Quote of the Day (Daniel Patrick Moynihan, on a State ‘Tempted by Self-Interest’)

“A state that finds itself tempted by self-interest to erode traditional norms may in time regret its conduct."— American politician, diplomat and social scientist Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927-2003), On the Law of Nations (1990)

Quote of the Day (Martin Cruz Smith, on a World of ‘Money, Propaganda, and Terror’)

“It came back, Arkady knew, to three things: money, propaganda, and terror. They weren’t discrete entities but a triskelion, forever whirling around each other. This was the mindset of spies, the men whose formative years had been spent in the margins of the shadow world. The more rules you break, the more success you have. The game never pauses and never stops. There are no periods of war and peace, just active hostility and retrenchments. There are no threats other than those which can be talked up, or in many cases made up, the better to justify eliminating them. There are no social problems that would be solved if solving them would reduce people’s dependence on the state. There are no grand plans, no master strategies, just the lust for power, the insane addictive desire to accumulate more and more because too much is never enough.”— American mystery and suspense novelist Martin Cruz Smith (1942-2025), Independence Square: Arkady Renko in Ukraine (2023)

What Donald Trump has presented to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shouldn’t be dignified with the phrase “peace plan.” Even “surrender plan” has the diplomatic scent of perfume about it. Believe it or not, I don’t even think “appeasement” does it.

No, in its demands that Ukraine yield significant portions of its territory to Russia and cap the size of its security forces, along with an implied threat to curtail U.S. weapons deliveries if Zelenskyy doesn’t capitulate by Thanksgiving, the right word is "ultimatum"—something that Russian President Vladimir Putin (pictured) might make.

While reading this penultimate of 11 Arkady Renko mysteries by the late superb Martin Cruz Smith, I came across a succinct passage on Ukrainian history that I wish Trump could have read.

But what would have been the use? The President’s attention span is such that he’s lucky to digest a few bullets on a Powerpoint slide, let alone interconnected sentences.

Then I came across the quote above. Forget about Trump—I wish large portions of MAGA could read and ponder this. It explains so much about Putin, and, by the end, Trump himself (“There are no threats other than those which can be talked up, or in many cases made up”).

If the American President is not authoritarian, like the Russian leader, then he’s at least authoritarian-curious, and even more likely authoritarian-adjacent.

Quote of the Day (John McCain, on Russia’s Leaders, ‘Corrupt With Power’)

“Russia's leaders, rich with oil wealth and corrupt with power, have rejected democratic ideals and the obligations of a responsible power. They invaded a small, democratic neighbor to gain more control over the world's oil supply, intimidate other neighbors, and further their ambitions of re-assembling the Russian empire. And the brave people of Georgia need our solidarity and our prayers.”—US Senator (R-AZ) and former POW John McCain (1936-2018), “Address Accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Republican National Convention in Saint Paul, MN,” Sept. 4, 2008, The American Presidency Project

For years, Donald Trump has acted weirdly and inexplicably towards Vladimir Putin, to say the least—from urging Russia in the 2016 Presidential campaign to release Hillary Clinton’s emails to claiming this year that Ukraine started its war with Russia. 

That behavior became even odder earlier this week, when he posted that the Russian dictator has “gone absolutely CRAZY” by escalating attacks on Ukraine amid peace negotiations.

Crazy? Hardly. That adjective, many would say, applies more to Trump.

No, despite the American President’s dictator-wanna aspirations, Putin has been unrelenting about his nationalist goals, pursuing them with a silence that Trump is temperamentally unable to maintain and with a cunning he can only envy.

Most of all, he has known how to appeal to Trump’s overweening ego, calling him a “genius” and feeding his misperception that Putin disregarded Barack Obama and Joe Biden because he didn’t “respect” them as he did their successor in the Oval Office.

So, over last weekend, Trump voiced frustration that Putin is “killing a lot of people.” Where has he been these last three years, since the invasion of Ukraine? Or the past decade? Or, to take McCain’s point, the last two decades?

You have to wonder, why is Trump squawking about Putin now? From the moment he became a serious contender for the GOP nomination a decade ago, he adopted a “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” attitude on the former KGB operative.

Do you think the President is reading polls that show Americans don’t approve of that posture—and wonder if he is taking a tough enough stance against Putin?

Maybe, like Rip Van Winkle, Trump fell asleep for a generation, only to wake up to find the world utterly changed. Maybe his short-term memory is vanishing.

Long ago, that same phenomenon took hold of the MAGA faithful. How else to explain why, even after Putin’s actions unleashed the concerns of McCain (and the 2012 GOP nominee, Mitt Romney), delegates to the 2016 convention agreed, without the slightest fuss and following the urging of Trump representatives, to water down that year’s platform language about “providing lethal defensive weapons” to help Ukraine fight against pro-Russian separatists?

Whatever the case may be, Moscow can barely disguise its amusement over Trump’s incoherent rhetorical flailing. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov referred to “emotional overload,” while a female flunky trotted out for Putin-controlled television said Trump’s warning that the Russian strongman might be “playing with fire” would last “until tomorrow.”

Remarkably, the Russian government finds itself in accord with Wall Street about Trump’s mood and policy shifts—all that loud blustering followed by hasty retreats. The nickname most applicable, an acronym that made the President lash out yesterday at yet another reporter for asking a “nasty question,” was TACO—“Trump Always Chickens Out.”

(The image accompanying this post—John McCain's official senatorial photo, taken Jan. 23, 2009—derived from his Facebook page.)

