The Consequence of No Consequences

While the present geo-political environment spirals rapidly downward, the US administration, once a moderator and mediator of consequence, flounders domestically, mired in a fixation with its extreme politics and internationally, in a contradiction of purpose.

The recent assassination of Charlie Kirk is being used to put every person, group and organization to the left of its extremities on the right in its crosshairs. Kirk is a convenient distraction. To his supporters he was a debater and proponent of free thought. To his detractors he was a fascist. By virtue of what he said and how he said it, he was neither. It would be more appropriate to call him an "influencer" with views that lay well to the right of the political spectrum with the subversive intent to convert those with whom he "debated" to his Christian and Republican causes.

The preoccupation with his assassination, among other domestic issues, is distracting this scatterbrained US administration from what is happening in the rest of the world and will severely affect global peace and security thereby affecting us all.

With Russia's testing the resolve of NATO in their drone (albeit non-lethal) incursions into Poland, and Netanyahu targeting Hamas in Dubai, while the US turned (and continues to turn) a blind eye, peace and security in Europe and the Middle-East order rests on the brink of collapse.  Within this vacuum, Putin, the cold calculator and Netanyahu the desperate survivalist, seek advantage for their purposes in the midst of the US distractions. For Russia, it is the extension of its territory in the former empire of the USSR. For Israel it is erasing Hamas and along with it, Palestine, from the face of the earth and, in addition, maintaining Netanyahu's hold on power.

The US response to date has been more vacuous statements about disappointment and anger, without a concrete, action oriented response. This amounts to a tacit acceptance of the status-quo. The Arab response more nuanced but essentially involves not angering the US, and in so doing, essentially signaling complicity. The United Nations pump up their wordsmiths, and offer nothing to the enforcement of their words. To the moment, aside from a few scrambled jets, NATO and the EU attempt to cool further escalation.

Consequently, in the absence of no consequences for their actions Russia and Israel advance their aims. One can also be certain that China and North Korea among the other despots of the world, are watching closely, gauging the resolve of their adversaries to engage directly and mitigate these aims, which to date, as noted, has been meager or non-existent.

At this moment direct, bold and concrete action must be undertaken. Without a firm response to the actions of the pariah states, the global order will descend into further chaos, with incrementally more dangerous consequences.

What are the direct, bold and concrete actions that must be taken now? In my view they are as follows:

1. The only thing the United Nations can and should do is focus on adherence of state actions to international law;

2. All nations with the power to do so must cease the talk of additional sanctions and employ them without reservation against both Russia and Israel. All sanctions that target both Israel and Russia's ability to fund and prosecute their war effort must be set into motion. This would include, but not be limited to, cutting off remaining Russia's ability to generate income form oil sales and the flow of currency for any sales that circumvent the net, to be stopped. The US must cut off the flow of weapons to Israel and all countries must take down networks that attempt to fill the weapons gap.

3. Arab states, being traders first and foremost, and who harbour illicit traders in the tools of war must, as a first step, clamp down on and stop this trade. Their twisted sense of morality must give way to a committed and more universal approach to moral action. 

4. The flow of foreign fighters to Russia is a more difficult and complicated task. Blockades by land, air and sea of the means of conveyance must be intercepted and confiscated and/or turned back.

5. Ukraine needs to be supported in every way (with intelligence, equipment and technology) from all of its allies, including the US, to take the war to Russia, by land, sea and air, in a constant and unrelenting manner. Without direct attacks on Russia by conventional means, there are no direct consequences for Russia to seek peace. Moreover, Putin in particular suffers from a drain on his human and material resources, hampering his own ability to strike hard and decisively.  In his weakened state he is vulnerable.

Admittedly, the last set of actions with respect to Russia, risk escalation. However, now is the time to call Putin's bluff. If he, as a result of these actions, brandishes his nuclear weapons, the US must respond by issuing the ultimatum that they will use theirs. This is the essence of deterrence in action. Deterrence has worked as a means of restraint since the Cold War. The key for this to work however is the resolve of the US to express a response to anything that Putin may do in the nuclear sphere. 

However, it is unlikely that the misfits, including Trump, who currently run the agencies that would issue and execute these orders do not have the political will to follow through. In addition, their domestic distractions, as noted above, render US action improbable, and ineffective at the very least as well as dangerously negligent in the extreme. But the fact remains: to some degree Russia in particular needs to feel the pain at home.

Similarly, Netanyahu suffers from a dependence on a dwindling supply of reservists and the largess of the US capability to supply him with weapons.

Canada must engage in all these actions to the limit of their ability to do so. The current policies and commitments of the Canadian government to lay the foundation for action on these fronts is encouraging and must be continued.

Without these some or all of these actions, both Russia and Israel will continue to prosecute their wars of attrition, play the US administration as a distracted fool and push the world closer to the brink of compliance through force to their view of the world and their regional and geo-political aims.