Stephen Walt
@stephenWalt
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Professor of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School. In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.-- George Orwell
Brookline, MA
Joined June 2011
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As a realist, I recognize that sometimes there are tradeoffs between legitimate security interests and moral considerations. That said, I am finding it hard to understand how any senior U.S. foreign policy officials can look at themselves in the mirror today.
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We should all be angry about what appears to be a blatant act of murder by Saudi Arabia, but notice that the senseless killing of one well-connected dissident journalist has triggered way more elite outrage than the prolonged and brutal bombing of thousands of anonymous Yemenis.
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I am reminded of Sun Tzu's dictum that one should "build a golden bridge for your enemy to retreat across." Unity, resolution, and continued pressure on Russia are necessary, but saving
#Ukraine
also requires making it easier for Moscow to reverse course.
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If you're alarmed about a possible Chinese "base" on Cuba, you might begin to grasp why Russians from across the political spectrum saw Ukraine joining NATO one day as a threat. Doesn't make the invasion any less illegal or tragic, but it does help you understand why it happened.
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The scariest thing about the GOP Senators’ absurd election protest is that they genuinely believe it’s in their political interest to make accusations that they all know are baseless.
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I don't know about you, but when someone describes themselves as a "very intelligent person," I tend to assume the opposite.
#trump
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A lot of smart people seem to have lost their bearings this week. If the era of US primacy is ending—a highly debatable proposition—it’s not because we are finally leaving
#Afghanistan
. It’s because we stayed too long, squandered lives & $$, and didn’t invest wisely at home.
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Serious question: has anyone in the Biden administration explained how its policy on
#Gaza
is making the United States more secure, more prosperous, or more admired around the world?
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I can’t decide which possibility bothers me more: 1) that US foreign policy officials genuinely believe what they keep saying, or 2) that they know what they are saying is hypocritical nonsense but don’t care and think we’ll buy it.
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Here's an intriguing counterfactual: imagine that every pundit who advocated for the Iraq War in 2003 had been let go and replaced by someone who had opposed it. WSJ, WaPo, and NYT would be far more diverse, accurate, and interesting today.
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If somebody was doing to Israelis what the IDF is currently doing to
#Gaza
,
@TheAtlantic
would run a story a week demanding that the US intervene to stop it and that the ICJ, ICC, and UNSC condemn it. And they’d be right.
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In a stunning historical twist, some 241 years after Declaration of Independence, US has its own mad king.
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By now it is clear that there is nothing
#Netanyahu
could do or say that would lead
@SecBlinken
to withhold U.S. support. A more ineffectual approach to diplomacy is hard to imagine, and the failure to achieve any positive results is entirely predictable.
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It’s interesting that all those hardliners who complain that US “credibility” requires a forceful response to every challenge are silent as Netanyahu gives America a middle finger salute not once but over and over.
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Just a reminder that one can believe that Russia’s present actions are wholly illegitimate and also believe that a different set of US policies over the past several decades would have made them less likely.
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I know they won't say so openly, but I wonder how many people in the White House & NSC realize what a train wreck their Middle East policy is.
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Even I seem to have underestimated Washington’s ability to keep making the same foreign policy mistakes no matter who is in the White House.
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Just imagine how we’d react if some adversary assassinated a member of the Joint Chiefs, an Undersecretary of State, or the DNI.
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Dear
@SecBlinken
:
If you're going to "place democracy and human rights at the center of our foreign policy" (as you told the UN Human Rights Council), you'll need to rethink your entire approach to the Middle East.
A Friend
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Recipe for an improved U.S. Middle East policy: 1) listen carefully to PM Netanyahu's speech to Congress. 2) Do the opposite of whatever he recommends. This would be better for the US and Israel alike.
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One of the most persistent oddities in American politics is the belief that government institutions are terrible at providing domestic benefits but nearly infallible and should therefore not be questioned on foreign and national security policy.
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After Max Boot's latest self-own, one is forced to ask yet again: why are the oped pages of the
@washingtonpost
,
@nytimes
, &
@WSJ
reserved solely for
#neocons
and liberal interventionists? Not a single foreign policy realist writes for these papers on a regular basis. Not one.
