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Weaken, but don’t ruin, Russia

While in Poland after his trip to Kyiv, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin stated that the West seeks for Russia to emerge from its war against Ukraine severely weakened, if not debilitated. The purpose is to ensure that Russia will not have the capacity to attempt another attack in the same place or elsewhere in the future. This is the right intent and would be a desirable outcome in the near term — as long as we don’t overdo it.

Helping Ukraine withstand Russia’s aggression and survive as a nation must be our goal. As such, the current policy of arms shipments, intelligence and other indirect support, and powerful economic sanctions makes sense. But the permanent weakening of Russia should not be our long-term objective, and we should take care not to create conditions that produce that outcome.  Leave aside the humanitarian implications for the Russian people. Such a policy would be dangerous.

No historical analogy can ever be a perfect guide to future policy. But the lessons of the Treaty of Versailles, negotiated in 1919 after World War I, are instructive here.

Versailles’ harsh terms set the stage for the collapse of the Weimar Republic in Germany, the rise of Adolf Hitler, and World War II. Convinced of the righteousness of their cause and the guilt of Germany for beginning World War I, Britain and France showed up loaded for bear. Paris and London put the full blame on Berlin and chose to make it pay through the nose. The reparation payments the treaty demanded of Germany were severe, amounting to several percent of the country’s GDP for many years. This deepened the suffering of its population during the Great Depression of the late 1920s and early 1930s. 

So, too, was the German military subject to embarrassing restrictions, with limits placed on its size and constraints placed on the location of its forces — within its own borders. The accumulation of economic hardship and national humiliation left the German population embittered, and ultimately too angry to accept its fate quietly. The second world war thus, in effect, was the continuation of the first, with a 20-year gap in between. The same kind of thing could happen now, though with Russian President Vladimir Putin already in power, the gap between crises could be much shorter.

Whatever strategic mistakes the West may have made in seeking to expand NATO after the Cold War do not absolve Putin of the moral responsibility for this war. But the analogy with Versailles is still apt, not least because the Russian people seem to feel differently — at least so far. Polling done in April by an independent organization indicated that a majority of Russians believed Putin’s characterization of the war as a “special military operation,” and that they supported it. If the Russian economy winds up flat on its back for years to come, and Putin and his state media machine continue to encourage the Russian people to blame the West for unfair punishment, stoke resentment, and energize identity-based imperialist narratives, the seeds may be sown for another future war.

It makes sense to keep restrictions on high-technology trade and investment with Russia even after a ceasefire or peace deal is eventually struck, but it is important that those are targeted to limit Russia’s ability to compete with us militarily and not just for purposes of prolonging national punishment. And we’ll need to work for a peace treaty that allows Russia to regain access to the western banking system and to resume whatever fraction of its oil and gas exports it can restore once the fighting ends.

The West also should consider carefully the costs and benefits of permanently reinforcing NATO’s eastern flank, and of adding Sweden and Finland to the alliance. This is not to say that worrying about Putin’s perceptions of encirclement should drive our strategy, but it would be forgetful of history and short-sighted to pretend that the Russian population will be insensitive to those changes. Of course, for any peace to be possible, Russia must minimize whatever territorial ambitions it may have in this conflict and accept that Ukraine will reconstitute and reinforce its military after hostilities end, provided that it does not seek NATO membership. 

By clarifying our thinking now about what kind of post-war Europe we seek, we can reduce the risk of reliving the mistakes of Versailles — and perhaps accelerate negotiations to end this senseless violence. No one is in a mood now to be kind to Russia, but an overly harsh peace deal that leaves Russia ruined would not serve our own long-term interests.

Michael O’Hanlon is the Philip H. Knight Chair in Defense and Strategy at the Brookings Institution, and author of several books, including “The Art of War in an Age of Peace: U.S. Grand Strategy and Resolute Restraint” and “Defense 101: Understanding the Military of Today and Tomorrow.” Follow him on Twitter @MichaelEOHanlon.

Melanie W. Sisson is a fellow in the Foreign Policy program’s Center for Security, Strategy and Technology at the Brookings Institution, where she researches the use of the armed forces in international politics, U.S. national security strategy and military applications of emerging technologies. Follow her on Twitter @MWSBrookingsFP.

