WHO CONTROLS SPEECH ON UNIVERSITIES? AND WHO SHOULD? AND THE THREAT FROM CHARLIE KIRK

 Each of us has unique experiences, but I will report in part on mine, acknowledging it is limited.  The reason for this, to discuss the change on campus brought by Charles Kirk.

I entered Tulane U. in New Orleans as a freshman in Sept. 1956.  In my Sociology course on race relations, during the half year course, there was only one lecture on black-white relations in New Orleans.  It was presented by Dr. Dan Thompson of Dillard U., also in New Orleans, a HBCU.  That lecture was not presented in person, but on tape.  Had Dr. Thompson delivered it in person, he might have been arrested for violating the state's segregation laws.  Tulane's Arts and Science College was all-male.  Females attended Newcomb College, similar to the sexual divisions at many private universities like Columbia and Harvard.  The uni. administrator for the Interfaith panel wanted each group to develop a basketball team or the like; leave politics alone.  But there were exceptions; a pastor at the Wesley Center (Methodist) quietly circulated a petition to free Morton Sobel, convicted with the Rosenbergs. My point, Tulane in the 1950s was basically a politically conservative university, but compared to the rest of the city, or to the rest of the South, there were some unexpected liberal bubbles perking up.  Not boiling the pot, but there.

    When very conservative publicist William Buckley came to address us in our large auditorium, some of us bood his points, but everyone could hear the points he was making.  Perhaps in club on foreign affairs, I recall debating a friend, son of Christian missionaries who had worked in China, on happenings in Laos.  I argued, using NY Times articles, that the Pathet Lao was winning elections and should be recognized; he that it was communist and they don't run elections fairly.  Both of us could present our arugments without trouble, but the audience was perhaps 20.  For the oratory contest, there was a larger crowd.   My topic, "Look Not to Outer Space."  Sci-fi films sometimes portrayed kindly aliens who would get all the nations of earth to work together.  I mentioned that idea, and those who looked to religion and God to bring peace on earth.  My point - if we were to have peace, we would have to make it, not outer space aliens or angels.  I won the gold medal. 

Despite the opposition of the local NACP, on Sept. 9, 1960, New Orleans finally had its first modern sit-in, with 7 arrested from several local colleges.  Two of us were from Tulane, and the rules at the time; we would be suspended until proven innocent.  As that was unlikely on the local level, or even on low appellat levels, we might be expelled for years.  Within a week, the board of Tulane changed its rules;  it deemed the sit-in a political rather than a criminal act, and we were not expelled.  Suddenly many more on campus joined CORE, the organization leading the sit-ins.  When the 7 us first appeared in court, when the judge entered he threatened to cite us with contempt, as the 2 whites sat with the 5 black defendants and our attorneys.  That infuriated the judge.  All 7 of us became convicted felons.  The first sit-in brought other changes too.  The NAACP Youth Chapter quickly defied the adults, and joined the CORE picket lines with their own.  Soon, the adult NAACP withdrew its opposition, too.  Tulane telephonists were instructed to listen in to all calls to student activists.  When liberals sought to form an organization a few years later, the Dean's office lost the petition with the names.  Next year, around 1965 or 66 the new petition was accepted and a Young Liberals organization was recognized on Tulane campus.  Also a few black graduate students were enrolled at Tulane.  Leaders of the Tulane Young Libs debated Mrs. Gaillot on radio one Sunday morning.  She demanded to know their religion.  Bob Bullard quickly replied by asking about hers.  She had been deprived of her general Roman Catholic rights by the city's Archbishop.  On the radio she usually referred to a famous black minister as Martin Lucifer King.  Bullard and Bruce Kruger provided powerful voices to counter the strong segregationist sentiments.

