenge problem hits back through the alternative paradox: ‘What I am saying is not true’.7 The same reductio proof shows that it is not true. The problem for truth-value gap theorists is to explain why I did not speak truly when I anticipated them and said: ‘What I am saying is not true’...." Excerpts from the introduction of the paper (around 1.1k citations)

Read, S. (2002). The liar paradox from John Buridan back to Thomas Bradwardine. Vivarium, 40(2), 189-218.. Available on: https://www.academia.edu/download/8410440/read-bradwardine.pdf

Dignity and Revolution. The "Enough!" ("¡Ya Basta!") proclaimed by the Zapatistas on the first day of 1994 was the cry of dignity [1]. Likewise in Tunisia, on January 14, 2011, the people stood up to shout "Get out!" ("Dégage!") slogan of what the people called in its constitution the "Revolt of Freedom and Dignity" and what the world has, wrongly, referred as "Revolt of Jasmine”, the prelude to what was called “Arab Spring”.

The loss of “Dignity” is, among all attacks on a human person, the strongest, the most intolerable, the most buried in the depths of oppressed souls. The desire to restore “Dignity” creates a groundswell, always devastating: what will happen afterward is not important and does not come into play.

What is happening today, little everywhere in the world, is just a repetition of History. "Those who don't remember history are condemned to repeat it" Said, George Orwell.

[1] Holloway, J. (2018). Dignity's revolt (pp. pp-159). PM Press. Available on:

http://cril.mitotedigital.org/sites/default/files/content/zap-dignitys_revolt-holloway.pdf

In line with my previous post. The chapter [1] mentioned above explains what it means to put dignity first in order to live a human life against and in an inhumane society. This is precisely the leitmotif of oppositional thought, at the heart of the struggle of millions of people all over the world. One may read within the Chapter [1] "Dignity, the refusal to accept humiliation and dehumanization, the refusal to conform: dignity is the core of the Zapatistas ' revolution of revolution. The idea of dignity has not been invented by the Zapatistas, but they have given it a prominence that it has never before possessed in revolutionary thought. When the Zapatistas rose, they planted the flag of dignity not just in the center of the uprising in Chiapas, but in the center of oppositional thought. Dignity is not peculiar to the indigenous peoples of the southeast of Mexico: the struggle to convert 'dignity and rebellion into freedom and dignity' (an odd but important formulation) is the struggle of (and for) human existence in an oppressive society, as relevant to life in Edinburgh, Athens, Tokyo, Los Angeles or Johannesburg as it is to the struggles of the people of the Lacandon Jungle."

[1] Holloway, J. (2018). Dignity's revolt (pp. pp-159). PM Press. Available on:

http://cril.mitotedigital.org/sites/default/files/content/zap-dignitys_revolt-holloway.pdf

See also:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/France-Africa_France-USA_Je_taime_moi_non_plus/2

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Science_Conscience/9

Here are excerpts from the paper [1] by Khurshid et al., 2023: Critical metals in uncertainty: How Russia-Ukraine conflict drives their prices? "The expansion of the electric vehicle (EV) market is an essential factor pushing up demand for critical minerals. They are less expensive, and their readily available supply makes them economical, popular, and viable. As a result, governments deploy their resources for transportation, mining, processing, and production of critical mineral-based products. Governments with a predominance in these minerals want more investment to maximize the advantages of this source of income. For instance, several countries, notably China, are eager to boost the supply of these essential minerals to meet rising demand. China is a dominating operator in the mineral supply chain, so the Western world is concerned about China's future dominance in the energy market. China controls the majority of essential mining refineries and raw materials, including 73% of cobalt refineries, 68% of nickel refineries, 59% of lithium refineries, and 40% of copper refineries. In addition, China's role as a significant supplier for producing battery cells is crucial, as most such components are made in China".

The authors wrote in conclusion: "The findings depict that the war between Russia and Ukraine influences the price of critical metals. The results show rapid divergence from counterfactual predictions, and the critical metals prices are consistently higher than expected without conflict"

[1] Adnan Khurshid, Yufeng Chen, Abdur Rauf, Khalid Khan, Critical metals in uncertainty: How Russia-Ukraine conflict drives their prices?, Resources Policy, Volume 85, Part B, 2023,

See also:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Electric_Vehicle_Battery_and_Rare_Earths_Technological_Economic_and_Environmental_Issues/5

