-Analysis-

BERLIN — History’s grand plan, if it has one, doesn’t usually allow for repetition. The kaleidoscope of the past brings up endless new iterations of victory and defeat, triumph and agony, and allows us only a glimpse into the uncertainty of the future and the ambiguity of the past.

New world powers are coming to the fore, and the post-war world order — first the Cold War, then the Pax Americana — is disappearing. As the influence of NATO, which for many decades gave Europeans a sense of safety through its ability to deter and defend, begins to wane, the promise of protection from the United States is also disappearing.

It’s been a long time since Germany’s future, and that of Europe as a whole, has looked so uncertain. Around three decades ago, the Cold War was finally declared over as the United States and the USSR came to a mutual understanding. But that has not meant that global power relations are now smooth sailing.

The seismic changes of 30 years ago did not come about in an organized manner but through a process that Yale historian Paul Kennedy, in his master’s thesis on world powers, calls “competitive decline.” After the end of the second Iraq War, it seemed possible that a new world order may be established with America at the head, leading and bankrolling a global alliance against all troublemakers, but this was not achieved.

No new world order has appeared.

Instead we have lived through the collapse of nation states, civil wars, terrorism and religious fanaticism, alongside old-fashioned scourges such as droughts, mass poverty and epidemics. Sooner or later these will erode the foundations of what little prosperity and political security remains.

The long nuclear peace of the last 30 years of blissful ignorance is over. Gone too is the strategic stability that the Cold War provided. Even without the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the globe, the world stage offers chaos. And that makes it all the more important, for reasons of survival, to inject a little predictability, long-term perspective and strategic restraint back into international power relations.

For the foreseeable future, we are in a worse situation than we have been in a long time. While Washington, Moscow, Beijing and other centers of power — the nuclear order that sprang up after World War II — are in decline, no new world order has appeared.

This is where Germany comes into play. A new world order is sorely needed, and Germany, which flourished under the Pax Americana and, against all expectations, became a late-blooming, 20th-century success story, must play its part in establishing one.

Whether it will have a chance to draw on this experience is, to say the least, uncertain. When it comes to security and protection, Germany needs to learn how to stand on its own two feet and make a respectable contribution on the world stage, even if this means a bit of pain, financial cost and a few disagreements.

Map of the Holy Roman Empire during the 16th century — Source: Friedrich Wilhelm Putzger/Wikimedia Commons

On a campaign trip to Trudering, in Upper Bavaria, Angela Merkel said that Germany could no longer rely on its old friends. Ever the cautious pragmatist, she was careful, nevertheless, not mention which new ones she had in mind. While telephones around the world are ringing off the hook, the German chancellor is remaining tight-lipped. That may be wise. Sometimes the situation and tactics require a politician to hold back.

But what is true for most countries is not true for Germany. The country is right in the middle of things — not just of Europe, but also of the global situation. Or, as Henry Kissinger liked to say, Germany is the wrong size: too big for Europe, too small for the world.

Enduring incompleteness

The best way to understand Germany’s role is as a half-hegemony: neither one thing nor the other. But this was also the situation for the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, an empire that lasted for centuries by constantly renewing itself. It went against all classical thinking about how to structure a state, but it would be absurd to deny the legitimacy of an empire that lasted nearly 1,000 years.

Half-hegemony has been Germany’s situation since time immemorial. It has marked the country’s history, shaping its fate and that of its neighbors. In order to understand the present, it’s vital to see it from a historical perspective — even now, in the fourth decade since reunification.

Germany became the stage for wars that spread across the world.

To do that, we must look back to the Holy Roman Empire and its role in shaping Europe. It wasn’t an empire in the traditional sense, but a peaceful way of life for central Europe. Imperial rule had to be reaffirmed every time the emperor’s successor was chosen by the seven prince-electors: the “pillars of the empire,” as they were known. Not much was achieved through violence; it was money and gold that held sway.

While the European kingdoms around Germany were developing early modern states, Germany continued in a situation of enduring incompleteness, with a constitution that, like a Gothic cathedral, was a continual work-in-progress. As a consequence, during the Age of Discovery this unity broke down, peace agreements didn’t hold, and Germany became the stage for wars that spread across the world.

The Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) branded Germans with a very real sense of “German angst.” But after the Peace of Westphalia brought an end to the war, the empire clung on for another 150 years, while its neighbors established colonies overseas.

Not strong enough to attack others, but powerful enough to defend itself, the Holy Roman Empire was a stabilizing force in Europe. For a few decades, Austria and Prussia shared the hegemony. The Austro-Prussian War of 1866 saw Austria defeated and Prussia’s influence expanded. The wisdom of the old empire failed and the rise of nation states began.

