Ted Snider

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader the Wagner group, has ended his siege of the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and turned around his march on Moscow. It is not clear what happened nor what was staged and what was real. Each expert and commentator offers a different expert commentary. To the West, the event was an attempted … Continue reading “Prigozhin’s Rebellion: What Just Happened in Russia?”

On June 8, The Wall Street Journal broke the spectacular story that China had "reached a secret agreement" with Cuba to build a new spy base on Cuba, just a hundred miles from Florida. The timing of the story was right. The story, it turns out, was not. The timing was suspiciously perfect. It broke … Continue reading “China Caught Spying on the US – Again”

On June 13, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with war correspondents and military bloggers for a question and answer session at the Kremlin. One war correspondent asked Putin "a question about the notorious red lines." Addressing Putin, he said, "Clearly . . . we are at war not just with the Kiev regime, but with the so-called collective … Continue reading “Is Putin Bluffing on Redlines? Ask Putin.”

On June 2, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered a speech in Helsinki to celebrate the end of "[t]he era of military nonalignment in Finland" and the "strategic failure" of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Blinken "set out . . . the many . . . ways Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine has been … Continue reading “Is He Right? Fact Checking Blinken’s Helsinki Speech”

There is a revealing difference between the peace proposals for the Russo-Ukrainian War that come from the Global South and peace proposals that come from the NATO-aligned West. For starters, no peace proposals have come from the West, while several have come from the Global South. But when the West talks of a negotiated settlement, … Continue reading “While the West Seeks Victory in Ukraine, the Global South Seeks Peace”

The war in Ukraine began with Ukraine ready to negotiate a peace agreement with Russia while the US was not. Could the war end the same way? Initially, the Russian invasion brought Ukraine to the table very fast, and the short war might have ended. But the US State Department refused to set the table, … Continue reading “Is Ukraine Ready To Negotiate?”

The US has had an incredibly difficult time making friends with Iran. Other countries seem to be having a lot less difficulty. The primary obstacle to American friendship with Iran is allegedly Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon. But the most recent US Nuclear Posture Review, released in October 2022, clearly states that "Iran does … Continue reading “Making Friends With Iran”

In just an eight day period in May, the West authorized sending both long range Storm Shadow cruise missiles and F-16 fighter bombers to Ukraine, reversing a war long policy of not providing Ukraine with weapons that can strike inside Russia. That policy was one of the few sane policies of any party involved in … Continue reading “Four Big Reasons Not To Green Light Strikes on Crimea”

As the West pours more advanced weapons into Ukraine that have the range to strike, not only inside Russian occupied territory in Ukraine, but inside the internationally recognized territory of Russia itself, the risk of nuclear war looms. Russia’s nuclear deterrence policy states that Russia “hypothetically” could allow the use of nuclear weapons only if there … Continue reading “A Plea Not To Risk Nuclear War”

In April, French President Emmanuel Macron emerged from three days of meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing sounding as comfortable talking to Beijing as he does talking to Washington. The US is pressuring Europe to decouple from China by reconsidering their relationship and breaking their significant economic ties. But when Macron traveled to … Continue reading “When Spain Sounds Like France (and France Sounds Like China)”