Interesting paper on Journalism and War "...It indicated that media using more war journalism would escalate the conflicts and the media using more peace journalism would reduce the conflicts. This paper mainly combs the relevant research on War and Peace Journalism Paradigm..." Wang, Y. 2022, A Review on War and Peace Journalism Paradigm. In 2021 International Conference on Social Development and Media Communication (SDMC 2021) (pp. 1065-1070). Atlantis Press. Available on: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2022&q=journalists+and+war&hl=fr&as_sdt=0,5

EuroNews, 09/09/2023 Ouverture du G20 à New Dehli, sans Vladimir Poutine ni Xi Jinping. (Own Translation) " Disagreements within the G20 on the attitude to have towards Moscow, the gradual abandonment of fossil fuels and the restructuring of the debt will make a final declaration difficult this Sunday. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned of growing divisions and the resulting risks of conflict. “If we are indeed a global family, today we look like (a) rather dysfunctional family,” he lamented Friday at a press conference in New Delhi. In the absence of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, Joe Biden is expected to take center stage".

Read the article in French on:

https://fr.euronews.com/2023/09/09/ouverture-du-g20-a-new-dehli-sans-vladimir-poutine-ni-xi-jinping

As Uranium Depled Amunitions are being delivered to the Ukraine Army, it would be worth reading the European Parliamentary question - E-003481/2015 about "Gaza Strip, and bombs with depleted uranium", March 3, 2015. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2015-003481_EN.html One may read there "There is now enough convincing data to prove that Israel has repeatedly used depleted uranium weaponry. Such was the case in the large-scale massacre that took place in the Gaza Strip in August 2014. These weapons cause cancers and foetal malformations in the populations affected, which may take on epidemic proportions. In Iraq, in the city of Fallujah, where these bombs were launched in industrial quantities by the International Coalition led by the United States, 52% of children today are born with deformities. The lethal effects of radioactivity caused by explosions and subsequent fires, including cancer of the lungs and pleura, can persist for centuries in the environment and particularly in aquifers. We are therefore on the verge of another humanitarian catastrophe in Palestine and in particular in the Gaza Strip, where thousands of tons of depleted uranium bombs were dropped with the effects that have already been documented. In view of this situation, what is the Vice-President/High Representative thinking of doing to pressure Israel into assuming its responsibilities for this crime against humanity, and what help can the Vice-President/High Representative offer to the Palestinian authorities to carry out epidemiological monitoring, which also includes all EU citizens who have moved to the territory since then?"

Although peace remains one of the greatest aspirations of humankind, what we see around us is a culture or even an institution of conflict and war. As pointed out many years ago by Scott Sleek (1996, p. 1) *, the Cold War ended only to usher in a period of smaller, but far bloodier, fighting in the Balkans, Africa and parts of the old Soviet Union. Ethnic and religious hatreds escalated out of control, for example, with Hutus and Tutsis slaughtering in Rwanda; Croats, Muslims, and Serbs in murderous battle in Bosnia; and religious and radicals launching ferocious attacks in Israel, Palestina, Liberia, and other countries. In other words, however much we talk about peace, it is war that is apparent, pervasive, and omnipresent.

To complicate things more, there seems to be a widespread idea that peace can be attained even when there is, as it were, a drawer file for social justice, which I think to be impossible.

* Sleek, S. (1996). Psychologists build a culture of. American Psychological Association Monitor, 27, 1.

As I have already mentioned we live in world where the idea of war outweighs the idea of peace. This is well illustrated, for example, in an empirical study I performed. See, for this purpose, Lourenço, O. (1999). Toward a positive conception of peace. In Raviv, A., Oppenheimer. L., & Bar-Tal, D. How children understand war and peace (pp. 91-108), San Francisco; Jossey-Bass.

It is beyond the scope of this post to elaborate at length on this book's chapter, which can read in my R G. profile.

Even so, it should be mentioned that participants in this study thought of war as, say, a first-order phenomenon, a phenomenon that exists in itself, and of peace as a second -order phenomenon, that is, peace was thought as a mere absence of war,

Dear Jamel Chahed, thanks for your last posts, links and considerations. All of them are all-right. Even so, no culture of peace will ever be possible without a culture of justice. To want peace without justice is like to eat the cake and still remain with it. Impossible!

Thank you Dear Orlando M Lourenço for your insightful contributions and for your kind words. I will read with interest your chapter on "positive conception of peace" and with readers, I hope we will have opportunities to exchange about. Regards.

Thank you dearJamel Chahed for your kind and positive words regarding my contributions to your thread. It has been my pleasure to participate. And it will also be my pleasure to exchange messages with readers about my above mentioned chapter on "Toward a positive conception of peace" . And why not start discussing our published contributions instead of those that belong to authors other than us.?

