Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he believes World War Three could become a reality if the U.S. does not continue to support Ukraine having already contributed roughly $70 billion towards the effort.

Speaking on 60 Minutes Sunday night, Zelensky compared Russian President Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler.

'The whole world [has to] decide whether we want to stop Putin, or whether we want to start the beginning of a world war. We can't change Putin. Russian society has [lost] the respect of the world,' Zelensky said. 

'They elected him and re-elected him and raised a second Hitler. They did this. We cannot go back in time. But we can stop it here.' 

Zelensky is expected at the White House and on Capitol Hill this week as he visits the U.S. during the United Nations General Assembly. 

In an exclusive interview with an American broadcaster, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said that Ukraine's counteroffensive "will take a considerable length of time," refusing to speculate on how long it might take for Kiev to achieve its goals.

"This offensive, although significant, has operational and tactical objectives that are limited in the sense that they do not, even if they are fully achieved, they do not completely kick out all the Russians, which is the broader strategic objective that [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelensky have" Milley said in an interview with a American broadcaster.

The military official refused to speculate on how long it might take Ukraine to achieve its goals, noting that it "will take a considerable length of time."

In addition, Milley described Ukraine's ongoing counteroffensive as "long, hard, bloody."

Russia began its military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. Ukraine launched its latest counteroffensive in early June. Three months later, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Ukrainian counteroffensive had failed, with Ukraine suffering 71,000 casualties. Several Western officials also admitted that the Ukrainian counteroffensive had not been successful.

Webmaster addition: Gee, ya think?

It is important for Western countries to find a way to maintain relations with Russia, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said on Sunday.

"I don’t mean any great friendship, but the capability to tolerate, even understand each other a bit," Niinisto said in an interview, adding that trust will be needed after the end of the Ukraine conflict to ensure that "a new war is not waiting behind the door."

Speaking about the risks of a nuclear war, Niinisto said that countries supplying weapons to Ukraine need to take into account the possible escalation of the conflict into "a big war, that’s world war."

"We’re in a very sensitive situation. Even small things can change matters a great deal and unfortunately for the worse. That is the risk of such large-scale warfare. The risk that nuclear weapons could be used is tremendous," the Finnish president added.

With summer nearing the end, and fall set to begin, so does the colder weather, but we as a nation will once again be dealing with higher electricity bills as the price of gas continues to rise. Autumn is when we start pulling out our warmer clothes and begin our preparations for the upcoming winter which starts on December 21 of this year.

For some, like Stefan and I, it is time to stock up on cords of wood for the fireplace, pull out the sweaters, gloves and scarves, because Autumn does start to get chilly up in the mountains.

Those in warmer climates have a little more leeway in deciding when to start winter preparations because Autumn doesn't get quite as cold as it does in colder climates, but with inflation rising again, food costs approximately 20% higher in 2023 than it was in 2020, gas prices on the rise now that the manufactured relief from Joe Biden releasing the Strategic Reserves is almost all gone, it is likely a prudent idea to get everything in order earlier, before prices rise any more.

The 2024 Old Farmer’s Almanac predicts snow, seasonable cold, and all of winter’s delights! This winter’s forecast will surely excite snow bunnies and sweater lovers alike, promising a lot of cold and snow across North America! 

• Snowfall will be above normal across most snow-prone areas (except for the Pacific Northwest). Get prepared for oodles of fluffy white throughout the season! Keep a shovel at the ready early, especially in the Northeast and Midwest, where snow will arrive beginning in November with storms, showers, and flurries continuing through the start of spring.
• Along with above-normal snow, we’ll see normal to colder-than-normal temperatures in areas that typically receive snow. Expect just the right amount of chill in the air for an afternoon of adventurous snow sports or enjoying a big ol’ mug of hot cocoa by a crackling fire. Only snowy New England and the Atlantic Corridor will enjoy winter temperatures milder than typical for their regions.

The facts are still open.

The US had a major terrorist incident on 9/11 and it’s still not clear who was behind it.

One thing is clear: governments are in the terror business.

On 9/11:

* The physics were impossible
* The logistics were impossible
* The official story is complete BS

So who did it?

One thing we know for sure: al Qaeda did not have the capacity to do it.

Seth Rich, a DNC staffer, was murdered on July 10, 2016. The DC Metro Police attributed his death to a botched robbery. That’s tragic but straightforward. Why, then, is the FBI refusing to release the information from Rich’s laptop? Perhaps it’s because Rich is the key to understanding the Russian collusion narrative that the Democrats and Deep State used to such savage effect against Trump, up to and including the 2020 campaign, when operatives lied about Hunter Biden’s laptop. Anyone questioning the official narrative was immediately labeled a conspiracy theorist and canceled.