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Quite a sobering thread.
Excellent question: How did Anat, who had no journalism experience, and her 24 yr old co-author Adam Sella (nephew by marriage) come to lead a front page investigation?
I will try to answer.
Her first article in New York Times is on Nov 14, 2023.
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US foreign policy experts routinely inflate minor threats, yet they don't seem to understand that much weaker countries (e.g., Russia) can have genuine security fears too. Acknowledging this is not an endorsement of Russia's actions; it's just seeing the world as it is.
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The decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine shows how quickly foreign policy liberals abandon their principles when pressed. I don't mind their being inconsistent, but I wish they'd tone down the self-righteousness. Latest FP column:
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Every now and then I ponder this peculiar fact: you are more likely to jeopardize your career in the US foreign policy establishment by being outspokenly in favor of peace than by being overtly eager to use military force.
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I would like to congratulate my colleagues at universities around the world. You will now get to teach a lot of wonderful non-US students who would have otherwise come to school here in the US. Your leaders may not be perfect, but they are not as inept and malicious as ours.
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Every day it amazes me how so many citizens of world's most powerful & secure country believe US faces grave and imminent foreign threats.
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A lot of US foreign policy experts are worried about
#China
's rise. Me too. But how many of these experts have reflected on the fact that China hasn't been fighting wars in lots of places, while steadily gaining greater wealth, power and influence?
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I'm no alarmist, but when a president & his administration repeatedly breaks certain laws w/impunity, there is no reason to believe they won't break bigger ones if they think they can get away w/it. At that point, every one of us is vulnerable to whatever they want to do.
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A country that cannot convince its own citizens to wear masks to halt a pandemic has no business toppling foreign governments and trying to remake whole societies that it barely understands.
#COVID19
#Nationbuilding
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Disengagement from Afghanistan should have been managed far better, but I don’t get the hysterical claims that the tragedy there has demolished US credibility. Not fighting for less-than-vital interests says nothing about a state’s willingness to fight for vital ones.
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My fellow Americans: you are now about to participate in a giant, uncontrolled, social science experiment.
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Boy, didn't take long for
#Trump
to discover what Clinton, Bush, & Obama learned: air strikes easy way to look tough w/o fixing anything.
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US invaded Iraq, dismantled Libya, interfered w/o success in Yemen & Somalia & bungled I-P peace process. Yet Iran causes all the trouble?
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It's easy to understand why many people sympathize with Ukraine and want to support it against Russia. But the correct moral calculus on this issue is harder to discern, even for those on Kyiv's side. Latest FP column here:
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I don't know what
#Trump
will do re Syria. But I'm betting it will be some loud, well-publicized, and strategically meaningless airstrikes.
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News that NK is expanding nuclear capacity is irrelevant to
#trump
. In his mind, the episode with Kim has aired and is over and now it’s time to move on to the episode featuring guest star Vladimir Putin. It’s not statecraft; it’s show biz.
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Trump’s Iran speech may have higher ratio of falsehoods to truth than Colin Powell’s famous speech to the UN Security Council re Iraq.
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@PeteButtigieg
@emilylhauser
@Chas10Buttigieg
@Lin_Manuel
Congrats! I’d wager a lot of money that Donald Trump has never done laundry in his adult life.
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1, North Korea has nuclear weapons;
#Trump
fawns over Kim.
2, Iran has 0 nuclear weapons, reduced its stockpile, dismantled centrifuges; gets threatened with regime change.
Question: what lesson do you think some Iranians (and a few other Govs) might draw from this pattern?
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Daniel Levy nails it: "Netanyahu is a loose cannon, which Kamala Harris should have no interest in reloading." Much wisdom here:
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Why is it so hard for Thomas Friedman to simply say “I’m sorry; I got fooled by MBS. I was wrong.” We all make mistakes; the question is how we react when our errors are exposed.
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If the Biden administration screws up rejoining the
#JCPOA
by insisting Iran "make the first move"--even though it was the US that left the deal in 2018 while Iran was still in full compliance--it will be a sign that they aren't as adept at diplomacy as they claim to be.
