You know what, Vance was right, the biggest threat to Europe is internal. But it’s not the imagined oppression at the hands of woke elites, it’s European officials who think that if they submit hard enough to Trump we will be spared.

Needless to say, my thoughts on foreign policy are fairly irrelevant. That’s why I don’t get published in the Atlantic. The invasion of Iraq cleared both congressional and public opinion hurdles, and yet was a disaster, for the USA but first and foremost for the region.

Leave it to American commentators to give you the most self-absorbed reasons for why war in the Middle East that further emboldens Israel’s revisionist agenda is a bad idea.

"Fouqha and his ambulance crew were then forced to watch on helplessly as Jad lay bleeding from his wounds. The paramedic said they watched for at least 35 minutes, unable to do anything. [...] The IDF has said that Jad threw a rock and was a 'terrorist' who 'attempted to attack the force'."

Can we please not fall for this? He is not even trying to pretend convincingly, and at any rate his influence on American foreign policy-making seems rather marginal. The only interest the Trump admin has in not abandoning Europe is that all its leverage would disappear overnight if it did.

Trump support in the US is slowly whittling down to his (still sizable) core MAGA base, despite their propaganda and knowing their target group. With Trump already unpopular over here, them trying to shift opinion in Europe, which exists in MAGA heads only as a caricature, could easily backfire.

Quite the comeback for the CDA, from five seats in the previous Parliament to having Ministers of the Interior, Foreign Affairs and Economy.

The NYT still thinks Trump's claims about immigrants stealing elections is a disagreement about facts. But MAGA supporters undoubtedly understand the message: namely that a system of elections that allows MAGA to lose is not worth having. Everything else is a footnote to that story.

I am sure all the people — and countries — that trashtalked the UN because a country like Saudi Arabia also sat on its Human Rights Council will want nothing to do with this Board of Peace contraption.

Generative AI is the devil, but this is genius. And what a song! www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1ln...

"If Europe wants to retain its independence, it needs to commit to action. The anti-coercion instrument, for all its faults, is the best option that Europe has. It should start the process of activating it, and quickly announce the specific measures it would impose."

Germany's sane parties really should start hammering the AfD for their ties to MAGA, *before* their apathy leads enough voters to believe that MAGA ideology is just the new normal that one has to find some sort of arrangement with. And the AfD could not make it easier for them.

@abenewman.bsky.social is right. There is an alternative. as.ft.com/r/7b8f914c-f...

I mean sure, but you know who else helped? Germany. Germany's behaviour during the 2-year long carnage in Gaza also helped. You cannot pick and choose. International law is not a menu. You have to respect it. Always. Otherwise it breaks down and then we're where we are now. #IntLaw #Germany

I'm sure the European strategy of offering the least possible pushback against the Trump administration, from tariffs to Ukraine and now Venezuela, will make it clear that European interests cannot simply be disregarded when it comes to, say, Greenland.

For some reason the administration had a much lower threshold for invasion when it invoked the Alien Enemies Act over illegal immigrants present on American territory.

“The invasion of Iraq was a disaster, but what about a slightly more surgical invasion of Venezuela, where the ripple effects of the country’s destabilization will affect us much more directly?” - The Trump administration, apparently

The list reads like a who is who of the most professional international aid organizations. This is yet more proof of Israel's insincerity in committing to the provision of aid to Gaza in the EU-Israel agreement of July 2024.

That stubbornly flat line of Reform unfavourables, despite the Starmer government alienating large parts of their base to court these voters, really speaks volumes to what an ill-guided strategy Labour has been pursuing.

I am growing increasingly convinced that (a) under Trump, the clean cut of security arrangements between the US and Europe will not happen because (b) the ambiguous status quo serves Trump's interests the best, and as it happens it also serves Putin's interests the best.

Right, why not try.

The Israeli FM declares that the country's security needs against a neighboring state trump international law and can be enforced through military means in violation of it, while Smotrich justifies this expansion of settlements with the denial of a Palestinian state's right to exist.

Is defending Ukraine’s sovereignty a European core security interest or not? Protecting stubborn banks’ assets is not. It’s mind-boggling that these banks and their governments expect Europeans to jeopardize their security so they don’t have to write off their investments in a lawless kleptocracy.

