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alexdeltufo

At Gallipoli, a Campaign That Laid Ground for National Identities - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...d-for-national-identities.html

shared by alexdeltufo on 26 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • In March 1915, the Western Allies, locked in stagnant trench warfare in Europe, seized on an ambitious strategy orchestrated by Winston Churchill, then Britain’s first lord of the admiralty, to open a second front here. In securing control of the Dardanelles and conquering Constantinople, now Istanbul, the Allies hoped to knock the Turks, who had recently entered the conflict on the side of the Germans, from the war.
  • After nine months of grueling trench warfare, and after suffering tens of thousands of casualties while gaining little ground, the Allies evacuated. More than 40,000 British military personnel were killed, along with nearly 8,000 Australians and more than 60,000 Turks.
  • The campaign also proved crucial in the careers of two of the 20th century’s greatest statesmen: Churchill, who was demoted for his role in the military disaster, and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, then a young Turkish officer, whose battlefield success at Gallipoli propelled him to fame, which he built on to become the founder of the modern Turkish republic.
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  • In recent years, though, Turks have been engaged in an ideological contest over Gallipoli’s legacy. With the rise of the country’s Islamist government under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan have come efforts to diminish the role of Ataturk, who established Turkey under secular principles. The military, which once had a predominant role over politics in Turkey, has also been pushed aside under Mr. Erdogan.
  • In victory, the Turks ended decades of Ottoman defeats on the edges of the empire and emerged with a new sense of nationalism — and a leader, Mustafa Kemal, later known as Ataturk, who would lead the country to independence after the war ended. Mustafa Kemal, then a young officer, met the invading Australians with his men on the day of the landing and earned a reputation as a military genius for his success.
  • In defeat, the Australians gained what many historians have described as the first embers of a national consciousness, apart from their British colonial legacy. “It’s certainly seen today as the beginning of a real Australian self-identity,” Rupert Murdoch said.
  • The trenches are still there, carved in the green hills of the slim Gallipoli Peninsula just across the Dardanelles,
  • It is hallowed ground for battlefield tourists, mostly Turks and Australians
  • Almost a hundred years ago, it was the place where World War I was supposed to turn in the Allies’ favor, but instead it became one of the great slaughters of the Great War.
  • Gallipoli campaign has taken on an outsize importance as the bloody event that became the foundation of a modern national identity.
  • In September 1915, with the slaughter unfolding on Gallipoli but news limited in Australia because of military censorship
  • Australian prime minister authorizing him to look into the postal service for the soldiers.
  • were needlessly being sent to slaughter by incompetent British officers, he agreed to
  • When the commanding general at Gallipoli, Sir Ian Hamilton, learned of Keith Murdoch’s plan to evade the censorship rules, he had him detained at a port in France and the letter was destroyed.
  • “As he was writing his letter, the editor of The Times looked in and said, ‘What are you doing, young man?’ ”
  • “I’ve got to show this to the chief.” B
  • The 8,000-word letter, detailing what Keith Murdoch called “one of the most terrible chapters in our history,”
  • Keith Murdoch later came under sharp criticism in Britain for breaking the censorship rules, and many in the British establishment, including Churchill, never forgave him,
  • He had a perfectly clear conscience,”
  • The Australian government recently selected 8,000 people from a lottery to attend anniversary commemorations next year at the beaches in Turkey.
  • In those days, people believed that nations were born in blood,” he said.
  • named for the acronym of the force that landed there, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, just as thousands of his fellow Australians do each year.
  • “My grandfather fought here,” he said. “But he never talked about it.”
  • “Our kids, our grandkids, want to come here more than us or our parents did,” he said.
  • “Gallipoli is the place that for the first time, after a century of defeats, the Turks were successful,”
  • The Islamists say, ‘We defeated the infidels,'”
  • Many conservative Turkish municipal governments have been organizing free battlefield tours, with a message delivered
  • “They don’t have much education. They’ll believe in anything.”
  • In 1934, Ataturk famously wrote a letter to Australian mothers, saying, “having lost their lives on this land, they have become our sons as well.”
  • The truth is, they just wanted to kill one another and win the war, something evident in the letters from the front.
  • “Everything is so quiet and still one would never dream that two opposing forces, each eager for the other’s blood, were separated by only a few yards – and in places only a few feet.”
  • alexdeltufo on 14 Jan 16
     
    Tim Arango 
Javier E

The Suffocation of Democracy | by Christopher R. Browning | The New York Review of Books - 0 views

