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Jacques Delors, the former French Finance Minister and President of the European Commission, who died in December at age 98, was the driving force behind two of the European Union's (EU) most remarkable accomplishments–the single market for goods, services and people, and the European Monetary Union that led to the introduction in 2000 of the euro, the EU's common currency. Today the euro and the single market are deeply embedded, but 30 years ago travelers had to exchange money at every European border. Shops in many European countries had to price their goods in multiple currencies. Technical standards were not mutually recognized, so goods were held up at borders. Investing in another EU member state was often cumbersome. In 1986, Mr. Delors began to change all that when he spearheaded passage of the Single European Act through the 12 member nations. By January 1, 1993 the SEA resulted in the scrapping of non-tariff barriers and border checks and the mutual acceptance of technical standards. Europe's future, Mr. Delors believed, depended on the efficiencies that would spring from a broader and deeper union. The ability to easily sell goods and services and to invest freely in all member states transformed the European Community (EC) and later the EU into an economic powerhouse. The euro made doing business in Europe cheaper, more predictable, and far less risky. A common currency and more freedom to travel among countries also generated a sense among citizens that they were European as well as French, German, or Belgian. This was something new. But in supercharging the push toward a more dynamic and ever-closer union, Mr. Delors set in motion another force–a fierce blowback from nationalists who feared their sovereignty was being impinged by a technocratic cabal in faraway Brussels. Greater competition among European companies unsettled many workers, who viewed this as a threat to their long-established and deeply cherished workplace traditions. The tensions unleashed by these more dynamic economic conditions would eventually lead first to the Euro-crisis in 2009, when Greece nearly tumbled out of the euro and the euro itself almost collapsed. Next came Brexit. There is little doubt that the creation of the single market provided a powerful jolt for the European economy. The European Central Bank estimates that real per capita growth has climbed by 12%-22% since the single market's creation, with smaller countries enjoying greater gains than the larger countries. The introduction of the euro brought lower inflation and lower interest rates. But as with all dramatic economic policy changes, there were losers as well as winners. Less-competitive companies cosseted in the previously protected environments of some member states went out of business. Something similar took place in the United States after the implementation of major trade agreements such as NAFTA and the Uruguay Round, which created the World Trade Organization. Most people gained through greater efficiency and more consumer choice. But there were those who did not fare as well. The benefits were dispersed across the entire economy while the losses were concentrated in specific industries or companies. Those who gained may not have appreciated how and why this was the case, but those who lost knew for certain.Mr. Delors wrestled for many decades with the question of how to help those who drew the short straw from economic transformation. He favored open markets and budgetary restraint. But he also believed markets–and international trade–needed to be regulated and that open economic policies were not sustainable without social measures to offset the jarring impact of enhanced international competition. In 1988, he proposed a "Social Dimension" to the internal market plan, which included the right to bargain collectively and protections for temporary workers. Workers were to be represented in company decision making and every worker was entitled to lifelong education. There was fierce opposition, notably from Margaret Thatcher's Britain, and the plan never got off the ground. As the move toward a monetary union gathered pace, these anxieties became more deep seated. Britain, Denmark, and Sweden opted out of the euro and London retained its constraints on free travel. But even with these exceptions, many in Britain believed the die had been cast and so began the inexorable descent into Brexit and the country leaving the EU in 2020. Anti-Europe hostility arose in Poland and continues today in Hungary. If he underestimated the full magnitude of the nationalists' opposition, Mr. Delors was under no illusions about the fragility of the monetary union project. Apart from British resistance to a single currency, there was another serious impediment to adoption of the Euro. France wanted the power of Germany's currency (the Deutsche mark) to be curbed through a common currency and a common central bank. Yet Germany's historical aversion to inflation made it wary of the budgetary policies of its freer-spending neighbors and wanted European-wide budgetary discipline. The result was a flimsy compromise wherein governments pledged to keep their budget deficits and overall debt burdens within agreed limits. Mr. Delors knew the lopsided economic structure of the Maastricht Treaty posed real danger down the road, but he considered the prize of greater Europe unity to be worth the risk. Many countries never achieved those limits and as membership in the Euro increased, the strain on the currency bubbled over. Only adroit leadership from then European Central Bank President Mario Draghi in 2010 prevented the demise of the euro. Mr. Delors recognized early in his career that underlying social tensions could doom grand economic and political projects. But for much of his career, his appreciation of the need for sound regulation and a social compact was not globally embraced. He foresaw the seismic political and social tremors that economic integration would spark, and he suggested policies that would make such integration more widely acceptable. Were his policy prescriptions the right way to address the burgeoning opposition to opening trade and investment? We will never know because they were never enacted. Some EU countries–notably Denmark–implemented programs to cushion the impact of globalization. Others have been slow off the mark. The US has for years used the Trade Adjustment Assistance program to retrain workers who have been displaced by import competition. But the TAA program has few fans and is widely perceived to be ineffective. The inability of Western governments to address domestic grievances on trade has contributed to a sharp rise in nationalism and the disintegration of support for trade and closer economic integration in much of Europe and the US. The World Trade Organization's negotiating agenda has been gutted. Brussels' efforts to strike trade deals with the US, Mercosur and India have ground to a halt. The US has no plans to negotiate trade agreements for the foreseeable future. Managed trade is the order of the day. Had a social dimension been incorporated into the EU's single market program and subsequently, in global WTO negotiations, might public support for trade be more ardent? We don't know the answer, but what seems clear is that Mr. Delors was asking the right questions.

Jacques Delors, the former French Finance Minister and President of the European Commission, who died in December at age 98, was the driving force behind two of the European Union's (EU) most remarkable accomplishments–the single market for goods, services and people, and the European Monetary Union that led to the introduction in 2000 of the euro, the EU's common currency. Today the euro and the single market are deeply embedded, but 30 years ago travelers had to exchange money at every European border. Shops in many European countries had to price their goods in multiple currencies. Technical standards were not mutually recognized, so goods were held up at borders. Investing in another EU member state was often cumbersome. In 1986, Mr. Delors began to change all that when he spearheaded passage of the Single European Act through the 12 member nations. By January 1, 1993 the SEA resulted in the scrapping of non-tariff barriers and border checks and the mutual acceptance of technical standards. Europe's future, Mr. Delors believed, depended on the efficiencies that would spring from a broader and deeper union. The ability to easily sell goods and services and to invest freely in all member states transformed the European Community (EC) and later the EU into an economic powerhouse. The euro made doing business in Europe cheaper, more predictable, and far less risky. A common currency and more freedom to travel among countries also generated a sense among citizens that they were European as well as French, German, or Belgian. This was something new. But in supercharging the push toward a more dynamic and ever-closer union, Mr. Delors set in motion another force–a fierce blowback from nationalists who feared their sovereignty was being impinged by a technocratic cabal in faraway Brussels. Greater competition among European companies unsettled many workers, who viewed this as a threat to their long-established and deeply cherished workplace traditions. The tensions unleashed by these more dynamic economic conditions would eventually lead first to the Euro-crisis in 2009, when Greece nearly tumbled out of the euro and the euro itself almost collapsed. Next came Brexit. There is little doubt that the creation of the single market provided a powerful jolt for the European economy. The European Central Bank estimates that real per capita growth has climbed by 12%-22% since the single market's creation, with smaller countries enjoying greater gains than the larger countries. The introduction of the euro brought lower inflation and lower interest rates. But as with all dramatic economic policy changes, there were losers as well as winners. Less-competitive companies cosseted in the previously protected environments of some member states went out of business. Something similar took place in the United States after the implementation of major trade agreements such as NAFTA and the Uruguay Round, which created the World Trade Organization. Most people gained through greater efficiency and more consumer choice. But there were those who did not fare as well. The benefits were dispersed across the entire economy while the losses were concentrated in specific industries or companies. Those who gained may not have appreciated how and why this was the case, but those who lost knew for certain.Mr. Delors wrestled for many decades with the question of how to help those who drew the short straw from economic transformation. He favored open markets and budgetary restraint. But he also believed markets–and international trade–needed to be regulated and that open economic policies were not sustainable without social measures to offset the jarring impact of enhanced international competition. In 1988, he proposed a "Social Dimension" to the internal market plan, which included the right to bargain collectively and protections for temporary workers. Workers were to be represented in company decision making and every worker was entitled to lifelong education. There was fierce opposition, notably from Margaret Thatcher's Britain, and the plan never got off the ground. As the move toward a monetary union gathered pace, these anxieties became more deep seated. Britain, Denmark, and Sweden opted out of the euro and London retained its constraints on free travel. But even with these exceptions, many in Britain believed the die had been cast and so began the inexorable descent into Brexit and the country leaving the EU in 2020. Anti-Europe hostility arose in Poland and continues today in Hungary. If he underestimated the full magnitude of the nationalists' opposition, Mr. Delors was under no illusions about the fragility of the monetary union project. Apart from British resistance to a single currency, there was another serious impediment to adoption of the Euro. France wanted the power of Germany's currency (the Deutsche mark) to be curbed through a common currency and a common central bank. Yet Germany's historical aversion to inflation made it wary of the budgetary policies of its freer-spending neighbors and wanted European-wide budgetary discipline. The result was a flimsy compromise wherein governments pledged to keep their budget deficits and overall debt burdens within agreed limits. Mr. Delors knew the lopsided economic structure of the Maastricht Treaty posed real danger down the road, but he considered the prize of greater Europe unity to be worth the risk. Many countries never achieved those limits and as membership in the Euro increased, the strain on the currency bubbled over. Only adroit leadership from then European Central Bank President Mario Draghi in 2010 prevented the demise of the euro. Mr. Delors recognized early in his career that underlying social tensions could doom grand economic and political projects. But for much of his career, his appreciation of the need for sound regulation and a social compact was not globally embraced. He foresaw the seismic political and social tremors that economic integration would spark, and he suggested policies that would make such integration more widely acceptable. Were his policy prescriptions the right way to address the burgeoning opposition to opening trade and investment? We will never know because they were never enacted. Some EU countries–notably Denmark–implemented programs to cushion the impact of globalization. Others have been slow off the mark. The US has for years used the Trade Adjustment Assistance program to retrain workers who have been displaced by import competition. But the TAA program has few fans and is widely perceived to be ineffective. The inability of Western governments to address domestic grievances on trade has contributed to a sharp rise in nationalism and the disintegration of support for trade and closer economic integration in much of Europe and the US. The World Trade Organization's negotiating agenda has been gutted. Brussels' efforts to strike trade deals with the US, Mercosur and India have ground to a halt. The US has no plans to negotiate trade agreements for the foreseeable future. Managed trade is the order of the day. Had a social dimension been incorporated into the EU's single market program and subsequently, in global WTO negotiations, might public support for trade be more ardent? We don't know the answer, but what seems clear is that Mr. Delors was asking the right questions.