The Russian Disinformation Narrative – The Con:

The convenient Russian collusion claim had its roots in 2016 when the FBI knowingly used the false Russian narrative to weave together a FISA search warrant affidavit alleging that two low-level Trump campaign volunteers, Carter Page, and George Papadopoulos, were Russian assets. They were not. However, unaware of that fact, the FISA court issued a search warrant and three subsequent warrants for counter-espionage surveillance authorizations.

Special Counsel John Durham’s team thoroughly debunked the Russian collusion narrative during the trial of Attorney Michael Sussman. From the trial testimony and evidence introduced, we learned that the Russian collusion narrative was created, paid for, and leaked to the media at the behest of Hillary Clinton and her operatives, and aided by the FBI and CIA in a domestic disinformation operation.

The FBI retargeted the fabricated counter-espionage investigation to spy illegally, first, on candidate and, then, on President-elect Trump. The FBI knowingly failed to disclose the dual-purpose nature of these warrants to the FISA judge(s) who reviewed and issued these warrants. The FBI agents, including then-Director James Comey, lied by omission to the FISA court, as they later did in the Mar-a-Lago warrant. To this day, there has been no criminal accountability for these FBI agents.

Israeli software maker Insanet has reportedly developed a commercial product called Sherlock that can infect devices via online adverts to snoop on targets and collect data about them for the biz's clients.

This is according to an investigation by Haaretz, which this week claimed the spyware system had been sold to a country that is not a democracy.

The newspaper's report, we're told, marks the first time details of Insanet and its surveillanceware have been made public. Furthermore, Sherlock is capable of drilling its way into Microsoft Windows, Google Android, and Apple iOS devices, according to cited marketing bumf.

"According to the findings of the investigation, this is the first case in the world where a system of this sort is being sold as technology, as opposed to a service," journo Omer Benjakob wrote, adding Insanet received approval from Israel's Defense Ministry to sell Sherlock globally as a military product albeit under various tight restrictions, such as only selling to Western nations.

Six Ukrainian deputy defense ministers were fired Monday following the dismissal two weeks ago of Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov in a corruption scandal, officials said, as heavy fighting continued in the east.

Deputy defense ministers including Hanna Maliar, Vitalii Deyneha and Denys Sharapov, as well as the state secretary of the Ministry of Defense, Kostiantyn Vashchenko, were fired, according to the Telegram account of Taras Melnychuk, permanent representative of the Cabinet of Ministers.

Melnychuk provided no explanation of the firings, but the government has been investigating accusations of corruption in the military related to purchasing equipment. Rustem Umerov, a Crimean Tatar lawmaker who took over as defense minister, did not immediately issue a statement.

Reznikov was removed earlier this month after a scandal involving the defense ministry´s procurement of military jackets at three times their cost. Reznikov denied the allegations but resigned.

The strategies of saving the Biden presidency from an impeachment and a Senate trial despite overwhelming evidence of his corruption are starting to emerge.

The Family is confronted with damning evidence from the laptop, from the testimonies of Hunter’s business associates Bobulinksi and Archer, from Ukrainian oligarchs and Viktor Shokin, from IRS whistleblowers, from FBI writs, from a likely pseudonymous Biden trove of 4,000 emails to his son and associates, and from the absolute paranoia of a White House that must constantly change its narrative of denials to adjust to a growing portrait of utter corruption, bribery, and perhaps even the treason of warping U.S. policy to fit Biden family interests.

The Defense in Depth 

One of their strategies is to deny, then hedge, then ignore, then grow silent—and repeat the wash/rinse/spin cycle of stonewalling as many times as necessary to evade the mounting truth.

Insidiously Joe Biden has retreated from his once loud protestations that he supposedly had no idea of what Hunter and his associates were doing. Such a patently dishonest denial set the model that the President would have no compunction about lying to the American people until the evidence of his wrongdoing becomes overwhelming.

But this first line of defense did not crumble for years—only to be replaced by a second line of denial: Biden may have known of Hunter’s shenanigans, but he had no business interests with him. That was another blatant untruth.