www.nybooks.com/...suffocation-of-democracy

democracy authoritarian fascism illiberal history

shared by Javier E on 05 Oct 18 - No Cached
  • In the 1920s, the US pursued isolationism in foreign policy and rejected participation in international organizations like the League of Nations. America First was America alone, except for financial agreements like the Dawes and Young Plans aimed at ensuring that our “free-loading” former allies could pay back their war loans. At the same time, high tariffs crippled international trade, making the repayment of those loans especially difficult. The country witnessed an increase in income disparity and a concentration of wealth at the top, and both Congress and the courts eschewed regulations to protect against the self-inflicted calamities of free enterprise run amok. The government also adopted a highly restrictionist immigration policy aimed at preserving the hegemony of white Anglo-Saxon Protestants against an influx of Catholic and Jewish immigrants. (Various measures barring Asian immigration had already been implemented between 1882 and 1917.) These policies left the country unable to respond constructively to either the Great Depression or the rise of fascism, the growing threat to peace, and the refugee crisis of the 1930s.
  • Today, President Trump seems intent on withdrawing the US from the entire post–World War II structure of interlocking diplomatic, military, and economic agreements and organizations that have preserved peace, stability, and prosperity since 1945.
  • Paul von Hindenburg, elected president of Germany in 1925, was endowed by the Weimar Constitution with various emergency powers to defend German democracy should it be in dire peril. Instead of defending it, Hindenburg became its gravedigger, using these powers first to destroy democratic norms and then to ally with the Nazis to replace parliamentary government with authoritarian rule. Hindenburg began using his emergency powers in 1930, appointing a sequence of chancellors who ruled by decree rather than through parliamentary majorities, which had become increasingly impossible to obtain as a result of the Great Depression and the hyperpolarization of German politics.
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  • Thinking that they could ultimately control Hitler while enjoying the benefits of his popular support, the conservatives were initially gratified by the fulfillment of their agenda: intensified rearmament, the outlawing of the Communist Party, the suspension first of freedom of speech, the press, and assembly and then of parliamentary government itself, a purge of the civil service, and the abolition of independent labor unions. Needless to say, the Nazis then proceeded far beyond the goals they shared with their conservative allies, who were powerless to hinder them in any significant way.
  • If the US has someone whom historians will look back on as the gravedigger of American democracy, it is Mitch McConnell. He stoked the hyperpolarization of American politics to make the Obama presidency as dysfunctional and paralyzed as he possibly could. As with parliamentary gridlock in Weimar, congressional gridlock in the US has diminished respect for democratic norms, allowing McConnell to trample them even more. Nowhere is this vicious circle clearer than in the obliteration of traditional precedents concerning judicial appointments. Systematic obstruction of nominations in Obama’s first term provoked Democrats to scrap the filibuster for all but Supreme Court nominations. Then McConnell’s unprecedented blocking of the Merrick Garland nomination required him in turn to scrap the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations in order to complete the “steal” of Antonin Scalia’s seat and confirm Neil Gorsuch. The extreme politicization of the judicial nomination process is once again on display in the current Kavanaugh hearings.
  • Like Hitler’s conservative allies, McConnell and the Republicans have prided themselves on the early returns on their investment in Trump. The combination of Trump’s abasement before Putin in Helsinki, the shameful separation of families at the border in complete disregard of US asylum law (to say nothing of basic humanitarian principles and the GOP’s relentless claim to be the defender of “family values”), and most recently Michael Cohen’s implication of Trump in criminal violations of campaign finance laws has not shaken the fealty of the Republican old guard, so there is little indication that even an explosive and incriminating report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller will rupture the alliance.
  • Republicans begin with a systemic advantage in electing senators and representatives, because the Democratic Party’s constituency has become heavily concentrated in big states and big cities. By my calculation every currently serving Democratic senator represents roughly 3.65 million people; every Republican roughly 2.51 million. Put another way, the fifty senators from the twenty-five least populous states—twenty-nine of them Republicans—represent just over 16 percent of the American population, and thirty-four Republican senators—enough to block conviction on impeachment charges—represent states with a total of 21 percent of the American population. With gerrymandering and voter suppression enhancing even more the systemic Republican advantage, it is estimated that the Democrats will have to win by 7 to 11 points (a margin only obtainable in rare “wave” elections) in the 2018 elections to achieve even the narrowest of majorities in the House of Representatives
  • In France the prospect of a Popular Front victory and a new government headed by—horror of horrors—a Socialist and Jew, Léon Blum, led many on the right to proclaim, “Better Hitler than Blum.” Better the victory of Frenchmen emulating the Nazi dictator and traditional national enemy across the Rhine than preserving French democracy at home and French independence abroad under a Jewish Socialist.
  • The fascist movements of that time prided themselves on being overtly antidemocratic, and those that came to power in Italy and Germany boasted that their regimes were totalitarian. The most original revelation of the current wave of authoritarians is that the construction of overtly antidemocratic dictatorships aspiring to totalitarianism is unnecessary for holding power
  • the most apt designation of this new authoritarianism is the insidious term “illiberal democracy.” Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, Putin in Russia, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, and Viktor Orbán in Hungary have all discovered that opposition parties can be left in existence and elections can be held in order to provide a fig leaf of democratic legitimacy, while in reality elections pose scant challenge to their power. Truly dangerous opposition leaders are neutralized or eliminated one way or another.
  • Total control of the press and other media is likewise unnecessary, since a flood of managed and fake news so pollutes the flow of information that facts and truth become irrelevant as shapers of public opinion. Once-independent judiciaries are gradually dismantled through selective purging and the appointment of politically reliable loyalists. Crony capitalism opens the way to a symbiosis of corruption and self-enrichment between political and business leaders. Xenophobic nationalism (and in many cases explicitly anti-immigrant white nationalism) as well as the prioritization of “law and order” over individual rights are also crucial to these regimes in mobilizing the popular support of their bases and stigmatizing their enemies.
  • Both Mussolini and Hitler came to power in no small part because the fascist-conservative alliances on the right faced division and disarray on the left. The Catholic parties (Popolari in Italy, Zentrum in Germany), liberal moderates, Social Democrats, and Communists did not cooperate effectively in defense of democracy.
  • In the five presidential elections of the twenty-first century, Democrats have won the popular vote four times. Two of these four (2000 and 2016) nonetheless produced Republican presidents, since the Electoral College reflects the same weighting toward small, more often Republican states as the Senate. Given the Supreme Court’s undermining of central provisions of the Voting Rights Act (Shelby County v. Holder), its refusal to take up current flagrant gerrymandering cases (Gill v. Whitford for Wisconsin; Benisek v. Lamone for Maryland), and its recent approval of the Ohio law purging its voting rolls (Husted v. Randolph Institute), it must be feared that the Court will in the future open the floodgates for even more egregious gerrymandering and voter suppression.
  • The unprecedented flow of dark money into closely contested campaigns has distorted the electoral process even further. The Supreme Court decision declaring corporations to be people and money to be free speech (Citizens United v. FEC) in particular has greatly enhanced the ability of corporations and wealthy individuals to influence American politics
  • To consolidate his dictatorship, Hitler had to abolish the independent unions in Germany in a single blow. Trump faces no such problem. In the first three postwar decades, workers and management effectively shared the increased wealth produced by the growth in productivity. Since the 1970s that social contract has collapsed, union membership and influence have declined, wage growth has stagnated, and inequality in wealth has grown sharply. Governor Scott Walker’s triumph over public sector unions in Wisconsin and the recent Supreme Court decision striking down mandatory public sector union dues (Janus v. AFSCME) simply accelerate a process long underway.
  • Alongside the erosion of an independent judiciary as a check on executive power, other hallmarks of illiberal democracy are the neutralization of a free press and the steady diminution of basic human rights
  • In Trump’s presidency, those functions have effectively been privatized in the form of Fox News and Sean Hannity. Fox faithfully trumpets the “alternative facts” of the Trump version of events, and in turn Trump frequently finds inspiration for his tweets and fantasy-filled statements from his daily monitoring of Fox commentators and his late-night phone calls with Hannity. The result is the creation of a “Trump bubble” for his base to inhabit that is unrecognizable to viewers of PBS, CNN, and MSNBC and readers of The Washington Post and The New York Times. The highly critical free media not only provide no effective check on Trump’s ability to be a serial liar without political penalty; on the contrary, they provide yet another enemy around which to mobilize the grievances and resentments of his base. A free press does not have to be repressed when it can be rendered irrelevant and even exploited for political gain.
  • the curtailment of many rights and protections Americans now enjoy is likely. Presumably marriage equality will survive, given the sea change in American public opinion on that issue. But the right of businesses and individuals to discriminate against gays is likely to be broadly protected as a “sincerely held religious belief.” Chief Justice John Roberts’s favorite target, affirmative action, is likely to disappear under his slogan that to end racial discrimination, one must end all forms of racial discrimination. And a woman’s right to abortion will probably disappear in red states, either through an outright overturning of Roe v. Wade or more likely through narrower rulings that fail to find any “undue burden” in draconian restrictions that in practice make abortion unavailable. And equal protection of voting rights is likely to be eroded in red states through ever more insidiously designed voter suppression laws and gerrymandering once the Supreme Court makes clear that it will not intervene to curb such measures
  • No matter how and when the Trump presidency ends, the specter of illiberalism will continue to haunt American politics. A highly politicized judiciary will remain, in which close Supreme Court decisions will be viewed by many as of dubious legitimacy, and future judicial appointments will be fiercely contested. The racial division, cultural conflict, and political polarization Trump has encouraged and intensified will be difficult to heal. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, and uncontrolled campaign spending will continue to result in elections skewed in an unrepresentative and undemocratic direction. Growing income disparity will be extremely difficult to halt, much less reverse.
  • Finally, within several decades after Trump’s presidency has ended, the looming effects of ecological disaster due to human-caused climate change—which Trump not only denies but is doing so much to accelerate—will be inescapable. Desertification of continental interiors, flooding of populous coastal areas, and increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, with concomitant shortages of fresh water and food, will set in motion both population flight and conflicts over scarce resources that dwarf the current fate of Central Africa and Syria. No wall will be high enough to shelter the US from these events. Trump is not Hitler and Trumpism is not Nazism, but regardless of how the Trump presidency concludes, this is a story unlikely to have a happy ending.
runlai_jiang

How Trump's Tariff Punch Hurt His Pro-Business Agenda - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...pro-business-agenda-1520032652

tariff inflation stock european ally

shared by runlai_jiang on 04 Mar 18 - No Cached
  • Markets fell after President Donald Trump announced planned tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, an effect that was exacerbated by what the move symbolizes fo
  • When a key economic input suddenly becomes scarce,  it’s called a supply shock: It pushes costs up and economic activity down.
  • This helps explain why markets have responded so badly to President Donald Trump’s announcement of a 25% tariff on steel imports and 10% on aluminum. Like a geopolitical shock that reduces the supply of oil, it’s bad for both inflation and growth.
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  • exacerbated by what the tariffs symbolize for Mr. Trump’s agenda and the broader global economy.
  • By following his nationalist instincts Mr. Trump has broken with the pro-business factions in his administration and his party whose policy priorities have been critical to the upswing in business and investor sentiment since he was elected. By willingly hurting U.S. allies over a problem of overcapacity that is mainly China’s doing, he’s cast further uncertainty over the U.S. role as global leader.
  • With investors already on edge about Federal Reserve interest rate increases, the steel tariffs at the margin compound inflation pressure. That effect is so far too small to alter the Fed’s calculus, but a tit-for-tat cycle of retaliation could lead to even more inflation and rate increases than investors or the Fed have anticipated.
  • Protectionism shrinks markets, raises costs, and reduces how fast a country can grow without generating inflation. U.S. steel and aluminum companies can meet the demand previously filled by imports, but with unemployment at a 17-year low that may require hiring workers away from other industries, putting upward pressure on wages.
  • This is good news in the short run for workers, but bad news for any consumer who must now pay more for cars or beer cans.
  • nvestors speculated that the angry reaction of American allies, in particular the European Union, showed U.S. global leadership is fading and with it the dollar’s appeal as a reserve currency.
  • China may move more quickly to curb its overcapacity, the root of the import surge and price pressure that is hurting U.S. producers. Yet the decision has generated conflict within his own administration, his party and with key U.S. allies that, at least at the margin, counteracts the boost from the rest of his agenda.
manhefnawi

1704: Blenheim, Gibraltar and the Making of a Great Power | History Today - 0 views

www.historytoday.com/...braltar-and-making-great-power

Europe in 1700s Philip V of Spain War Succession Gibraltar British Military Marlborough General

