Kremlin Pro Font Generator' title='Kremlin Pro Font Generator' />How the US Can Help Ukraine Help and Defend Itself. When Secretary Mattis arrives for his upcoming visit, he should bring promises of arms for the military and support for anti corruption forces and the countrys defense industry. Three and a half years since Russias 2. Kremlin Pro Font' title='Kremlin Pro Font' />Ukraine, Russian soldiers and their proxies are still killing Ukrainian civilians and service members on a daily basis. This spring, the Kremlin accelerated its violations of the ceasefire, increasing its deadly artillery and rocket attacks and launching subversive operations across Ukraine. The latter are meant to signal that Russia is no longer confining the kinetic conflict to the Donbas battlefield. An image macro meme is an Internet meme consisting of Text, typically bolded font Impact with white text on black border, is centered on the top and bottom of the image. We would like to show you a description here but the site wont allow us. A sabotage operation in March blew up a large munitions depot near Kharkiv that forced the evacuation of 2. The same month, an exiled Russian member of parliament was shot dead in Kyiv. In June, a senior Ukrainian military intelligence officer was assassinated with a car bomb, also in Kyiv. Finally, the summer fighting in the Donbas was accompanied by a massive cyber attack that briefly disabled Ukrainian ATMs, banks, and metro systems and went on to infect tens of thousands of computers worldwide. So much for a frozen conflict. In addition to these kinetic operations, the Kremlin has stepped up its efforts to weaponize corruption by working to buy off Ukrainian politicians and burrow even deeper into the countrys political establishment. The Kremlins strategy is clear keep the war in the Donbas simmering to foster political discontent while channeling funds to pliable Ukrainian politicians to try to change Kyivs geopolitical orientation after the next parliamentary election. For all its hysteria about purported Western attempts at regime change in Russia, thats exactly what the Kremlin wants in Ukraine, which it politely calls resetting the ruling regime. This strategy may in fact be viable. One of the ruling coalition parties, the National Front, is polling in the single digits while the other, Bloc Petro Poroshenko, has lost first place in the polls to former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenkos Fatherland party. If Moscow throws serious money into the next Ukrainian parliamentary election, its anyones guess how things will turn out. After interfering in the U. S. election and helping their dark horse candidate win, Kremlin strategists must be feeling pretty good about their odds of success. As it pursues its strategy of subversion inside Ukraine, the Kremlin also continues to hold out the possibility of a negotiated settlement to the conflict in the Donbas, albeit on Moscows terms. The principal forum for such discussions are the Normandy format talks involving the leaders of France, Germany, Ukraine, and Russia. Following the July 2. French President Emmanuel Macron participated for the first time, and in anticipation of the arrival of Kurt Volker, the new U. S. special envoy for Ukraine, Moscow continues to signal that a negotiated option is possible. Donetsk separatist leader Aleksandr Zakharchenko has used the term Malorossiya to refer to the creation of an entirely new Ukrainian polity, without Crimea, and with a capital in Donetsk. That is of course a complete pipedream, but it telegraphs Moscows desire to negotiate a solution that preserves a Ukrainian state minus Crimea that includes the occupied regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. Sergei Tsekov, who ostensibly represents Crimea in Russias Federation Council, has explicitly spelled this out, saying that the creation of Malorossiya would be a step towards the federalization of Ukraine. Subscribe. Receive daily email updates Subscribe to the Defense One daily. Be the first to receive updates. In return for the Wests acquiescence to the creation of a quasi autonomous statelet in the Donbas analogous to the Republika Srpska entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina Moscow would no doubt promise to withdraw its regular troops from the Donbas, pull back heavy weapons from the Line of Control, and stop the daily ceasefire violations, effectively freezing the conflict. As Moscow will no doubt point out, a Malorossiya scenario would preserve Ukraines de jure territorial integrity though a la Srpska and would put an end to the kinetic conflict. For Ukraine, however, this scenario would amount to the permanent surrender of its sovereignty, and would effectively preclude the countrys future Euro Atlantic integration, just as Banja Luka effectively blocks Bosnias Euro Atlantic aspirations. This remains the