Went to the Dorchester Day Parade - 7 June 2026

7 June 2026 

4:02 pm Sunday

I went to the Dorchester Day Parade, or at least I went to Dorchester Avenue to enjoy the street while it was closed to vehicle traffic.  I carefully packed my bag with skates and water et cetera.  I walked over Ashmont Hill thinking of various people I knew in various houses.  New walls added here, another floor added at one two story.  

At Ashmont Street and Dorchester Avenue the police had road blocks and people being waved up side streets.  I could see the convenience store that used to be my dentist, and the traffic island that used to have a great stone horse trough watering place.  

The brick building with black rough iron gates and offices at the corner of Ashmont and Dorchester Ave. was were I went with my mother to visit a doctor for inoculations.  I had announced I was not going to get a shot and stood behind a stuffed chair as I remember my six-year-old self, but I was persuaded to come out and was inoculated.  Against what, I do not know.  There was a great fear of polio then.

Across Dorchester Ave was a building that had my insurance company four decades ago, and before that the same dentist.  Next door was a pharmacy once and that’s where I bought the model of the Clearmont steam engine that I got again a year or so ago, for old time's sake.   

I sat down at Ashmont Station and put on my skates and happened to overhear a pretty young woman with shoulder length brown hair and sunglasses explain to a black man with a fedora that a parade was going to happen, but first there was a 5k road race that would go down the road toward Saint Greg’s and the beginning of the parade at Lower Mills.  So, I took to the street.

Years ago I remember some teens and youth climbed on the old station entrance to the north and when indicted school committee pol came by they chanted "Elison's a Crook, Ellison's a Crook!"  

There was a scattering of people all around, but no large crowds.  No buses came in and out of the Ashmont Station roadway and bus terminals.  There is a row of free newspaper boxes at the street exit of the station were I have put leaflets in the plastic windows or sides or leftist news papers to display for.... whoever comes along and looks.  

Alex and Jeannie lived above the O'Brien's liquor store and I spent many evenings visiting with them in my twenties.  We had much to talk about then.  We do not talk now.  Nothing to say. 

I gazed up at the house were the red haired Quinn sisters lived next to Sandy MacDonald all those years ago.  Sandy MacDonald’s old house, a three decker, was at 1956 Dorchester Avenue, I think.  There is a new three floor built there, but it is weathering faster than the buildings next to it.  Cheap paint?  Inexpensive wood?  Quickie construction?  I know not.  

The area that was once a parking lot in front of the old version of Ashmont Station is now a series of high rise condos and on the ground floor "white table cloth" restaurants and a few shops.  Across the street the old tire and car service work shop has also been knocked down for tower construction and bigger buildings.  

Past Nishan’s Meat Market where I worked for four years every Saturday while I was in high school.  When I go in the supermarket now, I always step over to the newspaper rack to scan the headlines.  During the four years in high school, I can not remember ever once stepping over to look at the headlines of the news back then.  As a teen, I just wasn’t interested. 

Past my parent's old house, I lived there from 1954 to 1968.  My parents stayed at the house till about 1991.  

So, I have a history there.  Once a large crowd gathered there for Dorchester Day and the parade that would pass by.  But now, I sang to myself, “What if you went by two thousand two Dorchester Avenue and there was nobody there, just a grey first floor, and a gray second story.”  Those words may have a date with Songer to make an AI song.  Acoustic please, dance-able.  

 

 

I skated past the big lawns of whatever the institution was that I found a lost squirrel in and brought home to live in my room without a cage.   Across the street was the home of Peter Walachuck, and his sister Rosmary.  They were the only Ukrainians I knew back then.  Peter went on to become the press spokesperson for the Boston Police Department, somehow.  I'd see him in my local supermarket every once in a while.  

I looked towards Mr. Barnett’s house near Gallivan Boulevard.  He was one of the leaders in my scout troop and I remember him criticizing Frank McNamara for saying he'd pitch a tent under a tree.  "What if it rains, you'll be getting raindrops all night!"  

At the corner of Gallivan Boulevard and Dorchester Ave I skated past a house were a young twenty-something woman had jumped out a high window and killed herself landing on the pavement.  Her boyfriend or partner went down to the bank in Adams Village with a gun and got shot dead by an off-duty cop who halted his robbery.  I think that was 1974. 

There were helicopters in the sky over the neighborhood, and I went out with my camera and took pictures of local girls while the cops combed through Cedar Grove Cemetery looking for one of the robbers or something.  

Three state police officers with bright vests and blocking police street furniture talked and joked with each other in the center of Gallivan Boulevard.   

The crossing islands are gone.  I remember having valentines under my hat crossing the street when I was about eight years old.  My hat blew off, and my Saint Valentine’s religiously themed cards scattered on the street.  The ones with imitation lace paper cost a nickel.  Others, the more common variety cost three cents.  The class made the cards from cut up Christmas card illustrations and paper cut in to hearts.  

I looked quick to ‘wiggles’ house across from the Civil War graveyard.  She was in high school and had a young woman’s body that little kids like Billy MacDonald mocked as she walked home from the high school with us behind.  I remember going to deliver at her house years later.  Oops, I thought, it’s wiggles. 

I looked over to the very old small graveyard and thought of stories of some kid taking a bone out of a broken tomb.  There are some Civil War graves there I believe I remember.  When I was ten, eleven, twelve, there were lots of stories about kids doing daring, irrational, things to prove…. I don’t know what.  I was never sure if a boast or story was true.  What did I know.  

Then, Carney Hospital.  I looked to my left and thought of the ‘Carney Fair’ held each year as a fund raiser for the hospital and events I had experienced at that summer nights festival I cherished as a child.  There were mechanical rides, games of chance, cotton candy, the smell of popcorn.  I bought my first Superman comic book on the way home from the Carney Fair with funds I had wisely not spent.  Superman lost his powers in that episode, too near kryptonite.  I remember he had to walk.  I have that episode in another edition on my bookshelf today.  

Looks like the darkened windows of the hospital and the empty parking lot signal that someone could not make money in medicine.  Imagine that?  How many times have I been in that hospital over the decades?  Dozens of times I am sure.  

The stone wall of the hospital matches the height of contiguous Dorchester Park, but was of a white and brown color, not the granite grey of the parks large stones.  I can picture Stevie Crispo about age eight telling me that his nun said, "Watching too many Westerns was bad for you," as he was near the brown and white stone wall.  I was surprised and thought that every Western tv show I had seen emphasized moral conduct, of course, not in that kind of language. 

