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To see a list of previous articles, enter “Ukraine” in the Search Box on the upper right, and you will see a list in chronological order.

Dispatches

1) Lawrence Freedman, “The Global South, BRICS, and the G20: The changing international system and the Russo-Ukraine War,” Comment is Freed (Substack) August 13, 2023.

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2) Jonathan Sweet and Mark Toth, “Ukraine cannot win if Biden bars attacks on Russian soil, The Hill, June 22, 2023 (7:00 am ET);

3) Jörg Luyken, “Olaf Scholz inches closer to sending long-range missiles to Ukraine; Germany is preparing to follow Britain, which was the first ally to send air-launched cruise missiles to Kyiv before the counter-offensive,” The Telegraph, August 12, 2023.(4:43 pm).

Analysis

Lawrence Freedman in his Substack newsletter (free sunscription available) provides a useful overview of the background and meaning of the term “The Global South”, and describes how support for the U.N. Charter and its fundamental principles of territorial integrity and non-resort to the use of force has been growing in the Global South.

To tge Observer, an international lawyer, this development is not surprising, although it has been exasperating to observe how long it has been taking, and is still taking.

Increasing references to upholding the United Nations Charter and an eventual peace settlement along the lines of tbat endorsed by the U.N. General Assembly Resolution of February 23, 2023, represent signal advances in the struggle to uphold international law in the face of Russia’s continuing aggression against Ukraine, and its ongoing commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide in that country.

The power and force of international law and the U.N. Charter are potentially great, especially when an overwhelming and growing majority of states actively support them.

The road to oeace in Ukraine is long and uncertain.

But progress has been made, in abandoning any talk of “territorial concessions” and particularly in increasing clarity about the urgent necessity of upholding internation law and the U.N. Charter, upon which the international kegal order is based.

Sweet and Toth make a powerful case for allowing Ukraine to use Western weapons in attacking Russian targets in Russia and the Crimea, and explain why Ukraine cannot win the war if it is unable to do so.

After Vietnam and Afghanistan, one would think the U.S. military would understand the difficuly of winning a war if tbe enemy has a sactuary to which it can retreat or from which it can launch attacks.

Even if the military, at some level, understands this point, it is clear that up until now Biden either doesn’t get it or that his fear of Putin’s nuclear threats overrides all such rational considerations.

The Trenchant Observer

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