Around this time I was teaching history at Dillard, an HBCU in NO.  The Tulane Young Libs had invited the new head of the Southern Conference Educational Fund, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth of Birmingham, to speak.  In October 1963 the Louisiana Un-American Activities Comm., in conjunction with NO DA Jim Garrison raided and arrested the then leader of SCEF and two attorneys who worked with it.  SCEF had been founded during the New Deal, and Mrs. Roosevelt had even been present at its inception.  After WWII it published glowing reports on how well integrated schools were doing.  Naturally, the LUAC would find it subversive.  LUAC  was headed by very conservative American Legionnaires, who were dismayed when the non-white terrirories of Hawaii and Alaska were admitted as American states.  Their fun organization would retain its title, the 40 and 8.  Now the Young Libs were inviting a black minister, the new leader of SCEF, an organization not popular with LUAC to address their first large meeting at Tulane.  I invited a Dillard student to accompany me to the Tulane meeting.  It went well.  Some of us decided to go for a pizza on nearby Maple St.  Rev. Shuttlesworth could not come with us.  We went to Ray's Pizza, a popular place with Tulanians, pulled 2 tables together and prepared to order.  The middle-ated waitress came and announced she would not take our order, as we were a mixed group (the Dillard student),  Should we have a sit-in, get arrested?  I looked at the only black, my guest.  I did not say anything, nor did he, but he slowly nodded his head, no.  I had not brought the topic up beforehand, because I did not expect trouble.   The student said no, so I made an excuse that we had to get across town, and left.  However, Cathy Cade, an activist started a who series of picketing of the Maple St. eateries, with large numbers of students going for a long time, and with the support of the Tulane Hullaballoo newspaper.  Viet Nam was also an issue on campus at Tulane, but I was not there.

My next teaching post was another HBCU, the fairly new Southern U. in NO, an offshoot of the major campus in Baton Rouge (which I think at the time was the largest black university in the world).  There certainly WAS activism on this campus.  In spring 1969 a small number of students pulled down the American flag from the pole at the front of the university, and replaced it with a Black Nationalist flag, black, red, and green.  So began a black nat. boycott of classes.  I know faculty had free speech, and both pro and anti members spoke on stage at different points.  I recall a light-skinned professor saying," I may look white, but my heart is as black as yours is."  Eventually, Gov. Mc Keithen came to the campus for the first time, and he had no trouble speaking.  His first words, please remove that flag (the black nat) before the tv cameras come.  He promised to improve conditions.  The student strike leaders sometimes brought their rifles to campus, and there was one episode 2 lines, police with loaded weaposn, and strikers.  Had a rock been thrown and there might have been tragedy.  But, after a time of staring at each other, the striker line dispersed.  Some students expelled, some faculty fired, and things went back the following year as if nothing had occurred.  For at least a month, most students had boycotted classes.  An Arab became the scapegoat, disrupting our way of doing things.  He was a radical, and a few years later wrote of glowing biography of w woman hijacker.  He was also a scholar who had published in major political science journals.  But he left shortly before he was to be deported.

Anti-war demos were visible examples of the left wing influence on American campuses.  But beneath the surface, there was a more important reason.  The Civil Rights Act promised to treat all applicants for job equally, but the EEOC soon interpreted this to mean quotas to get the number of professors to match the general population as best as possible.  It did not mean exactly the same - for example only high-schoo graduates would be in the pool for the quotas for possible admission to universities.  But over time, there were more quotas, for women, for this group, for that.  By the time affirmative action had taken on the name Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, it was a bureaucracy, in itself, and then promoting certain types of courses, and required courses to denigrate white males and instill the notion that all people of color are oppressed and deserve added boosts.  Soon, ANYONE WHO QUESTIONED THIS PREMISE ON CAMPUS WOULD BE MET WITH A LARGE CONTINGENT WHOSE JOBS AND PRESTIGE DEPENDED ON ACCEPTANCE OF THESE PREMISES.  A challenge was a personal insult and a threat.  So, in the 1990s when scholar Charles Murray sought to lecture about his results on IQ and race, there was rage by the campus left witn.  On one campus his auto was attacked, though I don't recall any serious injuries.  A woman law professor in Pennsylvania was constantly vilified because she  rejected the DEI presuppositions; they demanded she be fired, etc.  Insults.  When a biological female went on campus to denounce the unfairness of having been injured playing another female team with a trans male, who spike the ball so hard on the her that she was seriously injured.  But the pro-trans crowd prevented her from speaking, threatened her, had had her boxed in a room until help could free her.  UNIV. HIRES, DEI, MADE THE ESTABLISHMENT IN MOST UNIVERSITIES NOT MERELY SYMPATHETIC TO THE LEFT, BUT USING (OFTEN DISTORTED RESEARCH) TO BOLSTER THE LEFT, AND USED ITS EMPLOYEES TO STIFLE ANY RIGHT WING OR OTHER CRITICISM.

