Bas Spliet | The Libertarian Institute

Is Energy Independence from Russia Worth the Cost?

by Bas Spliet | Sep 19, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

As the trade war over Ukraine heats up, we should ask ourselves what costs and benefits come along with energy independence from Russia. Even if we accept current Western policy, the divestment campaign will not yield the desired political outcomes. As episodic breezes of cooler air reach European shores, the continent’s inhabitants are reminded by the fact that winter is gradually but surely creeping up on them. Thus, Europeans are getting ready for a tough winter in the midst of the escalating trade conflict over Ukraine. But instead of prioritizing an uninterrupted and affordable flow of...

How a Classical Frenchman Predicted the 21st Century’s ‘Humanitarian Interventions’

by Bas Spliet | Sep 6, 2022 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Two hundred years ago, Benjamin Constant foresaw the rise of humanitarian intervention as the foremost modern pretext for war. In the age of commerce and democracy, the state had to concoct "scandalous lies" to subvert the peaceful international order based on free trade, he argued. In 1814, as Napoleon Bonaparte was shipped to Elba after the Battle of Leipzig had put a (temporary) stop to the general’s short-lived empire, the French classical liberal Benjamin Constant published a short book entitled De l’esprit de conquête (‘On the Spirit of Conquest’). Constant had previously supported...

NATO Abandons Diplomacy, Says No Longer ‘At Peace’

by Bas Spliet | Aug 23, 2022 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

At the end of its annual summit in Madrid in late June, NATO adopted a new strategic concept. The guidance document is the eighth of its kind since the founding of the alliance in 1949. It radically breaks with the three previous post-Cold War security briefs, however, which observed that “the Euro-Atlantic area is at peace” because “the threat of a conventional attack against NATO territory is low.” In the eyes of NATO, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has changed that calculus, claiming that the military organization can no longer discount the possibility of an assault on sovereign NATO...

By Banning Russian Oil, Europe Forgot How It Won the Cold War

by Bas Spliet | May 19, 2022 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

The European Union is close to reaching an agreement on banning the import of Russian oil. Some Eastern-European member states, particularly Hungary, are trying to obtain exemptions or delays on the implementation of the ban. All in all, however, it seems likely that many if not all EU members will soon agree to ban Russian crude oil completely within the next six months, while refined oil would be phased out by the end of 2022. The ban is only the latest EU disciplinary economic measure which the bloc has levelled against Russia. On February 24, the starting day of the Russian invasion of...

Elon Musk, Twitter, and the ‘Ministry of Truth’

by Bas Spliet | May 2, 2022 | Featured Articles

Just last week, I finally got around with starting to read Crime and Punishment, Fyodr Dostoevsky’s famous novel about a Saint-Peterburg student’s murder of an old lady pawnbroker. The murderer and book’s main character, Rodion Raskolnikov, got the idea from a fellow student whom he overheard saying at a local eating establishment: “On the one hand, you have a nasty, stupid, worthless, meaningless, sick old woman who’s no use to anyone. […] On the other hand, you have young fresh energies that are going to waste for want of backing. […] If one were to kill her and take her money, in order...

Dangerous Parallels: Russia, Ukraine, and Afghanistan

by Bas Spliet | Mar 7, 2022 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

The Russian rationale behind invading Ukraine closely resembles the reasoning behind the Soviet incursion into Afghanistan in 1979. Both then and now, many in the West read an unprovoked expansionary move into the Kremlin’s actions. That view, in both instances, is wrong. Putin’s reasoning behind invading Ukraine, like the Soviet Politburo’s decision to invade Afghanistan more than 40 years ago, is borne out of desperation rather than megalomania. The Last Drop Tipping the Scales On Christmas Eve 1979, the USSR invaded Afghanistan. In the next decade, the Soviets became bogged down in an...

Israel’s Founding Father Called for Villages to Be ‘Wiped Out,’ Confirming Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

by Bas Spliet | Jan 25, 2022 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Archival institutions are not known to be pioneers of technological innovation. They are preoccupied with the past, after all. That is why censors still often black out classified information physically, with a marker, a piece of paper or whatnot. The Israeli State Archives, on the other hand, have apparently been experimenting with virtual censorship tools. In the minutes of a cabinet meeting of Israel’s provisional government during its "War of Independence," released following requests of the Akevot Institute, digital blackouts were included to cover the more problematic statements made...

How to Eliminate the Threat of Nuclear War: A Strategy of Non-Intervention

by Bas Spliet | Jan 10, 2022 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Around this time last year, nuclear weapons became illegal. Well, sort of. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, an international agreement adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2017 after a majority of countries voted in its favor, entered into force on January 22, 2021 as Honduras became the 50th country to ratify the treaty. Overnight, the testing, development, production, possession and transfer of nuclear weapons was banned. But here comes the rub. The treaty is only binding on those nations that joined. Unsurprisingly, the countries that actually possess or host...