Above all, half-hegemony is a balancing act. After a shaky start, Bismarck succeeded at it, whereas his successors, enthralled by new technological developments and Germany’s rise on the world stage, failed. At the end of World War II, General Charles de Gaulle summed up Europe’s catastrophes since 1914 as “the Thirty Years’ War of our century.”

Thanks to the Pax Americana, this was not the last word on the subject. But now America has nothing left to offer. And there is nothing in today’s world to suggest that something better is on the horizon. Freedom is the recognition of necessity. It’s time for the country in the middle of Europe, together with others, to have another go at half-hegemony.

Es ist später Nachmittag, die Interviewer sind gerade am Hauptbahnhof in Hannover angekommen, als das Telefon klingelt. Gerhard Schröder am Apparat. Sagt der Altkanzler noch ab, weil ihm ein Gespräch zu diesem Zeitpunkt doch zu heikel erscheint?

Aber nein, Schröder ist bester Laune und gesprächsbereit, er hat nur ein Problem: Was soll er seinen Gästen zu essen anbieten? Seine Frau ist noch in Südkorea, er hat nichts im Haus. Sashimi vielleicht? Später stellt sich heraus: Der von Schröder geschätzte Japaner hat geschlossen, aber Pizza geht ja immer. Die Sicherheitsleute, die ihn seit Jahren begleiten, übernehmen die Bestellung.

Germany: Germany’s controversial former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder confirmed that he held a meeting with Vladimir Putin in Moscow last week and insisted the Kremlin was ready for talks to end the conflict in Ukraine.

“The good news is that the Kremlin wants a negotiated solution,” Schroeder said in an interview with the German magazine Stern, published on Wednesday. The former leader of the Social Democratic Party claimed that despite being a “mistake”, Russia’s invasion of its neighbor could be solved.

He referred to a UN-mediated agreement between Moscow and Kyiv to unblock Ukrainian grain exports, saying “the first success is the grain deal, perhaps it can be gradually extended to a ceasefire.”

From 1998 to 2005, Schroeder oversaw Europe’s largest economy. She has faced criticism at home and abroad for maintaining a close personal relationship with Putin and working lucrative jobs for state-owned energy companies in Russia.

Many of Moscow’s demands from the conflict were echoed in the former leader’s plan for a settlement. Schroeder argued that Ukraine’s claim to the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, and its aspirations to join NATO, should be abandoned.

The solution to the Crimean crisis, according to Schroeder, “cannot be found in 99 years, as in Hong Kong, but in the next generation.”

Although the Russian minorities there should be given special rights, the eastern Donbass should remain part of Ukraine.

Schroeder suggested that both sides should make concessions and suggested that Turkey could act as a mediator.

Schroeder, who attempted to speak to Putin a few weeks into the conflict, reiterated that he would stay with Putin, saying he could be “useful”.

The Kremlin threatened to break diplomatic ties with Washington if the US called it a state sponsor of terrorism at the time of Schroeder’s interview.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called the proposed designation “stupid” and against international law.

She announced on Tuesday that “the logical consequence of such a move becomes a break in diplomatic relations.” Washington runs the risk of eventually crossing the point of no return, which will be followed by all consequences. Washington should fully understand this.

A non-binding resolution urging Secretary of State Antony Blinken to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism was approved by the Senate last week. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has urged the US to use the designation.

However, Blinken objected to the plan, claiming that the proposed restrictions were similar to existing restrictions.

The US is reportedly directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine, along with arming Kyiv, according to accusations made by Russia.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Vadim Skbitsky, deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, told Britain’s Telegraph newspaper that Washington was involved in the conflict, which is run by Putin’s ally.

Skibitsky told the newspaper that although US officials were not directly providing information on the targeting, US and Ukrainian intelligence officials had consulted prior to the attacks and that Washington had effectively vetoed the targets.

The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that all this “indisputably proves that Washington, contrary to the claims of the White House and the Pentagon, is directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine.”

“All Kyiv-sanctioned rocket attacks on civilian infrastructure and residential areas in populated areas of the Donbass and other regions, resulting in mass killings of civilians, are directly attributable to the Biden administration,” the statement said.

The White House and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to the ministry’s claims.

The Pentagon denied Moscow’s claim that Russia had destroyed six US-made HIMARS missile systems since the start of the Ukraine war. Russia often claims that it has killed HIMARS but has never provided evidence.

Ukraine and the West regularly accuse Russia of carrying out destructive missile attacks on civilian targets. Both sides argue that civilians were deliberately targeted.