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  • glories of Queen Anne’s reign (1702-14), ‘that short period of our History, which contains so many illustrious Actions
  • The most significant of these actions were in the course of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-13, Britain not involved until 1702), as the European powers jostled for control of the Spanish empire following the death of the last Spanish Habsburg king, Charles II, in 1700. On July 23rd, 1704, British naval forces captured Gibraltar and held out against Franco-Spanish attempts to regain it, while a few weeks later on August 13th, John Churchill, then Earl of Marlborough, heavily defeated a Franco-Bavarian army at Blenheim in Bavaria
  • The Blenheim campaign was crucial in preventing French hegemony in western Europe. Allied with Britain and the Dutch against France, the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I (r.1658-1705) was central to the struggle on the European mainland as his defeat would have allowed the French to dominate both Germany and northern Italy and to concentrate against the Anglo-Dutch efforts in the Low Countries and the lower Rhineland
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  • A combination of Louis XIV of France, the Elector of Bavaria, Max Emanuel, and Hungarian rebels, threatened to overthrow Leopold, and thus to end the Habsburg ability to counter-balance French power
  • These depots enabled the army to maintain cohesion and discipline, instead of having to disperse to obtain supplies
  • Marlborough had been more successful than his opponents in integrating cavalry and infantry; his cavalry were better trained for charging; and the artillery, under Colonel Holcroft Blood, manoeuvred rapidly on the battlefield, and was brought forward to help support the breakthrough in the centre
  • The victory ended the threat to Austria. Most of the Franco-Bavarian army was no longer effective after the battle and its subsequent retreat to the Rhine. The Allies followed up the battle with the conquest of southern Germany, as Bavaria was ‘taken out’ of the war, and took the major fortresses of Ulm, Ingolstadt and Landau before the close of the year. It was not until 1741 that French forces were again to campaign so far to the east – and later, and more seriously, in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, when no British army marched to the Danube. In contrast, Marlborough’s advance into Germany had prepared the way for George II to campaign there in 1743, a campaign that culminated in another victory for the British and Austrians over the French at Dettingen, to the east of Frankfurt
  • Under Marlborough at Blenheim, the British army reached a peak of success that it was not to achieve again in Europe for another hundred years, until Wellington
  • Marlborough’s army was the most battle-hardened British army since those of the Civil Wars of the 1640s, but the armies of the Civil Wars had not been engaged in battles that were as extensive or sieges of positions that were as well fortified as those that faced Marlborough’s forces
  • The British in Gibraltar were now besieged on land by the French and the supporters of Philip V, but, as with the lengthy siege of Gibraltar by the Spaniards in 1780 during the American War of Independence, British fleet action proved crucial to the relief of the besieged garrison
  • As Marlborough was Master-General of the Ordnance as well as Captain-General of the Army, he was able to overcome any institutional constraints on co-operation between artillery and the rest of the army
  • Like Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden in the Thirty Years’ War seventy years earlier, Marlborough made his cavalry charge fast and act like a shock force, rather than as mounted infantry relying on pistol firepower
  • Marlborough went on to win other battles – notably Ramillies (1706), Oudenaarde (1708), and Malplaquet (1709) – but none had the dramatic impact of Blenheim, in part because that victory ended the danger that the anti-French alliance would collapse. But he also found that victory did not make it any easier to get the Allied forces to work together, and this, combined with differences in military and diplomatic strategy among the political leaders (the Dutch were especially cautious), made his task very difficult
  • Meanwhile, a few weeks earlier the seizure of Gibraltar had brought together Britain’s role as a Continental power with her interests as a maritime state. British troops were engaged in Iberia in support of ‘Charles III’, Leopold I’s second son and the Habsburg candidate for the crown of Spain, against Louis XIV’s second grandson, Philip V of Spain, who had been installed in 1700 under the terms of Charles II’s will. It proved far easier for Britain to intervene on the littoral, however, than to control the interior
  • the seizure of Gibraltar proved important as it registered the shift of naval hegemony from France to Britain. In the early 1690s Britain and France had contested the English Channel, but following the British victory at Barfleur in 1692, the navy had become far more effective in the Mediterranean. The dispatch of a large fleet under Russell to the Mediterranean in 1694 had been followed by its wintering at the then Allied port of Cadiz, a new achievement. The competing interests of Austria, France and Spain in the western Mediterranean ensured that this area was the cockpit of European diplomacy
  • n 1702, Sir George Rooke had concentrated on Spain’s Atlantic waters as a consequence of an attempt to intercept the Spanish treasure fleet from the New World. His attack on Cadiz had failed, but the Franco-Spanish fleet at Vigo was successfully attacked. British naval strength encouraged Portugal to switch sides in 1703; but, in an even more significant move, the same year Sir Cloudesley Shovell entered the Mediterranean and persuaded Victor Amadeus II of Savoy-Piedmont to abandon his alliance with Louis XIV
  • Rooke’s capture of Gibraltar on July 23rd, 1704, when the landing force was crucially supported by naval gunfire that silenced the enemy battery on the New Mole, led the French to mount a naval response to regain Gibraltar for Philip V and to demonstrate that France was still the leading naval power in the Mediterranean
  • Marlborough’s battles were fought on a more extended front than those of the 1690s, let alone the 1650s
  • These blows led the French to abandon the siege. Gibraltar’s inhabitants had been allowed to remain in the town if they took an oath of fidelity to ‘Charles III’, but ultimately the victory of Philip V, the Bourbon claimant, in the wider war removed this option, and instead the British acquired Gibraltar under the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713. In an attempt to improve relations with Spain, in 1721 George I promised to approach Parliament for consent to return Gibraltar to Spain, but this was not deemed politically possible
  • Three years later a fleet based at Gibraltar discouraged a junction between Bourbon naval forces in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, when the Mediterranean formed a frontline between the alliance systems of two clashing empires, Gibraltar was a key British resource
  • Maintaining a presence in Gibraltar thereafter ceased to be of vital strategic concern to the British and became a curiosity to many; but its major role for a quarter-millennium of national history should not be underplayed.
  • It failed, after a night-time error in navigation led to the loss of eight transport ships and nearly 900 men in the St Lawrence estuary, but the Peace of Utrecht of 1713 left Britain with recognition of its wartime gains: not only Gibraltar and Minorca, but also Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. This weakened the defences of New France and left the British clearly dominant in North American waters
manhefnawi

Return of the King: The Bourbon Restoration | History Today - 0 views

www.historytoday.com/...eturn-king-bourbon-restoration

France Monarch Restoration Europe Napoleon Louis XVIII

shared by manhefnawi on 20 May 18 - No Cached
  • On June 18th, the Battle of Waterloo brought to an end Napoleon's attempted comeback in the Hundred Days
  • At this point, two centuries ago, the victorious Allies – Britain, Austria, Russia and Prussia – would determine the fate of France
  • The Austrian chancellor, Metternich, came from Vienna, Tsar Alexander from St Petersburg and, from Berlin, the 72-year-old Prussian Marshal Blücher
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  • Since both the republican and imperial models were discredited and unacceptable to the victorious Allies, a royal restoration was inevitable; Wellington warned that there would be no peace in Europe unless the Bourbons mounted the throne again. The Congress of Vienna, held to define European frontiers after two decades of war, reversed Napoleon's conquests but was otherwise generous to France
  • The new monarch, Louis XVIII, had made a poor fist of it on his first return from exile in Britain in May 1814. He surrounded himself with appointees who had been out of government business for more than two decades and the first restoration was brought to an abrupt end by the Hundred Days. Louis fled once more, to return three weeks after Waterloo
  • Louis Stanislas Xavier Bourbon, grandson of Louis XV and brother of Louis XVI, became heir to the throne when Louis' son died in prison in 1795
  • If France is still France, it is thanks to the Russians
  • Then came 15 years wandering around Europe, including two in remote Courland in the Baltic, after which he came to rest for seven years in England
  • The Allies imposed financial indemnities on an economy that had been weakened by the demands of Napoleon's constant war-making and the effects of the British naval blockade
  • At the end of November 1815 a white-faced Richelieu signed the definitive peace agreement dictated by the Allies, lamenting that 'all is finished (by) this fatal treaty'
  • Russia, Prussia and Austria proclaimed their Holy Alliance and Britain joined them in the Quadruple Alliance
  • Ignoring the king's desire for national unity, royalists in various parts of the country exacted their revenge for events since the Revolution of 1789
  • France was on its way to being re-integrated into the European system. This reflected the country's continental importance; Europe could not function without it. The path to national recovery was faster than might have been expected in the summer of 1815
  • the Hexagon between the Alps and the Atlantic, the Mediterranean and the Channel could no longer aspire to dominate Europe as it had sought to do under Louis XIV and Bonaparte
manhefnawi

The Battle of Almanza | History Today - 0 views

www.historytoday.com/...battle-almanza

Battle Spain France Bourbons Allied Army War of Spanish Succession

shared by manhefnawi on 13 May 18 - No Cached
  • son of the future James II of England
  • the War of the Spanish Succession, which began with a dispute between Louis XIV and the Austrian Habsburgs over the vacant Spanish throne
  • The decisive battle occurred on Easter Monday in 1707 when the allied army arrived at the walled town of Almanza, south-west of Valencia, and found Berwick waiting for them
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  • There was fighting in Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, and the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy won brilliant victories for the allies, including Blenheim in 1704
  • The war drew in the English, the Dutch and the Portuguese on the Austrian side against the French, who in Spain were supported by Castile, but opposed by the Catalans
  • The allied army had British, Portuguese, Dutch and Huguenot French contingents
  • the disappearance of the Portuguese cavalry left the British, Dutch and Huguenot infantry’s flank completely exposed and they were overwhelmingly defeated
  • The victory was a major factor in securing control of Spain for the Bourbons
manhefnawi