And that additional stalling also allowed Biden to ignore the closing walls of incrimination for even more months. When these two forward lines of defense collapsed, as the Biden consortium knew they eventually would, a retreat to a third line of defense followed: yes, Joe knew, after all, of Hunter’s miscreant shakedowns; and, yes, Joe, after all, conceded that from time to time he did meet Hunter’s business associates, and upon requests made phone calls to Hunter’s clientele. But he did not profit from such knowledge and associations. Instead an upright old Joe from Scranton was playing along with the “illusion” of influence peddling: Scranton naiveté is not D.C. criminality.

Biden’s tripartite lines of defense always got shorter and shallower as evidence mounted. But so far Biden has managed to consume 31 months of his presidency through these strategic retreats. His fourth and final line of defense will likely be that he was involved, that he had rather than feigned contact, but that he did nothing other than what scores of other high-ranking politicians do who rub shoulders with would-be miscreants, sycophants, and crooks—and so did not knowingly take “loans” and “gifts” that had strings attached.

Hunter Biden has sued the Internal Revenue Service over claims agents illegally released his tax returns.

President Joe Biden's son claims the agency violated his privacy by unlawfully disclosing his records to members of Congress and to the news media.

The lawsuit was filed days in federal court in Washington D.C. after he was hit with three federal firearms charges for allegedly buying a gun while he was addicted to drugs. 

It targets two IRS whistleblowers who testified to Congress about the income  Hunter received from his work with a Ukrainian gas company and their concerns about how Hunter was getting special treatment due to his last name.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will be leading a high-ranking delegation for an official visit to China in “the coming weeks” to hold talks with authorities in Beijing on the expansion of bilateral relations, according to a report.

The Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar reported on Sunday that Assad would be leading the politico-economic Syrian delegation to China.

“A high-ranking Syrian delegation is likely to visit the Chinese capital in the coming weeks to hold high-level meetings with Chinese officials to discuss the development of bilateral relations between the two countries,” the Beirut-based daily said.

The Lebanese newspaper quoted unnamed officials in Syria as saying that the visit would be “very important” as Assad would meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in an official ceremony.

“Assad’s visit will constitute a strategic milestone in the course of Syrian-Chinese relations, and an additional strong dose of the Chinese role in the region,” the paper added.

Dr. Joseph Ladapo, Florida’s Surgeon General, is the first major U.S. health official to urge the public to avoid getting the mRNA jabs due to the fact that they cause VAIDS.

Vaccine Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (VAIDS) occurs as a result of the body’s decreased immunity to pathogens following mRNA vaccination. Just like AIDS, the disease attacks the body’s natural immune system, making people more vulnerable to other infections.

According to Dr. Joseph Ladapo, the vaccines “are not backed by clinical evidence, but blind faith alone with ZERO regard for widespread immunity.”

The few remaining viewers of CNN got a remarkable dose of news on Saturday.

Just in time for Constitution Day, CNN’s dwindling audience learned that the Consitution of the United States — the oldest written government charter in the world and the document that gave birth to the nation that has spread democracy around the globe — has become so “outdated” that it’s actually a “threat to democracy.”

Of course, that’s democracy as CNN’s scholars understand it. And you can’t spell ignorance without “C-N-N.”

The word came on “Newsroom,” anchored by former CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta. Acosta interviewed two Harvard professors of government who are of the opinion that the grand system of compromise, checks and balances devised by the Founders in Philadelphia in 1787 is as obsolete as the quill pens they used to write it down.

Accompanying the interview was a chyron at the bottom of the screen declaring (in all caps): “Scholars Warn Outdated Constitution Has Put Democracy At Risk.”

Iran has withdrawn the designation of several inspectors assigned to conduct verification activities in Iran under the Non-Proliferation Treaty Safeguards Agreement. 

Rafael Grossi, Director General of UN nuclear watchdog, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), made the rare public statement on Saturday amidst the national rallies taking hold in Iran and abroad around the one-year anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini.

It is the latest move to stonewall inspectors by the Iranian regime, which just recently withdrew the designation of another experienced IAEA inspector for Iran.

“With today’s decision, Iran has effectively removed about one third of the core group of the Agency’s most experienced inspectors designated for Iran,” Grossi said in a statement. 

“This measure, while formally permitted by the NPT Safeguards Agreement, has been exercised by Iran in a manner that affects in a direct and severe way the ability of the IAEA to conduct effectively its inspections in Iran.”

Several major retailers across America are to soon stop stocking Bud Light after the ongoing catastrophic dip in sales has shown no sign of ending.

