World News
February 19: An anti-interventionist coalition to March to White House from Lincoln Memorial

On February 19, Washington, DC, will witness a protest against the war in Ukraine that marks a sharp departure from past demonstrations. The lead demand is simple and direct, “Not One More Penny for war in Ukraine.”
It is a demand that emphasizes what we in the US can do to end the war, not what others can do. After all, the only government we have the power to influence is our own.
The potential power of this unique and promising movement arises from the nature of the sponsoring organizations – The Peoples Party, a progressive new Party, and the Libertarian Party. It is in fact what much of the press would term a “Right-Left Coalition”, spanning a spectrum broad enough to actually bring the proxy war in Ukraine to an end.
Fittingly, the organizers are calling the protest “Rage Against the War Machine.” With the war in Ukraine putting us the precipice of nuclear Armageddon, “rage” might be considered a mild reaction.
A New Right-Left Coalition to Oppose the War. The Peoples Party is probably the lesser known of the two sponsoring organizations, because it’s newer. Its founder and National Chair is Nick Brana, a lead organizer of the protest. Brana was National Coordinator of the Bernie Sanders 2016 campaign, but has turned his back on the Democrats in disgust over the failure progressive Democratic pols to fight for the promises they made.
The Libertarian Party is better known. It has been around longer and, though small, is the third largest political party in the US by voter registration. The present National Chair, Angela McCardle, is the other lead organizer of the DC protest. In American political life, probably, the best known representative of libertarian values, most notably a principled anti-interventionist stance in foreign policy, is Ron Paul.
A call for ending US support for the proxy war in Ukraine is realistic; a substantial and growing segment of the American people support this demand.
The lead demand “Not one more penny for war in Ukraine” is finding ever more support among Americans. A survey in November by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs showed that 35% of Americans oppose sending more arms to Ukraine and 34% oppose sending more economic aid. When it comes to sending US troops, 68% are opposed!
These numbers in grew from the previous survey in July 2022, revealing a growing anti-interventionist sentiment. While this is not a majority, over one third of the populace is a base substantial enough to build an antiwar majority. Only 16% more needs to be won over to reach a majority. The number one demand of the February demonstration is not utopian – it is realistic!
The Demands of the Demonstration:
– Not one more penny for war in Ukraine.
The Democrats and Republicans have armed Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars in weapons and military aid. The war has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions, and is pushing us toward a nuclear WW3. Stop funding the war.
– Negotiate Peace.
The US government instigated the war in Ukraine with a coup of its democratically elected government in 2014, and then sabotaged a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine in March. Pursue an immediate ceasefire and diplomacy to end the war.
– Stop the war inflation.
The war is accelerating inflation and increasing food, gas and energy prices. The US blew up Russian gas pipelines to Europe, starving them of energy and deindustrializing their countries. End the war and stop increasing prices.
– Disband NATO.
NATO expansion to Russia’s border provoked the war in Ukraine. NATO is a warmongering relic of the Cold War. Disband it like the Warsaw Pact.
The demonstration will gather at Washington DC on February 19at the Lincoln Memorial and then march to the White House.
Time is running out as the threat of nuclear war grows with each day and each new escalation in Ukraine. A broad coalition can end it.
ENOUGH OF THE FOREVER WARS!
World News
Foreign Affairs: What sanctions on Russia can and cannot achieve

“U.S. policymakers began planning major sanctions on Russia in late 2021” (before the beginning of Ukrainian conflict!), recognizes ‘Foreign Affairs’.
Over the past decade, economic sanctions emerged as Washington’s preferred policy tool to deal with a range of concerns, from adversarial governments in Iran and Venezuela to international drug trafficking. Sanctions became popular because officials saw them as a low-cost tool that could hurt the United States’ foes, writes ‘Foreign Affairs’.
The United States and its allies slammed Russia with a raft of sanctions and other economic restrictions. But a year later, the effectiveness of these measures offers important lessons on their limits. Sanctions and export controls have been useful in undermining Russia’s financial resources and industrial base, but they have done little to change the Kremlin’s strategic calculus.
As Western policymakers dig in for both a protracted conflict with Russia and an era of geopolitical great-power competition with China, they should recognize that sanctions can do real damage to their targets but rarely succeed in making those targets change course.
U.S. policymakers began planning major sanctions on Russia in late 2021 (before the beginning of Ukrainian conflict!), as U.S. President Joe Biden grew concerned about the prospect of a wide-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Sanctions initially rattled markets, with the ruble plunging and Russia forced to double domestic interest rates to stem capital flight. Export controls had a compounding effect on Russian military-industrial production over the course of last year.
But by late 2022, it was increasingly apparent that Russia had weathered the initial economic storm better than many Western officials and experts had expected: Russia’s economy contracted by more than two percent in 2022, a sharp reversal from the five percent growth in 2021, but a dip not nearly as severe as some initial estimates of a ten percent or greater decline in GDP.
Russia’s economy proved resilient.
In the years leading up to the war, Russia had worked to insulate itself from Western sanctions. Moscow withdrew its reserves from the U.S. financial system in 2018 and bolstered holdings of gold. It built domestic interbank transfer and payment mechanisms that proved successful at handling domestic payments and those between Russia and its allies. Russia deepened diplomatic relations with China, India, and countries in the Middle East, providing new outlets after trade with the West collapsed.
And once sanctions were imposed, Russia adopted macroeconomic policies, such as capital controls and bailouts to firms hit by sanctions, to blunt the shock.
Yet policymakers should recognize that sanctions and export controls are not going to affect Putin’s strategic calculus, which will be shaped much more heavily by events on the battlefield.
The primary lesson of Western sanctions on Russia is one that sanctions experts and practitioners have long noted: officials should not rely too much on such measures, stresses Foreign Affairs.
World News
Elsie Initiative Fund: call for proposals to continue investing in women’s meaningful participation in peacekeeping