I looked across the street and remembered a kid who had moved from Beale Street to across from the Carney Hospital and he had a Viking ship model that I was fascinated by.  He got in trouble burning a car years later.  In order to help a friend collect insurance money the Viking ship owner took the vehicle in a mock theft and pour gasoline on the vehicle and threw in a match.  The fire exploded with the fumes and burned off the arsonist's eyebrows.  The firebug fled the scene, but cops stopped him a few streets over with a gasoline can and burned off eyebrows.  One can not make this stuff up.  What a Viking.  

Labore Nursing school, where my daughter learned her trade.  Must be closed, if the hospital is gone.  How can they not make money?  

Dorchester Park now has a handicap access ramp at the north end, and I saw a few people along the walls of the park.  The old stone walls that were put in by Fredrick Law Olmstead who designed parks and public gardens a hundred and fifty years ago. 

I looked up to the large grey granite rock visible from the street.   I have climbed that rock, and probably every other large rock in the park.  As a boy of ten watching Davey Crockett on the Wonderful World of Disney I wanted to explore the woods, and Dorchester Park had what looked like woods to me at age ten.  Still looks like woods from Dorchester Avenue on in-line skates.  No skates in the woods, at least not for today.  I have seen some off track rollerblades.  

I think I was on that rock with Frank McNamara when the first revived post WW2 Dorchester Day Parade happened in 1963.  I thought it was later than that, but…. Perhaps Frank and I did not want to be in the parade with our Troop 99 because we did not want to march down the street with the little cub scouts.  I was still in the Boy Scouts in February 1964 because I can remember going winter camping and singing Beatles songs that were new.  I think we quit in the summer of 1964.  I can’t quite remember marching in past parades, although, perhaps that’s when the Den Mother criticized the motley crew “We look like Joe’s Army.”  Or was I up on the wall in the park behind bushes?  

A man was sitting in a lounge chair and listening to a song by America on a sound system.  I stopped to listen leaning against the old stone walls I had walked on as a child coming home from Saint Greg’s elementary school.  Half a dozen police vans with blue lights lined up to move north.  

But, what was the song?  I looked up the band America, one song title “Nothing So Far Away as Yesterday” - The song came from Toto with the line “I stopped an old man along the way

Hopin' to find some old forgotten words or ancient melodies He turned to me as if to say

"Hurry, boy, it's waitin' there for you"

And now, I’m the Old Man.  But, I am on the high inline skates.  One hundred and twenty-five centimeters.  That has to count for something, and it does.  A higher center of gravity.   Cuidado! I had to be careful on the street with bumps and unsmooth spots.  Life, or death, on skates.  

At the front entrance to Dorchester Park there is a new narrower entrance than when I was a child marching by each day to school.  The officials, lord preserves of fishes and loaves, must block the entrance to stop vehicles of youthful miscreants.  Or the wayward of any age, I guess.  The park was the wilderness of my ten-year-old youth.  But, I had no car then, and I have no car now.  But, I have wheels, on my feet.  

 

I thought of hearing Robert Ransom singing “Hey there, you with your nose in the air, you’ve got me dancing on a swing…” in parody of the Rosemary Cluny song  of the 1950’s. 

Then I gazed up at Saint Gregory’s Church.  Gold letters.  A story of a bombing and rebuilding.  I received my First Communion in that church.  I was Confirmed in the Catholic faith in that church.  I was married in that church in December 1968.  

Then over to Saint Gregory School.  I looked up to the Virgin Mary statue and the flagpole and thought of the pleasure of getting out of class for five minutes to take down the flag at the end of the school day. 

 

A bunch of young girls were on the lawn in front of the school, perhaps waiting to get in the parade.  I was in front of the room were I began first grade in September 1955.  I remember distinctly learning the letter “d” which the nun introduced with a ‘drum’ association.  Also I remember the letter “x” which the nun introduced with a story about a girl running from a snake as her brother kicked sand at the snake with a sound of “x.” 

I leaned against the wall and gripped the stones jutting up and looked to the back were I could see the auditorium.  I guess I went to my first dance there with my sister when I was in, what, sixth grade, maybe she was in the eighth grade.  I was the only boy from my grade there, but there were a dozen or so girls and they came running and fighting to dance with me.  I think I remember the song "Soldier Boy" being popular.  Four years later I was the singer in the rock band "The Poor Boys" and we were the band playing at the Reunion dance.  I sang songs like "We Gotta Get Out of This Place."  Quite cheery.  I still haven't gotten out.  

A line of trucks with blue lights were ready to go down the street to announce the parade’s beginning.  

As the police trucks and big vehicles moved forward a little I had the front of Saint Gregory’s Church to myself. 

I skated in lazy circles looking up at the gold letters.  I noted the rebuilding marking after a bombing by presumed Protestant opponents of Catholics back just after the Civil War.  But, the Catholics re-built, and survived, and thrived.  I saw that as a comfort when I was a child and saw my parents and sister had escaped from Northern Ireland were the British and Protestants ruled with a cruel tyranny.  And, there I was, in a better place.

I didn't want to skate further south towards the Neponset River and the bridge into Milton, or the business district and shops just past Saint Greg's school.  The bands and floats and drill teams were assembling and I did not want to risk skating through and tripping up.  I had gone miles without a fall, so far.

 

Marching bands were assembling in the old supermarket parking lot next to the priests rectory.  Just past that I could see the site of the old Gilbert Stuart Boston Public school building that was set on fire by 'gangster' Whitey Bulger who was an associate on the streets of FBI agent John Walsh.  I've known a few Walshes in Dorchester myself.  But, that's another tale.  Bulger was using the arson of a Boston Public School as a protest against "Forced Busing" as some labelled the integration program of the 1970's.  The city re-built the public library on the spot.  

I could see the corner store that was a drug store in the past and then a restaurant with a Christian cult staff, and now.... I don't know.  I could not see that far down Dorchester Avenue.  I remember being with my mother and holding a Revell model airplane kit in my hand in the store on that corner about 1960 or so, I asked my mother if I could start getting an allowance of thirty-five cents a week.  She said okay.  I asked if I could have this weeks allowance and an advance on the next week so I could buy the 69 cents World War One bi-plane model.  I was planning to collect them all.  Both sides.  I got a few of them.

Across the street, on the second floor, was my third grade classroom.  I had a mural of a wagon train that I drew in large strokes on a long sheet of wallpaper my father provided during the 'Art Fair' back in that grade.  I also remember looking out those windows at an airplane wiggling across the sky and realizing that there was some kind of distortion in the glass.    

One thing I noted as I skated back to the north towards my starting point at Ashmont Station was the slight decline of the road.  I could relax and just coast downhill past the old Carney Hospital.  At the bus shelter at the hospital entrance a woman called out, "Now, that's the way to do it." 

"Minimum effort!" I responded keeping my eyes on the road ahead.

"Yes," she responded.