    This is why Charlie Kirk is important.  He broke through.  He got people tp question the official line.  Some things he said, I certainly DO NOT AGREE WITH.  That is NOT the point.  He fought the established b.s. which the academics could not defend academically.  Kirk broke the bubble.  He brought an era of freedom, so one did not have to agree with him or DEI, or anyone else.  Free speech, free inquiry is important, especially at universities.  This is one more reason why his murder is a tragedy to all. 

FROM R.T. - TUCKER CARLSON ON ISRAELI ART STUDENTS AND 9/11

 Tucker Carlson claims Israeli spies knew about 9/11 attacks

The US journalist says his forthcoming documentary series on the 9/11 attacks will explore overlooked truths

©  Getty Images / PA Images

Israeli intelligence knew beforehand of the 9/11, American journalist Tucker Carlson has claimed. The topic, as well as other long-buried facts, will be explored in his upcoming documentary series on the attacks. 

Carlson made the remarks on Tuesday when he appeared on Piers Morgan’s Uncensored News. The journalist pointed out the Israeli leadership never actually hid its attitude to the attack and believed they had a positive impact on the US-Israel ties.

“Of course I didn’t allege that the Jews did it. I don’t even know what that means. I think, in fact, saying things like that is a way to discredit real questions,” Carlson said.

“Benjamin Netanyahu on camera, right after [the attacks] he said it was a good thing because it brings the United States into a conflict that we’ve been involved in on an existential level for decades,” he added.

Carlson apparently referred to the remarks Netanyahu made back in 2002 during the US House hearings, when he said that the democracies “sometimes have to be bombed into going to war” and likened the 9/11 events to the Pearl Harbor attack. 

READ MORE: Israel had ‘total control’ over Congress – Trump

The journalist also invoked the “Israeli art students” affair, stating that the public knowledge about it has been very limited, with reports on it ultimately vanishing. 

“We know that a group of ‘Israeli art students’ - who clearly were not art students, clearly some of them were aligned with the Israeli intelligence - were arrested and held for quite some time in the US before being released without charges. And we know that a group of them - I’m quoting an FBI document, not the Internet - filmed the attacks on 9/11, and… ‘seemed to have foreknowledge’ of those attacks,” Carlson stated. 

The first sightings of “Israeli art students” date back to late 2000, when they began to show up at US federal law enforcement and military agencies’ buildings, trying to peddle artworks and socialize with agents. The “students” repeatedly appeared at unmarked locations and hidden side entrances and even visited some agents at their homes.

According to media reports of the time, at least 140 Israeli nationals engaged in such activities were arrested between early 2001 and the 9/11 attacks, while a further 60 were detained shortly after. Moreover, some groups of the “students” reportedly rented properties in close vicinity to residencies of the 9/11 attacks perpetrators.  End of RT story.

Hugh Murray - I recall reading of some Israelis atop a tall building, I think in New Jersey, celebrating the destruction of what for a time were the 2 tallest buildings on earth.  There may have been an arrest.  And then nothing.  Perhaps the story was a hoax.  Stories of Saudi connections with the terrorists too.  But then nothing.  Will Tucker's documentary have something substantial to offer?

By the way, I worked in #2 World Trade Center for a number of years.  Happily, I was living in the Midwest when 9/11 destroyed the buildings and so many lives.

RT LOOKS AT BLACK ON WHITE CRIME IN AMERICA - AND WHY IT IS USUALLY IGNORED---CASE OF IRYNA ZARUTSKA

 Posted on RT, this provides a different view of how America's mainstream media reports crime.  Hugh Murray

Remember Iryna: When does murder get ignored? When the victim is white and the killer black

A black man kills a white woman in an American city, and the mainstream media gives it zero coverage. Imagine if the races were reversed.

By Henry Johnston, a Moscow-based editor who worked in finance for over a decade

© Getty Images / tanawit sabprasan

The US mainstream media tends to operate by encouraging a certain prefabricated outrage. Sensationalized narratives are cultivated along predictable tracks. But no less egregious is what the media chooses to ignore. Few events of late have better exposed the ideological underpinnings of the media – and of the elite whose narratives it plugs – than the recent brutal and shocking murder of a young Ukrainian woman on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina.  

On August 22, a career criminal, Decarlos Brown Jr., casually walked up behind 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska, who was seated on a train minding her own business, and stabbed her three times in the neck in cold blood, killing her. He sauntered away, still clutching the knife dripping blood.