Jacques Delors, the former French Finance Minister and President of the European Commission, who died in December at age 98, was the driving force behind two of the European Union's (EU) most remarkable accomplishments–the single market for goods, services and people, and the European Monetary Union that led to the introduction in 2000 of the euro, the EU's common currency. Today the euro and the single market are deeply embedded, but 30 years ago travelers had to exchange money at every European border. Shops in many European countries had to price their goods in multiple currencies. Technical standards were not mutually recognized, so goods were held up at borders. Investing in another EU member state was often cumbersome. In 1986, Mr. Delors began to change all that when he spearheaded passage of the Single European Act through the 12 member nations. By January 1, 1993 the SEA resulted in the scrapping of non-tariff barriers and border checks and the mutual acceptance of technical standards. Europe's future, Mr. Delors believed, depended on the efficiencies that would spring from a broader and deeper union. The ability to easily sell goods and services and to invest freely in all member states transformed the European Community (EC) and later the EU into an economic powerhouse. The euro made doing business in Europe cheaper, more predictable, and far less risky. A common currency and more freedom to travel among countries also generated a sense among citizens that they were European as well as French, German, or Belgian. This was something new. But in supercharging the push toward a more dynamic and ever-closer union, Mr. Delors set in motion another force–a fierce blowback from nationalists who feared their sovereignty was being impinged by a technocratic cabal in faraway Brussels. Greater competition among European companies unsettled many workers, who viewed this as a threat to their long-established and deeply cherished workplace traditions. The tensions unleashed by these more dynamic economic conditions would eventually lead first to the Euro-crisis in 2009, when Greece nearly tumbled out of the euro and the euro itself almost collapsed. Next came Brexit. There is little doubt that the creation of the single market provided a powerful jolt for the European economy. The European Central Bank estimates that real per capita growth has climbed by 12%-22% since the single market's creation, with smaller countries enjoying greater gains than the larger countries. The introduction of the euro brought lower inflation and lower interest rates. But as with all dramatic economic policy changes, there were losers as well as winners. Less-competitive companies cosseted in the previously protected environments of some member states went out of business. Something similar took place in the United States after the implementation of major trade agreements such as NAFTA and the Uruguay Round, which created the World Trade Organization. Most people gained through greater efficiency and more consumer choice. But there were those who did not fare as well. The benefits were dispersed across the entire economy while the losses were concentrated in specific industries or companies. Those who gained may not have appreciated how and why this was the case, but those who lost knew for certain.Mr. Delors wrestled for many decades with the question of how to help those who drew the short straw from economic transformation. He favored open markets and budgetary restraint. But he also believed markets–and international trade–needed to be regulated and that open economic policies were not sustainable without social measures to offset the jarring impact of enhanced international competition. In 1988, he proposed a "Social Dimension" to the internal market plan, which included the right to bargain collectively and protections for temporary workers. Workers were to be represented in company decision making and every worker was entitled to lifelong education. There was fierce opposition, notably from Margaret Thatcher's Britain, and the plan never got off the ground. As the move toward a monetary union gathered pace, these anxieties became more deep seated. Britain, Denmark, and Sweden opted out of the euro and London retained its constraints on free travel. But even with these exceptions, many in Britain believed the die had been cast and so began the inexorable descent into Brexit and the country leaving the EU in 2020. Anti-Europe hostility arose in Poland and continues today in Hungary. If he underestimated the full magnitude of the nationalists' opposition, Mr. Delors was under no illusions about the fragility of the monetary union project. Apart from British resistance to a single currency, there was another serious impediment to adoption of the Euro. France wanted the power of Germany's currency (the Deutsche mark) to be curbed through a common currency and a common central bank. Yet Germany's historical aversion to inflation made it wary of the budgetary policies of its freer-spending neighbors and wanted European-wide budgetary discipline. The result was a flimsy compromise wherein governments pledged to keep their budget deficits and overall debt burdens within agreed limits. Mr. Delors knew the lopsided economic structure of the Maastricht Treaty posed real danger down the road, but he considered the prize of greater Europe unity to be worth the risk. Many countries never achieved those limits and as membership in the Euro increased, the strain on the currency bubbled over. Only adroit leadership from then European Central Bank President Mario Draghi in 2010 prevented the demise of the euro. Mr. Delors recognized early in his career that underlying social tensions could doom grand economic and political projects. But for much of his career, his appreciation of the need for sound regulation and a social compact was not globally embraced. He foresaw the seismic political and social tremors that economic integration would spark, and he suggested policies that would make such integration more widely acceptable. Were his policy prescriptions the right way to address the burgeoning opposition to opening trade and investment? We will never know because they were never enacted. Some EU countries–notably Denmark–implemented programs to cushion the impact of globalization. Others have been slow off the mark. The US has for years used the Trade Adjustment Assistance program to retrain workers who have been displaced by import competition. But the TAA program has few fans and is widely perceived to be ineffective. The inability of Western governments to address domestic grievances on trade has contributed to a sharp rise in nationalism and the disintegration of support for trade and closer economic integration in much of Europe and the US. The World Trade Organization's negotiating agenda has been gutted. Brussels' efforts to strike trade deals with the US, Mercosur and India have ground to a halt. The US has no plans to negotiate trade agreements for the foreseeable future. Managed trade is the order of the day. Had a social dimension been incorporated into the EU's single market program and subsequently, in global WTO negotiations, might public support for trade be more ardent? We don't know the answer, but what seems clear is that Mr. Delors was asking the right questions.

Road traffic crashes (RTCs) represent the 8th leading cause of global mortality. Worldwide, about 3,700 people lose their lives daily and 1.35 million people die annually due to RTCs. Majority of these deaths occur among children and young adults and almost 93% deaths are from low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). Every year, around 50 million people are disabled due to non-fatal injuries during RTCs, posing serious threats to the global public health. 1,2 In 2004, on the recommendations of United Nations (UN) General Assembly, World Health Organization (WHO) established UN Road Safety Collaboration to address the road safety issues across the world. In March 2010, UN General Assembly proclaimed 2011–2020 as the "Decade of Action for road safety" to reduce the RTCs related deaths through safe system approach at national, regional and global levels.3 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) target 3.6 was aimed to halve the number of global deaths and injuries due to RTCs by the year 2020.4 Decade 2011–2020 partially succeeded in making road safety as a global priority by its inclusion in global health and development agenda, developing technical guidance and global partnership along with political and resources mobilization. However, WHO global status report on road safety 2018 showed that with current road traffic deaths rate, SDG target 3.6 will not be met till 2020.2 The projected number of global deaths and injuries related to RTCs is up to 500 million between 2020 and 2030.5 In August 2020, UN General assembly resolution set a new time frame for at least 50% reduction in RTCs related deaths and injuries by 2030 through proclaiming "Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030". Proposed plan of action is focused on various road safety measures including transport system planning, public transport, infrastructure improvements, vehicle safety measures, improvements and implementation of road safety laws, protection of most vulnerable road users, post crash life-saving emergency care and data collection etc.6 Pakistan is the fifth most populous country in the world7 with 268,935 kilometer roads and rapidly growing number of vehicles on road.8 As per Pakistan Bureau of Statistics data for 2018, total registered vehicles in Pakistan were 18,352,500 including 3,638,833 cars and 4-wheeled light vehicles, 19,743,066 motor cycles (2 wheels) and 847,187 motorcycles/motor rickshaws. During 2017-18, 11,121 reported cases of RTCs included 4829 fatal and 6292 non-fatal crashes involving 13,134 vehicles. During these RTCs, 5948 persons lost their lives and 14,489 got injured.8 However, the actual figures may be much higher due to under-reporting and poor data record as previously documented.9 This huge burden of fatal & nonfatal injuries due to road trauma is adversely affecting on the national economy of Pakistan. According to World Bank estimates, Pakistan expenditure on RTCs related deaths and injuries amounted to 4.7% of its gross domestic product, costing about 13.23 billion dollars in 2016.10 In order to address the long term effects of RTCs, Pakistan has taken several steps regarding road safety like establishing National Highways Authority (NHA) in 1991, National Road Safety Database" and "National Road Safety Fund through Road Safety Act 2020.11 Government of Pakistan has already launched the "National Road Safety Strategy 2018-2030" 12, based on the principles of safe system approach. Main features of safe system approach include safe roads and roadsides, safe vehicles, safe speeds, safe road use (behavior), and post-crash response.13 Regarding safe roads and roadsides, NHA is doing excellent job in improving the infrastructural standards of new and existing roads. Main focus is on the engineering aspects like road widths, curves, fencing, barriers and barrier terminals, signage, pavement marking, cat eyes and shoulder sealing etc. However, the safety standards of roads vary significantly from motorways to highways and from urban areas to rural areas. Design standards for the safety of most vulnerable road-users like pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists are not meeting the international standards and need special attention.2,10 Majority of the RTCs related fatalities are due to poor structural and safety standards of the vehicles on the roads.10 International vehicle safety standards include frontal and side impact protection, electronic stability control, seat belts & anchorages, child restraints, motorcycle anti-lock braking system, intelligent speed adaptation and pedestrian protection. Like other LMICs, compliance of Pakistan regarding vehicle safety standards is very poor, especially in case of locally manufactured vehicles.2,10,12 Apart from inadequate vehicle safety regulations, poor implementation of the rules and regulations like periodic inspection of old vehicles, imported used vehicles and heavy vehicles by the law enforcing authorities is a critical issue in Pakistan. Safe speed reflects the behaviour of the road users. High speed not only escalates the risk of RTCs but increases the fatality rate and severity of nonfatal injuries as well. Pakistan has a maximum speed limit of 90 km/h for urban road, 110 km/h for rural road & 130 km/h for motorway.2 Pakistan needs to reduce the speed limit to 50km/h for urban arterial roads and 30km/h in city centres to protect the most vulnerable road users. Enforcement of speed limits through fixed speed camera systems, special speed checking squads or traffic police with license penalty points system for drivers will help in achieving the desired safe speed targets. Special public campaigns should be regularly arranged to change the behavior of all road users including drivers, motorcyclists, passengers and pedestrians regarding responsible road use. Special emphasis should be laid to educate people regarding road safety measures like motorcycle helmet wearing, seat-belt use, avoidance of drink-driving, mobile phone use during driving and over speeding. Post-crash response is vital to prevent the death and disability through emergency care provision to the injured persons. Recently, Pakistan has developed the "National Guidelines for Post-Crash Response" in 2019.14 Although, rescue 1122 services are accessible in majority of areas in Pakistan, but optimal pre-hospital emergency care is not widely available to cover to 268,935 kilometer roads across the country. Former certification is not available for pre-hospital care-providers and trauma registry is not up to the mark. Accident and emergency departments of majority of roadside hospitals are not well-equipped with neurosurgical & orthopaedic emergency services including radiology services like CT scan. Federal and provincial governments need to develop a comprehensive plan for establishing emergency medical services to reduce the post-crash morbidity and mortality. Reliable and high quality data collection and local research regarding the burden and magnitude of RTCs is crucial for short and long term planning of road safety. Unfortunately, accident data collection in Pakistan is highly inadequate and not consistent with international standards.2,14,15 Although local research on road safety has been previously conducted in Pakistan,9,15-17 however the extent and gravity of situation demands extensive research on RTCs by involving all stake holders including academic and research institutes to achieve SDG target 3.6 by the year 2030.

