France says it has seized an oil tanker in the Mediterranean suspected of being part of Russia’s sanction-busting “shadow fleet”.
French President Emmanuel Macron said the tanker, named the Grinch, was “subject to international sanctions and suspected of flying a false flag”.
The French navy, with the assistance of allies including the UK, boarded the vessel on Thursday morning between Spain and Morocco. French maritime authorities said that a search of the vessel had “confirmed the doubts as to the regularity of the flag”.
Russia’s embassy in Paris said it had not been informed of the seizure.
For those who are talking about rules-based order and international law, please understand that those ideas are dead. You can’t pretend there is a morally-just world police while Gaza is being leveled, Venezuela was invaded, war in Ukraine has continued for years, and China bullies Taiwan and the Philippines.
If you haven’t listened to it yet, I highly recommend Mark Carney’s speech from earlier this week at Davos. World leaders are just now coming to terms with the new reality of “might makes right”.
Edit, just to be clear: along the lines of this new world order, France is entirely in the right here. They had the opportunity to seize this tanker and was powerful enough to do so. As far as motive, they aren’t happy with how Russia is treating Ukraine. That’s it. To make excusses such as “but international law” and “gotta follow the rules” is nothing short of pathetic drivel.
No, actually. Might does not make right. It is also not always the most efficient way to get what you want.
I’m not saying that force is never necessary in a chaotic world. Violence is often necessary and justified to protect ourselves and others. But violence is not “right” by virtue of being to most forceful, ruthless or effective. What’s right lives on a completely different axis from what can be taken.
The rules-based world order was imperfect, it was often hypocritical, but it wasn’t a straight-up lie. It reigned in a lot of chaos, and it gave us the best years of human civilization. Had the project succeeded, it could have removed weapons of mass destruction and shrunk armies around the world, eradicated hunger and diseases, and no doubt it could have fixed the climate crisis too. It did accomplish many of the things it set out to do. But it was sidelined, betrayed, by complacency and a belief that the dominoes would fall into place without any need for further effort or sacrifice.
I still believe. Fuck the UN. We need to build a new UN with blackjack and hookers, get some real environmental protections on the ground, round up capital, and progressively get rid of weapons. It can still be done.
Please don’t mistake my post for claiming that “might is right” is right. I agree it’s not the most efficient path, and in Mark Carney’s speech he acknowledges that this worldview will have a tremendous cost due to the risk-mitigation actions each country will have to take in response. However, he also seems optimistic when describing how middle powers can band together for common causes, while also working to advance their own individual interests. “If we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.” Cooperation with each other is encouraged, not blind subjugation to the world’s superpowers.
I believe this acceptance, and the risk mitigation that needs to be taken in response, is necessary. Of course it would be better for everyone to follow a common rule of law and submit to a rule-based world order; however, it’s ignorant to believe that matches our reality. If every country’s sovereignty was respected, Ukraine would never have been invaded, Venezuela wouldn’t have been attacked, and genocide wouldn’t be occurring in Palestine.
This week the UN Relief and Works Agency headquarters was bulldozed by Israel in complete defiance of international law. In response, the UN strongly condemned this in a tweet. The current international institutions are toothless or worse. We have a new “board of peace” being formed with two founding members being wanted on international war crime charges. But if only the experiment had worked, we could have solved climate change and eradicated world hunger.
This is the same complacent dialogue I railed against in my first post. Yet in the end of your comment you still seem to recognize that change is needed. Let’s not reminisce on the status-quo fondly. It’s time to create something new. I hope to see strong independent nations who can band together in a federation when needed. And no, I don’t think disarmament would be in our common interest. I look to Libya and Gaddafi’s fate when considering what would happen after giving up nuclear ambitions. And I doubt Ukraine would have been invaded if they still had their nuclear weapons.