Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute

There Could Have Been Peace: How the U.S. Ensured a Long War in Ukraine

by Ted Snider | Nov 20, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

On February 27, just the third day of their war, Russia and Ukraine announced direct negotiations in Belarus. Having already said that he was prepared to abandon Ukraine’s pursuit of NATO membership, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky went into the negotiations “without preconditions.” That round of talks, having identified priority topics, led to a second round, again in Belarus. But, though Ukraine was willing to discuss neutrality and “the end of this invasion,” the United States was not. On February 25, the same day Zelensky said he was “not afraid to talk to Russia” and that he was...

Volodymyr Zelensky Is in a Sea of Troubles

by Ted Snider | Nov 2, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is facing two troubles on the foreign front that have received a lot of media attention. The first is that his country is actually receiving much less media attention. For the past month, international attention has been drawn away from his war to another. The second is that he is confronting growing resistance in the U.S. House of Representatives. President Joe Biden’s plan to tie aid to Ukraine and aid to Israel together is both a tactical maneuver to ensure continued congressional support for Ukraine and an admission that that support can no longer...

Did Putin Kill Yevgeni Prigozhin?

by Ted Snider | Oct 26, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

On August 23, 2023, Yevgeni Prigozhin’s plane crashed, ending the life of the leader of the Wagner private military group. Since then, little effort or ink has been spent on who is responsible for his murder. The West’s intrigue and attention was held as long as the story supported the narrative of a crumbling Putin regime. When that narrative turned out to be fiction and fantasy, Western media lost interest. The lack of urgency to place blame may be the product of the reality that everyone who might blame benefited. But that everyone benefited also makes it hard to determine the murderer:...

U.S. Breaks Its Deal with Iran…Again

by Ted Snider | Oct 18, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Building on its reputation as an unreliable diplomatic partner, the United States announced on October 12 that it was pulling out of the deal that would have granted Iran access to $6 billion of its money in exchange for the release of five American prisoners. This rare diplomatic success between the U.S. and Iran took months to work out, only to see the U.S. break its word again and renege on the deal. In 2018, the United States granted a waiver for South Korea to continue purchasing Iranian oil despite American sanctions on Iran. Instead of being deposited in Iran, the money for the oil...

Putin’s Valdai Speech, What You Need to Know

by Ted Snider | Oct 12, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

On October 5, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the plenary session of the Valdai International Discussion Club near Sochi, Russia. The session was attended by scholars and diplomats from forty-two countries. Putin spoke for half an hour and then answered questions for about three hours. Several interesting things were said. In western discourse it is always said that Russia started an unprovoked war in Ukraine. There has been much discussion—though not in the mainstream media nor in statements issued by western governments—about whether the war was unprovoked. But there has been...

Someone Wants ‘the War to Continue’

by Ted Snider | Oct 3, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

At times, Ukraine has been unwilling to negotiate an end to the ongoing war with Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has gone so far as to issue a decree banning negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. At other times, Russia has given up on negotiating. In a press conference at the United Nations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov lamented, if you insist “’on the battlefield’—well, let it be on the battlefield.” And at times, Ukraine and Russia have been willing to negotiate with each other. The United States, though, has at no time been willing to negotiate....

A Rough Diplomatic Week for Ukraine

by Ted Snider | Sep 27, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

In the early weeks of the war, a peace was still possible that would have seen Ukraine lose few lives and little to no land. Even the Donbas would have remained in Ukraine with autonomy under a still possible Minsk agreement. Only Crimea would have remained lost. A year and a half later, Ukraine’s daily loss of life is horrific and Russia is determined to hold not only Crimea and the Donbas, but Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. But while Ukraine has struggled on the battlefield, it has sustained its diplomatic support. But this week, that too showed strains. Ukraine had a difficult week with both...

Why We Don’t Negotiate

by Ted Snider | Sep 12, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

The signature of Joe Biden's State Department has been the abdication of diplomacy. Its head, Antony Blinken, the chief U.S. diplomat, has abdicated the role of diplomat. Though obvious in Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea, this absence of diplomacy has been nowhere more evident than in the Russo-Ukrainian war where the State Department has been more the warrior than the Pentagon. On November 9, 2022, it was America’s top soldier, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, who said, “There has to be a mutual recognition that a military victory is probably, in the true...