Ted Snider

“Toward the end of 2021,” The New York Times reports, “Mr. Putin was weighing whether to launch his full-scale invasion when he met with the head of one of Russia’s main spy services, who told him that the C.I.A., together with Britain’s MI6, were controlling Ukraine and turning it into a beachhead for operations against … Continue reading “How the West Provoked an Unprovoked War in Ukraine”

There were probably many reasons why Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky fired Ukraine’s popular commander in chief of the armed forces, Valerii Zaluzhny, on February 8, but one of the biggest seems to have been a disagreement over how to go forward in a war that seemed to have overwhelmingly turned against them. Zelensky spoke of … Continue reading “Selecting Syrsky: The Untold Half of the Zaluzhny Story”

The President of the United States only knows what his intelligence community tells him. After the January attack on a U.S. military facility in Jordan, American intelligence assessed that Iran does not fully control its proxy groups and that it is not commanding the attacks. The Pentagon, though, said “we know Iran is behind it,” … Continue reading “Biden Knows Putin Killed Alexei Navalny”

Pakistan just held an election; Venezuela is about to. Both incumbent governments have banned the leading opposition figure from competing. The United States sanctioned one and was silent on the other. What was the difference? Not international law or responsible leadership, both of which require a consistent application of laws and a consistent response. The … Continue reading “Washington, Pro-Democracy? Depends on the Country”

The Biden administration has seemingly adopted a foreign policy doctrine in which they nurture a war while attempting to manage it, preventing it from becoming a wider war. The doctrine has been applied in both Ukraine and Gaza. In Ukraine, war has been nurtured by snuffing out the possibility of a diplomatic settlement while feeding … Continue reading “Joe Biden and Mismanagement of the Wars”

After months of dangerous drama in Kiev, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has finally acted on his promise to fire Ukraine’s top general Valerii Zaluzhny. Their long private conflict first became public on November 1, 2023 when Zaluzhny made his views public to the West in an interview and essay with The Economist that made clear … Continue reading “Zelensky Replacing Zaluzhny Is Not Just the Firing of Another General”

In an administration seemingly bankrupt of diplomacy or imagination, U.S. President Joe Biden and his team, led by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, have responded to the most hair trigger situations across the map in just the past few days with nothing but increased violence. As the risk of … Continue reading “America’s Answer Is More Violence”

“The war in Ukraine is a war in general for values: life, democracy, freedom. So this is a war all over the world,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said. “Today the Ukrainian people are defending not only Ukraine, we are fighting for the values of Europe and the world… That’s why today the American people,” … Continue reading “The Democracy Versus Autocracy Narrative Has a Ukraine Problem”

The war in Ukraine is a complicated tangle of three wars in one. It is a civil war between Ukraine’s European leaning west and its Russian leaning east. It is a war between Ukraine and Russia. And it is a war between Russia and NATO. Ben Abelow’s book, How the West Brought War to Ukraine, … Continue reading “Richard Sakwa Explains How We Ended Up In a New Cold War”

On January 28, the event the U.S. had expected and long dreaded happened. Drones launched by what President Biden called “radical Iran-backed militant groups” struck a U.S. outpost in Jordan on the border with Iraq, killing three American service members and injuring 34 more. There have been more than 150 attacks by Iran-backed militias on … Continue reading “Responding Is Not a Foreign Policy”