The ancient Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu (孫子) in 500 BC offered the supreme war strategy that “ruling the crowd is like ruling the few by organizing into smaller units; fighting the crowd is like fighting the few by synchronizing into orderly steps.”
His idea of “separate and rule” and “divide and conquer” was also well recognized by the ancient civilizations in the West.
On the contrary, modern strategy to “build and unite,” which is the wisdom offered by the leadership from the US and the EU in the Russia and Ukraine war to unite the world’s democratic block and build the freedom fighters, exacts the mission of defeating the aggressor who has a combat advantage over the defender.
It is a matter of time for Ukraine to recover its territory and reclaim sovereignty over the Crimean Peninsula, as Russian President Vladimir Putin has apparently been cornered to place his nuclear arsenal on the table. Therefore, it is not too early to consider the end game for the Russian empire, as it is obvious that Putin has none.
The recent history of Russia and China has shown that they are less than a progressive force on Earth. Their rulers tend to be authoritative, narcissist, arrogant, egotistical, ignorant and cruel. People in both countries suffered periodically through enslavement, warfare and power struggles.
These two countries are too big to govern without the culture of institutional integrity, democracy and rule of law. Their history has been a tale of bifurcations: a unified country ruled by a tyrant, or a chaotic society mired by infighting. To help eradicate this unfortunate situation, the end game is clear: “divide and govern.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has been responsive to the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate emergency and social equality, and makes vital efforts to secure peace, sustainable development, human rights and humanitarian aid. His diplomatic effort with Turkish President Recep Erdogan to secure grain shipments from Ukraine shows that he has the leadership ready to implement the kind of end game in Ukraine’s war.
If Putin used biological, chemical or nuclear weapons, it would cause sudden death to the Russian war effort. The International Criminal Court should then punish the Russian leader as a war criminal for the brutal destruction of lives and livelihoods of Ukrainians. Also, the violation to world order and the destruction of the world economy should render Russia a punishment to fit its crime by dividing Russia into several autonomous states.
If Putin is taken out by the Russian people, then they should have a say on the future of their country, allowing minority groups to vote for independence and self-governance in northwestern, central and southern Russia, along with the Caucasus Mountain, the Volga River basin, the Ural Mountains, Siberia, the far east, Chechnya and others if they so wish.
The breakup of the Soviet Union created many new and vibrant democracies, including Ukraine, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and others. It clearly demonstrates that the breakup of Russia is the only step forward to make the world a better place.
In any case, the UN should be the legitimate authority to carry out the end game by first ejecting Russia from the UN Security Council, annihilating the threat of old Russian military might, and then dividing Russia into a few smaller countries where democracy and freedom can flourish, governments are well managed, and human rights and civility could be restored.
This end game of the Ukraine war should serve as a road map for the UN to punish any country in general, and China in particular, if they dare to commit crimes against humanity.
James J.Y. Hsu is a retired physics professor.
Because much of what former US president Donald Trump says is unhinged and histrionic, it is tempting to dismiss all of it as bunk. Yet the potential future president has a populist knack for sounding alarums that resonate with the zeitgeist — for example, with growing anxiety about World War III and nuclear Armageddon. “We’re a failing nation,” Trump ranted during his US presidential debate against US Vice President Kamala Harris in one particularly meandering answer (the one that also recycled urban myths about immigrants eating cats). “And what, what’s going on here, you’re going to end up in World War
On Tuesday, President William Lai (賴清德) met with a delegation from the Hoover Institution, a think tank based at Stanford University in California, to discuss strengthening US-Taiwan relations and enhancing peace and stability in the region. The delegation was led by James Ellis Jr, co-chair of the institution’s Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region project and former commander of the US Strategic Command. It also included former Australian minister for foreign affairs Marise Payne, influential US academics and other former policymakers. Think tank diplomacy is an important component of Taiwan’s efforts to maintain high-level dialogue with other nations with which it does
The arrest in France of Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov has brought into sharp focus one of the major conflicts of our age. On one hand, we want privacy in our digital lives, which is why we like the kind of end-to-end encryption Telegram promises. On the other, we want the government to be able to stamp out repugnant online activities — such as child pornography or terrorist plotting. The reality is that we cannot have our cake and eat it, too. Durov last month was charged with complicity in crimes taking place on the app, including distributing child pornography,
On Sept. 2, Elbridge Colby, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development, wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal called “The US and Taiwan Must Change Course” that defends his position that the US and Taiwan are not doing enough to deter the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from taking Taiwan. Colby is correct, of course: the US and Taiwan need to do a lot more or the PRC will invade Taiwan like Russia did against Ukraine. The US and Taiwan have failed to prepare properly to deter war. The blame must fall on politicians and policymakers