The mindless and savage attack was captured on surveillance footage, but Charlotte’s Democratic Mayor Vi Lyles pushed for it not to be released, ostensibly out of respect for the victim’s family. But the footage did eventually surface, and the story spread like wildfire. But this was a wildfire that couldn’t reach the impervious redoubt of the mainstream media – even after Elon Musk gave it the push into viral territory by chiming in on an End Wokeness thread pointing out the stunning media silence.

In fact, not a single major legacy outlet – the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Reuters, CNN, Wall Street Journal, and others – picked it up. One would think that, by sheer chance, one of these esteemed outlets would have bucked the trend. But that didn’t happen because, as Matt Taibbi once brilliantly pointed out,

“Reporting is done in herds, no one wildebeest can break formation without screwing things up for the others. So, they’ll all hold the line, until they all stop holding the line.”

As of this writing, it seems the media herd is starting to reluctantly skate to where the puck is going. And that means that some version of the story, however sanitized, will soon appear everywhere.

Read more

 ‘Western liberal dictatorships’ spreading hate – Moscow

So what exactly has given this story its irresistible momentum? Let's start with the blatant double standard about reporting interracial crime. A white victim and a black perpetrator, as was the case in this instance, is usually a circumstance that tips the scales in favor of silence. When an instance of black-on-white crime cannot be avoided, the respective races of the individuals involved are not mentioned, and the tone is more along the lines of “aww shucks, what a tragedy.” When the racial roles are reversed, the media coverage is extensive and sensational, and the race angle is established immediately and runs throughout the ensuing coverage like an electric wire.

Given such highly distorted media coverage of interracial crime, one would be forgiven for assuming that it is blacks who are perpetually in mortal danger of racist attack by whites in the US. This view was a large part of the impetus behind the Black Lives Matter movement. However, the actual statistics on interracial crime, which are not easy to find, show otherwise. Buried inside this Department of Justice (DOJ) report from 2020 is a rather remarkable admission: “[In 2019], there were 5.3 times as many violent incidents committed by black offenders against white victims (472,570) as were committed by white offenders against black victims (89,980).” Such stark wording was not repeated in subsequent reports under the Biden DOJ, but there is no reason to believe anything has changed in the streets.

Zarutska’s murder certainly comes at a time of record-low American trust in the mainstream media. Instances of misreporting and factual disasters have become such a recurrent theme as to not require individual examples. The media’s efforts at narrative formation have also become so heavy-handed that identifying the establishment cause being promoted in almost any piece of reporting is now a parlor game.

But – and I venture into very risky terrain here – the uproar over this senseless killing also points to a deeply ensconced taboo slowly starting to unravel: Many white Americans are tired of being denied the right to display even the slightest and most tentative hint of the type of racial solidarity that other groups are extended so liberally. It is a story being played out on a different stage with different actors in Great Britain.

Read more

 US scientists axe ‘woke’ to keep cash flowing – WSJ

There’s another angle here, and it is one that has already been remarked upon in numerous places. The victim was a citizen of a country that the US has spent enormous treasure and effort ostensibly defending since 2022. The roughly $130 billion in aid that Washington has coughed up for Kiev comes out to some $3,500 per Ukrainian citizen. Certainly enough for a bodyguard on train rides.

And yet the silence from the pro-Ukraine crowd has mirrored that of the media at large. This certainly confirms what has been abundantly clear throughout the war and remains so today: Ukrainian deaths that don’t advance a Western elite media narrative are dismissed and ignored. But this lack of reaction also casts in sharp relief the reality that pro-Ukraine sentiment in the US is largely a cause bundled in with the rest of the progressive agenda, underpinned by the uniform mouthpiece of a jaded media. The Ukrainian flags one sees out and about rarely reflect a principled stance but rather deference to elite cues.

It will be said that all sides have merely assumed their positions on the barricades to score political points on this deeply human tragedy. We will all be accused of coming to praise Caesar rather than to bury him. This young woman’s death is indeed a human tragedy and a particularly painful one. But to see it as only a tragedy is to dismiss its larger context and to refuse to draw any conclusions. That is willful ignorance.