According to Ukraine’s Zelensky, despite receiving weapons from the West, his nation’s forces are still unable to overcome Russian advantages in heavy weapons and manpower.

This is especially noticeable in the Donbass during the war. There, it’s just hell. It is beyond description.

Some of the fiercest fighting in the war has taken place in the Donbass, Ukraine’s traditional industrial stronghold in the east.

On 24 February, as part of what it refers to as a “special military operation”, Russia sent thousands of troops to Ukraine. It is depicted as an indiscriminate war of invasion by Kyiv and the West.

Igor Vishnevsky, deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Department of Non-Proliferation and Arms Control, denied all claims. “unprovoked aggression” at a UN conference on Tuesday. Moscow, he continued, was of the opinion that nuclear war “must never be fought.”

Alexander Trofimov, a Russian diplomat, told the UN that Moscow would only use nuclear weapons in response to a conventional or weapons of mass destruction attack that endangered the survival of the Russian state.

According to Trofimov, a senior diplomat in the Russian foreign ministry’s non-proliferation and arms control division, “neither of these two hypothetical scenarios is relevant to the situation in Ukraine.”

First shipment from Ukraine carrying ‘corn and hope’ en route Lebanon

Oil Crisis: India steps up diplomacy to buy oil from Russian Far East

Alina Kabaeva Vladimir Putin’s rumored girlfriend is subject to US sanctions because of the conflict in Ukraine

La nouvelle a été annoncée par Washington, mardi : de nouvelles sanctions économiques à l’encontre de la Russie ont été prononcées, informe l’Agence France-Presse. Elles concernent notamment les entreprises et oligarques russes proches du président Vladimir Poutine. Parmi eux, Andrey Guryev, fondateur de l’entreprise de fertilisants PhosAgro, « proche associé » de Vladimir Poutine et ancien membre du gouvernement russe. Ses avoirs ont été gelés par le Bureau de contrôle des avoirs étrangers (Ofac). Ce dernier possède la plus grande propriété privée londonienne, située derrière le palais de Buckingham.

À LIRE AUSSIL’incroyable histoire des « soldats de la musique » ukrainiens

Son yacht, qui lui a coûté 120 millions de dollars et acheté en 2014, est, lui aussi, visé par Washington. Selon le Trésor américain, le navire « aurait désactivé son appareil de géolocalisation afin d’éviter la saisie ». Son entreprise n’est, quant à elle, pas concernée par les sanctions. Les transactions liées aux engrais et autres produits agricoles restent ainsi autorisées.

Le sidérurgiste Magnitogorsk également visé par les sanctions

« Les alliés de Poutine se sont enrichis et ont financé des modes de vie opulents », a déclaré la secrétaire américaine au Trésor, Janet Yellen.

La ministre a affirmé que « tous les outils à la disposition du Trésor seront utilisés pour s’assurer que les élites russes et les soutiens du Kremlin sont tenus responsables de leur complicité dans une guerre qui a coûté d’innombrables vies ».

Le fils d’Andrey Guryev, qui, de son côté, fait déjà l’objet de sanctions par plusieurs pays, est lui aussi visé par les sanctions de Washington.

À LIRE AUSSIMaghreb : bons baisers de Poutine

Sur la liste du Trésor, on retrouve également le sidérurgiste Magnitogorsk (MMK), « l’un des plus grands producteurs d’acier au monde » et « l’un des plus importants contribuables de Russie ». Deux de ses filiales et son actionnaire principal, l’oligarque Viktor Rachnikov, sont aussi mentionnés sur la liste. De la même manière que l’ex-gymnaste et ancienne membre de la Douma Alina Kabaeva, à la tête d’un groupe de médias « pro-Kremlin ». Cette dernière est déjà présente sur la liste noire de l’Union européenne. Ses avoirs américains ont ainsi été gelés.

Des restrictions de visas

Le Département d’État a, quant à lui, annoncé des restrictions de visas à l’encontre de 893 responsables russes et 31 responsables étrangers. Et cela, pour leur rôle joué dans la guerre ukrainienne.

Figurent également sur la liste noire de Washington trois oligarques, des entreprises publiques russes, ainsi que « 24 entités russes liées à la défense et à la technologie ».

À LIRE AUSSIViktor Bout, un si commode marchand de canons

LONDON, Aug 2 (Reuters) – Russia on Tuesday said that the United States, the world’s top military power, was directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine because U.S. spies were approving and coordinating Ukrainian missile strikes on Russian forces.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has triggered the most serious crisis in relations between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when many people feared the world was on the brink of nuclear war.

