RANT: I'LL HAVE ONE TREATY TO GO AND A SIDE SERVING OF DIPLOMACY, PLEASE

   

“The ability to think is one of the most defining features of humankind. In different cultures, the definition of humanity is associated with concepts such as consciousness, knowledge and reason. According to the classic western tradition, human beings are defined as “rational” or “logical animals”. Logic, as the investigation on the principles of reasoning, has been studied by many civilizations throughout history and, since its earliest formulations, logic has played an important role in the development of philosophy and the sciences.” (UNESCO)*

 

THIS PAST WEDNESDAY was “World Logic Day”, and I don’t know about you, but to me it feels like that bird—logic—has flown the coop! And are you getting a little worried that the American president Donald Trump has bats in his belfry? The forty-seventh president of the United States has been in office one year into his four-year second term, and his administration seems to churn out one example of head spinning nonsense after another:

 

His Gaza peace plan has seen over 460 Palestinians killed and 1200 wounded by Israeli bombs, drones and gunfire since October 2025’s so-called ‘ceasefire’. Israel still occupies almost half of Gaza with its troops and is not likely to withdraw them any time soon. His hot and cold, amateur-hour diplomacy with Russia conducted by Mutt & Jeff (Whitkoff, Kushner) hasn't altered the Ukraine war's trajectory in the slightest. Last summer’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear research sites and the recent Mossad/CIA attempt at “regime change” in Iran by arming agitators both failed to achieve their desired results. Recently, Trump’s folly in Venezuela and his kidnapping of President Maduro and his wife also may not have the desired effect of making the Venezuelan government kowtow to Washington. And as far as exploiting the South American country's oil reserves, Amereican oil companies are not do keen to go into Venezuela, citing internal instability, degraded petroleum infrastructure, and added costs extracting the heavy, “sour” petroleum reserves of the inland Orinoco Oil Belt. There is also the likelihood of sabotage by Venezuelans who’ll not take kindly to the arrival of ‘Gringo carpetbaggers to their patch.

 

IT'S BEEN AN ERRATIC foreign policy to say the least (and don’t forget Trump wants Greenland by hook or by crook), along with scandals at home—the Epstein files have much to reveal yet; Brownshirts ICE agents usurping constitutional rights of American citizens in their hunt for illegal aliens, including the murder in Minneapolis of a mother of three followed by incredibly lame excuses from ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) officials and other politicos, and shameful, blame-the-victim comments by Vice President J D Vance. Just watch the video; it was a totally unjustified shooting by a masked ICE agent who should be charged with murder. And, despite what White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller (AKA ‘Little Mussolini’) says, ICE officials are supposed to abide by the law, they are not above it. Miller is truly a piece of work, a neo-con nutbar, who spits more venom than a viper. And he has the ear of the US president.

 

THERE IS SO MUCH to delve into in this post that I’ll have to pick one news item for now: the dangers of escalation in the Ukraine/NATO/US v. Russia conflict. Does anyone in their right mind think it was a good idea to attack Russian strategic deterrence facilities on three separate occasions: One in 2024, the missile attack on Russia’s early-warning radar installations. In 2025, the drone attacks on the Russian strategic bomber fleet damaged several heavy bombers, and the recent, and perhaps most dumb fuck, was the drone attack late last month on an official residence of President Putin in the Volgograd region of western Russia. And the compound also contains a strategic weapons control centre! What were they thinking? 

 

Fortunately, all the drones were shot down. Ukraine’s president Zelensky, disavowed any knowledge of the attack, as did Trump, in a call Putin made to the American president shortly after the attack. Putin may not have been there--Russian security around the president whereabouts is tight--but if he had been, we might have been in a WWIII scenerio!

Question: WTF were they hoping to accomplish by this hostile and provocative action? Poke the Russian bear? Keep it dancing? Don't they know the cage door is open and the bear’s patience is wearing thin?😕

 

TWO THINGS TO WATCH FOR in the coming weeks:

👉One is whether America will finally appoint an ambassador to Moscow. The position has been vacant since June of last year, with only an interim head of mission running things. In addition, as a sign of good faith, Washington could return Russian embassy property. Two compounds were seized during the Obama presidency for alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election at the beginning of the RussiaRussiaRussia! psyop to create a Russian ‘boogeyman’ and Trump as ‘Putin’s puppet’ nonsense we had to put up with during the first Trump presidency. Reinvigorating diplomatic ties between the world’s two nuclear superpowers is a no-brainer. Trump has said he wants a thaw in US/Russia relations, but we’ll see what happens. While he’s at it, direct fights between the US and Russia could be re-established; that’s easy-peasy and it would benefit both countries. (Opening air traffic between the two might encourage EU and NATO member states to do likewise and get over their giant hissy-fits with Russia. But that would assume Western leaders weren’t a pack of incompetent nincompoops. Just sayin’)😜