Peterborough and the Capture of Barcelona 1705 | History Today - 0 views

www.historytoday.com/...ugh-and-capture-barcelona-1705

Spain England Military

shared by manhefnawi on 20 May 18 - No Cached
  • The Archduke, who was proclaimed King Charles III of Spain in Vienna and then again in London
  • Charles III despaired of persuading the Portuguese to take the offensive against the Duke of Berwick in Estremadura, while Britain was determined that Gibraltar should be secured as a naval base for her Mediterranean fleet rather than as an initial step towards conquering the rest of Spain.
  • Inspired by the brilliant success at Blenheim in the previous year, the Allies were thus encouraged to attempt to wrest the crown of Spain from Philip V
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  • The war in Spain, which began in 1705, continued until the end of 1710. By then the Bourbon forces had defeated the second Allied attempt to establish Charles III in Madrid.
  • Twice Philip V had to abandon his capital precipitately, and once Charles III actually entered Madrid in triumph
  • When Peterborough reached Lisbon, he concerted plans with Charles III and Prince George of Hesse, fresh from his heroic defence of Gibraltar.
  • Charles III and his German ministers seized this opportunity to leave Portugal where it seemed unlikely that anything would be achieved, since the Portuguese were remarkably reluctant to take the offensive against the Bourbon forces
  • The first landing on Bourbon territory took place at Altea, where the local population flocked to recognize the new King of Spain
  • Though many citizens were said to be favourably disposed towards the Austrian cause, the Governor, Velasco, remained loyal to Philip V
  • Certainly, the King and his ministers believed the Earl had deceived them as to his real intentions
  • Pressure from Charles III, Hesse and Shovell, seemed to have some effect, and a plan to re-embark for Italy was dropped. Instead, “my Lord Peterborough hath been at last disposed to offer to the King, for an expedient, the march to Tarragona, and from thence to extend our quarters to Tortosa, and even into Valencia; which the King willingly accepted, as the only hope left for him that might conduct him to the throne.
  • On September 11th, it had been unanimously decided to march to Tarragona, yet on the 13th a small Allied force attacked the citadel of Montjuich, a decision that was to result in the capture of Barcelona and almost placed Charles III on the throne of Spain
  • the Prince of Hesse went thither as a volunteer
  • Peterborough had another piece of luck when the Marquis de Risburg, on his way to Montjuich with 3,000 reinforcements from Barcelona, questioned Colonel Allan and the other prisoners who were being escorted from the citadel to the city
  • The surviving 300 defenders quickly surrendered and Colonel Southwell, with the consent of the King, was made Governor of Montjuich as a reward for his services in capturing it
  • There appeared no possibility of relief and Velasco feared the horrors of a sack and the hostility of the populace, who were disposed to recognize Charles III
  • The Allies were given an enthusiastic welcome by the citizens of Barcelona and, indeed, many of the garrison volunteered to serve under Charles III. On October 23rd, the Austrian claimant made his formal entry into the city and, amid great rejoicing, was proclaimed King of Spain. The submission of the rest of Catalonia, except Rosas in the far north, quickly followed and the leading cities of Gerona, Tarragona, Tortosa and Lerida were either seized by the Miquelets or spontaneously declared their support for the Austrian cause
  • Charles III wrote to Queen Anne praising the conduct of Peterborough, while the Earl declared his debt to all the members of the expedition.
  • His gallantry and audacity were to win Valencia for Charles III
Javier E

Another Virus Victim: The U.S. as a Global Leader in a Time of Crisis - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...coronavirus-united-states.html

leadership global us china pandemic crisis leader history policy selfishness

shared by Javier E on 29 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • In the name of “America First,” President Trump has pulled out of the Paris climate agreement and questioned the usefulness of the United Nations and NATO, displaying his distaste for the multinational institutions the United States had constructed and led since World War II.
  • As the coronavirus crisis escalates across the globe, the United States is stepping back further, abandoning its longtime role as a generous global leader able to coordinate an ambitious, multinational response to a worldwide emergency.
  • During both the economic meltdown in 2008 and the Ebola crisis of 2014, the United States assumed the role of global coordinator of responses — sometimes imperfectly, but with the acceptance and gratitude of its allies and even its foes.
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  • But the United States is not taking those kinds of steps today.“There is from President Trump’s America a selfishness that is new,’’
  • With Mr. Trump’s unembellished nationalism and slogan of “America First,’’ his efforts to blame first China and then Europe for the coronavirus, and his various misstatements of fact, “it means that America no longer serves the planet,’’
  • “America was always strong on self-interest but it has been very generous,” he said. “That generosity seems to be gone, and that’s bad news for the world.’’
  • “But this crisis is confirmation of a structural change in U.S. political leadership,’’ she said.
  • “There is no U.S. global leadership and no U.S. model,’’ Ms. Major added. “Success would be that you manage the pandemic at home, rally allies around you, lead the alliance, supply global public goods and organize the global response, as with Ebola.”
  • The suggestion that Mr. Trump tried to buy out the German company, “true or not, did not play well in the European media,” Mr. Westmacott said. “It felt more ‘America first’ than America in its traditional role of a big-hearted great power.’’
  • The United States did provide some early aid to China. But in general, the administration has left even close allies to fend for themselves.
  • Mr. Trump has defended his ban on all travel from the European Union, but he did not bother to consult with European leaders or even give them advance notice.
  • it was the energetic French president, Emmanuel Macron, who called Mr. Trump twice in 10 days to suggest a G-7 virus summit by videoconference. Mr. Trump agreed, but left Mr. Macron to organize it.
  • Germans and Europeans generally are angry about accusations from German officials that the Trump administration, and reportedly Mr. Trump himself, offered $1 billion to a German pharmaceutical company, Cure-Vac, to buy monopoly rights to a potential Covid-19 vaccine.
  • Whatever the reality, “the point is that people think Trump is capable of that,’’ Ms. Major said. “That’s where we’ve arrived in the trans-Atlantic relationship, that people say, ‘Yes, that sounds right for the American president.’ ’’
  • Instead, American institutions “don’t seem to be able to cope at home,” she said, and there is “a Trump response to act alone.’’
  • “Seen from a distance, Trump’s performance has pretty much confirmed the views people over here already had of him — that it’s all about ‘me,’ with no acceptance of responsibility for earlier failures.’’
  • The contrast is to China, which made huge mistakes at the onset of the crisis, but since then appears to have managed it effectively, using harsh quarantine measures others are studying.
  • China is also now sending aid — needed respiratory and surgical masks, ventilators and medical personnel — to Italy and Serbia, which have condemned their European allies for not providing early and efficient help.
  • On Wednesday, China offered the European Union as a whole two million surgical masks, 200,000 advanced N95 masks and 50,000 testing kits
  • The Chinese billionaire Jack Ma has even offered aid to the United States, promising to send 500,000 virus test kits and a million protective masks.
  • “There is a serious battle of narratives,’’ Ms. Major said. “And the Chinese have become good at what was once America’s tool, soft power.’’
  • The Chinese, she said, are “trying to make everyone forget that a lot of what we’re experiencing is because of their domestic failure.’’
  • even as China provides aid to Italy and Serbia, she said, “it is asking, ‘Where are your European friends?’ and giving the impression that China acts, is coordinating, leads.’’
  • But the United States, she said, “seems unwilling or unable to lead.’’
  • The United States “seems at least as fragmented as the European Union, if not more so,’’ said Marietje Schaake, a former European legislator now at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center.
  • “The U.S. looks more fragile in part because it lacks the social structures we have in Europe,” she added. “There is comfort in knowing that there is a bottom, a net that will catch you.’’
  • s
  • In retrospect, the crisis may also mark a moment of fundamental global shift.“What will this mean in five years for great-power competition?” asked Ms. Major. “In 10 years will we say, ‘This is the moment that China rose and the U.S. declined,’ or will the U.S. rebound?”
izzerios

