“Military necessity does not admit of cruelty – that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, . . . nor of torture to extort confessions.” 

- Abraham Lincoln, from his instructions to the troops in April 1863

“No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.” 

- Edmund Burke

“The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.” 

- Justice Louis Brandeis

• China Bought Italian Military-Drone Maker Without Authorities’ Knowledge
• Heard on the Street: China’s Growth Hasn’t Bottomed Yet

• The U.S. and Chinese leaders spoke about human rights, Taiwan and trade.
• ‘Playing with fire’: Taiwan is the hottest of the hot-button issues between the U.S. and China.
• China counts the meeting as a win achieved without any compromise.
• The two sides offer softer rhetoric but little apparent progress on trade.
• The summit was virtual, but the locations were carefully chosen.
• Biden pressed Xi on human rights.
• On climate, the U.S. and China see some common ground. It may not be enough.
• A question hangs over the summit: Is this a Cold War?

1. 
   
2. Mao Zedong and Richard Nixon in Beijing, 1972
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4. Deng Xiaoping and Gerald Ford in Beijing, 1975
5. 
   
6. Deng and Jimmy Carter in Washington, 1979
7. 
   
8. Jiang Zemin and Bill Clinton in Washington, 1997
9. 
   
10. Barack Obama and Hu Jintao in Beijing, 2009
11. Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
12. 
    
13. Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in Beijing, 2017
14. Doug Mills/The New York Times

• What's behind the China-Taiwan divide?

There are indeed steps the United States could take to help restore its deterrence position in this case. But unless/until the stark deterrence problem is recognized for what it is, recommendations in this regard undoubtedly will fall on deaf ears. No variations in the repeated U.S. affirmations of the U.S. commitment to Taiwan—including more or less ambiguity—nor new labels for U.S. deterrence strategies can address the structural challenge to U.S. deterrence goals posed by the shifting correlation of forces and the political background of the Taiwan Question. Changes in language suggest action, but cannot solve basic political and material problems. Herman Kahn emphasized this point regarding deterrence more than six decades ago: “About all an unprepared government can do is to say over and over, ‘the other side doesn’t really want war.’ Then they can hope they are right. However, this same government can scarcely expect to make up by sheer determination what it lacks in preparation. How can it persuade its opponent of its own willingness to go to war if the situation demands it?”[26] And, “Usually the most convincing way to look willing is to be willing.”[27] The basic structure of the deterrence equation in this case appears to argue that China is the more willing and that uncertainty need not work in favor of the United States—these realities must be the starting point for U.S. deterrence considerations.

• “The United States’ decision to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China rests upon the expectation that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means.”
• “It is the policy of the United States…to consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States.”
• “It is the policy of the United States…to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character.”
• “It is the policy of the United States…to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan.”
• “The United States will make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability.”
• “The President is directed to inform the Congress promptly of any threat to the security or the social or economic system of the people on Taiwan and any danger to the interests of the United States arising therefrom.”

Simply put: Moscow wants to get paid – not just in additional revenue from the surging gas prices, but in political currency, in which the key states in the EU recognize that the Russian Federation is again both a European power and a power in Europe, able to shape what happens on the continent to its liking. Most importantly, this crisis may spell the end of any hope of a regional solution to the crisis in Eastern Europe, for if/when Russian border guard units start patrolling the Belarusian border with NATO, there will be no doubt of who defines what stability along that border means and what it takes to restore order. This final de facto absorption of Belarus into Russia will go beyond the current full military and intelligence services integration between the two states, and leave Ukraine alone, exposed to Russian pressure and increasingly devoid of Western support, regardless of what the Balts, Poles, or Romanians do to try to salvage Kyiv’s sovereignty.

...

• A Marine actually got a tattoo based on that cringe viral ‘He’s a Marine’ TikTok video
• Meet the Army sergeant who ran a makeshift orphanage in Kabul to care for children during the evacuation
• Hollywood is already making a movie about the Afghanistan withdrawal
• No ‘surrender’ — What really happened between US and British Marines at a training exercise
• Marine Corps throws cold water on fighter jet rides for reenlistment
• A woman just graduated the US Army’s sniper school for the first time ever

The outlines of a successful energy policy are clear. It would look at the real, all-in cost of each fuel and the full-cycle cost of green policies such as a shift to electric cars. It would refrain from beating up on domestic producers of oil and gas—which has only led to global shortages and price spikes benefiting Russia and OPEC. A successful energy policy requires diversification of energy sources and a focus on the complicated transmission of energy to homes and businesses. The current energy crisis is not just a fleeting global price rise but represents a systemic challenge that requires a fundamental new policy approach—one that abandons the culture wars over fossil fuels versus renewables and smartly employs both to lower emissions, maintain a modern lifestyle, and promote national security.

• The former US diplomat and his staff frequently act as intermediaries for families of Americans kidnapped, detained or killed abroad
• US journalist Danny Fenster was freed on Monday from an 11-year sentence in Myanmar after Richardson’s ‘private humanitarian mission’

....Yet the reality is that state-sponsored lies have long been a tool in geopolitical sparring for most nations, including ours, the United States, especially in times of conflict. The supposed good guys just don’t usually own up to it. France’s admission that it does indeed conduct influence operations, then, is significant — and dialogue among like-minded governments is essential.

• When the United States is stronger than China in the categories of wealth and power.
• When the United States has something China wants.
• When the United States can reduce the value of a key asset (or assets) China holds.

• Xi promised President Barack Obama at the White House in 2015 that China would not militarize its artificial islands in the South China Sea.
• Xi’s promise to do something about fentanyl flows into the United States that are killing tens of thousands of Americans every year.
• The Genocide Convention—a treaty that the PRC has signed.
• The PRC’s commitments to obey World Trade Organization rules.
• The PRC’s commitments to abide by the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.
• Climate change agreements. Just look at the recent U.S.-China agreement on climate—Beijing’s vague promises to do nothing in particular, and are made by people who won’t be alive when the commitments come due and who know they won’t be held accountable, including by climate activists (who know China won’t listen to them).