Ted Snider

President Biden has made the battle between autocracy and democracy a theme of his presidency. He invoked that theme again last week to explain to Latin America and the world why Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua were cut from the list of nations invited to the US hosted Summit of the Americas. The State Department explained … Continue reading “Why It’s Hard To Take America’s Word on the Summit of the Americas”

The US has never made a secret of its intent to exercise hegemony over its hemisphere. The intent has been enshrined and repeatedly reinforced in policy. Nearly two-hundred years ago, the Monroe Doctrine claimed the western hemisphere, placing a fence around the Americas and posting a no trespassing sign for all other nations of the … Continue reading “Challenging Hegemony in Latin America”

The comparison between the crisis in Ukraine and the Cuban missile crisis has occasionally been made. With an honest look at that crisis, history has two lessons to offer for the crisis of today. The first is that the Cuban missile crisis demonstrates clearly how the US would respond to Russia encroaching on its sphere … Continue reading “The Dangers of Regime Change: After Putin”

When the President of the United States writes an opinion piece in The New York Times, he is talking to Americans, but, as he is aware as he is writing it, he is also talking to Putin. Officials in Russia will be analyzing the short text, decoding the messages. What message is Biden sending? And … Continue reading “New York Times Opinion Piece: What Biden Is Telling Putin”

On May 26, Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered a major speech defining the Biden administration’s China policy. Though the US is pouring tens of billions of dollars of weapons into Ukraine, the training on how to use them, and the intelligence to target them on Russian soldiers, Blinken said it is not Russia, but … Continue reading “Biden’s New China Policy”

With calls for Russia to be pushed out of "the whole of Ukraine," for Russia to be "weakened" and defeated and even calls for regime change in Moscow, what might Russia’s and China’s red lines be, and how does the US measure when it’s in danger of crossing them? Russia may already have decided that … Continue reading “Russia and China and Bold Red Lines”

Suppose they gave a summit, and nobody came? In a spectacular act of defiance against America’s claimed right to control the hemisphere, the protest against the US hosted, by invitation only, Summit of the Americas is growing. In its continued attempt to shape the Americas by stamping down alternative and independent models of government, the … Continue reading “Losing Latin America”

While the US is expanding into Russia’s sphere of influence, it seems to be having trouble consolidating and controlling its own sphere of influence. There may be trouble in America’s backyard. The Biden administration has been so distracted by expansion and so asleep at diplomacy that the very fundamentals of diplomacy have been neglected in … Continue reading “US and Latin America: Trouble in the Backyard”

Your friend is taking a taxi to a job. It’s too big a job for him, so you offer to go along to help. You pay the fare and bring along the right tools for him to use. Just after you set out, though, you order the taxi driver to stop and redirect him from … Continue reading “When Is the US at War? Russia’s Red Line”

Joe Biden promised the world that he was "opening a new era of relentless diplomacy." Either those were just words or Biden has lost control of his foreign policy. Rather than the birth of diplomacy, the first sixteen months of Biden’s term in office have seen a dearth of diplomacy. On all the major issues, … Continue reading “Joe Biden and the Dearth of Diplomacy”