Kasparov: Wars end when the cause that produced them is removed. In Ukraine, that cause is Putin’s regime and the imperial policy of Putin’s Russia.
As long as that regime survives, the war will not end. That is the whole answer. 1/
Kasparov: Trump is about Trump, and about money for Trump and his entourage. No real peace talks are possible there.
Witkoff and Kushner are not diplomats. Ukraine was right to refuse territorial concessions, because those concessions could have been catastrophic. 2/
Kasparov: European politicians already understand that the threat now reaches even NATO countries
EU is preparing for war, but still fears saying it aloud. Only the military defeat and collapse of Putin’s regime give a chance for peace in Europe and a settlement in Ukraine 3X
Kasparov: “Russian Taiwan” is a metaphor, but the split is already real.
Hundreds of thousands of Russians have broken with Putin’s Russia, including legally, yet got no new status. Their documents expire every day. Europe needs one cardinal solution: recognize that we exist. 1/
Kasparov: “Russian Taiwan” is not about moving everyone to some island. Territory is secondary
The point is legal recognition for people who cut ties with Putin’s Russia and are stuck in limbo, instead of begging country by country for visas, exemptions, and documents. 2/
Kasparov: If Europe gives us legal status, we must offer something in return.
Nothing in Russia will change while Putin stays in power, and Putin stays in power while Russia can keep waging war. Only Ukraine’s victory gives us that historic chance, so we must help Ukraine win 3X
McFaul: It is extremely dangerous for Trump to make escalatory threats unless he is prepared to follow through.
Threats you do not deliver do not help negotiations. And if he does deliver them, that could be catastrophic for getting any deal with Iran in the future. 1/
McFaul: A better strategy is to start lower-level talks with experts, including on Iran’s nuclear program.
Build something technical and build momentum. Right now we are toggling between immediate breakthrough and nothing, and that impatience is undermining negotiation. 2/
McFaul: I see no evidence that the Iranian regime is pragmatic. It has more leverage right now because all it needs to do is survive.
For Tehran this is existential. For our side it is not existential; it is about electoral politics and that puts pressure on the American side 3/
America has been running a global security system with 1990s assumptions and 2020s constraints.
Trump can change it only by forcing tradeoffs: focus on China, cut peripheral wars, and rebuild industrial power at home — A. Wess Mitchell, Foreign Affairs. 1/
The model was to be strong everywhere, all the time.
After 9/11 the US added 30 years of expeditionary warfare and let shipbuilding, ammo, and nuclear recapitalization decay. 2/
Mitchell uses a 1904 analogy.
Britain’s admiral Jacky Fisher cut far flung naval stations, concentrated around the British Isles, and pushed regional defense burdens to allies.
Defense analyst Michael Clarke: This is not really a ceasefire. It is just a reduction in violence so Lebanon does not spoil the bigger US-Iran deal.
Israel may keep its response down for a couple of weeks, but at some point it will take the brakes off. 1/
Clarke: Israel is fighting a war within a war. Its aim in southern Lebanon is to push up to the Litani River and create a zone free of Hezbollah fighters.
It will not empty northern Israel again. If that means moving into Lebanon to create that zone, it will do it. 2/
Clarke: Iran can tell Hezbollah to cool it, but it cannot get rid of Hezbollah now even if it tries.
Hezbollah makes its own weapons, is bigger and stronger than the Lebanese army, and runs southern Lebanon through the state and down to the village level. 3/