Why Trump, the “Peacemaker,” Can’t Secure Peace

In recent years, Donald Trump has frequently billed himself as a bringer of peace.  During 2023 and 2024, as he campaigned for re-election, he declared at least 53 times that he would end the Ukraine War within 24 hours of taking office or even before that.  Referring to peace for Ukraine before a gathering in Council Bluffs, Iowa in July 2023, he insisted:  “I’ll get that done within 24 hours.  Everyone says, ‘Oh, no, you can’t.’  Absolutely, I can.  Absolutely I can.”

Trump read more

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Provides a Way to Avert Nuclear Catastrophe

Will the world ever be free of the menace of nuclear annihilation?

There was a promising start along these lines during the late twentieth century, when―pressed by a popular upsurge against nuclear weapons―the nations of the world adopted a succession of nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements.  Starting with the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963, these agreements helped curb the nuclear arms race and prevent nuclear war.

But the tide gradually turned during the final years of the twentieth read more

The Sorrows of Vlad the Conqueror

Striding masterfully through St. George’s Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace, Vlad the Conqueror turned his thoughts once again to his place in the pantheon of History’s Immortals.

“Victory follows victory for my splendid military forces,” he assured himself.  “I have halted the offensive of the Ukrainian bandits and demonstrated to the world that a great nation―commanded by a great leader!―is unstoppable.”

“Of course,” he noted bitterly, “our national enemies will point to read more

Replacing a Disastrous War with a Just Peace in Ukraine

Although the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza has captured the world’s horrified attention, the war in Ukraine has had even more terrible consequences.  Grinding on for nearly two years, Russia’s massive military invasion of that country has taken hundreds of thousands of lives, created millions of refugees, wrecked Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure and economy, and consumed enormous financial resources from nations around the world.

And yet, despite the Ukraine War’s vast human read more

Time to Abandon International Anarchy?

In December 1934, Arthur Henderson, a leader of the British Labour Party, declared in his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize that the immense human suffering caused by World War I “led to the very clear realization that international anarchy must be abandoned if civilization was to survive.”

Unfortunately, that realization did not go very far or very deep.  Although, since that time, international law has been refined, nations remain far from adhering to its provisions or accepting its read more

Two Ways That the Ukraine War Could Have Been Prevented and Might Still Be Ended

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of the immensely destructive Ukraine War lies in the fact that it could have been averted.

The most obvious way was for the Russian government to abandon its plan for the military conquest of Ukraine.

The problem on this score, though, was that Vladimir Putin was determined to revive Russia’s “great power” status.  Although his predecessors had signed the UN Charter (which prohibits the “use of read more