Ted Snider

On September 21, President Biden addressed the United Nations General Assembly for the first time. His speech was a confusing combination of boasts followed by lines that refuted those boasts. Here is an attempt to decode some of the biggest confusions. We Are Not Seeking a New Cold War Biden made the claim that America … Continue reading “Decoding Biden’s UN Speech”

At the beginning of his presidency, Barack Obama realized that the US was "overweighted" in the Middle East, fighting wars against countries that could not challenge American hegemony and "underweighted" in the Asia-Pacific region where there was a country, China, that could. So, Obama pivoted to Asia. The National Security Strategy of December 2017 ranked … Continue reading “How Provocative Are Australia’s Nuclear Submarines?”

On September 8, 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared that the US was getting tired of waiting for Iran: "I’m not going to put a date on it but we are getting closer to the point at which a strict return to compliance with the JCPOA does not reproduce the benefits that that agreement … Continue reading “Biden Shelves Diplomacy To Confront Russia and China”

On September 1, 2021, President Biden met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House and continued the American push into Russia’s sphere of influence that has made Russia feel so threatened. Zelensky has been frustrated because he has been pushing for this meeting since his election in May 2019. Despite the delay, Biden … Continue reading “Ukraine, USA, Russia, and Spheres of Influence”

America may famously be pivoting to China, but so is everyone else: and not in the intended way. Vice President Kamala Harris’ invitation to Vietnam to join the US against China was coldly rejected by an unaligned Vietnam who wishes to enhance relations with China. And they’re not the only ones. Russia By the time … Continue reading “Look Who’s Pivoting to China Now”

From Cuba to Korea, from Iran to Russia and Palestine, there is a long history of failed negotiations and wasted time. The negotiations are all different, but a clear pattern establishes the reason why all of them fail. In each case, US negotiations fail because the interlocutor nation cannot trust that the US really wants … Continue reading “Why US Negotiations Always Fail”

If you walk down the road of many of today’s worst crises, you will find, far up ahead of you, the foot prints of President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Some of the key cold war moves that Brzezinski made triggered events that still make the world worse today. Afghanistan Brzezinski, according to … Continue reading “Living With Brzezinski’s Mess”

Although Fidel Castro would eventually become a Soviet allied communist, and although the US ultimatum to Cuba would eventually take the form of the often repeated mantra that there were only two non-negotiable demands, that Cuba cut ties with the Soviet Union, and that they stop supporting leftist movements in the hemisphere, that’s not how … Continue reading “US-Cuban Relations: How It All Got Started”

The Embargo On January 25, 1960, President Eisenhower suggested that the US navy "quarantine" Cuba. "If they are hungry," the President fumed, "they will throw Castro out." His ambassador to Cuba, Philip W. Bonsal, chided him with a moral reminder: "We should not punish the whole Cuban people for the acts of one abnormal man." … Continue reading “America Never Cared About the People of Cuba”

With reports of protests in the streets of Cuba, the friend of those people, the US, has made its support clear. The people of Cuba join the people of Haiti and Venezuela in being able to count on friendly support from the US. Except for three things. The US has caused the problems they are … Continue reading “US Supports the People of Latin America: With Friends Like This…”