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Secretary of State Marco Rubio continues to demonstrate his leadership on crucial subjects. He wrote an article last week in the Wall Street Journal which hasn’t gained the attention it deserves. It was entitled, “Why We Are Dismantling the ICC.” What Mr. Rubio wrote there is part and parcel of his speeches against left-wing terrorism and such. As Mr. Rubio explains, the International Criminal Court now claims the right to arrest American soldiers, political leaders, border patrol agents, and everyone else it indicts. It claims the power to try them before judges many of whom come from nations where the rule of law doesn’t exist and imprison them far from the United States. We fought the American Revolution to prevent our people from being seized and tried in foreign courts. The truth of the matter is that the ICC is a rogue court, worse than any anti-Trump judge that we have encountered in the past few years. As Mr. Rubio infers, it is so because there are no American checks and balances that can control it. Our Constitution established three branches of government that are supposed to keep each other in line: the executive, legislative, and the judicial. Our system of government provides checks and balances so that when any branch of government gets out of control the other two are supposed to bring it back into line. This can even be done by Constitutional amendment if the situation is sufficiently critical. But the ICC has no relationship to our Constitution. None of our three branches of government have the power to overturn its decisions. We sometimes struggle to remember anything that Bill Clinton did that was good. But he did, in 2000, refuse to submit the “Rome Statute,” which establishes the ICC, to the Senate for ratification citing significant problems. As Mr. Rubio wrote, “Two years later, a bipartisan Senate supermajority passed the American Servicemembers’ Protection Act, authorizing the president “to use all means necessary” — including military force — to prevent the ICC from detaining or arresting Americans.” Neither we nor Israel ever signed the “Rome Statute” so we — and the Israelis — should be exempt from it. But, in the ICC’s opinion, we are not. As I wrote at the time, President Trump, in February 2025, sanctioned the chief prosecutor of the ICC at the time, Fatou Bensouda, and other ICC senior personnel because they had threatened to investigate U.S. soldiers for supposed war crimes in Afghanistan. The previous November, the ICC had issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war minister, Yoav Gallant, alleging war crimes in the Gaza Strip, of which there was — and is — no evidence. This is the warrant that New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, wants to use to arrest Mr. Netanyahu if he ever visits New York again. Mr. Mamdani wouldn’t dare arrest Mr. Netanyahu on these phony charges (both Israeli security and the U.S. Secret Service would certainly intervene) and the United States wouldn’t let him. Mr. Mamdani simply wants to bar him from visiting New York for the annual United Nations meeting which Mr. Netanyahu attends to address the General Assembly or the Security Council. Let’s get back to what Mr. Rubio wrote about the rogue ICC. Rubio maintained that the ICC now constitutes a threat to our sovereignty and independence. It does so by threatening Americans with prosecution. We cannot claim independence or sovereignty if we allow it so we will not. As Mr. Rubio wrote, “The ICC is backed and run by a powerful network of leftist nongovernment organizations, smug globalists, and hostile Third World governments united by their enmity toward the U.S.” Globalists — which includes the Democratic Party as well as its subgroup, the Democratic Socialists — all want the ICC to have its jurisdiction extended to include Americans. This, as Mr. Rubio wrote, cannot be allowed. The ICC’s aim is to cripple the Trump administration’s efforts, for example, to target international drug smugglers. A former ICC chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, called these actions “crimes against humanity.” As Mr. Rubio’s closing paragraph says, “The Trump administration will always protect American service members from this threat. The U.S. is launching a diplomatic campaign with a simple message — sovereign states over globalism. Those who benefit from American security must not stand idly by while those who provide that security are targeted. This is only the beginning. Using all the tools at our government’s disposal, working beside every ally with whom we can make common cause, we will dismantle the ICC — brick by brick, if necessary.” One hundred twenty-five nations have signed and ratified the Rome Statute, and 29 have signed but not ratified, so Mr. Rubio may have trouble getting allies in this cause. But his position is precisely right. We fought the American Revolution to prevent our people from being seized and tried in foreign courts. There can be no excuse for our government to do less than Mr. Rubio recommends. READ MORE from Jed Babbin: Why Are We Still Negotiating with Iran? A Six-Day Funeral and a Long War The Fall Guy          

Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in order to restore Russia’s imperial greatness. Instead, he may go down in history as the man who transformed Russia into China’s junior partner, thereby demoting it to a middle power or, worse, transforming it into a Third World country with the bomb. Putin wants the West to believe he remains strong. Yet Russian forces are grinding against Ukraine’s “drone wall,” while Kyiv’s mid-range drones impose a “logistics lockdown” on Russian supply routes to occupied Crimea. Meanwhile, the Kremlin still portrays Russia and China as equal powers united against the West. But the reality is far less flattering. Moscow’s battlefield frustration is showing in scare tactics, with Russian officials warning Washington to evacuate Americans from Kyiv and crudely implying that European diplomats who remain there could be targeted “to trim the headcount.” Even if Russia captures more Ukrainian territory, the long-term cost may prove catastrophic. The longer the war in Ukraine continues, the more dependent Russia becomes on China economically, technologically, and strategically. With the Kremlin struggling to sustain the war, China has gradually increased support for Russia’s economy and war machine, helping keep the West bogged down in Ukraine. In order to sustain his brutal war effort, Putin is sacrificing Russia’s economic future while steadily increasing Beijing’s leverage over Moscow. Russia’s fiscal strain is also becoming harder to hide, with some officials warning that the country faces its worst budget pressures in decades. Russia today relies heavily on China for everything from electronics and industrial machinery to automobiles and dual-use technologies that help sustain the Russian war machine. As Western sanctions cut Russia off from many global markets, China has emerged as Moscow’s primary economic lifeline. Yet this relationship is becoming increasingly asymmetrical. Even Russia’s artificial intelligence ambitions rely on Chinese technology, with Moscow now seeking Chinese microchips to power its flagship AI systems. During Putin’s latest trip to China, senior Russian officials publicly complained that Chinese car manufacturers were overwhelming domestic producers such as AvtoVAZ and KamAZ. Before the invasion of Ukraine, major Russian industrial firms preferred cooperation with European and American partners. Western sanctions and the war severed those ties, leaving Chinese companies to dominate sectors once viewed as strategically Russian. The imbalance is perhaps most visible in energy negotiations. China again refused to finalize the long-delayed Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline agreement, a project critical for Moscow after Russia largely lost the European gas market following the invasion of Ukraine. Beijing reportedly continues to demand steep discounts, using Russia’s growing dependence as leverage. That marks a dramatic reversal for the Kremlin. Russia once supplied Europe from a position of strength. Now Moscow finds itself negotiating from weakness with the only major buyer capable of replacing lost European demand. Despite the Kremlin’s rhetoric about a “no limits” partnership, Beijing has approached the relationship pragmatically. China wants discounted energy, secure access to Russian resources, and greater geopolitical leverage over an isolated Moscow. For Beijing, a weakened but stable Russia serves Chinese interests: dependent enough to supply discounted resources and diplomatic support, but not so weakened that it seeks renewed integration with the West. Even some of Russia’s most ardent nationalist supporters have begun voicing frustration over Moscow’s growing dependence on Beijing. Following Putin’s May visit to China, pro-war “Z” bloggers complained that Russia was becoming a “raw materials colony” of China as Beijing extracted ever greater economic concessions from a Kremlin with few alternatives. Meanwhile, this growing dependence is becoming especially visible in Russia’s Far East. The region has lost nearly 300,000 residents since 2010, while investment remains far below levels in Moscow and St. Petersburg. That demographic and economic weakness makes the region vulnerable to Chinese influence, even without any formal challenge to Russian sovereignty. According to The Saratoga Foundation, in parts of Siberia and the Russian Far East, local officials and residents increasingly look to Beijing for solutions that Moscow can no