Sometimes It Is Hard To Understand Volodymyr Zelensky

The Russian Armed Forces are pushing west through the Donbas region of Ukraine. Their advance has consistently been called slow, but this is no longer true. In October and November, Russia captured over 1,500 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory. The pace has...

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Can Trump Trump China (or Vice Versa)?

Gaza, Haiti, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Russia, Syria, Ukraine, and Venezuela: President-elect Donald Trump will face no shortage of foreign-policy challenges when he assumes office in January. None, however, comes close to China in scope, scale, or complexity. No other...

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What Are We Doing in Syria?

My first reaction to news earlier this month that the Syrian government had been overthrown was, how much did we have to do with it; how involved was the CIA; and how much is it going to cost. As with Saddam and Gaddafi before him, we know that Assad was no...

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The Hypocrisy of Bombing Iran

President-elect Donald Trump has reportedly expressed concern that Iran could develop a nuclear bomb on his watch. In considering his options to prevent that, The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump is considering the possibility of airstrikes on Iranian nuclear...

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Will Donald Trump Stop Domestic Spying?

During the course of an FBI written response to a Freedom of Information Act request asking about the trade names and suppliers of surveillance software the FBI had purchased, the government has yet again quietly acknowledged its antipathy to constitutional provisions...

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The Syrian Fiasco

About 17 years ago the insufferable former general, Wesley Clark, reported on a talk he once had in the Pentagon: “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia,...

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