MEMES OVER GENES

So here we go again. Another blatant violation of international law, unfolding in full view of the world – not only in the mainstream media, but streamed live to every cell phone on the planet. We can all see what's happening, up close and personal – the distress of the Ukrainian people, the terror of war, the incomprehension of citizens uprooted from comfortable, 21st century lives in a large, civilized European city, watching their world being blown apart around them. And yet the United Nations, charged above all with "maintaining peace and international security" seems not only powerless to do anything about it, but unable even to call the situation for what it is. For the time is long past for 'deploring'. People are dying now, and this is only the start of it. What Russia is doing, whatever the provocation, the grievance, the justification in the mind of Vladimir Putin, is clearly against everything that the United Nations stands for. No matter that Russia wo

Does anyone seriously think Vladimir Putin is going to back down just because we threaten him with more sanctions? Or supply a little more 'lethal aid' (in that weasel phrase) to Ukraine? Do we suppose that he hasn't anticipated all this, and already factored it into the equation? We're talking about a man who is playing chess, always working several moves ahead, and yet we seem to be playing checkers in response -- simply reacting to events as they happen.  Putin knows, for example, the extent of what we can do. And he also knows the extent of what we can't, or won't be willing to do. On top of that, he knows that what he can do by way of retaliation will be far worse: as well as vital supplies of gas and oil, Russia supplies significant percentages of key raw materials for the high-tech industries -- titanium, palladium and rare-earth minerals. Cutting off those would really hurt the economies of Europe and America. It would also cut off a huge source of Russi

U S Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is quite right to call on the UN to act over Ukraine. As he put it, "This is  the exact kind of crisis that the United Nations – and specifically this Security Council – was created to prevent." A fter all, the maintenance of international peace and security is the UN's primary purpose  –   as enshrined in Article 1 of its founding charter.  However, he is quite wrong if he expects the UN to be able to do anything about it.  That's because as currently constituted, the UN is not only dysfunctional, it is effectively non-functional.  Why? Because the discussions at the Security Council, the inner 'cabinet' of the UN where all the substantive decisions are taken, are subject to a veto. That's the dirty little secret at the heart of the matter.  It's not called a veto, of course  –   but that's what it is . The technical description  is "a failure to concur"  – and that means that if any one of the five

Are we trembling on the verge of war? Is President Putin, his army arrayed around the borders of Ukraine, about to invade? The West seems to think so. Though the diplomacy continues, the embassies are being emptied, and foreign nationals urged to leave the country. It all seems very ominous, and despite the best efforts of European leaders to find a compromise, we are being told there is a "whiff of Munich in the air." Now Vladimir Putin may not be a very nice man. The regime he presides over may be authoritarian and brutal. But he is not stupid, and he must be very well aware that invading Ukraine would not be a smart move. Though the superior firepower of the Russian army would undoubtedly allow him to take Kiev within days, his troubles would only just be starting. Even aside from the sanctions that the West would impose (limited in scope and effect though they would inevitably be), Russia would be drawn into a long and bloody guerrilla war with no end in sight, cement its