One of the important issues in the formation of a park environment is the identification of the human needs, which must be realized within the boundaries of this environment and which change under the influence of both personal and socio-cultural factors. The importance of studying the socio-cultural aspect is due to politics of memory, which is the object of scientific interest of a number of scientists, however, the state policy on in relation to the Soviet heritage in modern Ukraine has not yet become the subject of thorough scientific research. The objectives – to identify the role of socio-cultural aspect in the formation of requirements for the environment of park objects of different functional purpose. The study involved 60 people, aged 22 to 74 years. Identification of the influence of socio-cultural factor, in particular Soviet ideals, on the formation of requirements for the park environment necessitated the division of respondents into two age categories: young people – 22-34 years old (born after or shortly before the end of the Soviet period in Ukraine); people of ripe years - 46-74 years old (childhood, youth and / or middle age of whom passed during the Soviet Ukraine). A free associative experiment was applied in the study. The socio-cultural aspect in identifying the requirements for a city recreation park is traced in the proportion of respondents who noted the expediency of placing components of monumental and sculptural design. This fact may be a consequence of the socio-cultural influence of the Soviet concept of park space formation, aimed at the memorialization of revolutionary events, and from the second half of the twentieth century. - World War II, and which assumed the placement of monuments in almost every landscape object, which contributed to the creation of an appropriate association between the park environment and its monumental decoration. The features of the historic park environment have significant differences between age groups. Young people paid special attention to the need for historic plantations, while people of ripe years did not single out plant groups. The expediency of placing elements of monumental and sculptural decoration within the historic park (as well as the city park) is more noted on the part of people of ripe years. The most significant difference in the proportion of respondents who paid attention to a certain feature of the historic park environment as being important is the reflection of historical events, which was noted by 56.7% of young people and only by 21.1% of people of ripe age. Most of the respondents' attention is focused on the monumental and sculptural design, where, as in previous cases, the proportion of older respondents is greater than that of young people – 36.8% and 26.7%, respectively. All the respondents noted the need to place these components in the memorial park. An interesting aspect is the emphasis of both groups on the importance of matching the coloration of the park environment to with the theme of the park, which was not the case within the historic park. Both age categories are relatively unanimous in their discussions about the need for "thematic", "restraint" and "memorial" (embodiment of memory) environment of the memorial park. However, the solemn nature of the park space is emphasized by 26.3% of people of ripe years and only by 10% of young people, which may also be evidence of the influence of the principles of organization of memorial parks that dominated in Soviet Ukraine. The main needs within the park environment of respondents of all age categories are signs of physical comfort, in the second place is the need for self-identification, in particular ethnic, regional and socio-cultural. The city's recreational park for young people is an object of communication at the level of everyday communication and representation of the cultural heritage of the society. For older respondents, the attractiveness and functionality of the park environment is a priority after comfort. A dominant conscious need within the historic and memorial parks for people of ripe years is to preserve cultural heritage, and for young people - to obtain information about historical events. ; Дослідження фокусуються довкола людини як суб'єкта сприйняття паркового середовища, яке змінюється із плином часу під дією соціокультурних чинників та спрямовані на виявлення вимог респондентів різних вікових категорій до паркового середовища різного функціонального призначення (історичного, меморіального, міського парку відпочинку). Для проведення дослідження було залучено 60 осіб, віком від 22 до 74 років. Виявлення впливу соціокультурного чинника, зокрема радянських ідеалів на формування вимог до паркового середовища зумовило необхідність розподілу респондентів на дві вікові категорії: молоді люди – 22-34 роки (народилися після або незадовго до закінчення радянського періоду історії України); зрілі люди – 46-74 роки (дитинство, юність та/або середні роки пройшли за часів Радянської України). Встановлено, що основною вимогою до міського парку відпочинку є комфорт рекреації незалежно від віку респондентів. Для молодих людей міський парк відпочинку є важливим об'єктом комунікації, як на рівні повсякденного спілкування, так і об'єктом культурного надбання соціуму, для зрілих – пріоритетним, після комфорту, є привабливість та функціональність території. Наявність національних прикмет у межах міського парку відпочинку важлива для однакової частки (близько 11%) респондентів обох вікових категорій. Для меморіального та історичного парку важливими є інформативні функції паркового середовища, однак шляхи забезпечення останньої відрізняються відповідно до вікової категорії. У зрілих людей це, насамперед, матеріальні компоненти культурної спадщини, у молодих – інформаційні якості паркового середовища. ; Дослідження фокусуються довкола людини як суб'єкта сприйняття паркового середовища, яке змінюється із плином часу під дією соціокультурних чинників та спрямовані на виявлення вимог респондентів різних вікових категорій до паркового середовища різного функціонального призначення (історичного, меморіального, міського парку відпочинку). Для проведення дослідження було залучено 60 осіб, віком від 22 до 74 років. Виявлення впливу соціокультурного чинника, зокрема радянських ідеалів на формування вимог до паркового середовища зумовило необхідність розподілу респондентів на дві вікові категорії: молоді люди – 22-34 роки (народилися після або незадовго до закінчення радянського періоду історії України); зрілі люди – 46-74 роки (дитинство, юність та/або середні роки пройшли за часів Радянської України). Встановлено, що основною вимогою до міського парку відпочинку є комфорт рекреації незалежно від віку респондентів. Для молодих людей міський парк відпочинку є важливим об'єктом комунікації, як на рівні повсякденного спілкування, так і об'єктом культурного надбання соціуму, для зрілих – пріоритетним, після комфорту, є привабливість та функціональність території. Наявність національних прикмет у межах міського парку відпочинку важлива для однакової частки (близько 11%) респондентів обох вікових категорій. Для меморіального та історичного парку важливими є інформативні функції паркового середовища, однак шляхи забезпечення останньої відрізняються відповідно до вікової категорії. У зрілих людей це, насамперед, матеріальні компоненти культурної спадщини, у молодих – інформаційні якості паркового середовища.

Тарас Шевченко — принципово новий тип письменника в українській літературі й новий тип особистості, громадянина в історії України. Патріотизм Шевченків — дієвий, а загальнолюдське поняття «свобода» Шевченко тлумачив згідно зі своїми людськими ідеалами гордості, мужності, непохитності, вихованими на головних засадах християнської етики й моралі. Тарас Шевченко першим сформулював у художній формі всі принципи й постулати представників українського націоналізму: волелюбність, всеосяжну народність, національну честь і гідність, палкий патріотизм, державницькі прагнення, глибинну християнську релігійність, віру у свій народ, у його світле прийдешнє, сподівання на власні сили, надзвичайну толерантність до інших народів та їх вірувань, солідарність з усіма поневоленими, антиімперську й антишовіністичну позицію, що беруть початки з демократичного, неімперського й нешовіністичного характеру української нації та її історичного досвіду. ; В истории Украины есть немало фигур, достойных всенародного уважения и любви. Т. Шевченко представлял собой не только принципиально новый тип писателя в украинской литературе, но и новый тип личности, гражданина в истории Украины. Патриотизм его — действенный, а общечеловеческое понятие «свобода» он толковал согласно своим человеческим идеалам гордости, мужества, стойкости, воспитанным на главных принципах христианской этики и морали. Поэт первым сформулировал в художественной форме все принципы и постулаты представителей украинского национализма: свободолюбие, всеобъемлющая народность, национальная честь и достоинство, пылкий патриотизм, государственные стремления, глубинная христианская религиозность, вера в свой народ, в его светлое будущее, надежды на собственные силы, чрезвычайная толерантность к другим народам и их верованиям, солидарность со всеми порабощенными, антиимперская и антишовинистическая позиция, что берут начало из демократического, неимперского и нешовинистического характера украинской нации и ее исторического опыта. ; There are many figures in the history of Ukraine, worthy of the holiness and love of the people, but Taras Shevchenko managed to excite and expose the fallen spirit of the Ukrainian nation to the realization of his own dignity at one time. Without the slightest exaggeration, he is — the greatness and glory of Ukraine, the holy martyr for her truth and will, for the revival of her statehood as a «free, new family». Consequently, at the present tragic and critical stage of the development of Ukrainian statehood, in conditions of bloody Russian aggression and dirty Kremlin propaganda, which by intrigue and treachery broke into our lives, the legacy of the Great Kobzar needs special attention, rethinking and perception without all those political, ideological and con «multinational layers, created for several decades by the Soviet literary critics, which, unfortunately, still possess the minds of our many compatriots. This, first of all, concerns the national-patriotic views of Taras Shevchenko, which were the most distorted, falsified. This applies to a concept such as Shevchenko's humanism. Taras Shevchenko was not only a fundamentally new type of writer in Ukrainian literature, but also a new type of personality, a citizen in the history of Ukraine. Shevchenko's patriotism is effective, since he paid for the most expensive — freedom, health, life. The universal concept of «freedom,» Shevchenko interpreted in accordance with his human ideals pride, courage, restraint and disobedience in the face of any despot, brought up on the basic principles of Christian ethics and morals. Therefore, for him, internal freedom — that is, freedom of thought, speech, feeling, conscience — is superior to external freedom, that is, life at will, especially if this life is associated with submissiveness, adaptability, dependence on this powerful world, on wealth, from everything that makes a person his slave. Being the spokesman for people's views on life and work, on the relationship between people, Kobzar constantly addresses both the topic of free work. These paintings of this willful will are a sharp contrast to the cruel reality in which the peasant is a disenfranchised slave («Dream» — «On the bark of wheat sting»). And the very intonations of the Faith, Hope, Love, the wisdom of the native land, the major tone are dominant in many poetry of the artist. However, we will find in the works of Taras Shevchenko and other notes: notes of silent sorrow, soft melancholy, lyricism. Indicative in this regard is the poem «Garden Cherry Kohl Hut». This poetry, like all the immense works of Taras Shevchenko, is immortal as it reveals the problems of the great philosophical theme — «the meaning of human existence on Earth», «human happiness», whose guarantor can be only freedom and justice as the norm of social existence. Thus, the national self-respect, the national idea, the purpose of liberation from autocratic Russian tyranny and the creation of a national Ukrainian state were crystallized. What are they? The national state-building idea in the development of Taras Shevchenko is represented, firstly, by the awareness of the intellectual elite of the future nation, based on its history; second, the definition of typical, persistent features of the spiritual culture (morality, religion, language, folk ethics, etc.), inherent in the people in the form of national traditions and customs; thirdly, comparing its national community with others, which has become important means of selfdetermination. Taras Shevchenko first formally formulated in the artistic form all the principles and postulates of Ukrainian nationalism: his freedom of freedom, a comprehensive nationality, national honor and dignity, passionate patriotism, state aspirations, profound Christian religiosity, faith in his people, his future light, hope for his own strength, extraordinary tolerance to other peoples and their beliefs, solidarity with all enslaved, anti-imperial and anti-chauvinist attitudes based on a democratic, non-imperial and non-chauvinistic character ukrain nation and its historical experience. Particularly, it should be emphasized that Shevchenko's nationalism, as nationalism of the Ukrainian people, is based on Love, and therefore he is essentially human and cordial to his own and others — to all who recognize the right of Ukrainians to free state existence. So, turning to the Poles (poem «Poles»), the poet calls them «friends», «brothers» and calls along with the Ukrainians in the name of Christ to renew our quiet paradise — Ukraine. In the views of Taras Shevchenko, the national idea is filled with universal meaning. His soul sounds like a pain for a man with a degenerate life. Every image of the poor and unlucky (from the burned orphans or the shroud to the spinned mother of Ukraine) always testifies to the blame imposed on the representatives of the authorities who incarnate evil in the social system in the imperial idea. Sin, punishment, wine, and redemption, suffering and purification are all through the moral categories of Shevchenko's poetics, which are also closely related to the moral categories of Christianity. We, grateful to the descendants, have discovered new and new faces for a long time, since, having appeared on light, he embraced all spiritual nature with the spirit of others and existed.

