The main focus of this week was supposed to be the NATO Summit, but some Pennsylvanian man had other ideas. Regardless, since the incident at Trump’s rally is moreso about domestic politics, we will not go in-depth about it here, until it directly affects the Four Pillars. The issues with Biden’s press conferences, gaffes, and internal party drama are covered under this policy as well.
There are some takeaways from the NATO Summit this week vis-a-vis the Four Pillars:
- NATO Wants to Plant Its Flag in Asia [Foreign Policy]
- For First Time, NATO Accuses China of Supplying Russia’s Attacks on Ukraine [NYT]
- What NATO’s Warning to China About Russia Means [NYT]
- US and Germany foiled Russian plot to assassinate CEO of arms manufacturer sending weapons to Ukraine [CNN]
- The Final Six Months of U.S. Aid for Ukraine [The Atlantic]
- Poland considers downing Russian missiles over Ukraine [BBC]
Unfortunately, the content and headlines of these articles are mainly doom and despair. It seems that even despite the Pillars and its associated organizations and partners’ best efforts to maintain the rules-based international order, the world appears headed toward a democratic backsliding – a return to the status quo of bloody interstate conflicts and the return of strongman politics. If anything, events in the past weeks and months should be wake-up calls to those invested in this unprecedented era of relative global peace (with an asterisk) on the importance of what needs to be done to preserve it. The enemies of the liberal democratic order and the Four Pillars are more openly cooperating with each other, emboldened by polarization within the Pillars. More and more sabotage operations by Russia and China within the Pillars’ own borders are found, and that’s only speaking on a physical level – we have not even covered their operations on the Internet. Even though history does not repeat or rhyme (or whatever the pop history saying is), it is interesting that a century on since 1924, the world is once again staring into the abyss of conflict and totalitarianism amidst the domestic malaise of liberal democracies.
Doug Mills/The New York Times
