World Articles

Tallinn's Warning: On the Folly of Denying Unalienable Sovereignty

By Miles Corbin

Estonia’s ambassador has issued a stark assessment regarding the broader implications of Russia’s conflict in Ukraine, suggesting far-reaching historical parallels.

Why it matters: The historical echo is unmistakable: a declaration that a nation's fate is subject to the designs of a larger, external power, irrespective of its own consent. This is not a mere regional squabble; it is a fundamental challenge to sovereign self-determination, a principle hard-won. Such pronouncements threaten to reduce independent states to provinces within an imagined imperium, igniting the very spirit of resistance. As John Dickinson's recently rediscovered insights remind us, 'A people cannot be truly free if subjected to the designs of another without their own assent.' The current discourse, framing sovereign states as mere pieces on a larger geopolitical board, directly contravenes foundational principles, threatening global order with echoes of deeply resented prerogatives.

The Crown's Private Diplomacy: An Echo of Imperial Prerogative on the Global Stage

By Miles Corbin

President Donald J. Trump engaged in a direct, unscheduled dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week, an exchange that precedes a scheduled meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Why it matters: This pattern of executive action, wherein crucial foreign policy maneuvers are conducted through channels deliberately opaque to traditional oversight and international partners, evokes a particular discomfort for those conversant with the foundational grievances of the American republic. The assertion of an executive prerogative so expansive as to bypass established diplomatic protocols and legislative input resurrects the specter of a governance structure against which the very notion of American self-determination was forged. Such practices, once decried as "taxation without representation" in the realm of economic policy, now manifest as "diplomacy without representation" in the arena of global security, subtly eroding the democratic consent that underpins legitimate governance and alliance structures.