La thèse s'appuie sur l'étude du système symbolique pour montrer la place centrale du cheval, à la frontière entre chasse et élevage, chez les Iakoutes de Sibérie extrême-orientale ; In the North-East of Siberia, the Yakuts, who arrived from the Baikal region less than seven centuries ago, raise horses and cattle in the alaas, in the valleys and the taiga on the lower course of the Lena river. The bibliography in Russian language concerning this people is rich and includes narratives by travellers, accounts by administrators as well as analyses and descriptions by ethnographers prior to 1917, but dating as well of the communist period and of the post-soviet years. The theoretical analysis was fed by Western sources, including the works of Evelyne Lot-Falck, Laurence Delaby and Roberte Hamayon about the peoples of Siberia as well as those of Jean-Pierre Digard about the horse and its domestication. Cousins of the horse-riding Turkic and Mongolian peoples of Central Asia, the Yakuts are aware of their belonging to that ensemble while putting forward their originality. Conceiving their horse more like an animal of the forest than like ordinary cattle, they breed it while preserving its "wild" character. Inside a domestication system that does not try to submit the animal, this one finds a place, as well in the facts as through the symbols, between the domesticated animal and the wild beast. For the Yakuts, who have a binary economy, the equilibrium of which between hunting and cattle breeding has fluctuated according to the history of the society and the natural restraints, the horse is representative of a significant animal. In a system of thinking articulated between hunting and breeding shamanism, the stallion chief of the herd, with its fiery and independent temperament, represents for the shaman as well a way of transportation as a symbolic double during the rituals. It is as well the best exchanging object in the relation that the humans think to have with the horse giving spirits, specially during the kyjdaa ritual that began in the eighteenth century according to narratives. It was a historical period of troubles during which rich peoples legitimated their status thanks to the installation on the territory of the administration of the Tsarist Empire. Progressively, the exchange with the spirits, that occurred according to the equalitarian mode of the hunting shamanism, becomes vertical and takes the shape of a symbolical dependence of the spirits, no longer animals but ancestors givers of cattle, of whose one needs to implore the benefits. In parallel to this phenomenon appears aside the character of the Ürüŋ Ajyy Tojon spirit, that the Yakuts put on the top of their Pantheon, the one of the Terrible D'öhögöj, the protector of humans and horses, the gifts of whom are welcomed and the anger is feared. Before the policy of collectivisation that occurred in the 1920-1930 years, the horse had acquired an incontestable utilitarian importance and its symbolic role was already sung by epic singers, who were praising the Heroes who founded lineages. Nowadays, the horse is no longer a part of the daily life of every Yakut : more often eaten that ridden, it acquires a symbolic signification inversely proportional to its disappearing from the landscape. So the National reconstruction process that took place after the fall of the Soviet Union raised the horse to the status of an emblem for the Sakha Republic (Yakutia), so as to-day the Yakuts call their people and their horse as the "sons of the D'öhögöj spirit". The Yakut example shows the importance of the horse figure in the system of thinking of a hunting and breeding people of Siberia, as well as the parallelism between the shrinking of the utilitarian function of an artefact and the reinforcing of the symbolism of which it is the support. ; Au nord-est de la Sibérie, les Iakoutes, venus de la région du Baïkal il y a moins de sept siècles, élèvent chevaux et bovins sur les alaas, dans les vallées et la taïga sur le cours inférieur du fleuve Léna. La bibliographie en russe concernant ce peuple est riche et comprend des récits de voyageurs, des comptes rendus d'administrateurs et des analyses et descriptions d'ethnographes d'avant 1917, de la période communiste et des années post-soviétiques. L'analyse théorique est alimentée par les sources occidentales, parmi lesquelles les travaux d'Evelyne Lot-Falck, de Laurence Delaby et de Roberte Hamayon sur les peuples de Sibérie ainsi que ceux de Jean-Pierre Digard sur le cheval et la domestication. Cousins des peuples cavaliers turco-mongols d'Asie centrale, ils affirment leur appartenance à cet ensemble tout en mettant en avant leur originalité. Concevant leur cheval davantage comme un animal de la forêt que comme du simple bétail, ils en pratiquent à l'élevage tout en préservant le caractère « sauvage » de l'animal. Dans un système domesticatoire qui ne tente pas de soumettre l'animal, celui-ci ci conserve, aussi bien dans les faits qu'à travers les symboles, une place entre animal domestique et bête sauvage. Pour les Iakoutes à l'économie binaire, dont l'équilibre entre chasse et élevage a fluctué en fonction de l'histoire de la société et des contraintes naturelles, le cheval représente un animal idéal. Dans un système de pensée, articulé entre chamanisme cynégétique et pastoral, l'étalon chef de harde, au tempérament fougueux et indépendant, est à la fois un moyen de transport et un double symboliques du chamane lors des rituels. Par ailleurs, il constitue le meilleur objet d'échange dans la relation que les humains pensent entretenir avec des esprits donateurs de chevaux, notamment au cours du rite du kyjdaa, dont les récits font remonter la pratique au XVIIIe siècle, période mouvementée de l'histoire où les riches légitimèrent leur statut grâce à l'installation sur le territoire de l'administration de l'empire tsariste. Progressivement, l'échange avec les esprits, qui se déroulait sur le mode égalitaire du chamanisme cynégétique, se verticalise et prend la forme d'une dépendance symbolique envers des esprits, non plus animaux mais ancêtres pourvoyeurs de bétail, dont il faut implorer les bienfaits. Parallèlement à ce phénomène, émerge à côté de la figure de l'esprit Ürüŋ Ajyy Tojon, que les Iakoutes placent à la cime de leur panthéon, celle du Terrible D'öhögöj, protecteur des hommes et des chevaux, dont les dons sont bienvenus et la colère crainte. Avant la politique de collectivisation en vigueur dans les années 1920-1930, le cheval était doté d'une importance utilitaire incontestable et son rôle symbolique était déjà chanté par les conteurs d'épopées, qui faisaient l'apologie des héros fondateurs de lignées. A présent, l'équidé ne fait plus partie de la vie quotidienne de tous les Iakoutes : plus mangé que monté, il acquiert une signification symbolique inversement proportionnelle à sa disparition du paysage. Ainsi, le processus de reconstruction nationale qui a suivi la chute de l'Union Soviétique a érigé le cheval au statut d'emblème de la République Sakha (Iakoutie), de sorte qu'aujourd'hui les Iakoutes désignent à la fois leur peuple et leur cheval comme les « fils de l'esprit D'öhögöj ». L'exemple iakoute démontre l'importance de la figure du cheval dans le système de pensée d'un peuple chasseur et éleveur de Sibérie, ainsi que le parallélisme entre l'amoindrissement de la fonction utilitaire d'un artefact et le renforcement de la symbolique dont il est le support.