Russia’s defence ministry, headed by a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, said Vadym Skibitsky, Ukraine’s deputy head of military intelligence, had admitted to the Telegraph newspaper that Washington coordinates HIMARS missile strikes.

“All this undeniably proves that Washington, contrary to White House and Pentagon claims, is directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine,” the defence ministry said.

U.S. President Joe Biden has said he wants Ukraine to defeat Russia and has supplied billions of dollars of arms to Kyiv but U.S. officials do not want a direct confrontation between U.S. and Russian soldiers.

Russia said the Biden administration was responsible for missile attacks on civilian targets in areas controlled by Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine.

“It is the Biden administration that is directly responsible for all Kiev-approved rocket attacks on residential areas and civilian infrastructure in populated areas of Donbas and other regions, which have resulted in mass deaths of civilians,” the defence ministry said.

Russia and the West frame the conflict in Ukraine very differently.

Putin calls it a “special military operation” aimed at preventing what he says is a Western attempt to use Ukraine to threaten Russia and at protecting Russian speakers from persecution from dangerous nationalists in Ukraine.

The 69-year-old Kremlin chief increasingly casts the conflict as an existential battle with the West whose outcome will reshape the global political order.

Kyiv and its Western backers say Putin’s claims are without foundation and that there is no justification for waging an unprovoked war against a sovereign state whose borders Russia recognised.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, who sometimes holidays with Putin in the Russian wilderness, said the operation in Ukraine was going to plan with Russian and Russian-backed forces pushing back Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donetsk region.

“After taking control of the territory of the Luhansk People’s Republic, the Donetsk People’s Republic is being liberated as planned,” Shoigu told top generals.

He said the settlements of Hryhorivka, Berestove, Stryapivka, Pokrovske, Semyhirya and Novoluhanske had been taken recently, including the largest thermal power plant in Europe.

Neither Russia nor Ukraine discloses its losses.

U.S. intelligence estimates that some 15,000 Russians have been killed so far in Ukraine – equal to the total Soviet death toll during Moscow’s occupation of Afghanistan in 1979-1989.

Ukrainian losses are probably a little less than that, U.S. intelligence believes, according to U.S. estimates. Neither Ukraine nor Russia has given detailed estimates of its own losses.

Reporting by Reuters; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Nick Macfie

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Image source, Reuters

Image caption,

Zawahiri (R) was considered Bin Laden’s right-hand man and then became al-Qaeda’s leader

Image source, AFP

Image caption,

It’s unclear what happened to Zawahiri’s body in the wake of the strike

This is the suspected location of the strike in Kabul

Sen. Charles E. Grassley’s accusation of partisan interference by top FBI officials in the Hunter Biden probe is the latest crisis of credibility for the nation’s premier law enforcement agency, making its job of collaring crooks that much more difficult.

The Iowa Republican made the accusation in the middle of an embarrassing summer for the storied bureau, which has been struggling to shake off complaints of political bias since the 2016 presidential election.

In May, the criminal trial of former Hillary Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann laid bare multiple mistakes and subterfuge by FBI officials investigating accusations of links between Russians who interfered in the 2016 election and members of President Trump’s campaign.

Former FBI agents said they fear the bureau’s woes will seep into its critical terrorism and organized crime investigations. They worry that informants will be less willing to come forward or that jurors may not give an agent testifying at trial the same expectation of truth they once would have.

“There is no greater backbone for any law enforcement organization than having the trust of the American people,” said Lewis Schiliro, a former head of the agency’s New York office. “It’s through the trust of the people that you get cooperation from witnesses and victims, the credibility to testify on the witness stand, and even the ability to infiltrate terrorist organizations.”

FBI Director Christopher A. Wray will get a chance to explain Thursday when he testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The FBI did not respond to multiple requests for comment by The Washington Times about its loss of public trust.

SEE ALSO: Whistleblower reveals FBI wrongly labeled Hunter Biden evidence as disinformation

A Rasmussen poll released this year showed plunging public support for the FBI. The survey found that 47% of likely U.S. voters had an unfavorable view of the bureau, including 26% who had a “very unfavorable” impression.

About 46% of respondents said they had a favorable view of the FBI, down from 60% in the same survey in May 2020.

The poll showed that 46% of voters viewed the FBI as President Biden’s “personal Gestapo,” and 50% said the president was influencing the FBI.

That lack of confidence is reflected in jury rooms across the country. The number of convictions in FBI-led investigations has dropped by 4% over the past five years and 14% over the past 10 years, according to data from Syracuse University.

