The problem is that the Russian leadership refuses to acknowledge that there is no point in hamstringing oneself in treaties with parties that refuse to act in good faith.
In my experience from interacting with Russian diplomats, academics, think tanks, and publicly financed media, the country practically believes that international agreements are sacrosanct, which is why it was such a shock that the West never took them seriously.
Even though Putin claims to have learned his lesson, I'm still worried that he might be "led by the nose" again as he once phrased it, and that's not even to mention how most of those on down might be even easier to mislead even to this day.
Right! I always say with respect to "international law" that everything is meaningless unless there are credible enforcement mechanisms and the political will to employ them, including unilaterally or in "coalitions of the willing" if there's UNSC deadlock. This thinking still seems to be taboo among Russian experts and policymakers.
You have to differentiate between international law prior to WW1 and since then. Before WW1 international law re military conflict was kind of duelling etiquette writ large. So it was kind of quite rational, and also quite circumscript.
After WW1, international law ventured onto territory it never tried to cover before, with the League of Nations. Forbidding wars and what not! A progressive, Kantian Utopia. There were never enforcement mechanisms that could contain greater powers, so that it was not really law but wishful thinking.
The same continued after WW2. It could only work if there was a unity of purpose between all 5 permanent members of the Security Council. Once that was gone, what was left was a utopia. Not the national laws that function and that we know from individual nations.
FYI - several days ago (7/3) I found an extraordinary podcast by the invaluable Mike Benz ("The Secret Backstory of Russia-gate Fraud") -- on the 25+ year origin of Russia-gate fraud and hatred of Putin to this day. I believe it is impossible to overstate the importance and brilliance of this episode – extension of now forbidden Alex Kreiner’s book “Grand Deception”.
The Secret Backstory Of "Russia-gate" Fever: How Putin's 2003 Arrest Of The Blob's Top Oligarch Asset Inside Russia Sparked The Foreign Policy Flame War Trump Inherited -- Mike Benz @MikeBenzCyber -- July 3, 2025
Ukraine was just a repeat, by same people, of what was happening in Russia before Putin stopped it.
Once again, it is simply not possible to overstate the importance of this timely analysis…
Another item -- Mike is pushing boundaries of video podcasting - by using novel and entertaining approach to a very complex subject and uses past and present since the repulsive players are still the same.
This is a very well-written piece on the challenges ahead for Arms Control. A multipolar world along with precision weapons technologies is going to make negotiating future frameworks even more complex. Here is a piece I wrote earlier on the challenges of arms control in a multipolar world even when it is more needed than before:
The refusal of the US to engage seriously with arms control initiatives like PAROS signals a worrying drift toward militarizing new domains, particularly space, which raises the stakes for proxy conflicts and great power competition. The
The problem is that the Russian leadership refuses to acknowledge that there is no point in hamstringing oneself in treaties with parties that refuse to act in good faith.
In my experience from interacting with Russian diplomats, academics, think tanks, and publicly financed media, the country practically believes that international agreements are sacrosanct, which is why it was such a shock that the West never took them seriously.
Even though Putin claims to have learned his lesson, I'm still worried that he might be "led by the nose" again as he once phrased it, and that's not even to mention how most of those on down might be even easier to mislead even to this day.
It continues to astound me that people who are supposedly so ruthless and power-seeking are in fact, so naive.
Law is meaningless. Enforcement is the only thing that matters.
Right! I always say with respect to "international law" that everything is meaningless unless there are credible enforcement mechanisms and the political will to employ them, including unilaterally or in "coalitions of the willing" if there's UNSC deadlock. This thinking still seems to be taboo among Russian experts and policymakers.
You have to differentiate between international law prior to WW1 and since then. Before WW1 international law re military conflict was kind of duelling etiquette writ large. So it was kind of quite rational, and also quite circumscript.
After WW1, international law ventured onto territory it never tried to cover before, with the League of Nations. Forbidding wars and what not! A progressive, Kantian Utopia. There were never enforcement mechanisms that could contain greater powers, so that it was not really law but wishful thinking.
The same continued after WW2. It could only work if there was a unity of purpose between all 5 permanent members of the Security Council. Once that was gone, what was left was a utopia. Not the national laws that function and that we know from individual nations.
FYI - several days ago (7/3) I found an extraordinary podcast by the invaluable Mike Benz ("The Secret Backstory of Russia-gate Fraud") -- on the 25+ year origin of Russia-gate fraud and hatred of Putin to this day. I believe it is impossible to overstate the importance and brilliance of this episode – extension of now forbidden Alex Kreiner’s book “Grand Deception”.
The Secret Backstory Of "Russia-gate" Fever: How Putin's 2003 Arrest Of The Blob's Top Oligarch Asset Inside Russia Sparked The Foreign Policy Flame War Trump Inherited -- Mike Benz @MikeBenzCyber -- July 3, 2025
https://x.com/MikeBenzCyber/status/1940703252062122326
Ukraine was just a repeat, by same people, of what was happening in Russia before Putin stopped it.
Once again, it is simply not possible to overstate the importance of this timely analysis…
Another item -- Mike is pushing boundaries of video podcasting - by using novel and entertaining approach to a very complex subject and uses past and present since the repulsive players are still the same.
This is a very well-written piece on the challenges ahead for Arms Control. A multipolar world along with precision weapons technologies is going to make negotiating future frameworks even more complex. Here is a piece I wrote earlier on the challenges of arms control in a multipolar world even when it is more needed than before:
https://open.substack.com/pub/chandragupta/p/arms-control-in-the-age-of-multipolarity?r=2rza6e&utm_medium=ios
The refusal of the US to engage seriously with arms control initiatives like PAROS signals a worrying drift toward militarizing new domains, particularly space, which raises the stakes for proxy conflicts and great power competition. The