Kremlins negotiating position, and so long as it is rejected by the West, blood and dirty money will continue to flow freely within Ukraine. There are several things the United States can do to immediately shift the dynamic in Ukraines favor. Strip Checkers. With Defense Secretary James Mattis considering a trip to Ukraine in the coming weeks, heres what the U. S. should do to maximize the effectiveness of his visit 1 Announce that the Pentagon will provide Ukraine with defensive weapons and more expansive military training so Kyiv can better defend itself against Russian aggression. Press Prime Minister Groysman and President Poroshenko to step up anti corruption efforts and allow the National Anti Corruption Bureau to do its job unimpeded. Help Ukraine devise a strategy to attract badly needed investment so its defense industrial sector can produce and even export its own weapons and ammunition. Lets start with the defensive weapons. Mattiss visit is the perfect opportunity to announce that the United States is reversing its de facto arms embargo on Ukraine by providing defensive armaments so Ukraine can better resist Russian aggression. Ukraines military needs longer range counter battery radars, anti tank and anti ship missiles, more secure communications, advanced UAVs that can better resist Russian jamming measures, and more Humvees and MRAPs for better battlefield mobility, among other things. In light of expanded Russian subversive operations, the U. S. should also deepen its intelligence sharing with Ukraines military intelligence agency. The recent assassinations of top military intelligence officers testify, very tragically, to the increased effectiveness of the Defense Ministrys Main Intelligence Directorate HUR, which is on the frontlines of Russian hybrid war against Ukraine. Mattis should also declare that the U. S. is granting Ukraine Major Non NATO Allied status, which is a largely symbolic move, but one that would formally prioritize security assistance and other support to Ukraine. Any public rollout of Major Non NATO Allied status would, however, have to state explicitly that the conferral of this status in no way prejudices Ukraines current or future aspirations for NATO membership. After seeing for himself what sorts of meager resources the Ukrainians have at their disposal, Secretary Mattis should sit down with Congressional leaders in the Armed Services committees to discuss increasing the amount of security assistance Ukraine receives under the next National Defense Authorization Act. The 1. 50 million appropriated under the current fiscal years act is wholly insufficient for a country at war with a much larger neighbor determined to keep the conflict going indefinitely. One area that needs to be seriously considered is U. S. help rebuilding Ukraines navy. After its invasion in the spring of 2. The 7. 0 Greatest Conspiracy Theories in Pop Culture History. Width. Image. breakpoints. The 7. 0 Greatest Conspiracy Theories in Pop Culture History. From Paul is dead to Stevie Wonder isnt blind, with a lot of Illuminati in between. Credit Photo illustration by Maya Robinson. Image. selector. Width. Image. cover. Full. Lede. views. Elderkin, Arial, sans serif. New 28 March 2013 on this page. Arial, sans serif. Arial, sans serif. Credit. selector. Arial, sans serif. For decades, the conspiracy theorist shouted his suspicions on the fringes of society, never ascending to a position of such prominence as, say, the presidential nominee of a major American political party. Now thats changed, and conspiracy theories are having a yuge moment in the mainstream. Blood Of The Martyrs Dark Heresy. Conventional wisdom puts the beginning of modern conspiracy theory culture at the JFK assassination. But it probably makes more sense to think of it evolving in its aftermath, in the years following the shooting, once the shock wore off. In the late 1. 96. The assassination wasnt just a chaotic, spectacular, improbable event that Americans desperately wanted explained, even if the explanations were terrifying conspiracy theory culture being essentially willed into being by those for whom nothing was more terrifying than randomness and meaninglessness. It was also the locus of an ideological battlefield over who were the heroes and who the real villains in American life pro Castro and anti Castro leftists Russian operatives the CIA LBJ the Mafia the Camelot Kennedys the list goes on. We floated conspiracy theories, in other words, as a way of projecting politics. While there were both political and pop culture conspiracy theories in the 1. Elvis is still alive, you may have heard conspiracism as a phenomenon didnt come into full flower until the 1. That was thanks to the internet. Message boards and chat rooms of that era gave us the golden age of political conspiracy theory, which we are still living in. They were also the birthplace