The American Origins of the Russo–Ukrainian War

"U.S. policymakers and foreign policy commentators routinely assert that NATO expansion has nothing to do with the Russo–Ukrainian war. This disregards the historical record, which establishes that NATO’s post–Cold War expansion, and specifically the prospect that it would incorporate Ukraine as a member, contributed importantly to the war’s outbreak. In a real sense, the Russo–Ukrainian war’s origins trace back to the 1990 negotiations on German unification and, even farther, to the origins of the Cold War itself.

NATO expansion was part of a flawed American approach to building a post–Cold War security order in Europe. Major wars, including cold ones, can end with either vindictive settlements or magnanimous and far-sighted ones. The classic example of the former is the Treaty of Versailles after World War I, which left Germany justly aggrieved and vengeful. On the other hand, there have been high-minded peace accords like the 1815 Congress of Vienna, which ended the Napoleonic wars, and America’s enlightened policies toward Germany and Japan after World War II.

The U.S. did not deal with Russia in the same spirit as it dealt with Japan and Germany. Instead, Washington drew a new dividing line in Europe that isolated Russia, ignored its legitimate security interests, and sowed the seeds of future conflict. As Stent writes, Russia felt doubly humiliated by the Cold War’s outcome. The Kremlin lost sway in places that historically had been part of Russia’s sphere of influence, and Moscow was expected to conform to an international order based on America’s unipolar power. Washington should have been more sensitive to the historical, political, and cultural dynamics that shape Russian foreign policy. Instead, the United States brushed aside Moscow’s concerns in what Samir Puri, a security affairs expert at King’s College London, has dubbed 'Operation Ignore Russia.' This was an avoidable policy blunder that predictably created a resentful 'Weimar Russia.'”

Link here.

George Orwell’s 1984 in Washington (on Syria)

"Yet Washington continues to waste American lives, materiel, and credibility for barely discernible objectives in the Middle East. Intervening in Lebanon’s bitter civil war cost hundreds of U.S. Marines their lives. Backing Israel’s colonization of Palestinian lands has made Americans a terrorist target. Invading Iraq resulted in the deaths of thousands and wounding of tens of thousands of U.S. and allied personnel—and turned the country into a charnel house with hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths.

Deploying faux humanitarian claims to oust Libya’s Muammar Gadaffi left that land a wreck, violent and divided a decade later. Support for Saudi Arabia’s aggressive war against Yemen ravaged the region’s poorest nation, leaving hundreds of thousands of dead. And America’s botched attempt to oust Syria’s secular dictator led to a de facto alliance with brutal jihadists, including al-Qaeda’s local affiliate. The Syrian people ultimately faced rule by either the despotic Assad regime or terrible variants of bloody Islamists.

Although this civil war is largely over and the Islamic State, an outgrowth of Washington’s Iraq invasion, has been defeated, the U.S. continues to occupy Syria. The country serves no American security interest. Damascus was long allied with Moscow but is of minimal strategic value. Although Syria is no friend of Israel, the latter is a nuclear-armed power more than capable of defending itself."

Link here.

A Case for BlackRock’s New Defined-Maturity TIPS ETFs

"I highly approve of these new funds. They not only meet a need, being the first target-date TIPS funds, but at 10 basis points per year in expenses, the price is right. Plus, the launch is very timely, as TIPS now sell at their lowest price in more than a decade."

Link here.

How much money does the U.S. piss away on Israel every year?

The chart is informative.

Link here.

From December 2021, another warning - "Acting too aggressively on Ukraine may endanger it — and Taiwan"

"Get Ukraine horribly wrong, and a true strategic nightmare could result: two crises, and perhaps two wars, against two great powers at once. Ironically, the United States would have gotten there for fear of facing exactly the dual catastrophes it brought about."

Link here.

Value, Value Everywhere – Disparate Markets Magnify Opportunities

"Most of this spread in the capitalization weighted performance and excessive valuation this year can be attributed to the outperformance of the growth style, which is dominated by the information technology sector. Exhibit 2 shows the forward PE for the S&P 500 Index, the Russell 1000 Growth Index, the Russell 1000 Value Index, the Russell Midcap Value Index, and the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Index as compared to their respective PE averages over the last 10 years. As you can see, the value and dividend indices are trading at much more attractive valuations than the S&P 500 Index and the Russell 1000 Growth Index. In fact, the Russell 1000 Growth Index is trading more than one standard deviation above its own 10-year median PE. Said differently, the Growth Index has only been more expensive about 15% of the time over the last 10 years."

Link here.

When officials say the quiet part about Russia and NATO out loud

“President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement,” Stoltenberg told a joint committee meeting of the European Parliament on September 7. “That was what he sent us. And [that] was a pre-condition for not invade [sic] Ukraine. Of course we didn't sign that.”

“He went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders. He has got the exact opposite,” Stoltenberg reiterated, referring to the accession of Sweden and Finland into the alliance in response to Putin’s invasion. Their entry, he later insisted, “demonstrates that when President Putin invaded a European country to prevent more NATO, he's getting the exact opposite.”

Link here.