The first world leader to call President George W. Bush after 9/11 was Vladimir Putin. In fact, he had called him two days before, on September 9, to warn Bush that, based on unfolding events he had observed in the environment, he had "a foreboding that something...
The horrific war in Ukraine is, tragically, far from over with no end in sight. Whether the world that emerges will be unipolar or multipolar, one thing is certain: the world is now more polarized. The war in Ukraine is a threshold that, having been crossed, forces...
When Western history sings its own song, it tells the tale of triumph over the Soviet Union bringing the Cold War to an end. But that is never what happened, and the events went the other way around. Mikhail Gorbachev, who passed away on August 30, was a visionary who...
On August 22, in response to the question, "Under what conditions is Russia ready to resort to the use of nuclear weapons," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov cited the "Fundamentals of the State Policy of the Russian Federation in the field...
In 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin complained, "What happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them. But I will allow myself to remind this...
In his State of the Union address, President Biden announced that Russia was "isolated from the world more than [it] ever has been." He said that "We are choking off Russia’s access to technology that will sap its economic strength and weaken its...
In 2008, William Burns, who is now Biden’s director of the CIA but was then ambassador to Russia, warned that "Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin)." He warned Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice...
Recent events in Ukraine and Taiwan have presented President Biden with an opportunity to showcase his statesmanship. Both situations presented Biden with a red line. Both times he crossed it. Giving Biden a red line not to cross does not seem to be a good idea....
Russia continues its war on Ukraine. The US and its allies continue flooding weapons into Ukraine. The war goes on, and Ukrainians continue to suffer and die. The last several days have offered little hope but lots of fear. They have also offered three of the scariest...
On July 20, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia’s war aims had been altered and that Russia might have to push further west. "Now the geography is different," he said, "it’s far from being just the DPR and LPR [Donetsk and Luhansk...