of pop culture paranoia when doubts about the real identities of singers and actors, whether they had actually died or truly written that particular song, gave rise to real debate and forensic scrutiny. Is Stevie Wonder really blind Well have to consider the relevant video These days, pop culture obsessives are quick to cook up conspiracies anytime a celebrity dies, changes her appearance, or even stands next to a triangle, and ideas can now be passed from the edges of sanity to your Facebook feed in a matter of minutes, converting more of the easily influenced into paranoid believers. Not to say that pop culture conspiracies live only in the present they are often most delicious when they reach back in time, even way back in time, to propose we consider, say, whether it was George Lucas who actually directed Return of the Jedi which was, you have to admit, worse than Empire or whether it was actually Emily Bronts brother who wrote Wuthering Heights exhibit A fucking Heathcliff. Vulture has spent the past few months undertaking an exhaustive cataloguing of these conspiracy theories of pop culture. Music, film, literature, TV, and anything else a celebrity might touch are organized by genre do you like reading about zombie pop stars or Illuminati Svengalis or secret authors of famous books and presented pure that is, not as investigative claims but conspiracy theories. And as a sort of review of the literature, the data below do contain some lessons and insights. We did, in other words, learn some things First, that when viewed from a certain perspective, pop culture conspiracy theory is the phenomenon in its purest form paranoia without ideology, or anyway without partisanship. And what you get when you peel back the partisanship, it turns out, are pure theories of power. Why would Beyonc and Jay Z lie about the birth of Blue Ivy Its hard to come up with a motive better than Because they could. The most common theory amounts to the same thing that it has something to do with their being Illuminati and the presumably paranoid logic of any self perpetuating elite. Second, pop conspiracies have changed over time. It used to be, at least in the pre internet era, that people were most suspicious about post facto cover ups. Who really killed Natalie Wood, or Bob Marley, or Albert Camus Especially delectable were those theories about people who hadnt, as far as the public knew, actually died, but whom the paranoid suspected had in fact died, probably quite suddenly, only to be haphazardly replaced by the people around him or her who didnt want to lose their cash flow source. Consider, for instance, Paul is dead. This subcategory of conspiracy theory suggested a particular worldview Stars were special people with special skills who had won special attention from the public that could nevertheless be maintained by special post death stagecraft. In the boy band and corporate Hollywood 1. This is the era of the Illuminati worldview that everyone who is famous, or close to everyone, owes that fame to the power of a secret cabal. It is also when the theory arose that gangster rap was concocted by the private prison industry. Later, wed learn that Britney Spears was a tool of the Bush administration, Katy Perry was really grown up Jon. Bent Ramsey, and J. K. Rowling was just an actress impersonating an author. The meta level lesson of all these theories is that the whole system of celebrity, which may confuse or madden you as a consumer of culture, makes sense that the arbitrariness of, say, Miley Cyruss rise to fame could be explained by the influence of secret power brokers rather than talent or popular taste. In fact, when you add the Illuminati, the arbitrariness of somebodys success becomes a kind of circular logic explanation for it how else could Andrew W. K. have made it. And then there is perhaps the most interesting new model conspiracy most interesting because the category often includes the most plausible claims. These are about authorship, and credit that Bob Dylan stole Blowin in the Wind from a New Jersey high school student, say, or that Paul Thomas Anderson actually directed A Prairie Home Companion. These may seem, at first, old news and old fashioned conspiracy theorizing. And in ways they are people have been arguing about who wrote Shakespeares plays literally for centuries, of course. But those arguments about secret authorship are also artifacts of the present and recent past, since until quite recently and excepting real outlier cases like Shakespeare, it simply wasnt the case that debates about artistic credit became matters of genuine paranoia as opposed to just, well, debates about credit. You dont argue about who really wrote the classic songs of the Delta blues, for instance, and probably wouldnt argue about whether someone other than Francis Ford Coppola was behind the movies he directed in the auteur era of 1.