Whenever you ask yourself if this administration is evil or just incompetent, the answer is always: both!

Waging aggressive war, as Russia has been flagrantly doing, is “the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole”, as the Nuremberg Tribunal put it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_...

And don't forget that under the terms of the 28 point plan, someone, presumably Ukraine, will be paying the US for this. It's a protection racket, which is how Trump understands all security relationships. And like all protection rackets, it's all racket and no protection.

May this be the end of European delusion, the end of self-humiliation and useless flattery. May this be the moment in which Europeans muster just a fraction of the courage that fellow European Ukrainians have demonstrated so far. #StandwithUkraine #EuropeAlone

Excellent thread. Ukraine gets little out of these 28 points except the possibility of EU membership (still subject to Hungarian veto?); Putin gets plenty, inc a favourable starting point for next assault on Ukraine & return of all but $100 billion of immobilised Russian assets, plus US investment.

Excellent thread 👇

If this is indeed the plan, I am humbly calling on the world's most powerful leaders to stop asking dilettante real estate developers to feed ChatGPT with prompts along the lines of "Ignore all history and write me a plan to achieve a world peace in our lifetime and make Putin happy."

On the leaked and thus not-so-secret US-Russia ”peace plan”: I have read nothing to indicate that it’s any different this time than in February/March, May, and August. The Trump admin is serving the same nothingburger for the fourth time. Media and analysts haven’t learned to see through the noise.

Why russia cannot help but invade? Been pondering this question for a decade now... 🇷🇺 didn’t “return” to dictatorship under POO-tihn. It never left. Rusich is crowdsourcing war crimes, Navalnaya is asking 🇪🇺 to fix 🇷🇺 for russians, and I try to make sense of it all kyivindependent.com/why-russia-c...

⚠️"This is an approach to warfare that generates escalation not by mistake, but by design. Unless Europe can impose discipline on the Russian shadow-warfare machine through clear deterrence, the likelihood of full-scale war between Russia and NATO will only increase. "

Weer een nieuw boek over het fiasco van de Duitse Ostpolitik sinds het einde van de Koude Oorlog en zeker sinds het begin van het tijdperk-Poetin. platformraam.nl/artikelen/29...

Great headline. Echoing the famous Clausewitz witticism: "The aggressor is always peace-loving; he would prefer to take over our country unopposed."

On Ukraine; on European security and attitudes to Europe's political and cultural identity; on international law and the use of force, the Trump administration is aligning with Russia. That is unprecedented. This isn't a restoration, it's a revolution in the relationship.

The Trump White House sees Zelensky as the adversary who must be pressured, and Putin as the sympathetic partner whose demands deserve accommodation. Always has. So they’re treating a corruption scandal in Ukraine as an opportunity to get Russia concessions that Russia cannot win on its own.

"Dat er vanuit de oppositie vragen gesteld worden die gebreken blootleggen, maakt deel uit van de normale werking van het parlement. Het zijn de veelheid en de mate van detail die voor onrust zorgen."

✍ Geachte president Zelensky, Sorry, echt waar: het ontbreekt ons aan jullie moed. Dus let op onze woorden, niet op onze daden. Alvast bedankt voor jullie begrip en de broodnodige hulp, namens Brave Little Belgium 👉 Mijn volledige brief lees je online via www.standaard.be/opinies/best...

En hij vangt een bonus van bijna 30 keer het budget dat USAID uitgaf in 2024.

Weinig twijfel bij veiligheidsdiensten: Rusland zit achter de drone-acties in ons land vrtnws.be/p.qEj3K54k4

BREAKING: World outside America exists. Global economy is global. Picking trade fights with everyone at once rather than rallying allies to pressure China together still very stupid.

Excellent investigation of Russian misuse of international investigatory & judicial machinery.

What Is the future of diplomacy when going to a sleepy UN meeting on shipping puts you and your family in the cross hairs of the full force of US coercion? As platforms of cooperation become the site of coercion the international system will quickly break down.

De olifant in de begrotingskamer: bedrijfssubsidies. 👉 NBB bevestigd in nieuw rapport: Sinds 200 verdubbelde geldstroom, jaarlijks ontvangen bedrijven 25 miljard € aan subsidies en investeringstoelagen, ruim 4 procent van de nationale economie (het bbp). www.denktankminerva.be/opinie/2024/...

Wat #AI wetenschappers erover zeggen: “You can only critically assess the output of an AI chatbot if you have the skills to do so, and you don’t develop these skills by using AI." (Met grote dank aan @irisvanrooij.bsky.social)

One of the biggest impacts of AI is increasingly the prevalence of the idea that lower quality for much lower effort is a good tradeoff.

Read every word! "You say you hate empire, but you only ever mean one. You rage at U.S. hegemony while excusing Russian conquest. You romanticize “multipolarity,” as if choosing a different empire were the same as dismantling one... dumplingradical.substack.com/p/a-letter-t...

