UKRAINE: TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY RECKONING

by Galen D. Kirkland
Executive Director for War-Peace Studies

All citizens of the world confront the same nagging questions today. Is humankind doomed to experience another paroxysm of human slaughter because of delusional designs for domination and control in the minds of a cadre of misguided people? Will the unpredictable dogs of war be loosed upon millions of people to inflict unspeakable suffering? Is the vast majority of peace-loving people unavoidably paralyzed in the role of passive observer as the nightmare unfolds? The truth that illuminates us all is that we always have the power to fight for peace. We can raise our voices and sacrifice our material comfort to support the global resistance to Russian aggression in Ukraine.

After World War II, there was a surge of international support for a world federation of nations in hopes that the obscenities of widespread war would never be repeated. The tangible result of this movement was the establishment of the United Nations with grand expectations. Pioneers like Lucy Webster, Richard Hudson, Hamilton Kean, and Myron Kronisch at the Center for War/Peace Studies developed proposals for a more effective United Nations through a more powerful federation of nations. They met with embassy and consular staff of many nations to advocate the adoption of the Binding Triad for a more rational voting system in the United Nations General Assembly, and they advocated for a reformed United Nations Security Council where more global representation could be achieved without vetoes by the big-five victors of World War II. 

These and other supporters of world federation around the globe dedicated many years of tireless work to the mission of creating a stronger global community that could better defend itself from dictators and rogue regimes. The present challenge of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is a reckoning of whether humankind has developed the capacity to prevent a repeat of the violent tragedies of the past. Have we evolved sufficiently to use reason and diplomacy in place of unbridled violence? The answer to this pivotal test of the twenty-first century hinges on the consciousness and the courage of all citizens of the world. Are we prepared to do everything possible to succeed in rejecting violence by means of overwhelming sanctions? This will require isolating the Russian regime from the rest of the world effectively enough to make victories in battle self-defeating. Working together, we have the power to defend peace by creating an effective deterrence to violence.

Separating sanitary globalizations from globalizations that spread pandemics

 

 

Globalization of people and viruses

versus

globalization of trade and communications

 by Ira Straus

The two forms of globalization need to be separated, the one that harms public health -- globalization of people -- restricted. It is the way to rebuild better after this pandemic, and the only way to make globalization great again. 

   

There are two globalizations. COVID will change their balance enduringly. International personal travel will shrink.

Even without COVIC, a reduction of travel would have been inevitable in face of the progress of communications technology. Now we also know that it is also an imperative of global public health. Europe and America have paid a terrible price 

Happy New Year

Ira Straus

Chair, CWPS

It looks to be a terrible start on the year with the pandemic. But the vaccines are out and will start wiping out the virus -- as long as enough people take them. And as long as we maintain patience and restraint until then, and don't let the pandemic spread so uncontrollably that mutations start coming faster and thicker than we can keep up with them. Let's hope good sense prevails. Stay safe and get your vaccine when you can. And enjoy the rebuddings of life as they become safely available. The photo here, grace of one of those.

Is Europe copying the mistakes of America’s 4th of July?

A Federal Trust article

by Ira Straus
Chair, Center for War-Peace Studies

It is a melancholy thing to see a historical drama being imitated and replayed blindly. The more melancholy, when it is happening to a friendly country. [...]

Continue reading at https://fedtrust.co.uk/is-europe-copying-the-mistakes-of-americas-4th-july/

This is a shortened version of a longer article, which is available here: Misunderstanding America’s 4th July – Is Europe copying only the Mistakes? 

THE EU AND THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS

When Border Closures and Supranational Collaboration go hand in hand

A Federal Trust article

by Ira Straus
Chair, Center for War-Peace Studies

Unexpectedly, a virus, SARS 2 CoV-2, has become the most important political as well as human issue facing us at this time. Like any crisis of public safety, it presents the EU with an opportunity also: the opportunity to become a strong provider of security for its countries and citizens. Instead, tragically, EU is on the verge of committing a major mistake, its second potentially suicidal mistake in four years, by holding onto open borders (the Italian one) in this emergency period.

continue reading at https://fedtrust.co.uk/the-eu-and-the-coronavirus-crisis/

TOWARD A MORE EFFECTIVE EU POLICY ON GLOBAL WARMING

Only new approaches, supplementing current anti-emissions policies, can stop the warming not just slow the emissions

A Federal Trust article

by Ira Straus
Chair, Center for War-Peace Studies

Global warming is a matter where EU and global policy has been failing, despite long and heavy investment in the current line of policy. The warming has not only continued but sped up. Annual global emissions not only remain high but continue to increase. This, after decades of major Western emissions-reduction policies that have had significant if oft-denied costs to European economies, and that in the last two years brought on a damaging street reaction in France.

READ MORE: https://fedtrust.co.uk/toward-a-more-effective-eu-policy-on-global-warming/

Geoengineering: the only way to stop not slow Global Warming

Emissions reductions are also needed, but by themselves they cannot achieve their goal
by Ira Straus
Chair, Center for War-Peace Studies


There are two basic plans for responding to global warming: emissions reductions alone, and geoengineering alongside emissions reductions.

Geoengineering -- blocking up to 2% of incoming sunlight -- was the main plan for dealing with global warming in the Federal Science report of 1965. However, a few years later the New Left Movement, with its ideological orientations against technology and the West, captured environmentalism. It excluded geoengineering from the global warming discussion, which came to be confined exclusively to cutting greenhouse emissions.

THE RELEVANT TASKS NOW FOR EUROPE AND FOR FEDERALISTS

A Federal Trut article
by Ira Straus
Chair, Center for War-Peace Studies

It’s a new world in UK-EU relations. All — Europeanists, federalists, the EU itself — have to find their bearings in it. All have to refocus on the tasks most relevant for the future.

So also do all who wish for the UK to survive as a Union.

Following are five priority tasks.

READ MORE:
https://fedtrust.co.uk/the-relevant-tasks-now-for-europe-and-for-federalists/

BREXIT OR SCOTXIT – WHICH WILL DO MORE DAMAGE?

The economic costs of separatism and the strategic costs of contagion

A Federal Trust article

by Ira Straus
Chair, Center for War-Peace Studies

While there is much discussion in London of the economic and administrative consequences of Brexit, there is little similarly detailed discussion of the possible consequences of Scottish independence. This is surprising. Restricting a land border is a more radical thing than restricting a sea border. The cross-Channel border is with Britain’s bigger trading partner, the EU, but the Anglo-Scottish land border is more intimate and is no less intensively used.

READ MORE:
https://fedtrust.co.uk/brexit-or-scotxit-which-will-do-more-damage/

Can tactical voting save the UK’s own Unions?

Can Tories, by voting Labour, save their own party from destroying itself with a hard Brexit?

by Ira Straus


Tactical voting occurs on a large scale in every British election. It is a normal part of the system in first past the post elections. There is nothing unseemly about it.

Usually, tactical voting has been done primarily by supporters of third parties such as the LibDems. It has drastically reduced the votes that go to these parties, as they are seen as “wasted votes”. This year it is going to do nearly the opposite.

What has changed is not the tactical voting per se but the fact that many major party voters are now considering tactical voting.

Britain is seen by a majority of voters as existentially at risk from both the major party leaderships. Many among the major party voters are for the first time contemplating voting tactically, in order to avoid this perceived catastrophe. Important Conservative and Labour remainers alike have advocated voting tactically against their own party.