The Ukraine War, and Trump v. Biden in 2024: The relentless application of reason and law to the facts
Doctor of Juridical Science (SJD) in International Law, Harvard University
Adapted from The Trenchant Observer, May 3, 2023
A few words about he relentless application of reason and law to the facts
The articles published in The Trenchant Observer and in the Trenchant Observations newsletter on Substack represent the relentless application of logic and law to the facts.
Readers who have been reading these articles for some time should by now have a good understanding of the issues related to U.S. and NATO policy making vis-à-vis Ukraine, including the context provided by international law and the U.N. Charter.
These articles invite the reader to take a position, either agreeing with or disagreeing with their conclusions and recommendations. I ask those who disagree with my analysis, in particular, simply to state why.
Few take me up on this invitation. But when readers do, I try hard to hear the criticism and to respond in a sympathetic manner. Such criticisms help me strengthen the argument, and sometimes lead me to change my mind and draw different conclusions.
The whole idea is to provoke reasoned discussion based on the facts and the law, and the political factors which may affect some decisions, such as whether or not to indict Donald Trump, or whether or not to supply F-16’s and ATACMS long-range artillery rockets to Ukraine.
International law usually offers a wise course to follow in any international situation or conflict, if you want to follow reason, because it is the product of reason applied over many years and even centuries. That is not to say that new law cannot be made.
The motivating belief is that men and governments can be persuaded to follow reason and international law. That may sometimes appear to be an illusion. But even if it does, it is nonetheless a necessary belief—and one which turns out to be justified much more often than one might assume.
But reason by itself is not enough. It does not contain within itself, except in the most extreme cases, the motivation to act to defend the values embodied in fundamental norms of international law or law in general.
It is law itself, international law itself, that may carry with it such strong moral force that it can lead individual officials and nations to act in defense of the core values its most fundamental norms represent. Obviously, not all law is fundamental, just as a speeding violation is not the same as a murder. But with reason, and the tools of law itself, it is not difficult to understand which norms are of overriding importance.
International law generally represents the long-term interests of the states involved. Its violation may involve severe long-term costs. For example, the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 may in the minds of Vladimir Putin and other Russians be related to the invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022.
A few words of personal opinion based on the relentless application of reason and law to the facts
Now I want to share with readers some personal opinions with which you may or may not agree. I ask only that you consider them using the power of cool reason and analysis. I may be wrong and need correction. Please do not hesitate to offer such correction.
A sense of inevitability has settled over the land, and it is all that I can do to keep from being sucked down into the vortex of inevitability myself.
Reason can guide us, but only if we can hear its gentle voice and overcome our personal passions and emotions to heed its call.
In the affairs of men, reason does not always hold sway.
Our politics is poisoned, and our democracy hangs in the balance as the Republican Party, captured by Donald Trump and the blind followers of his authoritarian cult has turned into an extremely dangerous anti-democratic movement in the heart of our society and our democracy.
Logic would have dictated that the Justice Department prosecute Donald Trump and his accomplices for the crimes he and they appear to have committed.
But Joe Biden and Merrick Garland decided not to prosecute Trump and the high-level officials who joined him in his attempt to overthrow the election and the Constitution, and many other apparent crimes.
This decision to grant Trump impunity has allowed Trump’s authoritarian cult to continue and to thrive to such an extent that it now endangers our democracy. Tens of millions of Americans are following Donald Trump as the de facto head of the Republican Party, whose leaders have by and large abandoned all pretense of fair play by democratic rules.
As in a Greek tragedy, events march forward while few people seem aware of the risks ahead, particularly the risk of Trump winning the 2024 presidential election.
The Democrats could put forward a stronger ticket than Biden and Kamala Harris, but each little piece of this great Greek tragedy seems to be inevitable. Harris is a weak V.P. candidate, but because of the identity politics within the Democratic Party which led to her original selection in 2020, her candidacy as Biden’s running mate seems inevitable.
Biden’s own determination to cling to power, at an age when prudence would suggest he not try to defy history and tempt nature and serve until he is weeks shy of his 86th birthday, makes his nomination seem inevitable. He has a lock on the nomination because no Democrats have been willing to stand up to him or even question his policies, not even his catastrophic decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, or his administration’s decision not to prosecute Trump in a timely manner.
A cold-eyed assessment of Biden’s management of the run-up and course of the Ukraine War would reveal several great flaws in his thinking and decisions. But in the overheated atmosphere of Washington today Democrats won’t criticize one of their own, and the Republicans are so divided among themselves that they are unable to craft a constructive critique of his policies and decisions. Serious Congressional oversight–however needed–has not proved possible.
It all just seems so inevitable, and it is leading inevitably to the horrendous possibility that America could elect an authoritarian president in 2024.
Of course, that may not happen, and it is probably unlikely that it will happen. But if the odds are only 30% or 40%, shouldn’t we all be alarmed and manning the barricades to defend our democracy?
Of course we should. But we aren’t.
The parallel with Germany in 1932 is extraordinary.
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See also “Ukraine War, May 4, 2023: Putin's propaganda and red herrings, such as the drone "‘attack’ on the Kremlin,” The Trenchant Observer, May 4, 2023.
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See also “Why I care about the war in Ukraine,” Trenchant Observations, June 26, 2023.