When a tragedy unveils such a confluence of two deep ideological biases, what it does is reveal the contours of the magnet moving underneath the pattern of American life.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

ALMOST A CENTURY OF 3-PENNY OPERA

 

    Most Americans know the song, "Mack the Knife."  It came from a musical that opened 31 August 1928, nearly a century ago, in Berlin.  One song of many, cynical, amusing, part of Weimar German culture.  Thus, the Army Song has veterans singing about chopping up the enemy, or the happy couple song where Jenny is in bed with a John, while Mack, the pimp, lies under the bed, and a famous line, "What is the robbing of a bank to the founding of a bank,"  meaning the robbers are small timers compared to the lords of commerce.  Bertold Brecht, Germany's leading playwright of the era, and Kurt Weill, who wrote the music, both had to leave Germany when Hitler came to power - Weill a Jew; Brecht a left-winger.  Both made it to the US, and Brecht was in Hollywood.  While Weill and Lotta Lenya remained in the US, Brecht returned to Germany soon after the war, and led the old Schiffbauerdamm Theater, where 3 Penny had opened his musical.  It was located about 2 blocks from the Wall, inside East Berlin.  In America one learns that millions pf East Germans wanted to go west, and many succeeded.  But about half a million left West Germany for the East.  One family that did so was the Merkel family, and later, Angela Merkel became Kanzlerin of a united Germany.  But she grew up and was educated in the East.

    When I saw a production of the musical, it was performed at Dillard U. in 1966 or so, with a student cast.  Dillard is a HBCU.  Then, the hardest thing for me to believe was the scene when the Chief of Police was a black (student).  Things have changed.  Today in many of America's largest cities, the Police Chiefs are blacks. 

     What a century!    Hugh Murray

Below is a poster and info from the Microsoft Browser

 

Die Dreigroschenoper The Threepenny Opera
Original German poster from Berlin, 1928
Music	Kurt Weill
Lyrics	Bertolt Brecht Uncredited: François Villon (four songs translated by K. L. Ammer)
Book	Bertolt Brecht
Basis	The Beggar's Opera by John Gay, translated by Elisabeth Hauptmann
Premiere	31 August 1928: Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, Berlin

RT - THE ROMAN CHURCH AND GAYS AND LESBIANS AND THE HOLY YEAR

 

Vatican to host LGBTQ group

Over 1,000 representatives of the gay community are expected to attend events marking the Holy Year in Rome next week, according to organizers

People wave a rainbow flag as Pope Francis addresses the crowd during the Angelus prayer in St. Peter's Square, March 27, 2022. © Getty Images / Antoine Mekary/Godong/Universal Images Group

The Vatican will host a series of events arranged by the LGBTQ community as part of the 2025 Roman Catholic Jubilee. Organizers say around 1,000 participants will take part in a pilgrimage to Rome next week.

In the Catholic Christian tradition, the Jubilee, also known as the Holy Year, is declared every quarter century by the Pope as a time of spiritual renewal. The current Holy Year runs from December 24, 2024, through January 6, 2026.

The Italian pro-LGBTQ group La Tenda di Gionata (‘Jonathan’s Tent’) has planned a pilgrimage as part of the celebrations. Group representative Alessandro Previti told Outreach.Faith on Wednesday that pilgrims from around 30 countries are expected to attend the three-day event. It will begin with a multilingual prayer vigil near the Church of Jesus in Rome on September 5, followed by a Mass and procession through the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica. The pilgrimage will conclude on September 7 with the Angelus prayer led by Pope Leo XIV in St. Peter’s Square.

READ MORE: Vatican enlists ‘hot priests’ to save faith

Bishop Francesco Savino, vice president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, who agreed to preside over the group’s Mass, said in a recent interview that their inclusion reflects the Church’s mission to welcome everyone, regardless of background or life choices.

“Inclusive welcome is... a posture of the heart and gaze. It is the very breath of the Gospel,” Savino stated.

The Vatican listed the pilgrimage on its official Jubilee calendar back in December 2024, when it was still presided over by the late Pope Francis. Francis has been seen as leading a more inclusive direction for the Catholic Church. Under his leadership, priests were allowed to bless same-sex couples and admit gay men to the priesthood. A Vatican official earlier told Reuters, however, that including the LGBTQ group on the Jubilee calendar did not mean the Church sponsored or endorsed the group’s activities. 

READ MORE: Vatican welcoVatican welcomes gay priests

Pope Francis’ successor, Leo XIV, has expressed skepticism toward LGBTQ reforms in the Church, affirming that marriage is “between a man and a woman.” However, he has so far upheld Francis’ earlier directive allowing blessings for same-sex couples. 