It has been said that most of the founders of demography were astronomers (viz., Halley or Quetelet) or clergymen (viz., Süssmilch or Malthus). Jean‐Baptiste Moheau, the author of a treatise, published in 1778 under the title Recherches et considérations sur la population de la France, was an exception to this rule. He seems to have been an obscure bureaucrat, and left so few tracks in the record that his very existence was long in doubt. Today, however, the rough outlines of a biography have been traced. Moheau was born in 1745, and died in 1794; he was not thirty years old when he wrote the treatise. He made no other contribution to science, and appears to have been unwilling even to make simple corrections to his text when changes were requested by the 1780 German translator of the work. (There exists no translation in English.) He was the personal secretary of Montyon, the Intendant (the equivalent of a provincial governor, delegated by the central government) of the généralité of La Rochelle on the Atlantic coast of France. There is still a controversy about Montyon's possible contribution to the work, but it appears that Montyon was not interested in population, that he was not even in residence in La Rochelle, and that Moheau as his secretary was substituting for him, taking a special interest in the collection of population statistics that were requested by the royal administration.At the time of publication, the work attracted some attention, including an unfavorable critique by Condorcet, and had some admirers in Germany where it was compared to the work of Süssmilch, the great Prussian political arithmetician, whose own Göttliche Ordnung (The Divine Order, first edition published in 1741) was unknown to the author or authors of the Recherches et considérations. Moheau's work was soon forgotten, however, until a 1912 re‐edition. A modern critical edition, annotated by Eric Vilquin, which contains a biographical essay by Rene LeMée and a number of other contributions assessing the work and placing it in its historical context, was published in 1994 jointly by the Institut National d'Études Démographiques and Presses Universitaires de France. The excerpt printed below and the citations in this introduction are translations from the text as it appears in that edition. The translation is by Etienne van de Walle. Page numbers also refer to the 1994 edition. Recherches et considérations sur la population de la France, in any event, is a remarkable achievement for its time and deserves an important place in the history of demography. The title could be roughly translated, today, as "Empirical Studies on the Population of France, and Their Interpretation." Like John Graunt's 1662 Natural and Political Observations…made upon the Bills of Mortality, the work is characterized by a dual concern to present hard data and to use them to make politically and socially relevant inferences. Moheau's book consists of two very different parts, however, and lexicographical analysis suggests that they were written by two authors. The first part ("State of the Population") is a demographic monograph, and one is struck by the similarities of the chapter titles to those that one would find in any demographic description of a national population today:

– The means of investigating the population
– An estimate of the population of France
– Distribution by age and sex
– Distribution by socioeconomic characteristics
– Body size and strength
– Fertility
– Mortality
– Migration
– Is the population growing or decreasing?

The main demographic contribution of the work is in the area of fertility. Moheau lists the topics himself:
A multitude of interesting questions present themselves for our investigation. What is the fertility of women in France? One in how many women gives birth per year? What is the ratio of marriages to births, and what is the highest number of children per marriage? Is fertility the same in all provinces of France, in the cities and in the countryside, and in the various parts of Europe? Is the result roughly the same every year, or every month? And finally, which of the two sexes accounts for the most births? (p. 125)
This is a remarkable list of questions, and Moheau was the first to raise them so comprehensively. (It is noteworthy that there was not even a word in English, at that time, to express the concept of fertility as an aggregate characteristic of populations.) He distinguishes fertility from what we now call the birth rate, and marital fertility from overall fertility. He is interested in variability in space—national and international, and urban and rural. He analyzes the seasonality of births. He also concludes that fertility is constant over the years: "Nature has arranged the fertility of women in such a way that each year gives approximately the same number of births" (p. 134). The result of this constancy is that, in the absence of a census, the number of registered births provides the best estimate of the population size of a country. This view conflicts with the idea of fertility decline, and with potential depopulation as expressed later in the volume and in the passage below.The second part of the book examines the causes of the progress or decay of the population. This is the part described by the word "considérations" in the title of the book. The author distinguishes between physical causes (climate, food, dangerous occupations…) and political, social, or moral causes. Among the latter factors, he discusses the effects of law, government, religion, taxes, war, and the possession of colonies. The excerpt translated below is entitled "Des moeurs" (literally: "Of Mores"), by which Moheau means private morality in the areas of sexuality and reproduction; this is not unlike the meaning adopted by Malthus when he speaks of "moral restraint." The chapter deals mainly with four areas of sexual conduct: marital fidelity, prostitution, breastfeeding, and nonmarital sex (which may occasion venereal diseases). A specially noteworthy passage alludes to funestes secrets (fatal secrets), an expression widely quoted by French demographers and often interpreted as a reference to the spread of contraception in marriage. In context, however, it would appear that Moheau had in mind the growing impact of various types of extramarital behavior—fornication, prostitution, and adultery.But beyond offering a catalogue of individual behavior he considers reprehensible—a sharp—eyed critical description of some aspects of contemporary French mores—Moheau's central concern in these matters is with the consequences that affect the strength of the State. Moral failings, he argues, lead to diminished fertility and damage the overall physical quality of the population; they are pernicious in the civil and political order. He notes the high economic costs of children and implies that economic calculus alone would result in failure to reproduce: "logic and a calculating mind would not lead to the propagation of the species." Populousness of the State presupposes motivations that transcend material interest: it rests on the foundation of moral virtues.

As hopes for a Gaza ceasefire continue to fade, the threat of a full-blown war between Israel and Hezbollah is now greater than at any time since October 7.
Following the release of a Hezbollah video shot by surveillance drones over various targets in northern Israel, Israeli officials warned of "an all-out war" in which Hezbollah will be destroyed and Lebanon would be sent "back to the Stone Age." Not to be outdone, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah is threatening a war with "no restraint and no rules and no ceilings."
Such a war would be catastrophic for Lebanese and Israeli civilians alike, and risks drawing Iran into wider conflict that engulfs the entire region. It would also instantly unravel what had been one of the Biden administration's few achievements since October 7 — preventing a full-blown regional war.
Even as the Israel-Lebanon front heats up, however, the most serious threats to de-escalation in Lebanon and to prospects for a Gaza ceasefire come from the Biden administration itself.
One need only look at realities in Gaza, where nearly nine months of war have cost the lives of more than 37,000 Palestinians, the vast majority of them women and children, and reduced most of Gaza to rubble. Despite putting forward a comprehensive ceasefire plan, which now has the backing of the United Nations Security Council, the Biden administration has done little to alter the basic cost-benefit calculations of either side — particularly Israel's.
Despite the massive death and destruction inflicted on Gaza, Hamas's command and control remains intact while Israel still has no signal achievement by which to claim victory. Moreover, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as is widely understood, has a personal interest in prolonging the war for as long as possible in order to maintain his grip on power (and hence also avoid going to jail).
Despite the administration's assertions that only Hamas stands in the way of a ceasefire, even Netanyahu has dropped the pretense, noting that "we are committed to continue the war after the pause in order to achieve the goal of destroying Hamas. I will not give up on this." For its part, Hamas has little incentive to go along with a ceasefire deal that does not actually lead to an end of the war. And despite Biden's pledge to hold Israel to its commitments, the administration's record over the last several months hardly inspires confidence.
Instead of attempting to change the incentive structure of both sides, the Biden administration has consistently worked to absorb, deflect or otherwise offset any potential costs or consequences that Israel could incur by continuing the war, thereby prolonging it. Despite serious and growing differences between the U.S. and Israel over both its conduct and goals of the war, the administration has continued to provide nearly unrestricted military, political and diplomatic support for Israel's military campaign at virtually every stage—regardless of the costs for Palestinians and even when it has strongly disagreed with those actions.
The list of examples is as long as it is disturbing — from the administration's endless, and largely unheeded, pleas for Israel to do more to limit civilian casualties, scale back its "indiscriminate" bombing, allow more humanitarian aid to Gaza's starved population, and lay out a clear post-war endgame for Gaza, to the President's supposed "red line" in Rafah, which Netanyahu has blown through as effortlessly as he did previous ultimatums by the administration.
With the exception of holding up a single shipment of the 2,000 and 500-pound bombs that had already killed thousands of innocents and annihilated most of Gaza's infrastructure, Biden has kept the weapons flowing, despite the administration's own assessment that U.S. weapons were likely used by Israel in violation of international humanitarian law.
Not only has Netanyahu avoided paying a price for his defiance of the U.S., the administration has continued to reward him and his far-right government with virtually unrestricted military, political, and diplomatic support. Even when Netanyahu publicly accused the administration of holding back weapons, the White House rushed to clarify that apart from the one shipment there was no disruption in the flow of weapons.
Congress has only amplified Netanyahu's political impunity with its bipartisan invitation for him to deliver a joint address to Congress this month, a move many Israelis, including former prime minister Ehud Barak, have decried as a "terrible mistake".
In announcing his ceasefire plan, which the U.S. slyly sought to couch as an Israeli proposal, Biden made it a point to declare Hamas no longer had the ability to carry out another October 7 and that it was "time for this war to end," thus offering Netanyahu a victory narrative and a ledge from which to climb down from his impossible perch of "total victory" and destroying Hamas—an offer the Israeli premier has pointedly declined, in large part because he understands there is no price to pay for doing so.
Among other things, this has put the Biden administration in the awkward position of continuing to provide material support for a war that, for all intents and purposes, it no longer supports politically. This fundamental contradiction lies at the core of the repeated ceasefire failures in Gaza as well as the escalation on the Israeli-Lebanese front.
The same muddled message to Israel--"we'd rather you didn't, but we'll still back you up when you do"— which may be the closest thing we've seen yet to a Biden Doctrine — is now being extended to Lebanon. The administration has warned Israel against an all-out invasion of Lebanon or "small regional war," which risks drawing Iran into an even wider and more catastrophic regional conflict, and has intensified its diplomatic efforts to forestall such an outcome.
As Israel and Hezbollah have inched ever closer toward blown-blown war, however, the administration has shifted its messaging, assuring Israeli leaders that the U.S. will continue to back Israel militarily even in the event of a full-scale war while at the same time warning Hezbollah that U.S. cannot prevent Israel from mounting a full-scale invasion.
What better way to undercut U.S. diplomacy than by reinforcing Netanyahu's preference for military solutions over diplomatic ones.
This basic contradiction stems from the administration's belief that differences or difficulties in the U.S.-Israel relationship serve as motivation for Hezbollah, Hamas and other members of the "axis of resistance" to continue and expand the fighting, and thus that the best deterrent is to eliminate any public daylight between the United States and Israel. As the past nine months (if not several decades) have shown, however, precisely the opposite is true — the provision of virtually restricted weapons and diplomatic support reduces the costs of continued military action for Israel and encourages reckless behavior, such as we have seen throughout the Gaza war.
As Israel's chief political enabler and weapons supplier, the United States absolutely has the ability — even a responsibility — to constrain Israel from taking actions that directly harm broader U.S. interests, as both an attack on Lebanon and the lack of a ceasefire in Gaza both do.
But for reasons of both domestic politics and the president's own deeply held personal views, the Biden administration has chosen not to use its substantial leverage.
The Biden administration no doubt understands that the surest way to prevent a further escalation in Lebanon is to end the horrific war in Gaza, though it has failed to grasp its own role in fueling both of these. For the U.S. to bring about an end to the Gaza war and prevent an equally disastrous regional war, this will have to change, including most notably by withholding the political and military support Israel's far-right government needs to sustain the war in Gaza or expanding it to Lebanon.
As long as the U.S. persists in absorbing or deflecting Israel's costs for maintaining the war, not only will the horrors in Gaza continue but may only be a matter of time before extending the devastation to Lebanon as well.