Over the last several months, Bud Light has failed to see sales return after the beermaker fully embraced the “woke” movement by featuring transgender Dylan Mulvaney in an ad campaign.

The disastrous campaign resulted in the company losing its title as America’s most popular beer brand.

Bud Lught’s parent company Anheuser-Busch has also seen billions of dollars wiped from its value.

The news just keeps getting worse, however.

According to interviews conducted by ABC News, industry insiders indicate that Bud Light’s diminished market performance could see a further decline this fall.

In the next month, the annual retail shelf-space reshuffle will see Bud Light removed from store shelves for the foreseeable future.

Webmaster addition: Maybe time to change the packaging?

UPDATE: The event appears to be at Radius Recycling, reports WRBL. Large flames and smoke can be seen coming from behind the Schnitzer plant [steel recycling].

UPDATE: The explosions seems to be located near 712 Tenth Ave, Columbus, GA.

Massive explosions from a possible factory fire rocked Columbus, GA this evening.

The development comes in a long string of infrastructure, and factory fires/explosions over the last year across the United States. The Biden administration has been silent on this issue.

Webmaster addition: With the wide-open border policies of the Biden administration, nations that do not like us could well have sent saboteurs into this nation to cause harm. Certainly the numerous food processing facilities that have gone up in flames would be a valid target to disrupt the food supply to the population.

The quarterly magazine Parameters by the U.S. Army War College published an interesting paper about U.S. war capabilities:

A Call to Action: Lessons from Ukraine for the Future Force

Its abstract says:

Fifty years ago, the US Army faced a strategic inflection point after a failed counterinsurgency effort in Vietnam. In response to lessons learned from the Yom Kippur War, the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command was created to reorient thinking and doctrine around the conventional Soviet threat. Today’s Army must embrace the Russo-Ukrainian conflict as an opportunity to reorient the force into one as forward-thinking and formidable as the Army that won Operation Desert Storm.

This article suggests changes the Army should make to enable success in multidomain large-scale combat operations at today’s strategic inflection point.

It is normal for a military to analyze ongoing or just finished wars and to draw conclusions from them. Such efforts should then lead to changes in the military structure or its procedures.

The above effort though is unlikely to lead to the changes the authors want to see.

The authors correctly point out that command and control of troops via radio is problematic when the enemy has the means to detect all radio traffic:

The Russia-Ukraine War makes it clear that the electromagnetic signature emitted from the command posts of the past 20 years cannot survive against the pace and precision of an adversary who possesses sensor-based technologies, electronic warfare, and unmanned aerial systems or has access to satellite imagery; this includes nearly every state or nonstate actor the United States might find itself fighting in the near future.

The solution lies the extensive use of Mission Command (in the original German: Auftragstaktik) which allows subordinate leaders to do their own planning and operation within the given context:

Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he did not receive any “illegal” orders after the 2020 election.

Martha Raddatz, anchor of ABC’s “This Week,” noted that reports “abounded” saying that Milley worried former President Donald Trump might try to use the military to stay in power.

“Were you concerned at any time that you might receive an illegal order after Election Day?” she asked the general in an interview that aired on Sunday.

“I never did receive an illegal order,” Milley responded. Pressed again if he was at least concerned about it, the top military official added, “No, you know, I argued the case at various times for alternative courses of action. Never received an illegal order.”

Reports about Milley and other military officials fearing that Trump might attempt a coup date back more than two years.

At the time, Trump fired back with a statement that said, “If I was going to do a coup, one of the last people I would want to do it with is General Mark Milley.” He also said, “I’m not into coups!”

The U.S. military asked the public on Sunday for help in locating a missing F-35 fighter jet.

Joint Base Charleston, which is located in South Carolina, said on social media that efforts were underway to locate the aircraft with the help of Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort following a “mishap” in the afternoon.

“The pilot ejected safely. If you have any information that may help our recovery teams locate the F-35, please call the Base Defense Operations Center at 843-963-3600,” Joint Base Charleston said in a post to its X account.

Webmaster addition: Absent aerial refueling, the F-35 would have flamed out and crashed by now. If no wreckage is found, then it's possible "someone" succeeded in stealing the plane for reverse engineering.

We all know how California feels about guns. They've got the most extensive gun control regulations in the nation and it seems they're always looking for more.

And if they can make it harder for poorer Californians to get a firearm, so much the better, right?

At least, that's how it looks from the outside, and that observation isn't helped by a proposed bill.

California lawmakers approved legislation on Thursday to impose a new tax on firearms and ammunition sales to help finance gun-violence prevention and education programs, a victory for Democrats after years of failing to pass similar measures.

