Russia has been on a war footing with Europe for some time. Europe still behaves as though it is at peace. Russia is a danger to the entire Western world, but we remain half-asleep. We insist on calling attacks like the one on Leipzig/Halle "hybrid." They may be carried out through cutouts, but they are attacks nonetheless, orchestrated by a brutal, despotic, revisionist state, and could have resulted in loss of life. It also doesn't help that we have an Appeaser in Chief occupying the White House. He is a weak, possibly compromised, president at precisely the moment we need strength.

Netanyahu is Israel's Trump. He had ample warning that Hamas was plotting something dramatic in the near future, and not from Egypt's intelligence chief alone (there were also reported warnings from the UAE, as well as from domestic intelligence sources), but did precious little to prevent it. Hamas is entirely responsible for the atrocities, but Netanyahu showed negligence of an extraordinary magnitude. He and Likud should lose in the upcoming elections for the Knesset because of this and their terrible mismanagement in the aftermath of October 7.

I agree. It was an odd thing to bring up in a diplomatic setting, and even more odd that there was no official response from the White House. Besides which, I question whether America is the declining power in the Thucydides Trap of which Xi is so fond. China has: 1. A declining and aging population. 2. A highly leveraged corporate sector burdened by substantial debt (estimated to be 126% of GDP). Combined with weak domestic demand and an economy increasingly reliant on exports for growth, this presents enormous risk. 3. Slow economic growth for a country whose GDP per capita remains a fraction of that of the United States. 4. An authoritarian ruling party that relies extensively on intimidation, censorship, and repression. 5. Deep internal tensions involving ethnicity, poverty, inequality, and politics, including the destruction of Uyghur culture and identity in Xinjiang, which the United States has formally characterized as genocide. 6. Endemic corruption. 7. Neighbors, including several major regional powers, that are deeply distrustful of it. Some of these problems obviously have American analogues. The relevant question is comparative. The United States remains considerably wealthier per capita, has a substantially more favorable demographic outlook, attracts enormous amounts of global talent and capital, and possesses a uniquely extensive network of wealthy military allies. Admittedly, the Trump administration is doing its best to imitate China, but I doubt that MAGA in its current form will exist past 2028. The damage Trump has done is immense, but much of it can be undone with time. China's demographic decline, accumulated corporate debt, authoritarianism, and some of its other structural problems are considerably harder to reverse.

During his UN speech, Volodymyr Zelenskyy had to remind the world again of the brutality of Russia's invasion, that it was purely Russia's choice, and that it is a war of conquest. I find it sad that the world, more than four years since the full-scale invasion, still needs that reminder. And some, like Trump, his family, Steve Witkoff, and the AfD in Germany, have been talking about restoring economic ties with Russia and a return to business as usual. Russia must be ejected from every square centimeter of Ukraine. Period. Advocating for any other final outcome is either moral cowardice, a lack of a moral compass, or stupidity.