After months of political wrangling the Ukraine military aid package cleared both chambers of Congress and was signed by the president on Wednesday. This is an important milestone signaling bipartisan support for the Ukrainian cause. Yet, although immediate shipments were promised, a substantial portion of the package—$48 billion out of nearly $61 billion—will pay for replenishing U.S. weapons stockpiles and producing new equipment for Ukraine. Russia, meanwhile, shows no signs of curbing its confrontation with the West. Regardless of how long Ukraine can withstand the onslaught of the Russian war machine, or whether the United States and Europe can continue providing support to Ukraine, the current season of confrontation between Russia and the West promises to be a long one. Not Provoking the Aggressor?Russia will remain a threat to the United States and its allies for a long time to come, analysts Miranda Priebe and Samuel Charap write in a RAND research report (for a quick read, see the research brief with a summary). They paint two scenarios. In the one more favorable to the United States, the war ends quickly, the ceasefire is sustainable, and the Russian war machine is severely weakened. In the less favorable (and potentially more likely) scenario the war of attrition lasts a long time, the ceasefire is unsustainable, and Russia is not weakened enough to cease preparations for the next imperialist wars. In both more and less favorable scenarios, the RAND report says, the United States could adopt softer or tougher policies toward Russia. By choosing relative softness, the United States would signal it was willing to negotiate with Russia. It would not send additional military forces to Eastern Europe, and it would show restraint in providing political and military support to countries threatened by Russia. If it chose relative toughness, the United States would continue efforts to gain Ukraine accession to NATO and would seek to punish, contain, and weaken Russia for its aggression.This leads to a matrix of four scenarios. If Russia is significantly weakened by the war, the U.S. hard approach leads to Cold War 2.0. The soft approach leads to "cold peace." If Russia quickly rebuilds its military machine after the war, the U.S. soft approach leads to localized instability and the hard approach to widespread, pervasive instability.If Russia's aggressiveness continues unabated and the United States pursues a tough policy, international tensions will rise rapidly, Russian-Chinese cooperation will deepen, NATO-Russia relations will deteriorate further, and global economic fragmentation will increase. With a softer policy, the United States weakens its support for European NATO countries. U.S. relations with Russia improve slightly. China's ties with Russia do not strengthen, and global trade does not fragment into competing blocs. The United States is less involved in the conflict with Russia and can shift its focus to the rivalry with China. This scenario is very similar to Trump's possible policy in 2025. Priebe and Charap conclude that the best scenario for the United States is one in which Russia is weakened as much as possible by the war and the United States pursues a soft policy afterward. The worst scenario is one in which Russia's war machine remains strong and the United States pursues a tough policy.This conclusion and reasoning may seem logical: both strategically and economically, peace is better than war, and global war is worse than local war. The problem, however, is that the likelihood and intensity of the war Russia is waging are determined less by the hawkish or dovish policies of the United States than by the capabilities and desires of the Kremlin. Russia is not losing the current war of attrition, and the longer the war goes on, the less likely are the scenarios favorable to the United States. The Russian war machine is clearly accelerating. For Russia to be significantly weakened at the end of the war with Ukraine, aid to Ukraine now would have to be much more timely and massive. The current difficulties the United States and Europe are experiencing in providing timely, adequate military assistance to Ukraine reduce the likelihood of a cold peace and new Cold War scenarios. Having ended the war with Ukraine, Russia may be almost ready for new wars.Priebe and Charap seem to underestimate Russia's willingness and ability to continue waging war in Eastern Europe and overestimate the beneficial effects of U.S. peacemaking. They also assume that a soft U.S. policy will help avoid a Russian conflict with NATO members. However, the likelihood of such a conflict depends much more on events and attitudes in Moscow than on events and attitudes in Washington. If the Kremlin's appetite for risk continues to grow, a soft U.S. policy will only encourage an attack. The real consequence of the softer U.S. policy could be what we have seen online in recent months: Ukraine's weapons deficit, the accelerated pace of Russia's offensive, and direct signals that the offensive will not be limited to Kharkiv or even the whole of Ukraine. What provokes Russia most is not the West's strength and toughness but its weakness, its fragmented and delayed efforts, its indecision and half-heartedness, and the many holes in European and transatlantic unity.Stopping RussiaThe authors of the CEPA report, edited by Sam Greene and SaraJane Rzegocki, have a much more realistic view of Russian politics. They take seriously the claims of Putin and his associates that from 2022 on, Russia has been at war not with Ukraine but with the West. Even the end of the Russia-Ukraine war will not stop Russia's war with the West. Russia's challenge to the West is not limited to Ukraine and will not disappear in the coming years. This is exactly what Putin and his associates are warning the West about. The chances are very high that Russia will continue its war with the West after Putin leaves office.Russia's goals now, according to the CEPA report, are as follows:To maintain the power of Putin's elite through the military mobilization of society;To change the world order by depriving the United States of its primacy and changing the international norms and rules that have brought prosperity to much of the world since 1945; and To gain military, political, and economic dominance in the post-Soviet space. To counter these attempts, the United States should not only contain Russia but also deny it the ability to wage war in Europe and in the post-Soviet space, now and in the future.This will require attention and vigilance. Deterrence is the only alternative to escalation, says the CEPA report, whose authors echo George Kennan's famous cable. A new deterrence strategy should include a strengthened NATO commitment to defend the Eastern bloc countries, countering Russia's attempts to destabilize Western societies and influence their politics, and a principled refusal to accept that the post-Soviet countries are an area of interest to Moscow. Similar recommendations to the U.S. authorities can be found in the CFR report, written by Liand Fix and Maria Snegovaya, and the CNAS report, prepared by Andrea Kendall-Taylor.The strategy of deterrence involves supplying Ukraine with weapons not "as long as it takes" but "as quickly as possible." This requires a significant strengthening of transatlantic and European solidarity to overcome the strategic weakness of the West. It requires a significant increase in U.S. and European engagement in Moldova, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia, including, curiously, assistance to China in building alternative trade routes between Southeast Asia and Europe. In the absence of a firm and coherent deterrence strategy, Russia will continue to pose threatening challenges to NATO and Europe. The goal of deterrence should not be the defeat or collapse of Russia. During the Cold War, the goal of the United States and Western Europe was not the defeat or collapse of the USSR. It was to preserve world order, protect the United States and its allies, and prevent further destabilization of the international order. Doing so this time will be difficult and will require determination, consistency, internal unity, and a great deal of patience.The opinions expressed in this article are those solely of the author and do not reflect the views of the Kennan Institute.

After months of political wrangling the Ukraine military aid package cleared both chambers of Congress and was signed by the president on Wednesday. This is an important milestone signaling bipartisan support for the Ukrainian cause. Yet, although immediate shipments were promised, a substantial portion of the package—$48 billion out of nearly $61 billion—will pay for replenishing U.S. weapons stockpiles and producing new equipment for Ukraine. Russia, meanwhile, shows no signs of curbing its confrontation with the West. Regardless of how long Ukraine can withstand the onslaught of the Russian war machine, or whether the United States and Europe can continue providing support to Ukraine, the current season of confrontation between Russia and the West promises to be a long one. Not Provoking the Aggressor?Russia will remain a threat to the United States and its allies for a long time to come, analysts Miranda Priebe and Samuel Charap write in a RAND research report (for a quick read, see the research brief with a summary). They paint two scenarios. In the one more favorable to the United States, the war ends quickly, the ceasefire is sustainable, and the Russian war machine is severely weakened. In the less favorable (and potentially more likely) scenario the war of attrition lasts a long time, the ceasefire is unsustainable, and Russia is not weakened enough to cease preparations for the next imperialist wars. In both more and less favorable scenarios, the RAND report says, the United States could adopt softer or tougher policies toward Russia. By choosing relative softness, the United States would signal it was willing to negotiate with Russia. It would not send additional military forces to Eastern Europe, and it would show restraint in providing political and military support to countries threatened by Russia. If it chose relative toughness, the United States would continue efforts to gain Ukraine accession to NATO and would seek to punish, contain, and weaken Russia for its aggression.This leads to a matrix of four scenarios. If Russia is significantly weakened by the war, the U.S. hard approach leads to Cold War 2.0. The soft approach leads to "cold peace." If Russia quickly rebuilds its military machine after the war, the U.S. soft approach leads to localized instability and the hard approach to widespread, pervasive instability.If Russia's aggressiveness continues unabated and the United States pursues a tough policy, international tensions will rise rapidly, Russian-Chinese cooperation will deepen, NATO-Russia relations will deteriorate further, and global economic fragmentation will increase. With a softer policy, the United States weakens its support for European NATO countries. U.S. relations with Russia improve slightly. China's ties with Russia do not strengthen, and global trade does not fragment into competing blocs. The United States is less involved in the conflict with Russia and can shift its focus to the rivalry with China. This scenario is very similar to Trump's possible policy in 2025. Priebe and Charap conclude that the best scenario for the United States is one in which Russia is weakened as much as possible by the war and the United States pursues a soft policy afterward. The worst scenario is one in which Russia's war machine remains strong and the United States pursues a tough policy.This conclusion and reasoning may seem logical: both strategically and economically, peace is better than war, and global war is worse than local war. The problem, however, is that the likelihood and intensity of the war Russia is waging are determined less by the hawkish or dovish policies of the United States than by the capabilities and desires of the Kremlin. Russia is not losing the current war of attrition, and the longer the war goes on, the less likely are the scenarios favorable to the United States. The Russian war machine is clearly accelerating. For Russia to be significantly weakened at the end of the war with Ukraine, aid to Ukraine now would have to be much more timely and massive. The current difficulties the United States and Europe are experiencing in providing timely, adequate military assistance to Ukraine reduce the likelihood of a cold peace and new Cold War scenarios. Having ended the war with Ukraine, Russia may be almost ready for new wars.Priebe and Charap seem to underestimate Russia's willingness and ability to continue waging war in Eastern Europe and overestimate the beneficial effects of U.S. peacemaking. They also assume that a soft U.S. policy will help avoid a Russian conflict with NATO members. However, the likelihood of such a conflict depends much more on events and attitudes in Moscow than on events and attitudes in Washington. If the Kremlin's appetite for risk continues to grow, a soft U.S. policy will only encourage an attack. The real consequence of the softer U.S. policy could be what we have seen online in recent months: Ukraine's weapons deficit, the accelerated pace of Russia's offensive, and direct signals that the offensive will not be limited to Kharkiv or even the whole of Ukraine. What provokes Russia most is not the West's strength and toughness but its weakness, its fragmented and delayed efforts, its indecision and half-heartedness, and the many holes in European and transatlantic unity.Stopping RussiaThe authors of the CEPA report, edited by Sam Greene and SaraJane Rzegocki, have a much more realistic view of Russian politics. They take seriously the claims of Putin and his associates that from 2022 on, Russia has been at war not with Ukraine but with the West. Even the end of the Russia-Ukraine war will not stop Russia's war with the West. Russia's challenge to the West is not limited to Ukraine and will not disappear in the coming years. This is exactly what Putin and his associates are warning the West about. The chances are very high that Russia will continue its war with the West after Putin leaves office.Russia's goals now, according to the CEPA report, are as follows:To maintain the power of Putin's elite through the military mobilization of society;To change the world order by depriving the United States of its primacy and changing the international norms and rules that have brought prosperity to much of the world since 1945; and To gain military, political, and economic dominance in the post-Soviet space. To counter these attempts, the United States should not only contain Russia but also deny it the ability to wage war in Europe and in the post-Soviet space, now and in the future.This will require attention and vigilance. Deterrence is the only alternative to escalation, says the CEPA report, whose authors echo George Kennan's famous cable. A new deterrence strategy should include a strengthened NATO commitment to defend the Eastern bloc countries, countering Russia's attempts to destabilize Western societies and influence their politics, and a principled refusal to accept that the post-Soviet countries are an area of interest to Moscow. Similar recommendations to the U.S. authorities can be found in the CFR report, written by Liand Fix and Maria Snegovaya, and the CNAS report, prepared by Andrea Kendall-Taylor.The strategy of deterrence involves supplying Ukraine with weapons not "as long as it takes" but "as quickly as possible." This requires a significant strengthening of transatlantic and European solidarity to overcome the strategic weakness of the West. It requires a significant increase in U.S. and European engagement in Moldova, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia, including, curiously, assistance to China in building alternative trade routes between Southeast Asia and Europe. In the absence of a firm and coherent deterrence strategy, Russia will continue to pose threatening challenges to NATO and Europe. The goal of deterrence should not be the defeat or collapse of Russia. During the Cold War, the goal of the United States and Western Europe was not the defeat or collapse of the USSR. It was to preserve world order, protect the United States and its allies, and prevent further destabilization of the international order. Doing so this time will be difficult and will require determination, consistency, internal unity, and a great deal of patience.The opinions expressed in this article are those solely of the author and do not reflect the views of the Kennan Institute.

