On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine with a small force of around 142,000 troops. Not enough to conquer Ukraine, the invading force was sufficient to persuade Ukraine to the negotiating table. Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed that was the original goal of the military operation: “[T]he troops were there to push the Ukrainian side to negotiations.” And it nearly worked. Within weeks, in Istanbul, a negotiated peace was within reach. It was only after the United States, the United Kingdom, Poland, and their NATO allies pushed Ukraine off the path of diplomacy and onto the...

At the end of June 2024, the world got its first glimpse at what Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Ukraine in one day might look like. Retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg and former CIA analyst Fred Fleitz submitted a plan to then candidate Trump. In an interview, Kellogg revealed that American leverage would have two fronts. The first is you tell Russian President Vladimir Putin, “He’s got to come to the table and if you don’t come to the table, then we’ll give Ukrainians everything they need to kill you in the field.” And the second is, “We tell the Ukrainians, ‘You’ve got to come...

On February 28, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky got the meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump that he had been hoping for. It was an opportunity to sign their agreement on minerals and, more importantly, to improve relations and heal their recent fight. Instead, another fight erupted. Much has been written on the tone of what was said by both sides, but not enough attention has been paid to the content of what was said. Much of what Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance said publicly had been said privately before. This was not the first time the United States or its allies have...

There may come a day when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky regrets taking the bait and, at what may be the conclusion of three years of fighting Russia, being drawn into a verbal war with U.S. President Donald Trump. Over the last few days, Trump has called Zelensky a dictator who started the war, and Zelensky has said that Trump is “caught in a web of disinformation.” As negotiations are being prepared, and Zelensky needs more than ever to be in the shadow of Trump’s goodwill, this may be the worst time to become entrenched as an enemy of Trump. Vice President J.D. Vance said that...

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the United States has led an international campaign to shun and isolate Russian President Vladimir Putin. Former U.S. President Joe Biden did not talk to Putin once after the war began. That policy of isolation is now over. On February 12, U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed that he had a “lengthy and highly productive phone call” with Putin. But Trump did not just open the door a cautious crack. He flung it wide. He did not just agree to further phone calls, but that he would go to Moscow and Putin would come to Washington: “We agreed to work...

On January 6, Indonesia formally entered BRICS as a full member. It was an important geopolitical shift that went largely unreported and little discussed in the mainstream western media. BRICS is an international organization whose primary purpose is to balance U.S. hegemony in a new multipolar world. Its roots go back to 1996 and the emergence of the core group of Russia, India, and China (RIC). In 2009, along with Brazil, BRIC held its first summit. In 2010, South Africa joined, and BRICS was formed, making it, perhaps, the only major international body in which representatives of Africa...

A leaked document has given us a first glimpse at President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian online newspaper Strana, U.S. officials handed the plan to European diplomats who then passed it on to Ukraine. The existence of the plan has not been verified, and Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, has said “no ‘100-day peace plan’ as reported by the media exists in reality.” If the plan is real, and if it is being put on the table by the Trump administration as a finished product that, if rejected, will lead to more sanctions on Russia...

There may be a battle looming, not just between the United States and Ukraine over the conscription of men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, but also within the Donald Trump administration. The call for Ukraine to cast a wider conscription net predates the Trump administration. Facing imminent loss on the battlefield after NATO had bankrupted its supply of weapons, demanding that Ukraine throw more men into battle emerged as the last grasp solution during the Joe Biden administration. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, “In fact, we believe manpower is the most...