Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute

It’s Unanimous: Ukrainian Neutrality Could Have Brought Peace

by Ted Snider | Dec 5, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

A leading Ukrainian politician said in a November 24 interview that as early as April 2022, Russia was “prepared to end the war if we agreed to...neutrality.” On June 13, 2022, when Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia and Ukraine had “reached an agreement in Istanbul” and that the agreement had been initialled by both sides, Davyd Arakhamiia was the Ukrainian official Putin identified: “I don’t remember his name and may be mistaken, but I think Mr. Arakhamia headed Ukraine’s negotiating team in Istanbul. He even initialed this document.” That a tentative agreement had been...

NATO Chief Puts Hypocrisy on Full Display

by Ted Snider | Nov 29, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg put NATO’s hypocrisy on display while talking to reporters ahead of the meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on November 28. Asked by a reporter about American and European struggles to continue providing Ukraine with weapons and ammunition, Stoltenberg replied, “It's our obligation to ensure that we provide Ukraine with the weapons they need. Because it will be a tragedy for Ukrainians if President Putin wins.” The tragedy for Ukrainians has already happened. Their infrastructure and economy are destroyed, their population is dispersed, their...

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....

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