Quote of the Day (Mstylslav Chernov, on Ukraine’s Anguish, History, and the Responsibility of Filmmakers)

“I cannot change the history. I cannot change the past. But we, all together, you—some of the most talented people in the world—we can make sure that the history record is set straight and that the truth will prevail and the people of Mariupol and those who have given their lives will never be forgotten.”— Ukrainian filmmaker Mstylslav Chernov, accepting a Best Documentary Feature Oscar for 20 Days in Mariupol, quoted by Dan Heching, “Winners, Stars Tout Peace Over Politics at ThisYear’s Academy Awards,” www.cnn.com, Mar. 11, 2024

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Phil Klay, on ‘God in a War Zone’)

“How do you not see God in a war zone? The God I believe in was tortured and died in agony on the cross. God is there when I see another human being and see something of infinite worth and value. God is there in this infinite horror and majesty of the world. The idea to me that all of this beauty and all of this horror is nothing but mere matter seems ridiculous, and I can’t disentangle my sense of horror from my sense of the beauty and value of what is being destroyed in war.”—American novelist and Iraq war veteran Phil Klay, interviewed by David Marchese for “Talk” column, “Finding a Moral Center in This Era of War,” The New York Times Magazine, Dec. 3, 2023

The attached photo of an anti-terrorist operation in eastern Ukraine, taken July 18, 2016, was distributed by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

Quote of the Day (Milan Kundera, Defining ‘The Small Nation’)

“The small nation is one whose very existence may be put in question at any moment; a small nation can disappear, and it knows it.”— Czech-born French novelist and short-story writer Milan Kundera, A Kidnapped West: The Tragedy of Central Europe, translated by Linda Asher (2023)

That definition applies to Ukraine—and, indeed, any country in the vicinity of Russia, in case Vladimir Putin’s invasion and human-rights violations go unchecked.

(The image of Milan Kundera accompanying this post was taken in 1980 by Elisa Cabot.)

Quote of the Day (Liana Fix and Michael Kimmage, on the ‘Rules-Based Order’ Putin Left Long Before Invading Ukraine)

“[Vladimir] Putin projected a conciliatory air early in his presidency, although he may have harbored hatred of the West, contempt for the rules-based order, and an eagerness to dominate Ukraine all along. In any case, once he retook the presidency in 2012, Russia dropped out of the rules-based order. Putin derided the system as nothing more than camouflage for a domineering United States. Russia violently encroached on Ukraine's sovereignty by annexing Crimea, reinserted itself in the Middle East by supporting Assad in Syria's civil war, and erected networks of Russian military and security influence in Africa.”— Liana Fix and Michael Kimmage, “Putin’s Last Stand: The Promise and Peril of Russian Defeat,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2023

Quote of the Day (Jeffrey Toobin, on the Common Roots of the Russia and Ukraine Scandals)

“[T]he Russia and Ukraine scandals are, in fact, one story. Indeed, the President’s false denials in both of them capture the common themes: soliciting help from foreign interests for partisan gain, followed by obstruction of efforts to uncover what happened. Both, too, share roots in Vladimir Putin’s Russia…. As [Robert]Mueller documented, [Trump campaign chair Paul] Manafort passed proprietary campaign polling data to pro-Russian Ukrainians. The campaign-era Trump portrayed in the report suffered from one major limitation: he wasn't President. He clearly welcomed Putin's assistance, and promised a better relationship with Russia, but he was still just a businessman from New York. The whistle-blower's complaint [about the call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky] is the epilogue to Mueller's report: the coming of age of an aspiring colluder.”— Jeffrey Toobin, “The Talk of theTown—Comment: From Russia to Ukraine,” The New Yorker, Oct. 14, 2019

(Photo of Jeffrey Toobin taken Oct. 21, 2007, by Ed Schipul from Houston, TX.)

Quote of the Day (Karl Kraus, Anticipating the Ukraine Crisis)

“Diplomats lie to journalists, then believe the headlines.”—Austrian journalist-satirist Karl Kraus (1874-1936), in The Kraus Project: Essays by Karl Kraus, Translated and annotated by Jonathan Franzen with Paul Reitter and Daniel Kehlmann (2013)

Quote of the Day (Michael Ian Black, on Putin’s Change)

“What's gotten into Putin? He seemed so fun at the Olympics.”—Comic Michael Ian Black, March 2, 2014 tweet

Quote of the Day (Father Patrick Desbois, on Childhood Holocaust Victims)

“These were young children who were forced, in the course of one day, to fill the grave and to witness. They heard the last words of the dead. They want to speak."-French Catholic priest Father Patrick Desbois, on childhood victims of the Holocaust, quoted in Jordana Horn, “How Father Desbois Became a Holocaust Memory Keeper,” The Wall Street Journal, January 23, 2009

(Fr. Desbois, himself the grandson of a prisoner of the Nazis, has taken on the mission of uncovering previously undocumented Jewish victims of the Nazi regime, including an estimated 1.5 million in Ukraine. In the latter region, unlike the death camps, the method of execution consisted of mobile killing units who made it their specialty to force, at gunpoint, locals—including, horribly, hundreds of children—to assist with the execution.

An exhibit describing this crucial work of historical memory, “The Shooting of Jews in Ukraine: Holocaust by Bullets,” will run until March 15 at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York. Fr. Desbois sounds indefatigable in his use of archival research, eyewitness accounts, and photographs. Seldom have the methods of historical been employed to such startling—and necessary—effect.
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Fr. Desbois helps ensures that these crimes will never be forgotten. It’s up to us to ensure that they’ll never be repeated.)