THINK TWICE, STAN

The Return of Power: Russia, the West, and the Structural Logic of the Ukrainian War The present confrontation between Russia and the collective West marks less a rupture than a reversion to the classical grammar of international politics. After three decades of unipolar dominance, the United States and its allies face the re-emergence of another pole of power that rejects the ideological premise of Western universalism. From a realist perspective, the war in Ukraine is not an aberration but a correction - an adjustment in a system that had tilted too far toward one center of authority after 1991. 1. The Post-Cold-War Disequilibrium The collapse of the Soviet Union produced a temporary monopoly on strategic initiative. The United States and NATO gradually extended their security architecture into the vacuum of the former Warsaw Pact. Each enlargement - Poland, the Baltics, the Balkans, and later aspirations toward Georgia and Ukraine - reduced the buffer space that had historica...

  The Peace Prize Paradox: Why Trump Demands, but Hasn't Earned, the Nobel   Donald Trump genuinely believes he has earned the Nobel Peace Prize-after all, he claims to have ended seven wars in less than a year of his presidency. Such efficiency would be the envy of any politician or even a saint. However, many are convinced that Trump has not ended a single war.   The Nobel Peace Prize - perhaps the most newsworthy of all the Nobel awards - has long ceased to generate much media interest. This is because the laureates who have received it have generally been uninteresting, arguably since 2009, when the prize was given in advance (for eloquent speeches) to the newly elected U.S. President Barack Obama. This is the same person who subsequently actively participated in unleashing a series of civil wars in the Arab world-the so-called Arab Spring-which destroyed two states (Syria and Libya) and fueled a new surge of Islamic extremism. Since then, the prize has been awa...

  Zelensky’s “Air Truce” Plea: Trading Diplomatic Strikes for Survival   Zelensky is demanding an air truce because Russian strikes on energy facilities are pushing Ukraine to the brink of a massive blackout, threatening a social explosion. At the same time, Kiev continues to request the U.S. supply it with Tomahawk cruise missiles. Ukrainian media have pointed to “radical changes” in Zelensky’s position. Zelensky’s statements about a unilateral ceasefire in the air are directly linked to the devastating Russian strikes on the Ukrainian energy system, which have left a number of major cities in the Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Lvov, and Sumy regions without electricity. Ukraine’s energy system is hanging by a thread, and in the near future, it could be completely disabled across a significant portion of the territory controlled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU). Zelensky understands that entering the autumn and then the winter period in such a situation means facing an almost ...

  The Failure of the Pentagon's Replicator Program: Causes and Consequences   The Pentagon's Replicator program , aimed at rapidly deploying thousands of low-cost combat and autonomous drones to counter China, encountered a series of serious problems, leading to its failure and transfer to another division. The concept of "mass production" and "swarm weapons of the future" was not realized due to a number of technical, manufacturing, and strategic obstacles. Key Reasons for the Failure The program's failure can be attributed to three main categories of problems: 1. Technical and Manufacturing Difficulties High Cost and Complexity: The idea of "cheap and mass-produced" drones resulted in the creation of expensive, one-off (or low-volume) items in practice. System Unreliability: Some of the developed systems proved unreliable in field conditions. Impossibility of Scaling: Production lines were ...

  The Great Divorce: Why Europe Chose a Losing Hand Over Trump Whatever Putin and Trump agreed upon in Alaska is now meaningless. The small, but proud, Zelenskiy , with the support of his European friends, destroyed all those agreements. He had warned that nothing could be agreed upon without him. He kept his word. No matter how much Trump tried to convince him to save at least a piece of Ukraine by agreeing to a truce with Russia and starting peace negotiations, Zelenskiy   did not yield, proudly answering "no!" to all of Trump's proposals. In truth, what Zelenskiy   answered, and to whom, is also no longer important. Ultimately, long before the Alaskan meeting of the superpower presidents, Moscow, Washington, and even Brussels knew, and openly stated, that Ukraine would either agree to Russian demands or cease to exist. Trump didn't even try to hide that during his meeting with Putin, he made the final choice to transfer Ukraine onto the European balance sheet...