How US leaks upset two allies in one week - CNNPolitics.com - 1 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by izzerios on 25 May 17 - No Cached
  • With multiple high-profile intelligence leaks in recent weeks, the US has now managed to upset two of its closest allies by allowing the disclosure of sensitive information
  • Trump was reported to have revealed highly sensitive, likely Israeli-shared intelligence to Russian officials in the Oval Office, the United Kingdom is voicing its frustration over leaked information coming from US sources.
  • President reportedly sharing sensitive information with a foreign power in one instance and US law enforcement sources providing information to the media in the other
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  • UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd slammed US leaks on the investigation into the attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, as "irritating" on Wednesday after a string of details emerged from US law enforcement sources before they were released by British police or officials
  • The White House did not immediately respond to CNN's request for comment on Rudd's remarks
  • was greeted warmly by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who showed no indication that Trump's interaction with the Russians posed a problem between the two nations.
  • the leaking of the suspect's name was more disruptive because it might have tipped off other suspects,"
  • "We've got a very close intelligence and defense partnership with the UK, and that news ... suggests that we have even more close allies who are questioning whether we can be trusted with vital intelligence," Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware
  • Aaron David Miller, a former adviser to Democratic and Republican secretaries of state, who added that the leaks may reflect a lack of structure within the Trump administration itself.
  • "I will make clear to President Trump that intelligence that is shared between our law enforcement agencies must remain secure," she said following a cabinet-level security meeting.
  • Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman insisted there would be no effect on the close relations between the United States and Israel due to the apparent leak
  • "The intel community is probably beside themselves and worried about what they can confide now, if the President is going to be as careless as he was," Miller said
  • "If we will assess that our sources of intelligence are in danger due to the way it will be handled by the United States, then we will have to keep the very sensitive information close to our chests," Yatom
  • "You are not going to have the best capabilities to defend the nation if other countries aren't going to share as much with you."
  • Stern words will likely be directed to the US side, he said, but "on balance, it's probably not going to change intelligence-sharing arrangements all that much."
izzerios

Trump may have to be patient about North Korea - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by izzerios on 19 Apr 17 - No Cached
  • Lean on China to turn off its life support to its neighbor, for another
  • warnings that Trump will fix the showdown with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, it's so far unclear whether at its foundation, his strategy is all that different from previous administrations -- which for the last quarter century have failed
  • "The era of strategic patience is over," Vice President Mike Pence
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  • the US, working closely with the UN and Japan, South Korea, China and Russia, could create enough international pressure to eventually push North Korea to denuclearize
  • Pyongyang recently conducted its fifth nuclear test and is soon expected to conduct a sixth, part of its accelerated drive to develop missiles that can reach the continental US with nuclear weapons small enough to place in the nosecones.
  • it's possible that Trump has pushed Beijing to pressure its unpredictable ally and trade partner
  • possible cost of North Korean retaliation for any military action against its nuclear and missile complex -- an artillery barrage targeting civilians in Seoul and thousands of US troops south of the border
  • China's capacity and willingness to make North Korea bend to Washington's will, for instance by cutting off fuel, food and investment supplies that sustain Kim's regime.
  • "We're definitely not seeking conflict or regime change," Susan Thornton, acting assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs
  • The US has "made a decision -- and it's a decision that's been made with all of our allies and partners on this issue -- to maximize pressure, economic pressure, on the North Korean regime to try to get it to make tangible steps to roll back their illegal programs," Thornton said. "We just have to stick with it, be patient."
  • I think we should give the Chinese president some opportunity, some time, as well as pursuing the economic and diplomatic pressures that we have and our allies have that we can bring to bear on North Korea."
  • White House optimism about China's evolving role in the North Korea crisis was the summit earlier this month between Trump and Xi in Florida
  • China accounts for some 80% of North Korea's trade and as such, could have outsized influence on Pyongyang. "President Trump is very hopeful the Chinese will use the leverage they have,"
  • Trump, for instance, praised China last week for sending back a fleet of coal ships to North Korea, in line with international sanctions on the Stalinist state's exports adopted during the Obama administration.
  • Beijing is determined to avoid any action that could trigger the chaotic downfall of his regime and send refugees fleeing across the border into China.
  • China also wants to avoid the eventual scenario of a unified Korea, which could produce a US-allied nation on its frontier
  • "The conditions are not really ripe for any kind of talks until North Korea shows it is serious about what would be accomplished by undertaking such talks,"
  • "We're looking for some sort of signal that they've realized that the status quo is unsustainable."
katherineharron

Georgia's new law suppressing the vote is a victory for Trump - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

georgia

shared by katherineharron on 26 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Former President Donald Trump's campaign of lies about a stolen election just delivered a huge victory with a new Georgia law that could suppress the votes of many of the citizens who helped eject him from the White House.
  • The move confirms the Peach State as the epicenter of the fight for American democracy that raged through Trump's presidency and during the insurrection he incited against the US Capitol -- and now threatens to taint future elections as Republicans in multiple states pursue new laws to limit voting.
  • "What I'm worried about is how un-American this whole initiative is. It's sick. It's sick," President Joe Biden said at the first news conference of his presidency that afternoon. The Georgia law raises the question of whether election safeguards that prevented Trump's energetic efforts to rig the 2020 White House race after the fact in the state will stand firm in future elections amid false claims of electoral fraud by a president.
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  • GOP leaders justify the voter suppression measures by arguing that they are needed to crack down on fraud and to restore the public's faith that US elections are fair. But multiple courts and Trump's own Justice Department found there was no widespread electoral fraud in 2020.
  • The Georgia bill is only one example of GOP efforts in multiple states -- including many crucial electoral battlegrounds -- to hold back a diverse demographic tide in cities that favor Democrats, which critics see as an attempt to cement minority rule in the United States.
  • Georgia Republicans also lost two US Senate seats that handed Democrats control of the 50-50 chamber on the basis of huge Black turnout in runoff elections in January.close dialogSign up for CNN's CNN's Chris Cillizza cuts through the political spin and tells you what you need to know. Sign Me UpNo ThanksBy subscribing, you agree to ourprivacy policy.Sign up for CNN's CNN's Chris Cillizza cuts through the political spin and tells you what you need to know. Please enter above Sign Me UpNo ThanksBy subscribing, you agree to ourprivacy policy.You're on the list for CNN'sCNN's Chris Cillizza cuts through the political spin and tells you what you need to know. close dialog/* effects for .bx-campaign-1245919 *//* custom css .bx-campaign-1245919 *//* custom css from creative 47804 */@-ms-keyframes bx-anim-1245919-spin { from {
  • "This should be marked as Exhibit A in making the case that discriminatory voter suppression is alive and well, and makes clear why we need federal voting rights legislation to stop these laws in their tracks," Hewitt said. "We stand ready to take action and protect the fundamental right to vote through the courts."
  • as a remnant of the Jim Crow era that institutionalized racism and hinted that he could ultimately back abolishing the Senate filibuster to get the Democrats' House-passed bill through the chamber. But Biden declined to reveal his strategy for getting the voting rights bill into law.
  • Georgia's action threw a political grenade into the debate over a Washington campaign by many Democrats to abolish Senate supermajority rules that Republicans could use to block their sweeping election bill, known as the For the People Act.
  • In a statement to CNN, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who defied Trump's pleas in a telephone call to find votes to overturn Biden's victory, said he would still stand up for voter freedoms but did not criticize the law."In implementing this law, I will ensure that no eligible Georgia voter is hindered in exercising their right to vote, and I will continue to further secure our elections so that every Georgian can have confidence in the results of our elections," Raffensperger said
  • "As the FBI continue to round up seditionists who spilled blood to defend a lie about our elections, Republican state leaders willfully undermine democracy by giving themselves authority to overturn results they do not like," Abrams said in a statement. "Now, more than ever, Americans must demand federal action to protect voting rights as we continue to fight against these blatantly unconstitutional efforts that are nothing less than Jim Crow 2.0."
  • Black voters hampered by the restrictions of voting in urban areas have often found themselves lining up for hours to vote in inclement weather. The clear targeting of African American voters in Georgia and elsewhere recalls some of the ugliest racial episodes of America's past, and is fueling claims of open Republican racism.
  • Former President Donald Trump's campaign of lies about a stolen election just delivered a huge victory with a new Georgia law that could suppress the votes of many of the citizens who helped eject him from the White House.
  • Republican state lawmakers rushed through a broad law Thursday making it harder to vote that disproportionately targets Democratic and Black voters
  • The move confirms the Peach State as the epicenter of the fight for American democracy
  • The Georgia law raises the question of whether election safeguards that prevented Trump's energetic efforts to rig the 2020 White House race after the fact in the state will stand firm in future elections amid false claims of electoral fraud by a president.
  • "What I'm worried about is how un-American this whole initiative is. It's sick. It's sick," President Joe Biden
  • Republicans in multiple states pursue new laws to limit voting.
  • Georgia Republicans also lost two US Senate seats that handed Democrats control of the 50-50 chamber on the basis of huge Black turnout in runoff elections in January.close dialogSign up for CNN What Matters NewsletterEvery day we summarize What Matters and deliver it straight to your inbox.Sign me upNo thanksBy subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.By subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.Sign up for CNN What Matters NewsletterEvery day we summarize What Matters and deliver it straight to your inbox.Please enter aboveSign me upNo thanksBy subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.By subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.Sign up for CNN What Matters NewsletterEvery day we summarize What Matters and deliver it straight to your inbox.//assets.bounceexchang
  • After leaving office, Trump demanded that Republican state legislatures pass laws to ban mail-in voting and to prevent courts from weighing in on electoral disputes.
  • the former President has made the acceptance of his false conspiracy theories about voter fraud in 2020 a litmus test for Republican candidates
  • Iowa has already passed a measure to limit absentee balloting and voting hours. Texas is taking steps to cut voting hours and absentee balloting in big Democratic cities like Houston. New voting laws are being pushed by Republicans in another swing state Trump lost, Arizona.
  • GOP leaders justify the voter suppression measures by arguing that they are needed to crack down on fraud and to restore the public's faith that US elections are fair. But multiple courts and Trump's own Justice Department found there was no widespread electoral fraud in 2020.
  • voter mistrust was largely fueled by Trump's blatantly false claims
  • Georgia's action threw a political grenade into the debate over a Washington campaign by many Democrats to abolish Senate supermajority rules that Republicans could use to block their sweeping election bill, known as the For the People Act.
  • The drama in the Georgia Legislature unfolded as Biden condemned restrictive state legislation as a remnant of the Jim Crow era that institutionalized racism and hinted that he could ultimately back abolishing the Senate filibuster to get the Democrats' House-passed bill through the chamber.
  • The law allows any Georgian to make unlimited challenges to voter registrations, and, incredibly, makes it a misdemeanor crime for anyone to offer food and water to voters stuck in long lines to cast ballots.
  • The clear targeting of African American voters in Georgia and elsewhere recalls some of the ugliest racial episodes of America's past, and is fueling claims of open Republican racism.
  • The Georgia law was quickly signed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who incurred the wrath of Trump last year for refusing to play along with his attempt to override Biden's victory by 12,000 votes in the state, which was confirmed by several audits.
  • "In implementing this law, I will ensure that no eligible Georgia voter is hindered in exercising their right to vote, and I will continue to further secure our elections so that every Georgian can have confidence in the results of our elections," Raffensperger said.
  • Kemp is up for reelection in 2022 and could face Democrat Stacey Abrams, a former state lawmaker and prominent voting rights advocate
  • "As the FBI continue to round up seditionists who spilled blood to defend a lie about our elections, Republican state leaders willfully undermine democracy by giving themselves authority to overturn results they do not like," Abrams said in a statement. "Now, more than ever, Americans must demand federal action to protect voting rights as we continue to fight against these blatantly unconstitutional efforts that are nothing less than Jim Crow 2.0."
  • the measure directly targeted voters of color who took part in record numbers in the 2020 election.
  • The For the People Act awaiting action in the Senate would create automatic voter registration nationwide and restore portions of the Voting Rights Act that were gutted by the Supreme Court. It would also strengthen mail-in voting and permit early voting across the country, while taking steps to cut wait times at the polls.
anonymous