longer provide. In Irkutsk, frustrated residents even appealed to Putin to seek Chinese help building schools because, as they put it, “the Russian Federation is not in a position to do so.” In Sakha, China’s share of foreign economic cooperation reportedly rose from 27.5 percent in 2021 to more than 45 percent in 2024, while Mandarin instruction expanded in local schools after 2022. Increasingly, Moscow is restructuring parts of the Russian Far East around Chinese economic needs. Infrastructure, logistics corridors, and investment rules are being adapted to attract Chinese capital as Russia grows more isolated from Western markets. Apart from growing relations with Central Asia, Beijing has also deepened ties with Belarus, expanding its influence across the former Soviet space, giving China greater leverage over a Kremlin that increasingly lacks alternative partners. China does not need to annex Russian territory to dominate it. Economic dependency, financial leverage and regional integration can achieve what military conquest once sought. Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine claiming he was defending Russian sovereignty and reversing Russia’s historic decline. Yet the war has accelerated the very process he supposedly sought to stop. Russia has suffered staggering military and economic losses while becoming increasingly dependent on a far more powerful China whose economy dwarfs its own. Even if Russia captures more Ukrainian territory, the long-term cost may prove catastrophic. The country’s best future markets, technologies, and investment opportunities historically came from Europe, not China. By severing those ties in pursuit of imperial fantasies, Putin is binding Russia ever tighter to a relationship in which Beijing holds the upper hand. Putin hopes to secure his place in Russian history as the leader who rebuilt the empire. Instead, he may ultimately be remembered as the man who exhausted Russia in the fields of Donbas while surrendering much of the country’s strategic independence to China. READ MORE from David Kirichenko and Alexander J. Motyl: While Washington Looks Elsewhere, Ukraine Finds Leverage Technology Sharing Powers the Axis of Evil READ MORE: Deminers: The Dangerous Work of Giving Ukraine Back Its Land   David Kirichenko is an associate research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. His work on warfare has been featured in publications such as the Atlantic Council, the Center for European Policy Analysis, and the Modern Warfare Institute. Follow him on X: @DVKirichenko. Alexander J. Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia, and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires, and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, as well as Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires and Why Empires Reemerge: Imperial Collapse and Imperial Revival in Comparative Perspective.  

I was about two weeks into rehab when my brain started coming back online and I began to take an interest in my fellow inmates. I’ll never forget this young guy, Gabe. He was a handsome blond kid, a track star in high school, until he was spirited away by a mistress named Fentanyl and gave up his life to serve her. I remember him because at first I couldn’t figure out what he was doing there with the rest of us shipwrecked losers. He was smart and funny and popular with the other addicts, and his life seemed to be just beginning and full of promise. The last time I saw him he was out in the parking lot, carrying a clear plastic garbage bag full of his clothes and climbing into a Cadillac Escalade. The stern slaps of abstinence are what worked for me. About three weeks into treatment, I experienced the miracle of what we call “spiritual awakening,” “Might as well put a gun to his head,” observed Lewis, an elderly black gentleman who had been in and out of places like this and seen a million junkies come and go. “He cried to his mama. Said ‘Mama, I wanna go home,’ and she come and got him.” Now the social dynamics of rehab are a curious hybrid of high school and jail. There are popular kids, outcasts, class clowns — as well as sadists, snitches, psychopaths, and perhaps surprisingly, more than a few saints (as Lewis turned out to be). There are a few who, when paroled, make it. And many who don’t. Like jail and high school, no one wants to be there. You’re stripped of the symbols of your liberty — phone, wallet, keys — and followed by minders everywhere you go (I called them “zombie wranglers” in my memoir). Above all, you are not trusted to perform any of the activities of daily life on your own recognizance, not even to eat or sleep or swallow your prescribed medication without someone watching. The only coping mechanism you’ve ever had, the only one that ever worked, has been abruptly ripped away following the de