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High gas prices not impacting most workers’ decision to return to office

Rising gas prices are not playing a major role in American’s decision to either return to the office or work from home, data show.  

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, gas and oil prices across the U.S. have gone up and are continuing to rise with the average price of a gallon of gas landing at $4.52, according to AAA.  

While some feared that rising gas prices would deter workers from returning to offices, data from Kastle Systems, a real estate security provider that has tracked office occupancy since the COVID-19 pandemic began, says otherwise.  

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In April, 60 percent of 725 respondents to a Kastle survey said they do not think that high gas prices are impacting their decision to return to the office.  

Instead, workers reported being swayed by the flexibility and better work-life balance made possible with remote work.  

“I think it’s pretty clear that it’s no longer about health and safety. It’s about something else,” said Kastle Systems Chairman Mark Ein. “It’s workers wanting some flexibility in how they work.”  

Kastle, one of the country’s largest security firms, has been recording its office occupancy levels since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The security firm provides weekly updates on the occupancy rates in the 10 cities with the largest Kastle presence: Washington D.C., New York City, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, San Jose and Austin.  

While more Americans have returned to offices for at least part of the week —Kastle data show that the most popular day to go into the office among workers is Wednesday—office occupancy rates remain well below pre-pandemic levels.  

And it’s not likely that will change much soon, according to the Kastle survey. Fifty-seven percent of respondents did not see their decision to work from home or the office changing in the next three months.  

Since March, the average occupancy rate for Kastle offices in those 10 cities has hovered at around 43 percent of their pre-pandemic occupancy level, data show. And as of the week of May 11, the cities of Austin, TX and Houston boast the two highest Kastle office occupancy rates out of those 10 cities, at 59.5 percent and 56.7 percent of their pre-pandemic rates, respectively.  

Meanwhile, San Fracisco has the lowest office occupancy rate at around 34 percent its pre-pandemic level, according to Kastle data. And while  

“It’s going to take a very long time to get anywhere near where we were before COVID and probably never will have the exact same amount of Office utilization as before,” Ein added.  

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US women's soccer player on pay equity agreement: 'I am feeling extreme pride'

U.S. women’s soccer player Becky Sauerbrunn said early Wednesday said that she feels “extreme pride” after the U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) reached a milestone pay equity agreement with the men’s and women’s soccer teams. 

“I am feeling extreme pride. And to be able to say finally, equal pay for equal work feels very, very good,” Sauerbrun, the United States Women’s National Team Players Association president, told NBC’s “Today” show.

Sauerbrun, who plays professionally for the NWSL’s Portland Thorns FC, also said that the new pay equity agreement is long overdue. 

“It’s tough to get so, so excited about something that we really should have had all along,” Sauerbrunn said. 

In a statement on Wednesday, the USSF said it had reached two new collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) with the men’s and women’s national team unions, meaning that both teams will receive identical compensation for all competitions and have the same commercial revenue-sharing mechanism.

USSF will also become the first soccer federation to equalize FIFA World Cup prize money awarded to both U.S. national teams for their participation in the global soccer tournament, and the new CBAs will address non-economic terms such as player health and safety. 

U.S. Soccer President Cindy Parlow Cone told “Today” that the men’s players union should be credited for its involvement in reaching this landmark pay equity agreement. 

“And I think we need to give the men a lot of credit,” she said. “They came to the table and were very collaborative and worked together with the women’s team first and then came together with U.S. Soccer,” Cone said. 

“I think this is going to have international ramifications in sport in general and hopefully into the business world, as well,” Cone added.

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Musk says he'll be voting for GOP; says Twitter has 'very far-left bias'

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in a podcast episode on Monday that he would be voting for Republicans in the upcoming November midterm elections after “overwhelmingly” voting for Democrats in the past.

“You know, the reality is that Twitter at this point, you know, has a very far-left bias, and I would classify myself as a moderate, neither a Republican nor Democrat,” Musk said on the “All-In” podcast published Monday during a tech conference in Miami.

“And in fact, I have voted overwhelmingly for Democrats, historically, overwhelmingly. Like, I’m not sure — I might never have voted for a Republican just to be clear.  Now this election I will.”

Later on the podcast, Musk claimed that the Democratic Party was “overly controlled” by labor unions and said President Biden is “too much captured by the unions.”