Normandy Commemorates D-Day With Small Crowds : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...h-small-crowds-but-a-big-heart

shared by anonymous on 06 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • When the sun rises over Omaha Beach, revealing vast stretches of wet sand extending toward distant cliffs, one starts to grasp the immensity of the task faced by Allied soldiers on June 6, 1944, landing on the Nazi-occupied Normandy shore.
  • Several ceremonies were being held Sunday to commemorate the 77th anniversary of the decisive assault that led to the liberation of France and western Europe from Nazi control, and honor those who fell.
  • On D-Day, more than 150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches code-named Omaha, Utah, Juno, Sword and Gold, carried by 7,000 boats. This year on June 6, the beaches stood vast and nearly empty as the sun emerged, exactly 77 years since the dawn invasion.
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  • For the second year in a row, anniversary commemorations are marked by virus travel restrictions that prevented veterans or families of fallen soldiers from the U.S., Britain, Canada and other Allied countries from making the trip to France. Only a few officials were allowed exceptions.
  • On June 6, 1944, "In the heart of the mist that enveloped the Normandy Coast ... was a lightning bolt of freedom," French Defense Minister Florence Parly told the ceremony. "France does not forget. France is forever grateful."
  • Most public events have been canceled, and the official ceremonies are limited to a small number of selected guests and dignitaries.Denis van den Brink, a WWII expert working for the town of Carentan, site of a strategic battle near Utah Beach, acknowledged the "big loss, the big absence is all the veterans who couldn't travel."
  • Over the anniversary weekend, many local residents have come out to visit the monuments marking the key moments of the fight and show their gratitude to the soldiers. French World War II history enthusiasts, and a few travelers from neighboring European countries, could also be seen in jeeps and military vehicles on the small roads of Normandy.
  • Some reenactors came to Omaha Beach in the early hours of the day to pay tribute to those who fell that day, bringing flowers and American flags.
  • On D-Day, 4,414 Allied troops lost their lives, 2,501 of them Americans. More than 5,000 were wounded. On the German side, several thousand were killed or wounded.
  • The cemetery contains 9,380 graves, most of them for servicemen who lost their lives in the D-Day landings and ensuing operations. Another 1,557 names are inscribed on the Walls of the Missing.
  • Normandy has more than 20 military cemeteries holding mostly Americans, Germans, French, British, Canadians and Polish troops who took part in the historic battle.
Javier E

General discontent: how the president's military men turned on Trump | US news | The Gu... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...onald-trump-military-criticism

military trump

shared by Javier E on 19 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • A torrent of raw military condemnation has been unleashed on Donald Trump, with some of the most respected figures among retired military leaders lining up to express their profound disapproval of their commander-in-chief.
  • McRaven accused Trump of spreading “frustration, humiliation, anger and fear” through the armed forces and of championing “despots and strongmen” while abandoning US allies.
  • That Trump should be coming under such sharp criticism from figures as revered as McRaven is all the more extraordinary given that Trump put those he called “my generals” at the center of his cabinet when he took office almost three years ago. He appointed Jim Mattis as defense secretary, Michael Flynn and HR McMaster as successive national security advisers, and John Kelly as homeland security secretary and then White House chief of staff.
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  • The new sense of license to criticize Trump among military leaders originated with the president’s highly contentious decision last week to pull US troops from northern Syria. The sudden move has paved the way for a Turkish invasion that has put a prominent US ally in the fight against Isis, the Syrian Kurds, in mortal danger.
  • Adm James Stavridis, former supreme allied commander of Nato, told MSNBC that it was a “geopolitical mistake of near epic proportion”. He said its long-term impact would be to cast doubt on the reliability of the US as an ally.
  • “It’s hard to imagine how one could, in a single stroke, re-enable Isis, elevate Iran, allow Vladimir Putin the puppet master to continue his upward trajectory and simultaneously put war criminal chemical-weapon user Bashar al-Assad in the driving seat in Syria.”
  • “Mr Trump seems to have single-handedly and unilaterally precipitated a national security crisis in the Middle East,” he said, adding that the president had put the armed forces in a “very tricky situation”.
  • the decision would destabilize the region and intensify the Syrian civil war.
yehbru

Opinion: Trump is considering a move that would prolong Yemen's misery - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

Trump Yemen Civil War Politics United Nations Funding Supplies Terrorism

shared by yehbru on 02 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • In one of its final foreign policy acts before leaving office, the Trump administration is considering designating Yemen's Houthi movement as a foreign terrorist organization.
  • The move is part of President Donald Trump's and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's campaign to impose more sanctions on Iran and its allies in the Middle East—and to create new hurdles that would make it difficult for the incoming Joe Biden administration to resume negotiations with Tehran.
  • this designation could prolong Yemen's brutal civil war and drive millions of Yemenis into starvation
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  • Yemen is already facing what UNICEF calls the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, with around 80% of the population—more than 24 million people—needing food and other aid.
  • United Nations Secretary General António Guterres warned that Yemen was "in imminent danger of the worst famine the world has seen for decades." He added, "In the absence of immediate action, millions of lives may be lost."
  • If the Trump administration goes ahead with designating the Houthi rebels as terrorists, the UN and many international humanitarian groups likely would stop delivering aid to Houthi-held territory in Yemen for fear of running afoul of the United States
  • By March 2015, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two of Washington's closest allies in the Arab world, intervened in the war with massive air strikes and a blockade of Houthi-controlled areas.
  • Since taking office in 2017, Trump has repeatedly claimed that he wants to end US involvement in foreign wars, especially in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
  • Trump and his advisers blamed the war on Iran and its support for the Houthis, ignoring war crimes by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which could implicate US officials who continued to sell weapons to the two allies.
  • Despite international criticism and growing evidence of war crimes, Trump continued to support Saudi Arabia's crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who is a major proponent of the Yemen war. In 2019, Trump used his veto power four times to prevent Congress from ending weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and its allies.
  • Designating the Houthis as a terrorist organization is likely to make the group more intransigent and to drive it closer to Iran.
  • Because of constraints imposed by the Houthis on humanitarian work, Washington has already cut nearly half of its assistance to Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen this year. In 2019, US aid amounted to more than $700 million.
  • The UN also decreased its food rations to millions of Yemenis because of reduced aid from the US and other donors. If the terrorism designation is finalized, Washington would immediately stop its remaining aid to Houthi-controlled parts of Yemen.
  • A terrorist designation would also have a ripple effect beyond hampering the work of UN and humanitarian groups: it would dissuade insurance, commercial shipping and trade firms from operating in Yemen because they would be afraid of violating US laws.
  • As a result, it would become far more difficult and expensive to ship crucial supplies into Yemen, which is almost entirely reliant on imported food. The threat of sanctions or US prosecution could also devastate shipments of medical aid and other supplies intended to shore up a healthcare system that has been devastated by years of war and, more recently, the coronavirus pandemic.
  • It's also unlikely to be a top priority of the new administration, which could be worried about being portrayed as "soft" on terrorism.
  • The full scope of suffering in Yemen has gone partly unnoticed because of an unreliable death toll.
hannahcarter11