rigueur strip search, and you are left to stand (literally) naked before big bad ol’ life with all its terrifying vicissitudes. It should come as no surprise then that we addicts and alcoholics, when confronted with this reality, seek to escape. We’ve been doing it our whole lives, and besides our using and drinking, it seems like the one thing we’re good at. I know because this is exactly what I did when I begged my wife and my counselor and anyone else who would listen to let me go home. I was practically in tears, swearing I’d learned my lesson, promising to attend outpatient meetings, anything, just so I could go home and get high again. Thank God, they didn’t buy it. I was doubly heartbroken later when I begged my doctor to let me go on one of the popularly-prescribed maintenance opiates like Suboxone or methadone, “at least for a little while,” and she informed me that, “My experience and the principles of this treatment center suggest that total abstinence is the best path for long-term recovery.”  “So no ‘harm reduction’?” I said, hoping to get what I wanted by invoking the magic words that are currently in vogue, and meant, essentially, getting prescribed drugs. “Total abstinence only,” she replied sternly. This is the schism that divides families, treatment centers, and most consequentially, public policy. In blue states, the doctrine of “harm reduction” — giving addicts needles, shelter, and often drugs, is firmly entrenched. While there is some evidence this reduces total overdose deaths, the life that it offers is a kind of living death. Witness the scenes in Philadelphia, Portland, and Seattle of addicts wandering like zombies or frozen in the streets, their bodies contorted by the “fentanyl fold.” Though the majority of policy experts (who are often far-removed from the frontlines of addiction) still advocate so-called harm reduction efforts, some have become skeptical. Dr. Keith Humphreys, professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and prominent addiction policy researcher says, “When you start distributing opioids in the community, including to people to stop overdose, they will, in some cases, sell them and initiate new people onto drugs. And those people will overdose. If you just say, we’re just going to supply these drugs, what is the end game?” Likewise, Dr. Nicholas King, professor of psychiatry at McGill University, says in “Harm Reduction: A Misnomer”: “[These programs] do not, however, reduce many of the other harms associated with illicit drug use, including the negative aspects of addiction itself; indeed, a successful abstinence program would arguably do a better job at harm reduction than any extant harm reduction program.” In the microcosm of rehab I learned to lament people like Gabe’s mother as “enablers,” people who, for their own overwhelmingly selfish reasons (conveniently disguised as compassion), gave in to our demands, believed our lies, and “gave us another chance.” But what happens when society itself becomes the enabler? A psychiatrist friend calls this “mother mind.” Addicts as pets and pity objects, the fur babies of liberal politicians who can’t bring themselves to set boundaries or impose consequences and are literally mothering addicts to death. But what junkies and alcoholics like me need is not toxic empathy but real compassion, which includes coerced treatment and a lifetime of strict accountability. Because, as Lewis told me later, “Our problem ain’t drugs. Our problem is us.” After I graduated from treatment I kept in touch with some of my classmates. I asked about Gabe but nobody had heard from him. Then somebody said he’d bounced back right after I left. He’d stayed a few days, enough to detox, then his mom came and got him again. A month later he overdosed and died. They said his mother found him with the needle still in his arm. My friend, the late poet Coleman Barks, translates the 13th century Persian poet Rumi thus: “Your old grandmother says, ‘Maybe you shouldn’t go to school. You look a little pale.’ Run when you hear that. A father’s stern slaps are better.” Like old Lewis, Rumi was a wise man. The stern slaps of abstinence are what worked for me. About three weeks into treatment, I experienced the miracle of what we call “spiritual awakening,” and lost all desire to drink or use drugs. With the help of a recovery program that emphasizes faith, community, and accountability, I’ve been able to maintain sobriety for a little over nine years now. Had I been treated more indulgently I’m certain I’d be dead now. Just like Gabe. READ MORE from Chris Jansen: The Soul of Man Under Socialism, Revisited The Great Amnesia Chris Jansen is a translator, essayist and poet. His books include Hamlet Decoded, We Can Be Heroes: A Rehab Memoir, The Last Mayan, and The Lost Poems of Juan Ramón Jiménez. He lives in Athens, Georgia.