At an event that brought together more than 350 representatives from Member States, UN organizations, academia and civil society, the Elsie Initiative Fund (EIF) launched a third call for funding proposals to support the meaningful participation of uniformed women in UN peace operations.
“A more gender-responsive mission builds trust with the communities they serve and improves its effectiveness,” said UN Women’s Executive Director Sima Bahous while opening the event. Further, she highlighted the vital role women play in today’s multidimensional peacekeeping missions and stressed the need to ensure women’s equal participation. UN Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix called on Member States to continue promoting women’s meaningful participation in peacekeeping. “Our gender parity efforts are also a matter of justice – there should be no limitation on the grounds of gender to what women can achieve, in all roles and at all levels,”he stressed in his opening remarks.
Since its creation in 2019, the EIF has awarded over USD $17 million in grants to 20 projects. Among the recipients, the Ghanaian Armed Forces and the Senegalese Police and Gendarmerie have deployed four gender-strong units comprising of 1,277 personnel with 18 per cent women across all ranks. 14 EIF-supported security institutions have surveyed 3,689 personnel to examine barriers limiting women’s participation and committed to implementing evidence-based solutions to address identified barriers.
Meanwhile, the Togolese Armed Forces and the Senegalese Police raised awareness among 5,000 people on challenging gender stereotypes and encouraging women to join security institutions as part of large-scale recruitment campaigns. Five EIF-funded projects are creating inclusive environments for women, including through the construction of gender-sensitive accommodation and facilities in Jordan, Senegal, and Togo and improving deployment conditions for their uniformed women peacekeepers deployed to UN peace operations in Mali and Lebanon.
Commending the impact of the EIF, British Minister of State Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon announced an additional contribution of £1 million (USD $1.23 million) to the EIF. “It is wonderful to see how projects supported by the EIF are already tackling obstacles to participation. More investment will mean the Fund can scale up that impact and make gender parity a future reality,” he said at the event. The Republic of Korea also announced an additional contribution of USD $500,000. Meanwhile, Canada’s Ambassador for Women, Peace and Security Jacqueline O’Neill announced that the EIF’s lifespan has been extended to 31 December 2025 as “Canada is committed to continuing to support the EIF.”
Representatives of the Ghanaian and the Uruguayan Armed Forces also spoke at the event about innovative practices developed with EIF funding, including piloting gender – and family – friendly policies and providing cross – training to prepare military women for all roles and functions.
Through this third programming round, the Elsie Initiative Fund can accept Letters of Interest from current and potential Troop and Police Contributing Countries and as UN organizations. Three funding modalities are available: (1) barrier assessment (2) flexible project funding and (3) gender-strong unit premium. For more information on applying to the EIF, visit elsiefund.org/call-for-proposals to download the Letter of Interest Form and supporting resources.
World News
What Beijing’s Iran-Saudi deal means

The agreement to reestablish diplomatic relations between Tehran and Riyadh was no “peace deal,” but the rivals did decide to cool tensions and reopen embassies after a seven-year lapse. China’s role in facilitating the deal raised the most consternation in Washington, leading some to declare that “a new era of geopolitics” had begun and assert that the agreement topped “anything the U.S. has been able to achieve in the region since Biden came to office,” writes Grant Rumley, a Goldberger Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Reports on the new agreement suggest that both sides were readily able to reach consensus on important issues, at least on paper. Riyadh apparently agreed to soften coverage on Iran International, the London-based media outlet funded by Saudis, which Tehran has depicted as the leading anti-regime instigator throughout the recent protest movement. In return, Iran reportedly agreed to encourage its Houthi allies in Yemen to maintain the current year-long truce. Since that war began in 2015, Saudi Arabia has spent millions of dollars defending its territory against Houthi missile and drone attacks, which have often targeted major civilian sites. In short, Riyadh and Tehran already had strong incentives to take at least a few initial diplomatic steps to bolster their internal stability.
According to the trilateral statement issued on March 10, Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to “resume diplomatic relations” and reopen their embassies within two months. They also affirmed their “respect for the sovereignty of states and…non-interference in internal affairs,” as well as their intention to implement their 2001 security cooperation agreement and their 1998 deal covering economic, cultural, and scientific cooperation.
Yet the 2001 security cooperation agreement includes generic language encouraging information sharing and joint training to counter organized crime, terrorism, and drug trafficking, it does not provide a specific path toward initiating such cooperation. Moreover, the trilateral statement makes painstakingly clear that China’s role was “hosting and sponsoring talks,” and it may host another regional summit later this year.
Washington should therefore be clear-eyed about what Beijing’s mediation means — and what it doesn’t.
China’s investment in the Middle East will likely continue growing; after all, it is the region’s dominant economic force and has long sought to match its diplomatic standing with its sizable economic footprint.
Until now, its diplomatic reputation in the region has not been challenged by realities on the ground. Getting Iran and Saudi Arabia to publicly agree on a de-escalation accord is a win to be sure.
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