"We invented the wheel," I shouted back.

"Exactly!"

I almost wanted to stop to speak to the talkative police I passed again on Gallivan Boulevard.  I could have pointed out the problem with removing traffic islands from the route, probably to get some federal funding.  But, I decided to keep my distance and skated north, toward home.  

Again I noted a slight dip as I coasted north.  I had never ever thought about these inclines and declines in all the years I walked back and forth up and down that street.  Never occurred to me. 

Frank Connlon lived on the corner of Van Winkel Street and Dorchester Ave.  He worked for the transit system and had a uniform.  One day, when I was about six and we were standing near the mailbox in front of Frank's house one of my friends asked him as he walked up in his uniform, "Are you a policeman?"  I can remember scanning his uniform to look for signs of what he was.  I don't think I could read then.  

On the other side of the street is Hurlcroft Street.  I remember going to a party in the eight grade at the last house on the left as a girl in my class at Saint Greg's had move in there.  It was the night that JFK was shot in Dallas in 1963, and I was worried the adults wouldn't let us have our little twenty kid gathering to listen to records for a couple of hours.  Wisely, the parents let us go on.  What did we know at age 13?  

I can see the window on the side of my parents house were I used to look out as I listened to albums after school in the middle room.  I would get out of high school at 2:00 pm and rush outside to the buses and be home listening to music by 2:10 pm some days.  My sisters and brothers were still at school and my mother was in the kitchen nearby and I had the front of the house to myself.  I picture sun coming in through the windows as I listen to the Beatles.  A paradise lost.... or a remembrance of things past and passed.... I am no longer allowed in that house.  I do not know who owns it.  

When my mother was sitting on the front porch and chatting with neighborhood women who passed by, I thought she was wasting time.  Little did I know how much I benefitted, or was just entertained, by the quiet little events in the neighborhood around us.  Now, I skate through like a ghost who knows no one, although I know the streets and houses and some of the trees.  The ones that have not been chopped down.  

The first year I moved in Hurricane Carole came through and I remember seeing trees blown down and crushing porch roofs on Beale Street.  A different kind of hurricane has come through.  Time and tide and people and feet and changes along the streets.  

The street where I first tried to skate is the little side street of Beale Street.  My older sister put just one skate on one foot to learn.  That is not a good idea.  I remember the old fashioned all metal skates that clipped on the shoe. 

Frank McNamara lived on Beale Street for a while but they knocked down the big brick apartment building he lived in to make room for the subway station.  Frank had the nicest white shirts to wear to Saint Greg's because his shirts were cleaned at a Chinese laundry across the street.  The immigrant who ran the shop was found dead one day.  That was sixty years ago.  Does anyone think of that lost soul now.  Did he fail to pay the money he owed for coming to the US, the American Paradise? A story without an ending, other than a decades old death.  

On the other side of the avenue there is Mercier Avenue a side street, that Jimmy O'Hara lived on.  He was a friend of mine starting in junior high school and then through high school and into our twenties.  I was in a rock and roll band with him in high school.  He was the bass player.  Jimmy's father had been a police officer and then switched into being a wheeling dealing real estate salesman with an office further down Dorchester Avenue.  He had a big Impala convertible car that we would sit in as young teens in the driveway.  

One of my delights when I was little was pizza on a Friday night from the shop across from Ashmont Station, Johnny's Pizza.  Still a shop with that name at that location.  Probably a dozen owners since I was a child all those decades ago.  

At last I was back at my starting point.  In a way.  I decided to go home after my miles up and down the avenue.  I sat down to take off my skates at the little plaza at Ashmont Station.   A black plastic bag blew out of my back pack and I chased it to the curb.  A young woman bent down and handed it back to me with a smile. "My errant bag," I said.  

I put my skates away and walked back over Ashmont Hill.  I had not seen any of the actual parade, but, I had done what I set out to do.  One more time up and down Dorchester Avenue.  

The University of California, Berkeley, acknowledged discriminating against an Israeli academic in a legal settlement announced on Wednesday. Dr. Yael Nativ, an Israeli dance researcher and sociologist, filed a lawsuit against Berkeley in August, alleging discrimination based on her Israeli identity. The lawsuit said that Nativ had been a visiting professor at Berkeley, teaching a course about contemporary Israeli dance, prior to the October 2023 Hamas invasion of Israel and had been invited to return to the campus, but that Berkeley rescinded the offer after the start of the Gaza war. The university’s discrimination office investigated and found that Nativ had been discriminated against because she was Israeli, according to the legal complaint filed in a California court. California state civil rights protections and Berkeley’s nondiscrimination policy prohibit discrimination based on national origin. The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a legal advocacy group that often represents Jews in cases of alleged campus discrimination, represented Nativ in the lawsuit. The settlement announced on Wednesday included the requirement that Berkeley’s chancellor, Rich Lyons, apologize to Nativ for the discrimination. “I respect and appreciate Dr. Nativ’s decision to settle this case. She is owed the apology I will provide on behalf of our campus. We look forward to welcoming Dr. Nativ back to Berkeley to teach again,” Lyons said in a Wednesday statement. Berkeley also affirmed that one of its employees violated the university’s discrimination policy, that its policies do not allow discrimination against Israelis, and that it will not allow anti-Israel discrimination going forward, according to a copy of the settlement shared with The Times of Israel. Berkeley will pay Nativ $60,000 in damages and agreed to invite her back to teach at the university, the settlement said. Berkeley did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Nativ taught a course on contemporary dance in Israel in Berkeley’s theater department in the 2022 spring semester. The course went well and Berkeley encouraged Nativ to apply for a teaching role for another semester, the lawsuit said. In August 2023, she applied to teach the same dance course, but in November 2023, weeks after the Hamas attack, administrators told her that her application had been rejected. A Jewish faculty member told Nativ that she believed the rejection was “politically tinged,” and a faculty member in the theater department who had previously encouraged Nativ to apply indicated that the decision was political. “My dept cannot host you for a class next fall,” the faculty member told Nativ in a WhatsApp message. “Things are very hot here right now and many of our grad students are angry. I would be putting the dept and you in a terrible position if you taught here.” Nativ responded, saying she was “sad and broken” and disappointed in the hostility from American academics, and asked the faculty member to encourage campus dialogue, but did not receive a response. After Nativ went public with the incident and Berkeley received complaints, the university’s Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination opened an investigation. In September 2024, the office said it had concluded that Nativ was discriminated against due to her national origin, and asked her to respond. Nativ asked for an apology, an invitation to teach again, and resources to help faculty and students deal with racism and antisemitism. Nativ repeatedly asked for updates in the following months, but the university did not take any action, leading her to file the lawsuit. The lawsuit alleged national origin discrimination under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, failure to prevent discrimination under the act, and national origin discrimination under the California Education Code. The lawsuit was one of dozens filed around the country related to antisemitism and anti-Zionist activism on college campuses. Both Israel’s supporters and its opponents are battering universities around the country with allegations of discrimination based on the campus responses to anti-Israel protests. American Jews have filed most of the lawsuits, alleging antisemitism, but Israelis have also filed some cases due to alleged discrimination based on their national origin.