The legislation, Assembly Bill 28, would impose an 11% tax on dealers and manufacturers for sales of guns and ammunition, and is one of a small number of major gun control measures still moving through the Legislature this year. It's the first time that Democrats have successfully sent a firearms tax proposal to the governor.

While Gov. Gavin Newsom has rejected or expressed resistance to imposing new taxes, he also has signed into law dozens of gun control measures. And after several mass shootings in schools across the country and two high-profile massacres in Half Moon Bay and Monterey Park this year sparked fresh outrage from advocates, lawmakers are under pressure to strengthen gun control in California, even as new laws face legal scrutiny and are often rejected by the courts for being unconstitutional.

Oklahoma's Pushmataha County Sheriff's Office is investigating the ATF for their recent SWAT raid of one of their county's most respected residents, Russell Fincher, PCSO Undersheriff Dustin Bray said Tuesday.

No one at the ATF warned the Sheriff's Office in advance that highly armed federal agents would be conducting the SWAT raid, the Undersheriff said.

“We weren't apprised of anything,” Bray said. “We are a Second Amendment County and we are going to protect our citizens here. We are not going to enforce any gun law or rule that violates the constitution.”

Bray did not yet know whether the investigation would yield criminal charges against ATF agents, adding, “That's a good one for the Attorney General. The thing I'm looking at are more constitutional issues than criminal, such as civil rights violations.”

The Air Force released new images of its secretive new stealth nuclear bomber, the B-21 Raider, showing the aircraft at never-before-seen angles.

Images of the aircraft, which is being developed by Northrop Grumman, were posted to the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) website last week, showcasing the new bomber from both the front and from a quartering angle.

The new stealth bomber is being rolled out to replace the current B-1 Lancer and B-2 Spirit and is expected to enter service by 2027. By 2040, the B-21 is expected to completely replace the older bombers.

On September 6th, The New European reported that BBC’s “specialist disinformation correspondent” Marianna Spring lied on her résumé in a failed attempt to bag work with Coda Story back in 2018.

While posing as an independent outlet, Coda Story is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, the US government’s regime change arm, as well as the European Union.

Spring had submitted an application to Coda Story editor-in-chief Natalia Antelava containing a CV in which she claimed to have worked alongside BBC correspondent Sarah Rainsford on the British state broadcaster’s reporting on that year’s World Cup in Russia.

An entry read: “June 2018: Reported on International News during the World Cup, specifically the perception of Russia, with BBC correspondent Sarah Rainsford.”

This claim was the textbook definition of “disinformation.” In truth, Spring had met Rainsford in a handful of social settings, and they never worked together. Antelava easily ascertained Spring was lying, and admonished her for the fabrication. The future BBC apparatchik responded with a grovelling apology, expressing contrition for her “awful misjudgment”, while somewhat amazingly still professing to be a “brilliant reporter”:

Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has warned that the "future of Europe is at stake" in the wake of a surge in the number of migrants and refugees arriving from the North African coast.

It is "the future that Europe wants for itself that is at stake here, because the future of Europe depends on Europe's capacity to face major challenges," Meloni said.

The Italian premier further said that problem could not be solved by Italy alone.

Elsewhere in her remarks, Meloni called for cooperation among all members of the European Union to settle the migration problem.

She made the remarks at a press conference with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

This comes after more than 8,000 migrants arrived on Italy’s island of Lampedusa in recent days. Nearly 126,000 migrants have arrived in Italy so far this year, which is about double the number for the same period last year.

"Irregular immigration is a European challenge that needs a European response," Von der Leyen added, calling on other members of the bloc to take in some of the migrants. 

Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) credited the January 6th committee for a “historic moment” of former President Trump’s arraignment. However, her rhetoric appears to be a cover-up of her own negligence and failure to secure the Nation’s Capitol building. Donald Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker in a sit-down interview at his New Jersey golf club that Pelosi “is responsible for January 6.”

“Nancy Pelosi was in charge of security. She turned down 10,000 soldiers. If she didn’t turn down the soldiers, you wouldn’t have had Jan. 6.” As for his own actions, “I behaved so well, I did such a good job, Nancy Pelosi turned down 10,000 soldiers” Trump stated.

“I understand that the police testified against her, the chief very strongly against her, the Capitol police, great people,” Trump said in the interview that aired Sunday. “They testified against her, and they burned all the evidence. OK? They burned all the evidence. They destroyed all the evidence about Nancy Pelosi.”