“The issue here is that  … the Democratic Party is overly, overly controlled by the unions and by the trial lawyers, particularly the class action lawyers. And generally  if you’ll see something that doesn’t, that is not in the interest of the people on the Democrat side it’s going to come because of the unions,” Musk said.

“And then to be fair, on the Republican side, there’s this if you say like, ‘Where does something like not ideal happening?’ It’s because of corporate evil and religious zealotry. But that’s generally where the bad things will be coming from on the Republican side that are not representative of the people,” he added.

Business Insider was the first to report on Musk’s remarks.

Following Musk’s deal to acquire Twitter late last month, conservatives cheered the sale, with many seeing him as a supporter of free speech. 

The Tesla CEO, however, said last week that the acquisition was paused “pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users.”

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Cawthorn calls for NC Republicans to rally behind GOP ticket in November after primary loss

Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) called for Republicans in his district to “rally behind the Republican ticket” in November after he lost the GOP primary for his seat on Tuesday. 

“Congratulations to @ChuckEdwards4NC on securing the nomination tonight,” Cawthorn tweeted late Tuesday.

“It’s time for the NC-11 GOP to rally behind the Republican ticket to defeat the Democrats’ nominee this November,” he added.

The first-term congressman lost the Republican primary for his seat to Edwards, despite having the backing of former President Trump, who earlier this week urged North Carolina voters to give Cawthorn a “second chance.”

“When Madison was first elected to Congress, he did a great job,” Trump said in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social. “Recently, he made some foolish mistakes, which I don’t believe he’ll make again…let’s give Madison a second chance!”

In recent months, Cawthorn found himself caught among a slew of controversies, including remarks he made calling the Ukrainian government “evil” and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a “thug.” 

In a podcast episode, he also claimed he had been invited to orgies in Washington and had seen people do cocaine.

And when a leaked video tape came to light earlier this month showing the congressman nude, he called it “blackmail.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has called Cawthorn “wrong” about his remarks on Zelensky and said “that’s not becoming of a congressman” following Cawthorn’s podcast appearance.

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Clarence Thomas is right about declining respect for the Supreme Court — but wrong about its cause

Justice Clarence Thomas is seriously worried about the future of the Supreme Court, and not without reason. Public confidence in the court has plummeted, standing, according to one recent poll, at only around 40 percent. But Thomas is wrong about the cause for the decline. He thinks the problem is behavioral, when it is really institutional.

Thomas’s deep concern was triggered by the recent leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which appears poised to reverse Roe v. Wade. While millions of Americans were appalled at the prospect of losing a constitutional right to abortion, Thomas was mostly troubled by bad manners.

Speaking at a conference sponsored by three conservative think tanks, Thomas blamed the leak on either a clerk or fellow justice. In the old days, he said, nobody would have leaked a single line of an opinion, let alone an entire draft. There was “belief in the court” that made confidentiality sacrosanct. Now, alas, the court has experienced a sort of “infidelity.” You “begin to look over your shoulder,” he explained, which risks “destroying the institutions that are required for a free society.”

Thomas had equally harsh words for the abortion-rights demonstrators who loudly picketed the homes of Justices Alito and Brett Kavanaugh. Conservatives “would never visit Supreme Court justices’ houses when things didn’t go our way,” he said. “We didn’t throw temper tantrums.”

Almost nobody is in favor of disclosing confidences or disturbing the peace in residential neighborhoods, but those phenomena are at best symptoms of declining respect for the Supreme Court. The root causes are more profound, some of which can be traced to the justices’ open disregard for the ethical norms applicable to every other American judge.

As is now well known, the Supreme Court is the only court in the U.S. without a written code of ethics. All other American judges, both state and federal, are accountable for their conduct according to express rules, while the nine Supreme Court justices continue to insist, under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts, that they have no reason to adopt a “definitive source of ethical guidance” because they all “follow high ethical standards.”

That assurance has worn thin. The nonpartisan organization Fix the Court has identified more than 50 likely ethical lapses since 2014 by current or former Supreme Court justices, both liberals and conservatives, such as speaking at apparently political or fund raising events, failing to disclose gifts and income, commenting publicly on pending legal or political issues, participating in cases where they or family members held financial or other interests and otherwise failing to recuse in circumstances where their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” (Disclosure: Earlier this year I signed an open letter to Chief Justice Roberts, circulated by Fix the Court, urging the adoption of a Supreme Court code of conduct).