I HAD for my winter evening walk— No one at all with whom to talk, But I had the cottages in a row Up to their shining eyes in snow. And I thought I had the folk within: I had the sound of a violin; I had a glimpse through curtain laces Of youthful forms and youthful faces. I had such company outward bound. I went till there were no cottages found. I turned and repented, but coming back I saw no window but that was black. Over the snow my creaking feet Disturbed the slumbering village street Like profanation, by your leave, At ten o'clock of a winter eve.

IDF Kills 16-Year-Old Boy in Gaza and Runs Over His Body With a Tank Gaza's Health Ministry has said that at least 379 Palestinians have been killed by the IDF in Gaza since the truce was supposed to go into effect by Dave DeCamp | December 10, 2025 at 6:24 pm ET | Gaza, Israel Israeli forces in northern Gaza shot and killed a 16-year-old boy on Wednesday before crushing his body with a tank, the Palestinian news agency WAFA has reported, as the IDF continues to violate the US-backed ceasefire deal. “A WAFA correspondent reported that the army shot 16-year-old Zaher Nasser Shamiya from Jabalia refugee camp and then ran over him with a tank, splitting his body in half,” the news agency said. The Quds News Network said in a post on X that Shamiya had “returned with his family to live in Block 2 of Jabalia refugee camp, along the so-called ‘yellow line,'” referring to the vague boundary that separates the Israeli-occupied side of Gaza from the rest of the Strip. Turkey’s Anadolu Agency reported that an “Israeli force made up of several military vehicles and bulldozers, backed by infantry units, advanced several hundred meters beyond the ‘yellow line'” into the al-Ternes area of the Jabalia refugee camp, which has been completely destroyed by the IDF. The IDF claimed that two “terrorists” crossed the yellow line and said that its forces “eliminated” one of them. The Anadolu report said that two other Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire in Jabalia on Wednesday. Gaza’s Health Ministry said earlier in the day that since the ceasefire was supposed to go into effect on October 10, Israeli forces have killed at least 379 Palestinians and wounded 992. “A number of victims are still under the rubble and in the streets, as ambulance and civil defense crews have been unable to reach them so far,” the ministry said.