This article was co-published with The New Arab.Iranian missiles lit up the sky over Jordan this weekend as Israeli jets reportedly scrambled alongside their French, Jordanian, and U.S. counterparts to intercept the unprecedented barrage.On the ground, regular Jordanians got their first taste of what could escalate to a broader war. Videos showed charred remnants of missiles in Marj al-Hamam, a quiet neighbourhood a short drive from downtown Amman. Some responded with levity, placing ads on the Arab equivalent of Craigslist for a "used missile".But the overwhelming response was anger. Jordan's defence of Israel led to a firestorm of criticism and conspiracy on social media, with posters falsely claiming that a Jordanian princess had participated in the interceptions, while others shared fake images of King Abdullah in an Israeli uniform. The king and his deputies responded by insisting that they would shoot down any unauthorized objects in Jordanian airspace, but it remains unclear if regular Jordanians are buying that claim."Things are very tense right now in Jordan," said Sean Yom, a political science professor at Temple University. "The Jordanian government is obviously trying to do the best job that it can in just getting out of this, but it's not easy."This latest escalation of the Gaza war highlights the ways Israel's campaign risks destabilizing some of the Middle East's most conflict-averse states. The strikes, themselves a response to an Israeli bombing of an Iranian consulate, came just a few months after Iran-aligned militias attacked a U.S. base in Jordan and killed three American soldiers.As the U.S. seeks to forge diplomatic ties between Arab states and Israel, Amman's situation also offers a stark reminder that normalization with autocratic governments does not equal normalization with those countries' citizens.In recent years, the American approach to the Middle East has largely focused on freezing the situation as it stands. The Abraham Accords were designed to give Israel a stronger place in the region, allowing the Jewish state to build on previous peace deals with Jordan and Egypt and establish relations with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Morocco, and Bahrain. The deal is simple: The U.S. will invest in your regime's stability if you accept Israel as it exists today.But it's not clear that these internal tensions can stay on ice as Gaza burns. In Jordan, decades of lavish U.S. aid has done little to mollify the anger that average citizens - many of whom are Palestinians - feel over Israel's actions.For months, Jordanians have held daily protests outside of the Israeli embassy in Amman. The government, anxious to avoid a diplomatic crisis with Israel, has cracked down on the rallies with large-scale arrests and even a few clashes with protesters.Jordan's role in downing Iranian drones over the weekend has further inflamed sentiments both inside the country and across the region, according to Nader Hashemi, an expert on Middle East politics and a professor at Georgetown University."The United States has to realize that its almost unconditional support for Israel in Gaza is producing these types of destabilizing effects," Hashemi said. "It's going to increase the instability in Jordan."A 'very delicate' balanceJordan is built on a series of contradictions. The country has a largely Palestinian population but maintains a close relationship with Israel. It hosts an enormous number of refugees despite barely having enough water to sustain its own citizenry. The royal court convenes a parliament but more or less ignores any decisions that the legislature provides.These compromises are part of an understandable balancing act on the part of Jordanian officials, who must find a way to govern a small, resource-poor state in a war-torn region, argues Rami Khouri, a Jordanian-American journalist of Palestinian descent and a distinguished fellow at the American University of Beirut. "That balance is very delicate, but it's always been there," Khouri said, noting that he doesn't expect the latest escalation to cause a major crisis. "The Jordanians have always figured it out."This equilibrium has grown unsteady in recent years as deep economic woes have ravaged the country. Jordan's unemployment rate sits at roughly 22%, with nearly half of young people unable to find a job, according to the World Bank. Authorities have also cracked down on protests and shuttered some of the country's most powerful unions. The war in Gaza has added significant fuel to this growing fire by highlighting the distance between Jordanians and their leaders.Even prior to the war, 19% of Jordanians told pollsters that Amman's primary foreign policy goal should be to champion the Palestinian cause - more than twice the number who said Jordan should prioritize its own security. (It's telling that fully 40% of those surveyed said the top priority should be facilitating economic agreements that promote growth and jobs.) This does not necessarily mean that the average Jordanian is opposed to all cooperation with Israel, as Jamal al-Tahat of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) notes. After all, Jordan relies on Israel for water and trade, two essential factors for the desert country. In al-Tahat's view, the main concern is about whether Amman is getting a fair deal in its relationship with Tel Aviv, coupled with a deep anger over Israel's actions in Gaza.But it's hard to ignore the fact that the latest protests are "very new in terms of size and in terms of the determination of the people," al-Tahat said.Between Iraq and a hard placeTo understand Jordan's predicament, one need only look at a map. To its north and east are Syria and Iraq, both of which have long suffered from instability and war. Jordan's neighbors to the west are Israel and Palestine, and its only port is a thin strip of land on the Red Sea near the border with Saudi Arabia.These geographical facts have left the monarchy with little choice but to find a powerful patron to protect its interests. The US has been more than happy to fill that role so long as Jordan toes the American line on regional issues. From America's point of view, it's an easy deal. A 2021 agreement gave the US military unparalleled independence for its operations in Jordan, allowing American troops to enter and transit the country as they please. The relationship gives Washington a nearly unlimited base of operations at the heart of the Middle East.For the royal court, U.S. backing offers a crucial layer of security, especially in moments like today. "The situation is not going to threaten the stability of the country as long as you still have the large-scale American military, financial support for Jordan," Khouri said.But close ties with the U.S. and Israel come with strings attached. The regime has little choice but to allow both countries to use its airspace when crises occur, but it must hold onto a certain level of plausible deniability to avoid angering the Jordanian public. "If the government admits this, it would be seen in the eyes of many Jordanians as a collaborator with Israel, and that would contravene the spirit of the Jordanian government's official stance," Yom said.It remains unclear how Jordan's regime could respond if a full-scale war breaks out between Israel and Iran. Experts who spoke with Responsible Statecraft/The New Arab all doubted that Amman would proactively join the conflict, but a strong possibility remains that it could get dragged into battle despite its best efforts to stay on the sidelines. One thing is certain, according to Yom: A regional war would be "cataclysmic" for Jordan. So how can U.S. policymakers avoid such a disaster? They can start by preaching restraint to the Israelis as they weigh further strikes on Iranian assets in the region, Yom argued. "That's the only way Jordan is able to get out of this very difficult situation with as little damage as possible," he said.