More than one third of young adults in the UK enters higher education, they’re all elitist winners? And at least over here, plenty of underprivileged students have the resource gathering skills to open university emails and apply for Erasmus as well as for financial support while abroad.

The Reform leadership’s browser history is probably sufficient to explain this puzzle.

Wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a link between liberals leaving Twitter and MAGA folks increasingly cannibalizing on each other in the absence of a shared enemy on their preferred platform. So I’d rather let that process go on undisturbed.

It’s a great blogpost. America now wants to undermine our institutions, but on the plus side, its foreign policy apparatus may be too uncoordinated and unprofessional to be effective at it. Quite the silver lining. I just have two points where I’m not sure the analysis is not too rosy.

Let’s see how long it takes the Trump admin to switch from “Europe shouldn’t be buying Russian gas” to “Europe should be buying more Russian gas”, all while bombs are coming down on Ukraine.

So the country with a homicide rate multiple that of Europe and which sends armed thugs into cities to commit state-sanctioned crimes against visible minorities is lecturing us on… crime, social cohesion and public safety.

I know little about peace negotiations and conflict resolution, and I'm sure I don't see half of the issues with this draft. But even then there's still so much that remains.

The EU Commission surrendered to Trump on tariff retaliation to keep the US on board for supporting Ukraine. Who would have thought that abandoning essential European interests signals to Washington that Europe can be ignored and presented with a fait accompli in other policy domains as well?

Huh, preying on a grad student and using mentorship as a pressure tool to extract sexual favors seems rather disqualifying for a teaching role…

Shoutout to the great people at @bagss-bamberg.bsky.social for hosting and flawlessly organizing this year’s edition of the Joint Doctoral Conference. It was a pleasure to attend!

Not sure if harmless kitchenware from Esselunga or a new European far-right party has dropped…

In Gaza, just as in Lebanon, the ceasefire is the continuation of war with other (but effectively very similar) means.

The lesson Israel takes from Gaza is that it can break all international norms and laws and still enjoy privileged relations with the West. So why stop? Europe’s policy towards Israel sacrificed rules and laws for a twisted version of stability, and it will achieve neither.

Lebanon is stalling the implementation of the ceasefire, says the country that has not even fully withdrawn from Lebanese territory despite committing to it and is responsible for the “vast majority” of ceasefire violations (quote from UNIFIL).

Opposition to antisemitism is not a deeply-held conviction of today's far right, but a tactical positioning to facilitate normalization and achieve acceptance of far-right movements in mainstream society. It makes sense that the American far right drops it once it is firmly in power.

And my next worry is that if Trump won't let Netanyahu pursue the war in Gaza, he will turn to a different front. Last night Israeli ground forces entered Lebanon and destroyed municipal buildings in border towns, killing one employee. Aerial attacks have already ramped up in the last weeks.

My worry was that the Gaza ceasefire agreement would play out like the agreement between Israel and Lebanon, with Israel unilaterally deciding which terms it adheres to at which point in time, and with continued systematic violations of international law. This seems to be what is happening now.

Überraschend, dass das ZDF-Politbarometer diese Umfrage so verzerrt darstellt: Statt nach der Originalaussage von Merz zu fragen, die tagelang diskutiert wurde, wird in der Umfrage seine späte Rechtfertigung ergänzt. In der Grafik wird das aber gar nicht erwähnt. So geht Framing.

Someone is auditioning for the role of top diplomat.

This rhetoric reminds me of an old NPD (fringe Neonazi party) TV commercial where the party leader argued that foreigners in Germany are like spices in a meal, i.e. only to be added in tiny quantities else the dish would be ruined. That’s the intellectual level of today’s UK Conservatives.

Where we stand, in long arc of history: -Story on left, adding race as a factor when that favors white people. -Story on right, banning race as a factor when that favors non-whites. I often complain about NYT headlines and story-play. But these are strong. Including "If Court Guts 1965 Law."

Weird how the guy who only knows his own narrow personal interests cannot conceptualize other politicians also only pursuing their own narrow personal interests.

Relatedly, when will left (and indeed even mainstream right) parties finally start hammering the radical right with what’s happening in America. Farage, Weidel and so many others are on the record fawning over Trump.