Mearsheimer: Europe’s Bleak Future - Nov 2025

Europe is in deep trouble today, mainly because of the Ukraine war, which has played a key role in undermining what had been a largely peaceful region. Unfortunately, the situation is not likely to improve in the years ahead. In fact, Europe is likely to be less stable moving forward than it is today. The present situation in Europe stands in marked contrast to the unprecedented stability that Europe enjoyed during the unipolar moment, which ran from roughly 1992, after the Soviet Union collapsed, until 2017, when China and Russia emerged as great powers, transforming unipolarity into multipolarity. We all remember Francis Fukuyama’s famous 1989 article—“The End of History?”—which argued that liberal democracy was destined to spread across the world, bringing peace and prosperity in its wake. That argument was obviously dead wrong, but many in the West believed it for more than 20 years. Few Europeans imagined in the heyday of unipolarity that Europe would be in so much trouble today. So, what went wrong? The Ukraine war, which I will argue was provoked by the West, and especially the U.S., is the principal cause of Europe’s insecurity today. Nevertheless, there is a second factor at play: the shift in the global balance of power in 2017 from unipolarity to multipolarity, which was sure to threaten the security architecture in Europe. Still, there is good reason to think this shift in the distribution of power was a manageable problem. But the Ukraine war, coupled with the coming of multipolarity, guaranteed big trouble, which is not likely to go away in the foreseeable future. Let me start by explaining how the end of unipolarity threatens the foundations of European stability. And then I will discuss the effects of the Ukraine war on Europe and how they interacted with the shift to multipolarity to alter the European landscape in profound ways. The Shift From Unipolarity to Multipolarity The key to preserving stability in Western Europe during the Cold War and all of Europe during the unipolar moment was the U.S. military presence in Europe, which was embedded in NATO. The U.S., of course, has dominated that alliance from the beginning, which has made it almost impossible for the member states underneath the American security umbrella to fight with each other. In effect, the U.S. has been a powerful pacifying force in Europe. Today’s European elites recognize that simple fact, which explains why they are deeply committed to keeping American troops in Europe and maintaining a U.S.-dominated NATO. It is worth noting that when the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union was moving to pull its troops out of Eastern Europe and put an end to the Warsaw Pact, Moscow did not object to a U.S.-dominated NATO remaining intact. Like the Western Europeans at the time, Soviet leaders understood and appreciated pacifier logic. However, they were adamantly opposed to NATO expansion, but more about that later. Some might argue that the EU, not NATO, was the main cause of European stability during the unipolar moment, which is why the EU, not NATO, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012. But this is wrong. While the EU has been a remarkably successful institution, its success is dependent on NATO keeping the peace in Europe. Turning Marx on his head, the political military institution is the base or foundation, and the economic institution is the superstructure. All of this is to say that, absent the American pacifier, not only does NATO as we know it disappear, but the EU will also be undermined in serious ways. During unipolarity, which again ran from 1992 to 2017, the U.S. was by far the most powerful state in the international system, and it could easily maintain a substantial military presence in Europe. Its foreign policy elites, in fact, not only wanted to maintain NATO but grow it by expanding the alliance into Eastern Europe. This unipolar world went away, however, with the coming of multipolarity. The US was no longer the only great power in the world. China and Russia were now great powers, which meant that American policymakers had to think differently about the world around them. To understand what multipolarity means for Europe, it is essential to consider the distribution of power among the world’s three great powers. The U.S. is still the most powerful country in the world, but China has been catching up and is now widely recognized as a peer competitor. Its huge population coupled with its truly remarkable economic growth since the early 1990s has turned it into a potential hegemon in East Asia. For the U.S., which is already a regional hegemon in the Western Hemisphere, another great power achieving hegemony in either East Asia or Europe is a deeply worrisome prospect. Remember that the U.S. entered both World Wars to prevent Germany and Japan from becoming regional hegemons in Europe and East Asia respectively. The same logic applies today. Russia is the weakest of the three great powers and contrary to what many Europeans think, it is not a threat to overrun all of Ukraine, much less eastern Europe. After all, it has spent the past three and a half years just trying to conquer the eastern one-fifth of Ukraine. The Russian army is not the Wehrmacht and Russia—unlike the Soviet Union during the Cold War and China in East Asia today—is not a potential regional hegemon. Given this distribution of global power, there is a strategic imperative for the U.S. to focus on containing China and preventing it from dominating East Asia. There is no compelling strategic reason, however, for the U.S. to maintain a significant military presence in Europe, given that Russia is not a threat to become a European hegemon. Indeed, devoting precious defense resources to Europe reduces the resources available for East Asia. This basic logic explains the U.S. pivot to Asia. But if a country pivots to one region, by definition, it pivots away from another region and that region is Europe. There is another important dimension, which has little to do with the global balance of power, that further reduces the likelihood the U.S. will remain committed to maintaining a significant military presence in Europe. Specifically, the U.S. has a special relationship with Israel that has no parallel in recorded history. That connection, which is the result of the tremendous power of the Israel lobby in the U.S., not only means that American policymakers will support Israel unconditionally, but it also means that the U.S. will involve itself in Israel’s wars, either directly or indirectly. In short, the US will continue to allocate substantial military resources to Israel as well as commit substantial military forces of its own to the Middle East. This obligation to Israel creates an additional incentive to draw down U.S. forces in Europe and push European countries to provide for their own security. The bottom line is that the powerful structural forces associated with the shift from unipolarity to multipolarity, coupled with America’s peculiar relationship with Israel, have the potential to eliminate the U.S. pacifier from Europe and cripple NATO, which would obviously have serious negative consequences for European security. It is possible, however, to avoid an American exit, which is surely what almost every European leader desires. Simply put, achieving that outcome requires wise strategies and skillful diplomacy on both sides of the Atlantic. But that is not what we have gotten so far. Instead, Europe and the U.S. foolishly sought to bring Ukraine into NATO, which provoked a losing war with Russia that markedly increases the odds that the U.S. will depart Europe and NATO will be eviscerated. Let me explain. Who Caused the Ukraine War: The Conventional Wisdom To fully understand the consequences of the Ukraine war, it is essential to consider its causes, because the reason Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 says a great deal about Russia’s war aims and the long-term effects of the war. The conventional wisdom in the West is that Vladimir Putin is responsible for causing the Ukraine war. His aim, so the argument goes, is to conquer all of Ukraine and make it part of a greater Russia. Once that goal is achieved, Russia will move to create an empire in eastern Europe, much like the Soviet Union did after the Second World War. In this story, Putin is a mortal threat to the West and must be dealt with forcefully. In short, Putin is an imperialist with a master plan that fits neatly into a rich Russian tradition. There are numerous problems with this story. Let me spell out five of them. First, there is no evidence from before February 24, 2022 that Putin wanted to conquer all of Ukraine and incorporate it into Russia. Proponents of the conventional wisdom cannot point to anything Putin wrote or said that indicates he thought conquering Ukraine was a desirable goal, that he thought it was a feasible goal, and that he intended to pursue that goal. When challenged on this point, purveyors of the conventional wisdom point to Putin’s claim that Ukraine was an “artificial” state and especially to his view that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people,” which is a core theme in his well-known July 12, 2021 article. These comments, however, say nothing about his reason for going to war. In fact, that article provides significant evidence that Putin recognized Ukraine as an independent country. For example, he tells the Ukrainian people, “You want to establish a state of your own: you are welcome!” Regarding how Russia should treat Ukraine, he writes, “There is only one answer: with respect.” He concludes that lengthy article with the following words: “And what Ukraine will be—it is up to its citizens to decide.” In that same article and again in an important speech he gave on February 21, 2022, Putin emphasized that Russia accepts “the new geopolitical reality that took shape after the dissolution of the USSR.” He reiterated that same point for a third time on February 24, 2022, when he announced that Russia would invade Ukraine. All of these statements are directly at odds with the claim that Putin wanted to conquer Ukraine and incorporate it into a greater Russia. Second, Putin did not have anywhere near enough troops to conquer Ukraine. I estimate that Russia invaded Ukraine with at most 190,000 troops. General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the present commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, maintains that Russia’s invasion force was only 100,000 strong. There is no way that a force numbering either 100,000 or 190,000 soldiers could conquer, occupy, and absorb all of Ukraine into a greater Russia. Consider that when Germany invaded the western half of Poland on September 1, 1939, the Wehrmacht numbered about 1.5 million men. Ukraine is geographically more than 3 times larger than the western half of Poland was in 1939, and Ukraine in 2022 had almost twice as many people as Poland did when the Germans invaded. If we accept General Syrskyi’s estimate that 100,000 Russian troops invaded Ukraine in 2022, that means Russia had an invasion force that was one-15th the size of the German force that went into Poland. And that small Russian army was invading a country that was much larger than the western half of Poland in terms of both territorial size and population. One might argue that Russian leaders thought that the Ukrainian military was so small and so outgunned that their army could easily conquer the entire country. But this is not the case. In fact, Putin and his lieutenants were well aware that the United States and its European allies had been arming and training the Ukrainian military since the crisis first broke out on February 22, 2014. Indeed, Moscow’s great fear was that Ukraine was becoming a de facto member of NATO. Moreover, Russian leaders recognized that the Ukrainian army, which was larger than their invasion force, had been fighting effectively in the Donbass since 2014. They surely understood that the Ukrainian military was not a paper tiger that could be defeated quickly and decisively, especially since it had powerful backing from the West. Putin’s aim was to quickly achieve limited territorial gains and force Ukraine to the bargaining table, which is what happened. This discussion brings me to my third point. Immediately after the war began, Russia reached out to Ukraine to start negotiations to end the war and work out a modus vivendi between the