Kevin Brock, a former FBI assistant director of intelligence, said the erosion of public trust is the “inevitable legacy” of former FBI Director James B. Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. He said accusations that they mishandled the Trump-Russia probe and the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server gave rise to public suspicion of the bureau across the political spectrum.

“These allegations [of political taint] are going to persist and will hurt the FBI because they will lose the trust of the American people,” he said. “They’ve already lost a large swath of the American people.”

The accusations against the bureau this summer have revived complaints of top FBI officials’ partisan ties and other embarrassments from the Trump era.

Mr. Grassley revealed last week that FBI whistleblowers told lawmakers that FBI officials inaccurately labeled verified evidence in the Hunter Biden case as disinformation, grinding the probe to a halt.

Current and former “highly credible whistleblowers” within the FBI told Congress that agents conspired to discredit the probe against the president’s son.

The agent in charge of the probe, Timothy Thibault, has come under fire for reported partisan social media posts, including retweeting anti-Trump groups and criticizing Republicans.

Sen. Ron Johnson, Wisconsin Republican, accused the FBI on Sunday of extreme political bias. He accused Mr. Wray, who was appointed by Mr. Trump, of slow-walking the Hunter Biden investigation.

“I’m not shocked, but it’s outrageous that the FBI would be tipping the scales of justice the way they’re doing,” he said in a Fox News interview.

“I have no faith in Christopher Wray conducting this investigation, but it’s important that the American public understand the FBI had Hunter Biden’s laptop in December 2019. They certainly saw the evidence of what I think is criminal activity on that laptop,” Mr. Johnson said.

Mr. Johnson suggested that the FBI obstructed Senate Republicans’ 2020 probe into Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings.

The FBI faced two weeks of humiliating testimony in the trial of Mr. Sussmann, who was acquitted in May of lying to the agency about his ties to the Clinton campaign when he offered a false tip about the Trump Organization’s ties to Russia.

The trial revealed that FBI leaders concealed from field agents that information provided by the Clinton campaign triggered the investigation. An agent testified that a “typo” led other agents to believe that the anti-Trump accusations were based on a referral from the Justice Department, not from a Clinton campaign attorney.

The agent also testified under oath that he is under an internal FBI investigation for withholding key evidence in the Trump-Russia probe.

As the bureau tries to navigate away from political scandal, a series of self-inflicted wounds have raised questions of competency.

A group of 90 women, including several U.S. Olympic team gymnasts, has filed a $1 billion lawsuit against the FBI for its botched investigation into former Team USA doctor Larry Nassar, allowing him to continue to sexually abuse them.

The Justice Department released a report that found USA Gymnastics contacted the FBI twice about Nassar, but the FBI did not take any action. Nassar abused about 70 women and girls from the time the FBI was first told of the accusations in July 2015 to December 2016, when he was arrested.

The FBI has also come under fire for failing to follow up on a tip about mass shooter Nikolas Cruz in 2018. Roughly six weeks after the tip, Cruz fatally shot 17 students and injured more at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Last year, prosecutors charged FBI agent Eduardo Valdivia with attempted second-degree murder in a shooting aboard a Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority train after a five-month investigation by Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy. Mr. Valdivia has pleaded not guilty, and the case is pending.

A recent Justice Department inspector general’s report found that two FBI officials “engaged in unprofessional conduct by exhibiting favoritism in granting promotions.”

“It’s not helping,” Mr. Brock said of the spate of black eyes for the bureau. “Parkland was a horrible FBI breakdown in processes, and the gymnast case was a real failure on the part of the FBI. Those things might have had less of an impact a few years ago as isolated mistakes, but in this environment, everything the FBI does is now being amplified by both sides of the political spectrum for leverage.”

The former agent said it would take major overhauls for the bureau to win back the public’s confidence.

Mr. Brock called on FBI brass to be more transparent in politically tinged cases to prevent second-guessing and finger-pointing by lawmakers and the public.

He said the bureau should acknowledge when agents are working on major cases like the Hunter Biden probe and make a public pledge to rigorously document that bureau procedures are followed. He said increasing transparency is a difficult balance because the bureau needs to keep mum about witnesses and evidence. Still, he said, it will pay off in the long run.

“No one is saying increasing transparency is easy, but the risk is that there will be a substantial loss in confidence and the FBI will become ineffective,” he said.

Mr. Schiliro said Congress should stop making the FBI director a politically appointed position and instead have the person appointed by a bipartisan panel for a 10-year term.

“As long as we have politically appointed FBI directors, their loyalty becomes more political than to the FBI as an institution. It needs to be independent,” he said.