“She has authority over the Capitol,” Trump added. “National Guard not coming? I asked her [for them] to be there three days in advance, and she turned it down…She says that that request was never officially made” Trump continued.

California public schools supported by taxes on property owners teach California kids that it is possible to be born into the wrong body, and the schools implant the idea that many girls are really boys and many boys really girls that ended up in the wrong physical configuration. Consequently, an entire industry has grown up to change the sex of children. Boys are chemically castrated and given female hormones. Girls have their breast cut out and are given male hormones. Quack “transgender science” against nature proceeds apace.

The public schools have created a fad among children that the thing to do is to change one’s sex. This brings the child attention the child might not get from a two-parent earner family created by taxes and feminism. By the time busy parents working to stay ahead of mortgage and car payments catch on to what is going on, it is too late.

To prevent any intervention by parents the California State Assembly has passed a bill that gives the state the right to seize kids from parents who don’t support the “transition” of their kids into the opposite sex. The bill says that if a parent objects to the sex change of a child, the child is endangered and can be seized into the state’s protection.

There you have it–“freedom in America.” All authority of parents has been taken away in California by people who have ceased to be moral Americans.

Whites are fleeing California, even the dumbshit liberal ones. Consequently, California which was a Reagan state only a short time ago is today only 33% white. Today Republicans hold only 18 seats in the 80 member assembly.

There is no doubt whatsoever that the Biden Regime is a Fascist Censor controlling information in the interest of its criminal agendas. A Federal Appeals Court spelled out the censorship and banned it:

“Defendants, and their employees and agents, shall take no actions, formal or informal, directly or indirectly, to coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce, including through altering their algorithms, posted social-media content containing protected free speech. That includes, but is not limited to, compelling the platforms to act, such as by intimating that some form of punishment will follow a failure to comply with any request, or supervising, directing, or otherwise meaningfully controlling the social-media companies’ decision-making processes.”

The Biden Regime hopes to convince the Supreme Court that “national security” requires abandoning the US Constitution and to coerce the court into reinstating the Biden regime’s cancellation of the US Constitution.

It is impossible for a country to survive when the values on which the country is founded are abandoned by its leaders. America is so far gone that not even the media believes in free speech and has happily accepted the role as Ministry of Propaganda.

For the United States to commit itself in advance to take the side of some other country that becomes involved in an international conflict is an extraordinary step that is justified only under extraordinary circumstances.

There needs to be a credible external threat to the country being protected. And there must be enough commonality of interests and values between the United States and the protected state that the difference between that state falling or not falling to external aggression is highly significant for U.S. interests.

A possible standard for measuring the appropriateness of security commitments is the grandest such U.S. commitment, under the North Atlantic Treaty. Whatever one may think of NATO’s later expansion and out-of-area activities, the circumstances justifying a U.S. security commitment were present when the alliance was created in the late 1940s. The Soviet Union’s military had overrun Eastern Europe and converted its states into satellite communist dictatorships. If the then-fragile democracies of Western Europe experienced the same fate, the result would have been disastrous for U.S. interests.

Nothing remotely resembling those circumstances exists today in the Persian Gulf region. No Red Army is poised to take over the region. No would-be regional hegemon exists. Certainly not Iran, weakened by sanctions, preoccupied with internal divisions, and facing the disadvantage of being an ethnic and religious minority in a region that is largely Arab and Sunni.

Over the last few months, Ukraine and its allies have pursued multiple efforts to convince unaligned nations to endorse their concept of a peace deal. President Volodymyr Zelensky and other high-ranking Ukrainian officials have made trips to Africa and the Middle East in hopes of winning over countries in the Global South.

In June, senior officials from Kyiv, a number of European countries, and a number of important neutral countries, including Brazil, India, Turkey and South Africa, met in Denmark to discuss Zelensky’s ten-point peace plan.

Last month, Saudi Arabia hosted a follow-up summit, which was notable mostly for the presence of Chinese officials, who were absent from the first meeting. The Wall Street Journal reported in advance of the Jeddah confab that “Ukraine and Western officials hope the efforts could culminate in a peace summit later this year where global leaders would sign up to shared principles for resolving the war.”

Now, with the G-20 meeting having just concluded and the annual UN General Assembly meetings taking place next week, the Journal took stock of what these efforts have accomplished. The conclusion? “Western efforts to craft an international consensus on peace terms that would benefit Ukraine have made only incremental progress.”