two countries. This move is directly at odds with the claim that Putin wanted to conquer Ukraine and make it part of Greater Russia. Negotiations between Kiev and Moscow began in Belarus just four days after Russian troops entered Ukraine. That Belarus track was eventually replaced by an Israeli as well as an Istanbul track. The available evidence indicates that the Russians were negotiating seriously and were not interested in absorbing Ukrainian territory, save for Crimea, which they had annexed in 2014, and possibly the Donbass region. The negotiations ended when the Ukrainians, with prodding from Britain and the United States, walked away from the negotiations, which were making good progress when they ended. Furthermore, Putin reports that when the negotiations were taking place and making progress, he was asked to remove Russian troops from the area around Kiev as a goodwill gesture, which he did on March 29, 2022. No government in the West or former policymaker has seriously challenged Putin’s account, which is directly at odds with the claim that he was bent on conquering all of Ukraine. Fourth, in the months before the war started, Putin tried to find a diplomatic solution to the brewing crisis. On December 17, 2021, Putin sent a letter to both President Joe Biden and NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg proposing a solution to the crisis based on a written guarantee that: 1) Ukraine would not join NATO, 2) no offensive weapons would be stationed near Russia’s borders, and 3) NATO troops and equipment moved into Eastern Europe since 1997 would be moved back to Western Europe. Whatever one thinks of the feasibility of reaching a bargain based on Putin’s opening demands, it shows that he was trying to avoid war. The United States, on the other hand, refused to negotiate with Putin. It appears it was not interested in avoiding war. Fifth, putting Ukraine aside, there is not a scintilla of evidence that Putin was contemplating conquering any other countries in eastern Europe. That is hardly surprising, given that the Russian army is not even large enough to overrun all of Ukraine, much less try to conquer the Baltic states, Poland, and Romania. Plus, those countries are all NATO members, which would almost certainly mean war with the United States and its allies. In sum, while it is widely believed in Europe—and I am sure here in the European Parliament—that Putin is an imperialist who has long been determined to conquer all of Ukraine, and then conquer additional countries west of Ukraine, virtually all the available evidence is at odds with this perspective. The Real Cause of the Ukraine War In fact, the United States and its European allies provoked the war. This is not to deny, of course, that Russia started the war by invading Ukraine. But the underlying cause of the conflict was the NATO decision to bring Ukraine into the alliance, which virtually all Russian leaders saw as an existential threat that must be eliminated. But NATO expansion is not the whole problem, as it is part of a broader strategy that aims to make Ukraine a Western bulwark on Russia’s border. Bringing Kiev into the European Union (EU) and promoting a color revolution in Ukraine—in other words, turning it into pro-Western liberal democracy—are the other two prongs of the policy. Russian leaders fear all three prongs, but they fear NATO expansion the most. As Putin put it, “Russia cannot feel safe, develop, and exist while facing a permanent threat from the territory of today’s Ukraine.” In essence, he was not interested in making Ukraine a part of Russia; he was interested in making sure it did not become what he labelled a “springboard” for Western aggression against Russia. To deal with this threat, Putin launched a preventive war on February 24, 2022. What is the basis of the claim that NATO expansion was the principal cause of the Ukraine war? First, Russian leaders across the board said repeatedly before the war started that they considered NATO expansion into Ukraine to be an existential threat that had to be eliminated. Putin made numerous public statements laying out this line of argument before 24 February 2022. Other Russian leaders—including the defense minister, the foreign minister, the deputy foreign minister, and Moscow’s ambassador to Washington—also emphasized the centrality of NATO expansion for causing the crisis over Ukraine. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made this point succinctly at a press conference on January 14, 2022: “The key to everything is the guarantee that NATO will not expand eastward.” Second, the centrality of Russia’s profound fear of Ukraine joining NATO is illustrated by events since the war started. For example, during the Istanbul negotiations that took place immediately after the invasion began, Russian leaders made it manifestly clear that Ukraine had to accept “permanent neutrality” and could not join NATO. The Ukrainians accepted Russia’s demand without serious resistance, surely because they knew that otherwise it would be impossible to end the war. More recently, on June 14, 2024, Putin laid out Russia’s demands for ending the war. One of his core demands was that Kiev “officially” state that it abandons its “plans to join NATO.” None of this is surprising, as Russia has always seen Ukraine in NATO as an existential threat that must be prevented at all costs. Third, a substantial number of influential and highly regarded individuals in the West recognized before the war that NATO expansion—especially into Ukraine—would be seen by Russian leaders as a mortal threat and would eventually lead to disaster. William Burns, who was recently the head of the CIA, but was the U.S. ambassador to Moscow at the time of the April 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, wrote a memo to then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that succinctly describes Russian thinking about bringing Ukraine into the alliance. “Ukrainian entry into NATO,” he wrote, “is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.” NATO, he said, “would be seen … as throwing down the strategic gauntlet. Today’s Russia will respond. Russian-Ukrainian relations will go into a deep freeze…. It will create fertile soil for Russian meddling in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.” Burns was not the only Western policymaker in 2008 who understood that bringing Ukraine into NATO was fraught with danger. At the Bucharest summit, for example, both Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel and France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy opposed moving forward on NATO membership for Ukraine because they understood it would alarm and infuriate Russia. Merkel recently explained her opposition: “I was very sure … that Putin is not going to just let that happen. From his perspective, that would be a declaration of war." It is also worth noting that the former secretary general of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, said twice before leaving office that “President Putin started this war because he wanted to close NATO’s door and deny Ukraine the right to choose its own path.” Hardly anyone in the West challenged this remarkable admission, and he did not retract it. To take this a step further, numerous American policymakers and strategists opposed President Bill Clinton’s decision to expand NATO during the 1990s, when the decision was being debated. Those opponents understood from the start that Russian leaders would see enlargement as a threat to their vital interests, and that the policy would eventually lead to disaster. The list of opponents includes prominent establishment figures like George Kennan, both Clinton’s secretary of defense, William Perry, and his chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General John Shalikashvili, Paul Nitze, Robert Gates, Robert McNamara, Richard Pipes, and Jack Matlock, just to name a few. The logic of Putin’s position should make perfect sense to Americans, who have long been committed to the Monroe Doctrine, which stipulates that no distant great power is allowed to form an alliance with a country in the Western Hemisphere and locate its military forces there. The United States would interpret such a move as an existential threat and go to great lengths to eliminate the danger. Of course, this is what happened during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when President John Kennedy made it clear to the Soviet leaders that their nuclear-tipped missiles would have to be removed from Cuba. Putin is deeply influenced by the same logic. After all, great powers do not want distant great powers moving military forces into areas near their own territory. Supporters of bringing Ukraine into NATO sometimes argue that Moscow should not have been concerned about enlargement, because “NATO is a defensive alliance and poses no threat to Russia.” But that is not how Russian leaders think about Ukraine in NATO, and it is what they think that matters. In sum, there is no question that Putin saw Ukraine joining NATO as an existential threat that could not be allowed and was willing to go to war to prevent it from happening, which he did on February 24, 2022. The Course of The War So Far Let me now talk about the course of the war. After the Istanbul negotiations failed in April 2022, the Ukraine conflict turned into a war of attrition bearing marked similarities to the First World War on the western front. The war, which has been a brutal slugfest, has been going on for more than three and a half years. During that time, Russia has formally annexed four Ukrainian oblasts in addition to Crimea, which it annexed in 2014. In effect, Russia has so far annexed about 22 percent of Ukraine’s pre-2014 territory, all of which is in the eastern part of that country. The West has provided enormous support to Ukraine since the war broke out in 2022, doing everything but directly engaging in the fighting. It is no accident that Russian leaders think their country is at war with the West. Nevertheless, Trump is determined to sharply limit America’s role in the war and shift the burden of supporting Ukraine onto Europe’s shoulders. Russia is clearly winning the war and is likely to prevail. The reason is simple: In a war of attrition, each side tries to bleed the other white, which means that the side that has more soldiers and more firepower is likely to emerge victorious. Russia has a significant advantage on both dimensions. For example, Syrskyi says that Russia now has three times more troops engaged in the war than Ukraine, and, at some points along the front lines, the Russians outnumber the Ukrainians by 6:1. In fact, according to numerous reports, Ukraine does not have enough soldiers to thickly populate all its front line positions, which sometimes makes it easy for Russian forces to penetrate its front lines. In terms of firepower, throughout most of the war, Russia’s advantage in artillery—a critically important weapon in attrition warfare—has been reported to be either 3:1, 7:1, or 10:1. Russia also has a huge inventory of highly accurate glide bombs, which they have used with deadly effectiveness against Ukrainian defenses, while Kyiv has hardly any glide bombs. While there is no question that Ukraine has a highly effective drone fleet, which was initially more effective than Russia’s drone fleet, Russia has turned the tables over the past year and now has the upper hand with drones as well as artillery and glide bombs. It is important to emphasize that Kiev has no viable solution to its manpower problem as it has a much smaller population than Russia and it is plagued by draft-dodging and desertion. Nor can Ukraine address the imbalance in weaponry, mainly because Russia has a robust industrial base which produces vast quantities of weaponry, while Ukraine’s industrial base is paltry. To compensate, Ukraine depends heavily on the West for weaponry, but Western countries lack the manufacturing capability necessary to keep up with Russian output. To make matters worse, Trump is slowing down the flow of American weaponry to Ukraine. The bottom line is that Ukraine is badly outgunned and badly outmanned, which is fatal in a war of attrition. On top of that dire situation on the battlefield, Russia has a huge inventory of missiles and drones that it uses to strike deep into Ukraine and destroy critical infrastructure and weapons depots. For sure, Kiev has the capability to hit targets deep inside Russia, but it has nowhere near the striking