At this point in my life, I’ve been consistently opposed to war for about twice as long as I spent as a Marine infantryman (with precisely the attitude toward war you would expect). The change was incremental and took a few years, but I consider my decision to...
Russia’s Attack on Ukraine Is Criminal and Wrong: The War Still Isn’t America’s Fight
War brings out the worst in human beings. It wreaks death and destruction on a mass scale. It also highlights similar levels of political hypocrisy. Such as those piously pushing their governments to intervene to support Ukraine, after ignoring far more deadly...
Iraq Daily Roundup: Four Killed
It All Comes Back to NATO
When the Bush Administration announced in 2008 that Ukraine and Georgia would be eligible for NATO membership, I knew it was a terrible idea. Nearly two decades after the end of both the Warsaw Pact and the Cold War, expanding NATO made no sense. NATO itself made no...
Is Putin Considering Using Nukes on NATO?
From his principal avenues of attack on Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin began this war with three strategic goals. Send an army south from Belarus to capture Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, and replace the government. Send forces into northeast Ukraine to capture...
The Finland Option May Still Save Ukraine
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has underscored the warnings that the Kremlin has made for years that any attempt to give Kyiv membership in NATO or use Ukraine as a military asset would cross a dangerous red line. In December 2021, Moscow issued demands on the United...
Putin No ‘Pariah’ in Beijing
If the White House actually thought it could publicly shame China into condemning Russia for invading Ukraine, perhaps this shows it is incapable of understanding the serious challenge it now faces from a Russia-China entente. Two and a half months ago Moscow and...
Trading Losses in Ukraine
There are no winners in war. War is the abandonment of reason, the abandonment of dialogue, the abandonment of compassion and hope. It is the abandonment of everything that makes us human. In the war in Ukraine, there will be no winners. Everyone will lose. The...
Iraq Monthly Roundup: 142 Killed in February
Despite the Strange New Respect for Mitt Romney, He Still Was Wrong About Russia
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made Sen. Mitt Romney winner of the latest "strange new respect" award. When running for president in 2012 Romney insisted that Russia was "without question our number one geopolitical foe." He’s being held up as a...