In all but a handful of these instances, the justices declined to acknowledge questions from members of Congress or the press, much less clarify or defend their conduct. Is it any wonder that respect for the court has faltered when the justices have collectively acted as though they do not owe the public so much as an explanation for their questionable actions?

Congressional attempts to remedy the crisis of confidence have lately broken down on political lines. Democrats have proposed reform legislation to address pressing institutional issues, with little or no support from Republicans.

Just last week, the House Judiciary Committee passed the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act (SCERTA), which would enact the most comprehensive ethics reforms in many decades. The 22-16 vote was along strict party lines, with every Democrat voting in favor of the legislation and every Republican voting against it.

The major provisions of SCERTA would require the Supreme Court to promulgate its own code of conduct, leaving the specific provisions of the code up to the justices themselves; establish enhanced disclosure requirements for gifts and income; submit recusal motions to the full court, rather than only to the justice in question, and provide written explanations for all recusal decisions, both grants and denials.

None of these provisions should be controversial; they would apply equally to Republican and Democratic appointees. The Republican resistance is therefore somewhat baffling. As recently as 2018, Republicans in both the House and Senate supported the ROOM Act, which provided some of the very reforms – such as a code of conduct and explanation of recusal decisions – now included under SCERTA.

Perhaps congressional Republicans believe they must defend the court’s 6-3 conservative majority at every turn, but that is a mistake. Waning public confidence hurts the majority most of all, as it is their decisions that must meet the test of widespread acceptance.

Meanwhile, Thomas pines for the days before the leaked Alito opinion, when the justices got along without suspicion. “I mean, you trusted each other. You laughed together. You went to lunch together every day.” To Thomas, that was “a fabulous court. It was one you looked forward to being a part of.”

He is oblivious to the true nature of the court’s legitimacy problem, which has almost nothing to do with its internal dynamics (about which nobody else much cares, other than wannabe insiders) and far more to do with its haughty attitude toward public transparency.

Steven Lubet is the Williams Memorial Professor at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. His most recent book is “The Trials of Rasmea Odeh: How a Palestinian Guerrilla Gained and Lost U.S. Citizenship.”

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One-third of Americans new survey say pandemic is over

Nearly one in three Americans questioned in a new survey said that the COVID-19 pandemic is over, with many stating their top concern now is spreading the virus to people who are at higher risk of serious illness.

In the Axios/Ipsos poll, 31 percent of respondents said that the pandemic is over and 69 percent disagreed.

Perception of the pandemic varied across party lines, with 59 percent of Republicans, 27 percent of independents and 10 percent of Democrats surveyed saying the pandemic is over.

Additionally, 32 percent of respondents said their top current concern with the virus is spreading it to people who are at higher risk of serious illness, which was consistent, regardless of party affiliation.

Among those who were unvaccinated, 31 percent said their top concern is dealing with restrictions in their daily life.

Overall, 74 percent say that the pandemic is still a problem, but manageable, while 14 percent describe it as a serious problem.

As views on the pandemic begin to soften, the poll also found that people have resumed activities outside the home, with 65 percent saying they are dining out, 69 percent visiting loved ones and 61 percent going shopping. The percentages of Americans who report participating in these activities has remained unchanged since April.

The poll was conducted from May 13 to May 16 among 982 adults. It has a margin of error of 3 to 3.5 percentage points.

On Monday, the U.S. reached 1 million reported deaths from COVID-19 and has more deaths per capita than Western Europe or Canada.

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McCrory mum on endorsing Budd in North Carolina

Former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R), who lost Tuesday’s GOP Senate primary in the state, would not say whether he would be endorsing his rival and the winner, Rep. Ted Budd (R).

“What I need to do is get assurances from the current leaders in my state party that I haven’t been canceled because for the past 13 months, I’ve been told I’m a ‘Republican in name only.’ Well, I need them to correct that,” McCrory told Kristen Welker and Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press: Election Night Special” on NBC News Now late Tuesday.