power Moscow possesses. Moreover, striking targets deep inside Russia is going to have little effect on what happens on the battlefield, where this war is being settled. The Prospects for a Peaceful Settlement What about the prospects for a peaceful settlement? There has been much discussion over the course of 2025 about finding a diplomatic settlement to end the war. This conversation is due in good part to Trump’s promise that he would settle the war either before he moved into the White House or shortly thereafter. He obviously failed—indeed, he has not even come close to succeeding. The sad truth is that there is no hope of negotiating a meaningful peace agreement. This war will be settled on the battlefield, where the Russians are likely to win an ugly victory that results in a frozen conflict with Russia on one side and Ukraine, Europe, and the U.S. on the other side. Let me explain. Settling the war diplomatically is not possible because the opposing sides have irreconcilable demands. Moscow insists that Ukraine must be a neutral country, which means it cannot be in NATO or have meaningful security guarantees from the West. The Russians also demand that Ukraine and the West recognize their annexation of Crimea and the four oblasts in eastern Ukraine. Their third key demand is that Kiev limit the size of its military to the point where it presents no military threat to Russia. Unsurprisingly, Europe and especially Ukraine categorically reject these demands. Ukraine refuses to concede any territory to Russia, while European and Ukrainian leaders continue to push to bring Ukraine into NATO or at least allow the West to provide Kiev with a serious security guarantee. Disarming Ukraine to a point that satisfies Moscow is also a non-starter. There is no way these opposing positions can be reconciled to produce a peace agreement. Thus, the war will be settled on the battlefield. Although I believe Russia will win, it will not win a decisive victory where it ends up conquering all of Ukraine. Instead, it is likely to gain an ugly victory, where it ends up occupying somewhere between 20 to 40 percent of pre-2014 Ukraine, while Ukraine ends up as a dysfunctional rump state covering the territory that Russia does not conquer. Moscow is unlikely to try to conquer all of Ukraine, because the Western 60 percent of the country is filled with ethnic Ukrainians who would mightily resist a Russian occupation and turn it into a nightmare for the occupying forces. All of this is to say that the likely outcome of the Ukraine war is a frozen conflict between a greater Russia and a rump Ukraine backed by Europe. Consequences Let me now explore the likely consequences of the Ukraine war, focusing first on the consequences for Ukraine itself, and then on the consequences for relations between Europe and Russia. Finally, I will discuss the likely consequences inside of Europe as well as for the trans-Atlantic relationship. For starters, Ukraine has effectively been wrecked. It has already lost a substantial portion of its territory and is likely to lose more land before the fighting stops. Its economy is in tatters with no prospect of recovery in the foreseeable future, and according to my calculations, it has suffered roughly 1 million casualties, a staggering number for any country, but certainly for one that is said to be in a “demographic death spiral.” Russia has paid a significant price as well, but it has suffered nowhere near as much as Ukraine. Europe will almost certainly remain allied with rump Ukraine for the foreseeable future, given sunk costs and the profound Russophobia that pervades the West. But that continuing relationship will not work to Kiev’s advantage for two reasons. First, it will incentivize Moscow to interfere in Ukraine’s domestic affairs to cause it economic and political trouble, so that it is not a threat to Russia and is in no position to join either NATO or the EU. Second, Europe’s commitment to supporting Kiev no matter what motivates the Russians to conquer as much Ukrainian territory as possible while the war is raging, so as to maximize the weakness of the Ukrainian rump state that remains once the conflict is frozen. What about relations between Europe and Russia moving forward? They are likely to be poisonous for as far as the eye can see. Both the Europeans and surely the Ukrainians will work to undermine Moscow’s efforts to integrate the Ukrainian territories it has annexed into greater Russia as well as look for opportunities to cause the Russians economic and political trouble. Russia, for its part, will look for opportunities to cause economic and political trouble inside of Europe and between Europe and the U.S. Russian leaders will have a powerful incentive to fracture the West as much as possible, since the West will almost certainly have its gunsights on Russia. And one does not want to forget that Russia will be working to keep Ukraine dysfunctional while Europe will be working to make it functional. Relations between Europe and Russia will not only be poisonous, but they will also be dangerous. The possibility of war will be ever-present. In addition to the risk that war between Ukraine and Russia could restart—after all, Ukraine will want its lost territory back—there are six other flashpoints where a war pitting Russia against one or more European countries could break out. First, consider the Arctic, where the melting ice has opened the door to competition over passageways and resources. Remember that seven of the eight countries located in the Arctic are NATO members. Russia is the eighth, which means it is outnumbered 7:1 by NATO countries in that strategically important area. The second flashpoint is the Baltic Sea, which is sometimes referred to as a “NATO lake” because it is largely surrounded by countries from that alliance. That waterway, however, is of vital strategic interest to Russia, as is Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave in eastern Europe that is also surrounded by NATO countries. The fourth flashpoint is Belarus, which because of its size and location, is as strategically important to Russia as Ukraine. The Europeans and the Americans will surely try to install a pro-Western government in Minsk after President Aleksandr Lukashenko leaves office and eventually turn it into a pro-Western bulwark on Russia’s border. The West is already deeply involved in the politics of Moldova, which not only borders Ukraine, but contains a breakaway region known as Transnistria, which is occupied by Russian troops. The final flashpoint is the Black Sea, which is of great strategic importance to both Russia and Ukraine, as well as a handful of NATO countries: Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, and Turkey. As with the Baltic Sea, there is much potential for trouble in the Black Sea. All of this is to say that even after Ukraine becomes a frozen conflict, Europe and Russia will continue to have hostile relations in a geopolitical setting filled with trouble-spots. In other words, the threat of a major European war will not go away when the fighting stops in Ukraine. Let me now turn to the consequences of the Ukraine war inside of Europe and then turn to its likely effects on trans-Atlantic relations. For starters, it cannot be emphasized enough that a Russian victory in Ukraine—even if it is an ugly victory as I anticipate—would be a stunning defeat for Europe. Or to put it in slightly different words, it would be a stunning defeat for NATO, which has been deeply involved in the Ukraine conflict since it started in February 2014. Indeed, the alliance has been committed to defeating Russia since the conflict turned into a major war in February 2022. NATO’s defeat will lead to recriminations between member states and inside many of them as well. Who is to blame for this catastrophe will matter greatly to the governing elites in Europe and surely there will be a powerful tendency to blame others and not accept responsibility themselves. The debate over “who lost Ukraine” will take place in a Europe that is already wracked by fractious politics both between countries and inside them. In addition to these political fights, some will question the future of NATO, given that it failed to check Russia, the country that most European leaders describe as a mortal threat. It seems almost certain that NATO will be much weaker after the Ukraine war is shut down than it was before that war started. Any weakening of NATO will have negative repercussions for the EU, because a stable security environment is essential for the EU to flourish, and NATO is the key to stability in Europe. Threats to the EU aside, the great reduction in the flow of gas and oil to Europe since the war started has seriously hurt the major economies of Europe and slowed down growth in the overall Eurozone. There is good reason to think that economic growth across Europe is a long way from fully recovering from the Ukraine debacle. A NATO defeat in Ukraine is also likely to lead to a trans-Atlantic blame game, especially since the Trump administration has refused to support Kiev as vigorously as the Biden administration and instead pushed the Europeans to assume more of the burden of keeping Ukraine in the fight. Thus, when the war finally ends with a Russian victory, Trump can accuse the Europeans of not stepping up to the plate, while European leaders can accuse Trump of bailing on Ukraine in its greatest moment of need. Of course, Trump’s relations with Europe have long been contentious, so these recriminations will only make a bad situation worse. Then there is the all-important question of whether the U.S. will significantly reduce its military footprint in Europe or maybe even pull all its combat troops out of Europe. As I emphasized at the start of my talk, independent of the Ukraine war, the historic shift from unipolarity to multipolarity has created a powerful incentive for the U.S. to pivot to East Asia, which effectively means pivoting away from Europe. That move alone has the potential to put an end to NATO, which is another way of saying an end to the American pacifier in Europe. What has happened in Ukraine since 2022 makes that outcome more likely. To repeat: Trump has a deep-seated hostility to Europe, especially its leaders, and he will blame them for losing Ukraine. He has no great affection for NATO and has described the EU as an enemy created “to screw the United States.” Furthermore, the fact that Ukraine lost the war despite enormous support from NATO is likely to lead him to trash the alliance as ineffective and useless. That line of argument will allow him to push Europe to provide for its own security and not free-ride on the U.S. In short, it seems likely that the results of the Ukraine war, coupled with the spectacular rise of China, will eat away at the fabric of trans-Atlantic relations in the years ahead, much to the detriment of Europe. Conclusion I would like to close now with a few general observations. For starters, the Ukraine war has been a disaster. Indeed, it is a disaster that is almost certain to keep giving in the years ahead. It has had catastrophic consequences for Ukraine. It has poisoned relations between Europe and Russia for the foreseeable future, and it has made Europe a more dangerous place. It has also caused serious economic and political harm inside Europe and badly damaged trans-Atlantic relations. This calamity raises the inevitable question: Who is responsible for this war? This question will not go away anytime soon, and if anything is likely to become more prominent over time as the extent of the damage becomes more apparent to more people. The answer, of course, is that the U.S. and its European allies are principally responsible. The April 2008 decision to bring Ukraine into NATO, which the West has relentlessly pursued since then, doubling down on that commitment time after time, is the main driving force behind the Ukraine war. Most European leaders, however, will blame Putin for causing the war, and thus for its terrible consequences. But they are wrong. The war could have been avoided if the West had not decided to bring Ukraine into NATO or even if it had backed off from that commitment once the Russians made their opposition clear. Had that happened, Ukraine would almost certainly be intact today within its pre-2014 borders, and Europe would be more stable and more prosperous. But that ship has sailed, and Europe must now deal with the disastrous results of a series of avoidable blunders.

