Last year, Tucker Carlson scandalised America by travelling to Russia and interviewing Vladimir Putin. As US viewers denounced the idea that one ought to speak to an enemy such as Putin, Tucker strolled around Moscow, filming himself taking the subway, buying a burger from the new Russian McDonalds, and going grocery shopping in a Moscow supermarket. Behaving, in fact, like he was in the West.

Back home, Tucker had some good things to say about Putin, as well as some bad things. But it was the streets and shops of Moscow that really “radicalised” him. The West likes to paint Russia as poor, miserable and oppressed, but Tucker described a perfectly ordinary modern society. The discrepancy between what Tucker had been taught to expect and what he actually saw in Russia didn’t just unnerve him — it made him angry.

Of course, one might point out that Moscow and St Petersburg are Potemkin villages of sorts, covering up the reality of deep poverty in much of the rest of the country. But none of this is ultimately a matter of facts. The conflict between the West and Russia today is now seen as ideological and existential, just as the conflict between communism and capitalism once was. To say something nice about the Russian enemy is to take his side; to say something nice about him that also happens to be true is seen as even more treasonous. 

https://unherd.com/2024/10/would-you-move-to-mother-russia/

The Oxford English Dictionary records the phrase "soft power" (meaning "power (of a nation, state, alliance, etc.) deriving from economic and cultural influence, rather than coercion or military strength") from 1985.[4] Joseph Nye popularized the concept of "soft power" in the late 1980s.  For Nye, power is the ability to influence the behavior of others to get the outcomes you want. There are several ways one can achieve this: one can coerce others with threats; one can induce them with payments; or one can attract and co-opt them to want what one wants. This soft power – getting others to want the outcomes one wants – co-opts people rather than coerces them.

Soft power contrasts with "hard power" - the use of coercion and payment. 

North Korea's constitution now defines the South as a "hostile state", according to state media, in the first mention of what Pyongyang's recent constitutional revisions entailed.

State newspaper Rodong Sinmun reported the change as an "inevitable and legitimate measure", at a time when tensions between the Koreas are at their highest point in years.

The North on Tuesday blew up roads and railways connecting it to South Korea - a move which state media described as "part of the step-by-step implementation to thoroughly separate [the Koreas]".

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Early Tuesday morning, the U.S. Senate approved $60 billion in additional aid for Ukraine in a vote of 70-29. All but three of the no votes were from Republicans, including Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who on Wednesday voiced his continued opposition to sending any more aid to Ukraine.

“I was totally against this Ukraine funding that we voted on, we stayed up all night the other night and voted like 5:30 a.m. in the morning,” Tuberville said, speaking at a Montgomery Chamber of Commerce event. 

“Why was I against that? First of all, I’m not voting for a dime to Ukraine, I see what’s happening: it’s like a junior high playing an NFL team in football. They can’t win.”

In Germany, the word "Putinversteher" (female form "Putinversteherin") is a neologism and a political buzzword (Putin + verstehen), which literally translates "Putin understander", i.e., "one who understands Putin". It is a pejorative reference to politicians and pundits who express empathy to Putin and may also be translated as "Putin-empathizer." Putin-Versteher was among frequent suggestions for the Un-word of the year 2014, but the panel of linguists favored the word Lügenpresse ("lying press"). Among the runners-up was a similar term, "Russland-Versteher" (Russia-Understander). Although the word was used in English media as early as 2014, it became an international term in the wake of the 2022 Russian invasion.

The venomous German term is a cover-up for those who denounce everyone who takes pains trying to understand Putin because there is allegedly nothing to understand about him: his guilt must be taken for granted. Whoever refuses to back up this narrative is considered to have committed a crime against humanity, punishable by up to three years in prison.

Western “democratic“ discourse knows how to defend itself  [Baud, 2022: 260]

There will be those on the more cautious end of the spectrum who will argue that Ukraine has already made its point, that Putin’s war of choice must now bring some pain to Russians.

That despite recent setbacks on the battlefield in the Donbas region, Ukraine has shown itself capable of mounting a sophisticated, combined arms assault using all the elements of modern warfare.

In other words, withdraw now with honour, having given the Kremlin a bloody nose, before Russia brings in enough forces to kill or capture the invading Ukrainians.

The hardline nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) political party Ms Farion was a member of blamed Russia directly for the killing.

"Moscow shoots in the temple for the Ukrainian language," it said in a statement.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp387p1zrgpo

According to Semonides of Amorgos, a male poet working in Greece in the 7th Century BC, there are 10 main kinds of women. There are women who are like pigs, because they prefer eating to cleaning; women who resemble foxes, as they are peculiarly observant; donkey-women, who are sexually promiscuous; dog-women, marked for their disobedience. There are stormy sea-women, greedy Earth-women, thieving weasel-women, lazy horse-women, unattractive ape-women, and – the one good kind – hard-working bee-women.

Ancient Greeks distinguished between three different types of friendships between two polities: Philiai, symmachia, and epimachia. Both symmachia and epimachia were types of alliances, with the former committing States to support each other in battle and the latter requiring parties to assist each other if one suffered an invasion. Philiai, then, made the important distinction of denoting friendship between polities but did not give the treaty partners the status of allies. Romans had a similar word amicitia, which was a state of diplomatic relations which could coexist with an alliance, or exist without it. The Romans employed a practice of establishing peace and friendship with polities on its peripheries, though in practice these relationships were usually built on unequal treaties, requiring the neighbour to support Rome militarily, though not necessarily the reverse.[

Ukraine’s Vain Search for Wonder Weapons

Recognizing that Ukraine might not win its war with Russia is the first step to formulating a better approach for America.

AUGUST 24, 2023

By Doug Bandow

"The war is destroying Ukraine. The war’s cost climbs daily, the economy is a wreck, the population has been depleted by mass refugee flows, the government survives only on Western handouts, the military has consumed much of its original Soviet-era arsenal, as well as the technological menagerie gifted by the allies, and the army has promiscuously sacrificed manpower both trained and raw. Finding replacements is becoming difficult, with a declining population, corrupt recruiting officers, and determined draft evaders. For all the wishful Western talk of a Russian collapse, given Moscow’s evident manifold challenges, catastrophic failure seems more likely in Kiev. Washington’s objective increasingly looks focused on doing ill to Russia rather than good to Ukraine."

Foreign-Policy Folly: The War in Ukraine According to One “American Conservative”

By J. Daryl Charles on June 19, 2023

"Present-day Ukraine has been shaped by American ideals – for example, the movement toward democracy, civil society, religious liberty, entrepreneurship, and the rule of law. And indeed it was an indication of this general movement, fueled by Putin’s paranoia over NATO, that caused the Russian dictator to invade and annex in 2014."