A few days after Iran's attack on Israel, it is too early for an overall assessment of the consequences. It is possible, though, to draw some preliminary reflections. Has Iran gained something, or has the attack rather been a strategic setback? And is there a way out?The attack is the culmination of a months-long escalation
Iran has attacked Israel in retaliation against a series of military operations carried out by Israel since December 2023 against senior Iranian officials in Syria, culminating in the bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, which killed seven people, among them the commander of operations in Syria of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the paramilitary organisation in charge of Iran's regional security policy. These attacks, and especially the one in Damascus, have confronted the Iranian regime, now controlled by a clique of ultraconservative clerics and hard-line security officials (mostly from the IRGC), with two mutually exclusive, risky and costly options.
Iran could have just taken the blow in order to continue benefitting indirectly from the growing isolation in which Israel finds itself because of the devastation it has inflicted on Gaza's 2.3 million population. The price tag was high, however. Iran's deterrence capacity would have diminished, resulting in an invitation to Israel to keep upping the ante. For a regime that prides itself of its unwavering "resistance" against Israel (and the United States), absorbing the enemy's punches without reacting was hardly a long-term option.
The alternative was a robust military response in the attempt to recover part of its lost deterrence. The risks were high also in this case, as Israel's counter-retaliation could have dragged Iran into a war it does not want, not least because Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu would have gone the extra mile to get the United States involved too.
In the end, Iran chose a kind of middle ground, a massive direct attack from its territory with drones (up to 170) as well as ballistic and cruise missiles (about 150 in total) designed to convey a powerful political message but seemingly not to inflict real harm: neither victims nor serious material damage has been recorded. Iran communicated that it would retaliate with so much publicity that Israel had sufficient time to coordinate a defence operation with the United States and its European allies (France and the United Kingdom) and Arab partners, notably Jordan.
Even if Iran's gamble succeeds and the escalatory spiral is reversed, the question remains about what the consequences of its attack may be for Iran, Israel as well as the latter's Western allies.A strategic win or setback for Iran?
Iran's calculated risk has allowed it to score some points. First, Iran has shown its military prowess. The display of capabilities was impressive enough to make entirely plausible the notion that a future surprise attack could be way more effective.
Second, Iran's audacity in attacking a nuclear-armed military powerhouse such as Israel, even risking a retaliation by the United States, may have augmented its reputation in the public opinion across the region. Considering that the only other actors that have targeted Israel during the latter's brutal operation in Gaza, namely Hezbollah from Lebanon and the Houthis from Yemen, are allies of Iran, the regional status of the "Axis of resistance" – the network of Iranian allies across the region – has been reinforced.
Third, Iran's attack has once again highlighted Western hypocrisy. The United States and Europe have promptly (and rightly) condemned Iran's attack, but prior to it had done little to nothing to dissuade Israel from triggering the escalatory spiral.
Finally, the Iranian attack has revealed quite a degree of Western opportunism, a painful lesson for Ukraine in particular. The United States, France and the United Kingdom have not hesitated to use their air power to defend Israel's airspace and territory from a retaliation that Israel itself has actually provoked. However, they have been staunchly opposing the option of closing the airspace of Ukraine, a country unjustifiably attacked by an imperialist power (which by the way also uses Iranian-made drones).
On the other hand, it is hard to escape the impression that Iran has also lost out. Israel's claim to have intercepted almost all of the drones and cruise and ballistic missiles lays bare the limits of Iranian military power. Furthermore, Iran's fear of a conflict it would have a hard time sustaining has shown through the limited character of its retaliation. The participation in the defence of the Israeli territory of Jordan has highlighted the limits of Iran's recently pursued rapprochement with its Arab rivals. But most important of all is that the attack has shifted the international focus away from Gaza, where Israel is on the defensive, to Iran, where Israel has easily regained US and European support.Is there a way out?
Iran considers the "matter concluded". The US Administration is also keen to put the incident behind us. President Joe Biden has told Netanyahu to "take the win" – namely, the almost total impermeability of Israel's defences. But he has also told the Israeli prime minister that the United States will not join any offensive operation against Iran. And it would not be surprising if Biden's alleged concern that Netanyahu might want to drag the United States into a war in the Middle East was deliberately leaked to the press.
The question now is what the Israeli government plans to do. So far, the Netanyahu government has consistently frustrated Biden's plans to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for the freeing of the hostages still in Hamas' hands. It has also flatly rejected to embrace the notion of re-engaging with a re-legitimised Palestinian Authority with the view to establishing a Palestinian state. And it has ignored Biden's pleas to restrain from escalatory actions across the region, so much so that Netanyahu did not even feel compelled to inform the US Administration of the bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus.
Netanyahu has powerful domestic incentives to continue acting along these lines. His position as prime minister relies on the goodwill of his extremist ruling coalition partners, who are already advocating a strong military response against Iran. A robust counter-retaliation would also be in line with a cornerstone of Israel's doctrine of deterrence: that is, that it has always to throw the last – and hardest – punch.
The record of the Netanyahu government as well as Israel's established deterrence policy thus point to an Israel inclined to double down. Only strong, determined and public pressure from the United States and Europe can make Netanyahu think again and opt for restraint. The Western powers could do so by reiterating that their commitment to Israel does not extend beyond defensive measures. They could also make clear to the Israeli government that a regional escalation would make Israel even more isolated, as they would not just not support it, but would keep insisting that the focus remain on a ceasefire with Hamas, the liberation of hostages and the imperative to get much larger humanitarian aid into Gaza.
The Iranian attack on Israel confronts the Western powers with the cost of their reluctance to weigh in more heavily on the Netanyahu government to prevent highly escalatory actions such as the bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus. It is a tragic irony that it has taken an Iranian attack on Israel to pinpoint the West's need for more autonomy from the Israeli government if they want to achieve de-escalation in the region.Riccardo Alcaro is Research Coordinator and Head of Global Actors programme at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI).

A few days after Iran's attack on Israel, it is too early for an overall assessment of the consequences. It is possible, though, to draw some preliminary reflections. Has Iran gained something, or has the attack rather been a strategic setback? And is there a way out?The attack is the culmination of a months-long escalation
Iran has attacked Israel in retaliation against a series of military operations carried out by Israel since December 2023 against senior Iranian officials in Syria, culminating in the bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, which killed seven people, among them the commander of operations in Syria of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the paramilitary organisation in charge of Iran's regional security policy. These attacks, and especially the one in Damascus, have confronted the Iranian regime, now controlled by a clique of ultraconservative clerics and hard-line security officials (mostly from the IRGC), with two mutually exclusive, risky and costly options.
Iran could have just taken the blow in order to continue benefitting indirectly from the growing isolation in which Israel finds itself because of the devastation it has inflicted on Gaza's 2.3 million population. The price tag was high, however. Iran's deterrence capacity would have diminished, resulting in an invitation to Israel to keep upping the ante. For a regime that prides itself of its unwavering "resistance" against Israel (and the United States), absorbing the enemy's punches without reacting was hardly a long-term option.
The alternative was a robust military response in the attempt to recover part of its lost deterrence. The risks were high also in this case, as Israel's counter-retaliation could have dragged Iran into a war it does not want, not least because Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu would have gone the extra mile to get the United States involved too.
In the end, Iran chose a kind of middle ground, a massive direct attack from its territory with drones (up to 170) as well as ballistic and cruise missiles (about 150 in total) designed to convey a powerful political message but seemingly not to inflict real harm: neither victims nor serious material damage has been recorded. Iran communicated that it would retaliate with so much publicity that Israel had sufficient time to coordinate a defence operation with the United States and its European allies (France and the United Kingdom) and Arab partners, notably Jordan.
Even if Iran's gamble succeeds and the escalatory spiral is reversed, the question remains about what the consequences of its attack may be for Iran, Israel as well as the latter's Western allies.A strategic win or setback for Iran?
Iran's calculated risk has allowed it to score some points. First, Iran has shown its military prowess. The display of capabilities was impressive enough to make entirely plausible the notion that a future surprise attack could be way more effective.
Second, Iran's audacity in attacking a nuclear-armed military powerhouse such as Israel, even risking a retaliation by the United States, may have augmented its reputation in the public opinion across the region. Considering that the only other actors that have targeted Israel during the latter's brutal operation in Gaza, namely Hezbollah from Lebanon and the Houthis from Yemen, are allies of Iran, the regional status of the "Axis of resistance" – the network of Iranian allies across the region – has been reinforced.
Third, Iran's attack has once again highlighted Western hypocrisy. The United States and Europe have promptly (and rightly) condemned Iran's attack, but prior to it had done little to nothing to dissuade Israel from triggering the escalatory spiral.
Finally, the Iranian attack has revealed quite a degree of Western opportunism, a painful lesson for Ukraine in particular. The United States, France and the United Kingdom have not hesitated to use their air power to defend Israel's airspace and territory from a retaliation that Israel itself has actually provoked. However, they have been staunchly opposing the option of closing the airspace of Ukraine, a country unjustifiably attacked by an imperialist power (which by the way also uses Iranian-made drones).
On the other hand, it is hard to escape the impression that Iran has also lost out. Israel's claim to have intercepted almost all of the drones and cruise and ballistic missiles lays bare the limits of Iranian military power. Furthermore, Iran's fear of a conflict it would have a hard time sustaining has shown through the limited character of its retaliation. The participation in the defence of the Israeli territory of Jordan has highlighted the limits of Iran's recently pursued rapprochement with its Arab rivals. But most important of all is that the attack has shifted the international focus away from Gaza, where Israel is on the defensive, to Iran, where Israel has easily regained US and European support.Is there a way out?
Iran considers the "matter concluded". The US Administration is also keen to put the incident behind us. President Joe Biden has told Netanyahu to "take the win" – namely, the almost total impermeability of Israel's defences. But he has also told the Israeli prime minister that the United States will not join any offensive operation against Iran. And it would not be surprising if Biden's alleged concern that Netanyahu might want to drag the United States into a war in the Middle East was deliberately leaked to the press.
The question now is what the Israeli government plans to do. So far, the Netanyahu government has consistently frustrated Biden's plans to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for the freeing of the hostages still in Hamas' hands. It has also flatly rejected to embrace the notion of re-engaging with a re-legitimised Palestinian Authority with the view to establishing a Palestinian state. And it has ignored Biden's pleas to restrain from escalatory actions across the region, so much so that Netanyahu did not even feel compelled to inform the US Administration of the bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus.
Netanyahu has powerful domestic incentives to continue acting along these lines. His position as prime minister relies on the goodwill of his extremist ruling coalition partners, who are already advocating a strong military response against Iran. A robust counter-retaliation would also be in line with a cornerstone of Israel's doctrine of deterrence: that is, that it has always to throw the last – and hardest – punch.
The record of the Netanyahu government as well as Israel's established deterrence policy thus point to an Israel inclined to double down. Only strong, determined and public pressure from the United States and Europe can make Netanyahu think again and opt for restraint. The Western powers could do so by reiterating that their commitment to Israel does not extend beyond defensive measures. They could also make clear to the Israeli government that a regional escalation would make Israel even more isolated, as they would not just not support it, but would keep insisting that the focus remain on a ceasefire with Hamas, the liberation of hostages and the imperative to get much larger humanitarian aid into Gaza.
The Iranian attack on Israel confronts the Western powers with the cost of their reluctance to weigh in more heavily on the Netanyahu government to prevent highly escalatory actions such as the bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus. It is a tragic irony that it has taken an Iranian attack on Israel to pinpoint the West's need for more autonomy from the Israeli government if they want to achieve de-escalation in the region.Riccardo Alcaro is JOINT Coordinator and Research Coordinator and Head of Global Actors programme at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI).
This brief has first been published as IAI Commentaries No. 24|16 (April 2024), https://www.iai.it/en/node/18375.