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If Snowden were Chinese or Iranian, had leaked info about their spying and then sought asylum in US, we'd grant it and call him a hero.
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Along with millions of others, I hope Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine fails. The Ukrainian resistance to it is awe-inspiring. But triumphalism and calls for regime change in Moscow are not just premature, they are dangerous when dealing with a nuclear armed adversary.
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One big lesson to draw from the past 10 months—including the so-far disappointing roll-out of vaccines—is that complex modern societies need effective public institutions led by competent and apolitical administrators.
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Silver lining: Trump Admin may discredit forever the idea that "business experience" is a great qualification for presidency.
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The risks of escalation in Ukraine may be greater than you--or many policymakers--think. See here:
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The Bush Administration was better at inventing a phony case for war with Iraq than the Trump team is at conjuring up a phony case for war with Iran. But doesn’t mean they won’t eventually succeed.
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Seems to me if a magazine proudly lobbied for a disastrous war that cost 1000s of lives & trillions of $, it deserves to go out of biz. Its founders, editors, and chief writers deserve neither our sympathy nor our attention.
#WeeklyStandard
#accountability
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Thread: I have been trying to think through where the war in
#Ukraine
might be headed, and what has to happen to bring it to an end. Here are a few tentative thoughts:
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As
#Netanyahu
again defies
#Biden
, where are all the neocons and other hardliners who used to insist that tolerating others’ defiance would permanently jeopardize American “credibility?”
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Based on the CNN Dem debate moderators’ choice of questions, I have wasted my entire adult life studying international politics, national security, and foreign policy.
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A feeling that never gets old: when a copy of your new book arrives.
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By electing Trump, voters have undermined U.S. position & influence in Asia in ways that may be impossible to regain. Ever.
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Shocking that Russia tried to influence US election. I mean, WE would NEVER interfere in another state's internal political processes....
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I find it remarkable that so many people in the US national security community still think the United States should keep fighting in Afghanistan--despite 20 years of failure--even though many of them also recognize there is little/no chance of meaningful success if we stay.
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I sometimes think the US foreign policy establishment is just really, really good at creating problems that it must then work overtime (and at considerable cost) to try to solve.
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Dear
@realDonaldTrump
:
I understand you'd like "your people" to "sit up in attention" like North Koreans. But we are not "your people." You work for us. If this arrangement does not suit, you might be happier in a country where dictatorship & blind obedience are the norm.
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I wrote this article 2-1/2 years ago. Holds up pretty well, I'd say.
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At the present moment, the single most important difference between Democrats and Republicans is that the former believe all legitimate votes should be counted, and the latter are doing everything they can to prevent it.
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Ask yourself: would those unpatriotic, law-breaking Republicans have disrupted the impeachment hearings (by busting into a secure facility), if they believed the witnesses’ testimony was exonerating
#trump
?
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1. Here is a thread on research projects that don't go as we might have hoped.
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#Trump
's latest blunder re Iran is another example of America's growing inability to "think strategically": to set clear goals & devise a coherent approach that takes other's reactions into account. This problem is bigger than Trump. My FP column here:
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People who say "post-US Middle East" is becoming unstable are forgetting: 1) Arab-Israeli wars in '56, '67, '69-70, '73, '82; 2) Iran-Iraq War; 3) assorted assassinations (or attempts): 4) Operation Cast Lead, etc. in Gaza, 5) Egypt's war in Yemen, 6) US wars w/Iraq; & lots more.
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People who say "Kushner's 'peace plan' won't work" are missing the point. It wasn't supposed to work--if that means facilitating a just & lasting peace. Its purpose was to buy time, kick dust, shift blame, & thereby facilitate permanent Israeli control of W. Bank.
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If diplomacy is to be part of new strategy, it would be nice to fully fund the State Department.
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Rumored McMaster/Bolton swap very worrisome but let’s be clear: Bolton (& Pompeo) are not pariahs inside Beltway. AEI, FDD, WSJ oped page, etc., are part of establishment too (unfortunately). This is the return of Cheneyism, not the triumph of Trumpism.