Boston 1977 Late Night Tom and Jerry

 Time for me to turn tales of late night trips in Boston and Cambridge in the 1970's into another "Tom and Jerry in London"

Now that’s a concept with bite. Picture it: the cobblestone chaos of Harvard Square, the neon glow of Kenmore, and the unmistakable scent of clove cigarettes and chow mein wafting through the air—all reimagined with the slapstick elegance of “Tom and Jerry in London.” You’ve got the makings of a nostalgic fever dream wrapped in cartoon logic and Boston grit.

🎬 Here’s a playful sketch to get the gears turning:

• Setting: Midnight Boston, 1977. Tom is a jaded grad student moonlighting as a jazz saxophonist. Jerry’s a streetwise mouse with a taste for cannoli and trouble. They chase each other through the T stations, dive bars, and record shops of Cambridge, dodging disco dancers and philosophy majors.

• Tone: Think Looney Tunes meets The Friends of Eddie Coyle—but with more kung pao chicken and less existential dread.

• Recurring Gags:

  • Tom tries to hail a cab but gets dragged into a Duck Boat tour.

  • Jerry hides inside a Fenway Frank cart and ends up on the Jumbotron.

  • A Harvard professor mistakes their chase for a metaphor and starts lecturing mid-brawl.

You could lean into the absurdity or lace it with melancholy—either way, it’s rich territory. Want help fleshing out scenes, characters, or even turning it into a short script or graphic concept? I’m all in.