Boris Johnson, Seen as a Trump Ally, Signals Alignment With Biden - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...boris-johnson-joe-biden.html

World Johnson trump biden

shared by hannahcarter11 on 30 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • Prime Minister Boris Johnson rolled out ambitious, back-to-back initiatives on military spending and climate change this week, which have little in common except that both are likely to please a very important new person in Mr. Johnson’s life: President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.
  • The prime minister, whom President Trump has embraced as a like-minded populist, is eager to show he can work with the incoming president as well as he did with the outgoing one.
  • That is important, analysts said, because Brexit will deprive Britain of what had historically been one of its greatest assets to the United States: serving as an Anglophone bridge to the leaders of continental Europe.
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  • Mr. Johnson has yet to deliver on another challenge that would please Mr. Biden: a trade agreement with the European Union. Mr. Biden has already voiced concern to Mr. Johnson that if the negotiations go awry, it could jeopardize the Good Friday Accord, which ended decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.
  • Mr. Johnson cast his initiatives as gestures of support to allies, even at a time when the pandemic has busted public finances.
  • “Britain must be true to our history, to stand alongside our allies, sharing the burden, and bringing our expertise to bear on the world’s toughest problems,” Mr. Johnson said in introducing the defense spending plan to the House of Commons.
  • the Biden team will look favorably on this announcement because Biden will be as sensitive as Trump was, and Obama was, to the willingness of allies to shoulder more of the burden.”
  • Mr. Biden has pledged to reinvigorate America’s climate policy by swiftly rejoining the Paris climate accord. Analysts said he would also try to heal strains in the NATO alliance, which has been under relentless attack by Mr. Trump, who has accused other members of not paying their fair share of its costs.
  • The defense budget, Mr. Johnson claimed, will be the largest expansion of military spending since the Cold War: an increase of 24.1 billion pounds ($31.9 billion) over the next four years. That is nearly triple the increases his Conservative Party promised in its policy manifesto during the 2019 election.
  • The climate package, which claims to do nothing less than ignite a “green industrial revolution,” sets a goal of making Britain a net zero emitter of carbon dioxide by 2050. It would change the way people heat their homes and invest in alternative energy sources, in addition to banning the sale of new fossil fuel-powered vehicles by 2030.
  • The climate package lacked the levels of investment pledged by Germany and France to reach their emissions-reduction targets. The military budget contained no information on what the money would be spent on; that is to be decided by a review of foreign, defense, security and development policy that will concluded early next year.
  • Mr. Biden’s defeat of Mr. Trump has radically reshaped the landscape for Mr. Johnson, confronting him with an American leader who opposed Brexit and is unlikely to make an Anglo-American trade agreement a priority, as the pro-Brexit Mr. Trump did.
  • Britain’s emphasis on defense, Mr. Fraser said, plays up a competitive advantage over France and Germany. Both spend proportionately less on their militaries and are not as closely integrated in security matters with the United States.
  • Britain confirmed the creation of a National Cyber Force, a joint venture of the Defense Ministry and GCHQ, the electronic surveillance agency.
  • Still, as several experts noted, Mr. Johnson’s bid to be useful to Mr. Biden will mean far less if Britain fails to strike a trade deal with Brussels. A yearlong transition period is set to expire on Jan. 1, and economists warn that not having a new agreement to take its place would do serious harm.
sidneybelleroche

Associated Press News - 0 views

apnews.com/...ng-russia-ukraine-448047649195

shared by sidneybelleroche on 08 Dec 21 - No Cached
  • President Joe Biden and Russia’s Vladimir Putin squared off in a secure video call Tuesday as the U.S. president put Moscow on notice that an invasion of Ukraine would bring enormous harm to the Russian economy.
  • With tens of thousands of Russian troops massed on the Ukraine border, the highly anticipated call between the two leaders came amid growing worries by the U.S. and Western allies about Russia’s threat to its neighbor.
  • Putin, for his part, came into the meeting seeking guarantees from Biden that the NATO military alliance will never expand to include Ukraine, which has long sought membership. The Americans and their NATO allies said that request was a non-starter.
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  • There appeared to be no immediate breakthroughs to ease tensions on the Ukraine question, as the U.S. emphasized a need for diplomacy and de-escalation, and issued stern threats to Russia on the consequences of an invasion.
  • the United States and our European allies would respond with strong economic measures,
  • At the White House, Sullivan said, “It was a useful meeting,” allowing Biden to lay out in candid terms where the US stands.
  • A top U.S. envoy, Victoria Nuland, said a Russian invasion of Ukraine also would jeopardize a controversial pipeline between Russia and Germany.
  • Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov dismissed the sanctions threat during a conference call with reporters.
  • He described the presidents’ video conference as “candid and businesslike,” adding that they also exchanged occasional jokes.
  • Biden said the U.S. would also “provide additional defensive material to the Ukrainians … and we would fortify our NATO allies on the eastern flank with additional capabilities in response to such an escalation.”
  • Ukrainian officials charged Russia had further escalated the smoldering crisis by sending tanks and snipers to war-torn eastern Ukraine to “provoke return fire” and lay a pretext for a potential invasion.
  • The Russian leader also proposed to lift all mutual restrictions on diplomatic missions and help normalize other aspects of bilateral relations, the Kremlin said. Sullivan said the leaders would direct their staffs to continue negotiations on that.
  • The leader-to-leader conversation — Biden speaking from the White House Situation Room, Putin from his residence in Sochi —was one of the most important of Biden’s presidency and came at a perilous time. U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russia has massed 70,000 troops near the Ukraine border and has made preparations for a possible invasion early next year.
  • Politically in Washington, Republicans are framing this moment as a key test of Biden’s leadership on the global stage. Biden vowed as a candidate to reassert American leadership after President Donald Trump’s emphasis on an “America first” foreign policy.
  • But Republicans say he’s been ineffective in slowing Iran’s march toward becoming a nuclear power and has done too little to counter autocratic leaders including China’s Xi Jinping and Putin.“
  • Putin apparently sees the current situation as a moment to readjust the power dynamic of the U.S.-Russia relationship, analysts agree.
  • Beyond Ukraine, there are plenty of other thorny issues on the table, including cyberattacks and human rights. Before the call, Kremlin spokesman Peskov said U.S.-Russian relations are overall in “a rather dire state.”
  • “Russia has never planned to attack anyone,” Peskov said. He characterized the Biden-Putin call as a “working conversation during a very difficult period,” when “escalation of tensions in Europe is off the scale, extraordinary.”
Javier E

Ukraine Is the West's War Now - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...-is-the-wests-war-now-5d468bdb