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A must-read essay by Ian Lustick revealing the lengths Israel's backers will go to silence anyone who challenges their narrative. Lustick is a remarkable scholar, and we should be grateful for his intellectual gifts, scholarly integrity, and courage.
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One cannot overstate how dumb the neoconservative idea of invading Iraq was. They claimed it was going to "transform the ME" and it sure did; just not in the way they promised. And not a single one of these strategic geniuses was held accountable.
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Does the Netanyahu government get up every morning and ask itself: “Hmmm…what can we do to embarrass the Biden administration today?”
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Who could possibly have predicted that the election of a hate-spewing, violence-endorsing, and fear-mongering President would be followed by attempted attacks on some of the people and institutions he repeatedly targeted, along with a continued erosion of civic norms?
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Query: how many foreign policy jobs in
#BidenHarris
admin will go to people who opposed:
-Iraq War
-Afghanistan "surge"
-open-ended NATO enlargement
-intervention in Libya & Syria
-Saudi war in Yemen
-demonization of Russia
-hyperglobalization?
My bet: hardly any.
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Disappointing to realize that "America is Back" also means America is back to bombing faraway lands, and still with no clear purpose, plan, or strategy.
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I hate to say this, but if the Biden administration is trying to show that the US is incapable of a constructive role dealing w/Israel & Palestine and trying to undercut its efforts to regain a degree of moral authority post-Trump, it is doing a great job.
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This is a very sane and smart piece debunking claims of voter fraud.
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Re Alexandria Ocasio Cortez: I wonder if JFK faced the same level of skepticism and disdain about his relative youth when he entered Congress back in 1947. He was 30, one year older than she is.
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Realists oppose Israel's war on
#Gaza
(and US support for it) on both moral and strategic grounds. This shouldn't surprise you. Latest FP column here:
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Remember:
1. Nobody made Trump send his personal lawyer to Ukraine to chase conspiracy theories.
2. Nobody made Trump hold up military aid to Ukraine.
3. Nobody made Trump ask Ukraine's PM for "a favor," which was to try to find dirt on a political rival.
He did this himself.
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Re the shocking and depressing events of the weekend, I am reminded once again of W.H. Auden: ‘I and the public know/What all schoolchildren learn,/Those to whom evil is done/Do evil in return.’
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That mournful sound you hear? It’s the idea of “American Exceptionalism” dying.
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To repeat: US failures in Greater Middle East aren't due to our not blowing enough things up, but to dearth of effective diplomacy.
#MOAB
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Kennan’s assessment of US leaders during Vietnam War rings true today: they were “like men in a dream,” incapable of “any realistic assessment of their own acts.” (From B. Tuchman, THE MARCH OF FOLLY)
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Although I do try, I sometimes feel that I can keep up with real world events or keep up with the academic literature in my field, but I can’t do both. And I suspect I’m not alone in this feeling.
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Anyone who says a single country is going to “take over” the deeply divided, fractious, contentious and heavily armed Middle East is an ignorant fool, a liar, or both.
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So none of his brilliant
#GoldmanSachs
advisors could explain to
#Trump
why tariff on Mexican imports means we are paying for wall, not them
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When I left Boston this AM, Wagner was supposedly driving all out for Moscow. By the time I landed in Denver, they had turned around and it was all off. Moral: beware hot takes.
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If Trump wins, I will never listen to anyone tell me the subfield of "American Politics" is more "rigorous" than International Relations.
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Give 'em credit:
#Trump
team breaking the land speed record for losing global influence, status, ideals, & popularity. Tillerson=Sisyphus
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#Pompeo
's attempt to trigger the JCPOA's snapback provisions AFTER the US abandoned and trashed the agreement is like a husband leaving his wife, getting a divorce, and then saying he gets to decide who she dates.
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The US and Israel would be better off with a normal relationship, not a "special" one. In my latest FP column, I explain why.
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Civil servants in federal government owe loyalty to Constitution and the country, not the President, no matter who it is.
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I'm puzzled by the people who simultaneously: 1) think Putin and his inner circle are irrational, paranoid, out-of-touch, and indifferent to human suffering; and 2) are also supremely confident these same people would not escalate to WMD no matter what happens in
#Ukraine
.
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