 

👉THE SECOND MAJOR THING we should be watching for is something that needs to be resolved in less than a month’s time. The New START (nuclear) arms control treaty between the US and Russia is set to expire on 5 February. On 8 January Trump recently made another of his off-hand comments in the Oval Office during an interview with the New York Times when he said, “If it expires, it expires. We’ll just do a better deal.” Russia, some months ago, proposed a one-year extension to the treaty during which time discussions could be held to update and strengthen its core principles. Recall in 2019, during President Trump’s first administration, the Americans walked away from another nuclear arms treaty, the INF (Intermediate Nuclear Forces) treaty, citing Moscow’s non-compliance because of its testing of a mobile, ground-launched, intermediate-range nuclear-capable missile.

FOR its part, Russia complained about the construction of missile US bases in Poland and Romania housing Aegis Ashore launch systems. Ostensibly, they were sited in the East European countries as ‘defensive’ installations to intercept intermediate and long-range ballistic missiles coming from the Middle East, Iran being the chief bug-a-boo in this lame scenario. Moscow pointed out that the launch arrays could easily be reconfigured with nuclear warheads and be used to attack Russia. American officials poo-pooed the idea and disregarded Russia’s legitimate concerns that the US was in violation of the INF treaty.

To be fair, both sides, as far as I understand, were ‘effing around’ the edges of the treaty, looking for an advantage. 

 

US PRESIDENT George Bush’s unwise 2002 walkaway from the 1972 ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) treaty, was done so the US could develop an intermediate-range anti-ballistic missile “shield” that would give them, on paper at least, the possibility of launching a successful “first strike” against Russia (and China?), and relying on their ABM system to destroy the inevitable counter-attack from Russia. It should be noted that the defensive system never got off the drawing board. But, after Bush’s destabilizing walkaway from the ABM treaty, Moscow began work on new missile systems that could penetrate any ABM system developed by the Americans. Hence, the array of new types of Russian missiles unveiled¹ during the later stages of the Ukraine War. Before Bush withdrew the US from the ABM treaty, both sides, Russian and American, were vulnerable to devastating counterattacks from the other, where both societies would be destroyed no matter who fired first. This Cold War treaty lasted for decades, was dubbed “MAD” (Mutually Assured Destruction) and along with the substantial drawdown of nuclear weapon arsenals under predecessor treaties to New START (Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty), things were basically balanced between the nuclear superpowers.

 

That went away in 2002, and with the US, over the next decade siting ‘defensive’ missile emplacements in Poland and Romania, with the unspoken threat of more bases—perhaps ringing Russia with defensive and offensive missile bases in NATO member states along its borders.² New missile systems began design and development in Russia but were under wraps for years. 

A saving  grace in 2009 was the New START nuclear disarmament treaty that was negotiated during the Obama presidency. It helped keep things cooler with further drawdowns in nuclear stockpiles. But Trump’s foolish walkaway from the INF treaty in 2019, opened the door to develop and deploy an array of short and medium range nuclear and non-nuclear missiles for both sides.³ After that, Russia began unveiling their new weapons.

 

REALLY SORRY about going into the weeds about this stuff (and I hope that I’ve been accurate and that all this makes sense), but all of us should be concerned that the ONLY nuclear weapons treaty left on the books is New START which expires 5 February. After that we can envision the Americans and Russians (and perhaps other nuclear powers) adding to their arsenals or deploying more warheads onto their siloed missiles, mobile launch systems, bombers and submarines.

SO, WATCH AND SEE what Trump does. Will full diplomatic relations between Moscow and Washington finally be restored? And will Trump decide (hopefully not during a sundowner episode) to renew this important nuclear treaty?

I'm not hopeful, so for now I’m taking a tab of Soma® and going to an orgy-porgy.  

  

CHEERS, JAKE.

 

* In association with the International Council for Philosophy and Human Sciences (CIPSH).

 

1. Like the new hyper-sonic missiles, against which no anti-ballistic missile arrays can stop. And other intermediate and inter-continental missiles that are being showcased in Ukraine. 

 

2. Last year, the United States installed a similar missile system in the Philippines. Temporarily, I believe. But they weren’t after any giggles and grins in doing so. Such a base would be a threat to Beijing, who were livid at the time over the operation. Fun times in Holocene where things are heating up.

 

3. China, not part of ABM, INF or New START treaties (but is part of the Non-proliferation and Test Ban treaties) has recently begun enlarging its strategic nuclear weapons arsenal in response to the growing instability and potential for a new nuclear arms race. The more the merrier! What could go wrong?