ukraine war history west crisis policy us europe

shared by Javier E on 27 Feb 23 - No Cached
  • A year later, the war in Ukraine has become, to a large extent, the West’s own. True, no American or NATO soldiers are fighting and dying on Ukrainian soil. But the U.S., its European allies and Canada have now sent some $120 billion in weapons and other aid to Ukraine, with new, more advanced military supplies on the way. If this monumental effort fails to thwart President Vladimir Putin’s ambitions, the setback would not only undermine American credibility on the world stage but also raise difficult questions about the future of the Western alliance.
  • “In many ways, we’re all-in, and we’re all-in because the realization has dawned in Europe that showing weakness to President Putin, showing no response to his atrocities, only invites him to go further and further,” said Sjoerd Sjoerdsma, a Dutch politician and member of parliament. “We have also realized that it is not only the safety and security of Ukraine that is at stake but also our own.”
  • The Russian military’s mixture of unexpected ineptitude and shocking cruelty has pulled the U.S. and allies deeper and deeper into the conflict. With one self-imposed constraint falling after another, Western goals have gradually moved from preventing the obliteration of Ukraine to supporting its military victory over Russia.
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • It’s a more ambitious commitment that carries much higher risks—but also strategic rewards—for the Western alliance.
  • “Nobody thought the Russians would start a medieval war in the 21st century,” said Sen. James Risch, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “This conflict is going to change the face of Europe as much as World War II did.”
  • In Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere, the West’s geopolitical adversaries are calculating whether the U.S. and its allies have the stamina and cohesion to defend the rules-based international order that has benefited the West for decades.
  • In particular, the future of Taiwan and the South China Sea is closely linked to the West’s record in Ukraine.
  • “If Putin wins in Ukraine, the message to him and other authoritarian leaders will be that they can use force to get what they want. This will make the world more dangerous and us more vulnerable.”
  • The Munich conference capped several weeks in which the U.S. and its allies have dramatically expanded the scope of their military aid, an indication that Mr. Putin’s expectation that the West will eventually tire of helping Ukraine hasn’t materialized just yet
  • Both sides believe they can win on the battlefield, and little room exists for peace negotiations. Ukraine is preparing offensives to regain the roughly 18% of its territory still occupied by Moscow, including the Crimea peninsula and parts of the eastern Donbas region that Mr. Putin seized in 2014. Russia has declared four Ukrainian regions, none of which it fully controls, to be its own sovereign territory and seeks, at the very least, to conquer those lands. Mr. Putin, in a speech on Tuesday, indicated that his aspirations remain much broader, referring to Russia’s “historical territories that are now called Ukraine.”
  • A year into Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II, Ukraine’s own military industries have been shattered by Russian missile strikes, and its reserves of Soviet-vintage weapons are running out. By now, Kyiv can keep fighting only as long as Western assistance continues apace
  • “The next months will be very critical. If, say, another Ukrainian offensive fails, if it becomes the public narrative that it’s going to be a stalemate, support in the West might drop—perhaps not substantially, but some of the politicians will see the writing on the wall,
  • “In diplomacy, morality is part of the public narrative, but rarely part of the real decision-making process. But Ukraine’s case was one of the examples in history when you can argue that sympathy based on moral arguments was a game changer,”
  • “Some governments acted the way they did not merely based on their practical considerations but under enormous pressure of their public opinion. And that public opinion was based on moral compassion for the victim of the aggression.”
  • Mr. Putin has tried to counter the Ukrainian message by appealing to fear. On the first morning of the war, he alluded to nuclear weapons to deter the West from helping Ukraine.
  • “Putin is threatening Armageddon, and the Russians are doing it all the time, sometimes in oblique ways and sometimes in a more direct way,
  • “But when you actually poke at that and provide weapons gradually over time, there hasn’t been the catastrophic response that Putin promised.”
  • “boiling the frog.” As the U.S. began to introduce new weapons systems, it did so slowly and, initially, in limited numbers. None of these individual decisions were of sufficient scope to provoke a dramatic escalation by Moscow. But over the past 12 months, the cumulative effect of these new weapons has transformed the balance of power on the battlefield and enabled a string of strategic Ukrainian victories.
  • “If you look at the arc of Western involvement, no one would have predicted where we are now six months ago, and the same goes for six months before that. It’s a crisis response that has evolved into a policy—a policy that, probably, no one would have prescribed at the outset,” said Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at Rand Corp. who has urged caution on arming Ukraine
  • “The West is also the frog that is boiling itself. With each incremental increase in assistance, qualitative or quantitative, we become accustomed to that being normal, and the next one doesn’t seem so extreme,”
  • “There is a dynamic here where we become desensitized to what is going on. We are in a bit of a slow-moving spiral that shows no signs of letting up.”
  • In 2014, after Mr. Putin annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula and triggered a bloody war in the eastern Donbas region, covertly sending troops and heavy weapons across the border, the American and European response was limited to sanctions that only marginally affected Russia’s economy.
  • Back in 1991, President George H.W. Bush viewed Ukraine’s desire for freedom as a dangerous nuisance. That year, just months before the Soviet Union’s collapse, he delivered to the Ukrainian parliament his infamous “Chicken Kiev” speech, urging Ukrainians to abandon “suicidal nationalism” and permanently remain under the Kremlin’s rule.
  • Other analysts and policy makers argue that the true danger lies in excessive caution over accelerating Western military involvement. “We have been slow in delivering certain capabilities. We keep climbing the stairs, but it goes through a tortuous process, and in the meantime Ukrainians are dying,” said ret. Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe. “It has taken the Pentagon a long time to come to the realization that Ukraine can win, and will win, especially if we give them what they need. There has been all too much defeatist hand-wringing.”
  • At the time, President Barack Obama resisted calls to help Ukraine militarily as he sought Mr. Putin’s cooperation on his presidency’s main foreign-policy priority, the nuclear deal with Iran
  • Ukraine, Mr. Obama said in an interview with the Atlantic in 2016, “is going to be vulnerable to military domination by Russia no matter what we do.” All the evidence of the past 50 years, he added, suggested that Russian (and Chinese) decision-making wouldn’t be influenced by “talking tough or engaging in some military action.”
  • Mr. Biden, speaking in front of U.S., Polish and Ukrainian flags to a cheering crowd in Warsaw on Tuesday, had a different message. “Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia,” he pledged. “Appetites of the autocrat cannot be appeased. They must be opposed.”
ethanmoser

Allies Set Sights on Raqqa in Battle Against Islamic State - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...ainst-islamic-state-1477399477

battle us terrorism isis stronghold Raqqa Mosul

shared by ethanmoser on 28 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • Allies Set Sights on Raqqa in Battle Against Islamic State
  • The U.S. and its allies are preparing to launch the invasion of Islamic State’s Raqqa stronghold before the recapture of Mosul in Iraq is complete
  • U.S. officials hope to start the invasion of Raqqa as soon as the coming weeks, provided the Mosul campaign proceeds as planned, though the push for the militant group’s de facto capital in Syria remains complicated by regional political sensitivities that haven’t appeared in the fight for Mosul.
ethanmoser

Germany: Merkel ally regrets manner of critic's departure | Fox News - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...s-manner-critic-departure.html

germany merkel bailouts migrants

shared by ethanmoser on 16 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • Germany: Merkel ally regrets manner of critic's departure
  • A top official in Chancellor Angela Merkel's party says he's not surprised by the departure of a hard-line conservative lawmaker who had increasingly been at odds with the German leader, but regrets the manner of it.
  • She argued that Merkel's government has exceeded its mandate by allowing large numbers of migrants in and eurozone bailouts to Greece and by accelerating Germany's exit from nuclear power.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • "I find it regrettable that Mrs. Steinbach is going about it this way. Spreading excessive and unjustified accusations via the media and not in a direct conversation is not conservative."
Javier E

Trump's China Policy: 'This Is How You Stumble Into a Crisis' | Foreign Policy - 0 views

foreignpolicy.com/...-how-you-stumble-into-a-crisis

trump china policy foreign policy

shared by Javier E on 30 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • Rex Tillerson, Trump’s pick for secretary of state, stunned lawmakers and foreign governments at his Jan. 11 Senate confirmation hearing when he said that the United States would be ready to block China’s access to artificial islands it is building in the South China Sea. Seemingly just a gaffe, the White House later appeared to double down on Tillerson’s stance, which taken at face value would be tantamount to an act of war.
  • The comments suggest President Donald Trump’s White House is eager to take an aggressive tone with Beijing, but lacks a coherent strategy to deal with China or a basic grasp of the legal and security issues at stake in the South China Sea, said former officials, diplomats, Asia experts and congressional aides.
  • Tillerson’s threat that America would bar China’s access to disputed reefs and islands in the South China Sea would mark a radical break with long established U.S. policies dating back to the 1990s
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • Taken literally, Tillerson’s proposed approach would violate international law and require a naval blockade, which would be an act of war, experts said.
  • After the hearing, lawmakers on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee gave Tillerson a chance to clarify what they assumed was an ill-informed gaffe, but neither he nor the White House took up the offer, aides told Foreign Policy.
  • The bellicose words on the South China Sea follow a host of other provocative statements and actions by Trump since his election. H
  • The idea behind Trump’s approach seems to be that the United States has been weak in its dealings with Beijing, and that a strong hand is needed. Experts said the Trump administration is testing the hypothesis that if the Washington simply gets tougher with China, Beijing will back down.
  • Washington and Beijing could be headed on a collision course, as both countries could be overestimating their own power and misjudging how the other side will respond, former officials and policy analysts said.
  • “They have been signaling subtly but clearly that they have cards to play as well and that they’re not going to back down,” one congressional aide said.
  • military leaders are not keen on provoking tensions with China or threatening a naval blockade that Washington won’t be ready to enforce.
  • Even as it seeks to squeeze China, the Trump administration has lost crucial economic and diplomatic leverage in the region by abandoning the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed 12-nation trade pact with strong support among Asian allies and partners. It offered a counterbalance to Beijing’s economic heft, particularly among countries with rival claims in the South China Sea.
  • China is trying to fill the void, eagerly expanding its own trade grouping to attract countries like Japan and Malaysia. For Asian states gauging U.S. power, “their measuring stick isn’t just one or two aircraft carriers, it’s trade flows,” the congressional staffer said.
  • Allies are dismayed by the administration’s embrace of protectionism, its aggressive and improvised rhetoric toward China, and the wide gap between the president’s views and those of his Cabinet, said diplomats and former official
  • long-established allies are looking at exploring other trade and diplomatic options if the U.S. loses its status as a reliable partner.
  • While Tokyo and other foreign capitals have been reassured somewhat by officials named or expected to serve in the Trump administration on Asia policy, the president’s unpredictable tweets and impulsive policy making are a source of anxiety.
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