HELP! I'M A BLACK TRAPPED IN A WHITE BODY! HELP ME TRANSITION!

 Letter from a young friend.

 I'm a black trapped in a white body.  I love rap and hate Beethoven and Brahms.  I love the old disco sounds of Diana Ross and the unique music of Ray Charles.  The old black sit-coms with Cosby and the Jeffersons.  I'm learning to speak Ebonics.  I cheer Simone Biles and Coco Gauff, and watch old shots of Arthur Ashe and Althea Gibson, Venus and Serena Williams.  And of course, Mohammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, and most football players of today.  In high school now and have concluded, I am a black trapped in a white body.  I want to transition.  I spoke to the mental health advisor, and he suggests skin drafts and pills that I might have to take for many years.  I am willing to get operations to extend my heels.  Perhaps other ops too.  The doctor says it would be wonderful for me to re-align my body and mind, so I would have a black body to go with my black mind.  I want to transition.  Help me do so.  I WANT TO TRANSITION!!

    Despite the plea of the young student, I say NO TO TRANSITIONS BY ANYONE NOT AN ADULT.  THIS IS A SCAM.  A person cannot buy a beer in many states until they are 21, but with the help of "medical" "experts" they can transition to a different sex, race, or whatever.  Some of the results are news this week, with another transitioned young person killing innocents.  Stop the transition industry.  If adults want to do it to themselves and pay for it themselves.  I think they are making a mistake, but as adults they have that right.  I urge the end of any transitions for young people not old enough to buy a beer.

So my answer - NO HELP TO TRANSITION A CHILD FROM WHITE TO BLACK OR FROM MALE TO FEMALE OR FEMALE TO MALE, of BLACK TO WHITE, OR FROM ANYONE TO BECOME A LITTLE GREEN MAN MARTIAN.  Adults, they can do what they want with their bodies, but I still think it a mistake.   Hugh Murray

ASK NYC MAYORAL CANDIDATE MAMDANI ABOUT SHARIAH LAW AND THE RIGHT PUNISHMENT FOR HOMOSEXUALS

 Mr Mamdani is running for Mayor of New York City, and many think he has the best chance of winning, after having won the Democratic Party primary earlier this year.

I suggest some New Yorkers ask the candidate a question.  Recently in Indonesia 2 young college students, age 20 and 21, were apprehended in a men's room kissing.  They were charged with a homosexual act.  The Shariah Court ruled they deserved 85 whacks with a cane, but since they had served 4 months incarceration already, and were good students and polite in court, the judges chose lenience - a mere 80 strokes of the cane, each.

My question to candidate Mamdani, does he think this an appropriate punishment for homosexuals?  Or perhaps another penalty used in the Middle East, throw the culprit from a high building.  New York City has many high buildings that could be used.  But for the public to enjoy the spectacle, there might be splash nights at the base of the Empire State Building, alternating with the Chrysler Building.  It would add an auro of religion to the aging skyscrapers.  Traffic would have to be diverted, as no one would want blood splashed on their cars or windshields.

What does candidate Mamdani think of my modest proposal?  As a Muslim, he surely must support Shariah law.  But let him say it.---------HUGH MURRAY

FROM RT - A RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE ON THE TRUMP-PUTIN SUMMIT

 

Here’s what Putin and Trump want from the Ukraine peace deal

Can US President leverage his business negotiation experience in talks with Russia?

By Alexander Bobrov, PhD in History and head of diplomatic studies at the Institute for Strategic Research and Forecasts at RUDN University, author of the book “The Grand Strategy of Russia.” Follow his Telegram channel “Diplomacy and the World.”

Diplomacy and the WorldThe Grand Strategy of Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin (L); US President Donald Trump (R). ©  Sputnik/Kristina Kormilitsyna; Getty Images/ Rebecca Noble.

Ahead of the anticipated summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump, Moscow and Washington – like so many times before in the realm of diplomacy – appear to be chasing fundamentally different goals. The United States seeks to maintain the current status quo but also needs a result it can spin as “progress” on Ukraine. That could mean anything from a partial ceasefire to a full cessation of hostilities.

Russia, by contrast, is looking for long-term, legally binding agreements. These would cover the full scope of Russia-US and Russia-Ukraine relations and include built-in enforcement mechanisms to prevent sabotage or unilateral withdrawal.