“Now maybe they didn’t mean it and said it just to win the primary or if they meant it, I gotta do some reevaluation because they not only said I was a ‘Republican in name only,’ they said I wasn’t a conservative and I consider myself a pretty conservative guy.”

McCrory also said that Republicans still have to appeal to “the Ronald Reagan conservative,” a term he used to describe himself, in order for his party to win the Senate seat in the November midterms. 

“You know, you can run negative ads or inaccurate and false ads against me but to do kind of a McCarthyism within our party saying some people belong and other people don’t belong, man we better correct that or we’re not going to win the US Senate or the White House in ’24,” he added.

McCrory lost to Budd, who was backed by former President Trump, for one of the state’s Senate seats. During the lead-up to the primary, Trump and the conservative Club for Growth, which both endorsed Budd, labeled McCrory a “RINO” — an acronym for “Republicans in name only.”

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The pandemic changed the plans of many 2022 high school graduates

High school graduation ceremonies have begun and every speaker is certain to remind the class of 2022 how unique their experience has been. They had the heartbreaking and unprecedented experience of spending more than half their high school time under the cloud of COVID-19, much of that time not in school.

How has that pandemic experience affected their plans for the future? Are these students different from the class of 2019, the last to graduate before the pandemic? What racial, ethnic, gender and other differences might there be between graduates?

To get answers to these questions, YouthTruth, a national nonprofit, conducted an online survey of 28,240 high school seniors in English and Spanish. It included 271 urban, suburban and rural schools in 119 school systems across two time periods, 2021-2022 and 2018-2019. The survey incorporated an open-ended question to which 11,294 students responded: “Is there anything that you think your school should know about how this change has been for you or that your school can do to help you during this period of change?”

Here are five insights from the survey:

First, nearly 1 in 3 seniors, or 28 percent, from the 2022 class changed their post-high school plans since the pandemic began, up from 18 percent in a previous survey in spring 2020. As a 12th-grade Hispanic girl wrote, “Before the pandemic I was very excited to go to college and have a full on career. Now I don’t know what to do with my life. It scares me.”  

High schoolers who are English language learners, members of the LGBTQ+ community, persons of color, and Hispanic students were more likely to change their plans than their peer groups.

Second, 3 out of 4, or 74 percent, of the 2022 seniors report that they want to go to college, though they’re now facing new challenges. A 12th-grade white girl wrote, “Basically, COVID has just ruined my whole life plans. Now, I won’t be able to go to college or get that job because I don’t want to be vaccinated.”

Here, too, there are significant differences across student groups. Additionally, high school seniors who are Hispanic, Black, and boys are less likely to want to go to college than those who were seniors in 2019.

Third, almost half of 2022 high school seniors, or 47 percent, expect to attend a four-year college, with smaller percentages of students who are not white, don’t speak English, are boys, and qualify for free and reduced lunch expecting to do so.

There are also fewer seniors considering two-year degree programs than in 2019, decreasing from 25 percent to 19 percent, though for some minority and disadvantaged groups a higher percentage of this year’s seniors report they plan to attend two-year colleges.

Fourth, fewer 2022 seniors say they participated in career counseling and college financial counseling than in 2019, with significant drops for those who are Hispanic, multi-racial, boys, and in rural schools. Overall, less than half (43 percent) feel positive about their college and career readiness. As one 12th-grader wrote, “As a senior I feel like I have not gotten the preparation I need for after I graduate.”

The good news is those who did receive counseling gave that service what the report calls “a helpfulness rating” of nearly 4 out of 5.

Fifth, this analysis looks at only those seniors who are still attending school and doesn’t include those who dropped out of high school. Of those still in school who say they are on track to graduate, nearly 2 in 10 (18 percent) say they seriously considered dropping out of high school. A higher percentage of some groups, especially LGBTQ+ youth, considered dropping out as compared to their peers.

The unique experience of the pandemic has affected what 2022 high school graduates think about their future — almost 1 in 3 changed their post-high school plans. Across a variety of issues, certain groups of students are faring worse than others.

All this makes it critical that, during this high school graduation season and going forward, adults listen with special care to the voices and experiences of this pandemic graduating class as they map their pathways into adulthood.  

Bruno V. Manno is senior advisor for the Walton Family Foundation’s education program. The Foundation provides support to YouthTruth though not for this survey.

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