Why are Russia's frozen assets abroad largely untouched after almost four years of war? The answers are invariably long and frustrating. But here's a detailed but accessible explainer from Alexander Kolyandr via @carnegieendowment.org. Highly recommended. carnegieendowment.org/russia-euras...

Net uitgelezen. Zéér aan te raden boek!

The Senator is spot on. Every step the West took before/during/after Maidan made it clear that Western priorities in Ukr were stability and accommodating Ru interests without entirely turning their (West's) back on the dramatic grass roots mobilization against the autocratizing Yanukovych admin.

Moscow has deployed a secret underwater network made up of thousands of kilometers of cables, sensors and sonars to protect its nuclear sites. #morethanhumanharm

„Het is natuurlijk makkelijk. Maar vergeet niet: AI-chatbots zijn enkel hele grote statistiekmachines. Ze begrijpen jouw vraag niet zozeer, maar doen een berekening en gokken het antwoord. Dat levert vaak fouten op, terwijl ze die heel overtuigend brengen.” www.ad.nl/binnenland/v...

Nothing captures the current state of U.S. democracy as accurately as this (real) picture of the White House.

Meanwhile in Russia: state TV host Vladimir Solovyov and his guests insisted that Ukraine should not be allowed to exist, "If there is no Ukraine, there is no problem." Solovyov's main concern was how to control and "reeducate" millions of Ukrainians. www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNZs...

From the start of the invasion in 2022, Russia has been clear that it's goal in Ukraine is conquest and permanent domination, and the only peace the Kremlin is open to is one in which Ukraine surrenders its freedom. Until Russia is forced to change that stance, peace talks require make believe.

probably the first time in history since the 18th century where the leaders of all the major powers -- trump, xi, putin, modi, erdogan etc -- are all personalist regimes. not sure what this means but worth noting

💥🇪🇺As the European Union moves to phase out Russian gas despite Hungary’s objections, let’s quote Viktor Orbán’s 2007 speech: “The younger generation must not allow Hungary—after escaping the fate of being the happiest barrack of the Soviet system—to become the happiest barrack of Gazprom.”

#OTD October 20, 1946, elections were held across Soviet Occupied Germany and in Allied Occupied Berlin. These were the last competitive elections in the Soviet Zone and marked a turning point leading to the creation of the German Democratic Republic as a socialist dictatorship.

This must be the first war in history where the defending yourself is considered an escalation.

"(...) de bittere ontmoeting leek de grillige aard van Trumps standpunt over de oorlog te weerspiegelen en zijn bereidheid om Poetins maximalistische eisen te onderschrijven."

This, of course, is exactly the argument Trump used about Crimea in 2018. Not surprising that the man he picked for this job shares his Russia-favouring, profoundly stupid, view.

Why would the US invest billions in a tunnel to a small, backwards economy that lacks basic property rights protection? The minuscule gain from strengthening economic relations with Ru is dwarfed by the risks of propping up an aggressive revanchist state that wants to undermine US power.

Ru state reps repeatedly claim European politicians/officials are "obsessed w war". Unhinged given that Ru's been waging a war of aggression against Ukraine since 2014 and refuses to stop despite suffering >1mln casualties. The thief who yells catch the thief has more integrity than Ru "diplomats".

“Not paying for a product you exploit to sell your product is theft; not paying for labour you employ is slavery. If your business model is theft and slavery, you’re not an industry. You’re a pirate.” @vanbadham.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

He is far from alone. Do you know how many people I know, journalists, thinktankers, civil servants, politicians, who always excel at explaining to you why what is currently happening was always bound to happen, from which they conclude that it should happen?

"In reality, the industry probably needs a revenue range that is closer to the $320 billion to $480 billion range, just to break even on the capex to be spent this year."

The Devil wears Palantir.

I agree. I've seen Putin described as risk-averse; I don't think that's right. He takes risks that other leaders wouldn't, but only when he assesses that the likelihood of an effective response is low. The West has yet to change his assessment that he can keep pushing us back.

Casually announcing plans to murder American citizens for wrongthink.

Viktor Orbán heeft een geheim netwerk van inlichtingenofficieren ingezet om de EU-instellingen te bespioneren. De spionnen zijn al jaren actief in Brussel, onder de dekmantel van diplomaat. Dat brengt ook de huidige Hongaarse eurocommissaris in opspraak. www.tijd.be/politiek-eco...

Belarus rarely makes Western headlines — but it should this week. A quiet move by the Trump administration has just handed Alexander Lukashenka, and indirectly Vladimir Putin, an unexpected gift. 🧵👇

“We moeten besparen. België geeft te veel uit. Vooral aan sociale bescherming en zorg. Nieuwe belastingen? Kan niet. We zijn al belastingkampioen! En die raken enkel de middenklasse & schaden de economie.” De onuitgesproken uitgangspunten van de begrotingsdiscussie. Kloppen ze? 🧵