With today’s US-Russia relations still steeped in Cold War-style hostility, the upcoming summit recalls another tense era. One might liken the two delegations to the intelligence officers who used to meet at Glienicke Bridge – the famous ‘Bridge of Spies’ – to exchange captured agents. Like those secretive, high-stakes handoffs, diplomacy in 2025 still demands that both sides inch toward the middle to make any exchange possible.

The very fact that this summit is happening suggests that the gap between Moscow and Washington has narrowed, at least tactically. Russia took the first step by hosting US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow. In the quiet language of diplomacy, the country that initiates the visit is often the more eager to make a deal. Russia’s openness to holding the summit quickly signals a willingness to negotiate. And truthfully, it’s Washington that appears more anxious to move things forward.

Time, at this point, seems to favor Moscow. President Putin made that clear during his recent meeting with Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko in Valaam. Trump, on the other hand, urgently needs a foreign policy win. The White House is under fire on multiple fronts – from the looming Epstein files scandal to mass protests erupting in Democrat-controlled states over immigration policy.

Read more

 No more crutches: Russia’s neighbors must now stand on their own

Trump understands that securing peace in Ukraine could be the crown jewel in a larger global strategy. If he can notch progress in the Russia-Ukraine conflict – on top of de-escalating India-Pakistan, Thailand-Cambodia, Iran-Israel, and Armenia-Azerbaijan – he would be well-positioned to claim a ‘royal flush’ on the world stage. That, in turn, could make him a contender for the Nobel Peace Prize.

But how exactly did Trump manage to extract concessions from Vladimir Putin – a veteran of global diplomacy with over 25 years of experience at the highest level? The answer lies in tactics familiar to Trump from his business career, many of which he outlined decades ago in his bestseller, The Art of the Deal. From that playbook, he appears to have used a select few strategic moves:

1) Creating artificial time pressure

Trump began by issuing a 50-day ultimatum. He warned that if no movement came from the Russian side, the US would impose sanctions targeting Russia’s shadow fleet. But just days later, he shortened the timeline dramatically – to eight days – clearly hoping to force Moscow’s hand with a sense of urgency.

2) Fostering strategic uncertainty

Witkoff’s recent visit to Moscow, successful by current standards, was wrapped in deliberate ambiguity. It was originally planned for the first weekend of August. But at the last moment, the American side requested a reschedule for August 6, citing the envoy’s packed calendar due to his parallel role in the Middle East. The unpredictability sent a signal: the US side would not play by a rigid script.

3) The good cop / bad cop routine

While American foreign policy is ultimately shaped by the president, internal dynamics still matter. Trump has surrounded himself with both hawks and doves. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Special Envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg often play hardball, while Steve Witkoff takes on the more diplomatic, conciliatory role. Notably, it is always Witkoff – not Rubio – who travels to Moscow, sending a clear message about who is empowered to build bridges.

Read more

 Russia is bringing missiles back. And this time, it’s personal

4) Instilling fear

Trump knows how to apply pressure not just with words, but with policy. While continuing negotiations with China, he slapped a 25% tariff on India – Washington’s key partner in the Indo-Pacific – just before his Ukraine deadline expired. He’s used similar tactics with Canada, the EU, and other close allies. The subtext is clear: even friends aren’t immune from tough love.

Like a spy exchange on a Cold War bridge, diplomacy is the art of meeting halfway. That principle is playing out in real time, as both sides consider where to hold the summit. The location must be neutral, protocol-friendly, and equally distant from both capitals. During UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s recent visit to Moscow, Putin floated the UAE as a potential host. The country meets all the right criteria. And under the diplomatic principle of reciprocity, Trump may have little choice but to accept.

Meanwhile, efforts are underway to prevent third parties from sabotaging the summit. Kiev, with backing from the London-Berlin-Paris axis, is pursuing two goals. The maximalist aim is to derail the bilateral format and force a trilateral meeting that includes Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky. The fallback plan? Render any US-Russia resolution meaningless. In many ways, that’s the paradox of diplomacy: in business, a deal signed is a deal done. In geopolitics, even signed agreements can be quietly gutted after the cameras stop rolling.

So, will Trump’s instincts and tactics deliver a diplomatic breakthrough? The answer will come next week. But one thing is certain: whatever happens, this summit is bound to leave a mark on the annals of history.