James Carden

This article appears in the June 2024 issue, with the headline “A Wider War in Eastern Europe?” Reprinted from The Nation with permission from the authors. Violence continues to haunt Eastern Europe. the attempted assassination of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico on May 15 inevitably conjures up the memory of the assassination of Archduke Franz … Continue reading “The Perils of Wider War in Eastern Europe”

The first thought that came to mind while watching, albeit very reluctantly, a video of Secretary of State Antony Blinken “rocking out” on his guitar in a bar in Kiev was: What is wrong with these people? A friend and fellow journalist who I forwarded the video to responded with a one word email: “Gross.” … Continue reading “The Dignity Deficit of Rocking Out in Kiev”

Reprinted from The Nation with permission from the authors. Last week’s passage of the Ukraine aid package by both the House and the Senate showed if nothing else that bipartisanship – at least on matters of foreign policy – remains alive and well in Washington, with leading Democratic progressives joining Republican hawks to pass the … Continue reading “The Ukraine Aid Package Heightens the Risk of Escalation”

During a recent panel discussion sponsored by the Neutrality Studies YouTube channel and The American Committee for US-Russia Accord, the distinguished political scientist John J. Mearsheimer proffered what at first glance might appear to be a radical solution to the crisis in Ukraine.   “I think what has to be done here,” said Mearsheimer, “is … Continue reading “US Should Adopt the Mearsheimer Plan”

Not content with the multitude of disasters that they’ve helped set in motion over the past three years, the Biden administration now seems to have put another target in its sights: Central Europe. On Friday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken swept through Vienna and in keeping with the longstanding wishes of Brussels and Washington … Continue reading “Biden and Co. Take Aim at Central Europe”

Just how stupid do they think we are? The balance of evidence provided by the public statements of senior Biden administration officials would suggest, very. Take the following vignette from US undersecretary of state Victoria Nuland’s speech on February 22nd in Washington: …I visited a center in Kyiv, that the U.S. supports, which helps Ukrainian … Continue reading “Patriot Games: The Ideologies of American Warmongers”

Two years since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine – and fully 10 years since the war actually began –  the US political-media establishment seems as far away from learning any lessons from the failure of its post-Soviet Russia policy as it has ever been. The Biden administration’s policy toward Russia is simply the logical extension of that … Continue reading “Post-Soviet Failures, Present-Day Realities”

During Mr. Obama’s second term in office (2013-2017), it had become clear that the terms of the public policy debate were undergoing a radical and worrying transformation. In the space of a very short time, certain ideas and policy proposals were being ruled as out of bounds not on the grounds that they were unwise, … Continue reading “The ‘Disinformation’ Complex and US Foreign Policy”

The odious ritual whereby representatives of foreign governments travel to Washington to tell us our business has become so routine it hardly even registers. And, down the years, hosting such rituals has become a (if not the) primary function of Washington’s think tanks which, also to no one’s surprise, draws millions and millions in funding from these … Continue reading “Letter from ThinkTankLand: Foreign Influence in American Politics”

Over the weekend, noting the ongoing opposition to the far-right Israeli regime’s war on the civilians of Gaza, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi charged that: …For them to call for a cease-fire is Putin’s message, Mr. Putin’s message. Make no mistake, this is directly connected to what he would like to see. Same thing with Ukraine. It’s … Continue reading “Nancy Pelosi’s New Adventures in McCarthyism”