Kind regards.

This paper [1] Military Coup in Niger: The Legacies of Colonialism and the U.S. War on Terror in West Africa, released 3 days ago deals with two compelling questions: "How has the militarization of West Africa, explored through the lens of the war on terror, set the stage for the recent coup in Niger, and what does this upheaval signify for the future of the region? Amidst the shifting sands of power, a closer examination of these connections and motivations reveals a tale of hidden agendas, geopolitical chess moves and the struggle for control over a land where history and destiny collide"

[1] Zambakari, Christopher, Military Coup in Niger: The Legacies of Colonialism and the U.S. War on Terror in West Africa, 2023. AFRICA REPORT No 14 http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4546350

Zelensky urges the West to continue their solidarity with Ukraine (UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SER) In conversation with The Economist, he said: I have this intuition, reading, hearing and seeing their eyes [when they say] ‘we’ll be always with you. “But I see that he or she is not here, not with us.” The ex-TV actor is aware of the importance of Western economic support. Mr Zelensky added: “If you are not with Ukraine, you are with Russia, and if you are not with Russia, you are with Ukraine. And if partners do not help us, it means they will help Russia to win. That is it.” Reported by The Independent, September 11, 2023

Read more on:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-ukraine-war-news-latest-drones-offensive-b2408933.html?page=2

Dear Jamel Chahed,

Thanks so much for your last two posts and the humanist and humane tendencies underlying them, which say much about your ideals. Even so,. we should not be naive, that is, to think that the good is always and only in one side and the evil in the other. We can have manifestations of the good and the evil in both sides, even though such manifestations may vary in terms of degree. More to the point, we should not take all the citizens of a given country by their governments. It is only by taking this into account that we can aspire to be citizens of the world. Don't you agree with me on this idea/ideal?

I always look at the media with some caution in the sense they all have their vested interests and hidden agendas . But I don't want to be naive in this respect, that is, to assume that these interests and agendas are equally universalizable in ethical terms.

Dear Orlando M Lourenço, Thank you for your kind words. I find the remarks you provided very interesting. What is indisputable is that any people on the planet have the absolute and inalienable right to defend their territory until the last drop of blood if needed, or to make whatever allegiances and/or compromises that serve them the best. Cynicism and the height of hypocrisy is that people from where they are, risking absolutely nothing for themselves or their offspring and not suffering the pangs of war decide or think of what is good or bad for others. We have seen this, in Afghanistan, Balkan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Palestine, and in several regions in the world where entire populations and entire generations were sacrificed or disseminated; and we are seeing similar human disasters as the war in Ukraine lasts. Is what is happening in Ukraine not the prelude to violence on a larger scale? And before that, what has been done to ensure that a new episode of violence does not settle in Europe after the end of the Cold War? Geopolitics configurations are generally larger than one population (or country) consideration. Situations today are the result of past general geopolitical decisions. Future situations of war or peace will be the result of today's geopolitical decisions.

CNN September 11, 2023, by Andrew Carey, Niamh Kennedy and Yulia Kesaieva, Top US general says Ukraine has weeks before weather hampers counteroffensive "The United States’ top general has warned Ukraine has just six weeks left before changing weather hampers its counteroffensive, even as Kyiv is signaling it could fight on into the winter. “There is still a reasonable amount of time, about 30 to 45 days’ worth of fighting weather left,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told the BBC on Sunday. After that, mud and rain would likely have an impact on battlefield maneuverability, he said. In keeping with the “glass half full” messaging coming from Biden administration officials of late, Milley said the counteroffensive had achieved “very steady progress” since it began in early June. “The Ukrainians aren’t done, this battle is not done, and they haven’t finished the fighting part of what they are trying to accomplish. It’s too early to say how this is going to end,” he said. Reports on Sunday suggested only incremental gains around one of Ukraine’s main areas of attack, near the village of Robotyne in Zaporizhzhia region, which lies on the way to the strategic town of Tokmak.

An unofficial Telegram channel belonging to Ukraine’s 46th brigade, which has proved a reliable source of information, said troops had advanced to the east of a neighboring village, but cautioned Russian forces still held higher ground nearby, giving them an advantage. Meanwhile, an online update from the southern ‘Tavria’ command said: “we continue to make small advances in the area of Robotyne. About 1.5 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory have been liberated,” though it did not say how long a period of time it was referring to. Asked about his forces’ rate of advance on Friday, President Volodymyr Zelensky insisted Ukraine still had the initiative, but he urged a conference audience in Kyiv not to see the counteroffensive like a feature film that was all done in 90 minutes.