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America’s Answer Is More Violence

America’s Answer Is More Violence

by | Feb 8, 2024 | ,

In an administration seemingly bankrupt of diplomacy or imagination, U.S. President Joe Biden and his team, led by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, have responded to the most hair trigger situations across the map in just the past few days with nothing but increased violence. As the risk of widening war in the Middle East crested and then seemed, hopefully, to tentatively recede, the United States has responded by agitating the waters. As the U.S. retaliated to the killing of three U.S. servicemembers in a drone strike by “Iran-backed” Shiite...

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Richard Sakwa Explains How We Ended Up In A New Cold War

Richard Sakwa Explains How We Ended Up In A New Cold War

by | Jan 31, 2024 | , ,

The war in Ukraine is a complicated tangle of three wars in one. It is a civil war between Ukraine’s European leaning west and its Russian leaning east. It is a war between Ukraine and Russia. And it is a war between Russia and NATO. Ben Abelow’s book, How the West Brought War to Ukraine, is a clear and valuable introduction to the decisions and events that led up to the war between Ukraine and Russia. Nicolai Petro’s The Tragedy of Ukraine is a comprehensive and masterful account of the history of the ethnic tension between the monist and pluralist visions of Ukraine that led to civil war...

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U.S.-China Policy Is Not Going According to Plan

U.S.-China Policy Is Not Going According to Plan

by | Jan 25, 2024 | ,

On January 13, the Taiwanese returned the Democratic Progressive Party and its new leader, Lai Ching-te, to power. Lai’s winning campaign had a platform of promoting a separate identity for Taiwan and rejecting China’s territorial claims. However, the election may not reflect the simple mandate the West projects onto Taiwan, of turning away from China and running into the arms of America. In her new book, Russia, China and the West in the Post-Cold War Era, Suzanne Loftus cites 2021 polling that shows that only 38% of Taiwanese want independence from China. 50% support the status quo of no...

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Wall Street Journal Sets Standard for Irresponsible Journalism in Ukraine

Wall Street Journal Sets Standard for Irresponsible Journalism in Ukraine

by | Jan 10, 2024 | ,

Recently, The Wall Street Journal joined the flood of American mainstream media outlets, including The New York Times, Politico and several others, in preparing the American public for a Russian victory. After nearly two years, over $113 billion of U.S. taxpayers’ money spent at horrendous cost in life and limb has put Ukraine in a worse bargaining position than they were at the start of the war. As many as 50,000 Ukrainians are now amputees. And though statistics on Ukrainian casualties are a tightly sealed state secret, the most plausible sources suggest casualties and fatalities as...

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Bad Advice: Ukraine Then and Now

Bad Advice: Ukraine Then and Now

by | Dec 14, 2023 | ,

David Arakhamiya’s recent interview enhances our understanding of the diplomatic course of the war in Ukraine in two crucial ways. Despite the political West’s insistence that Vladimir Putin had more expansive goals for invading Ukraine, Arakhamiya says that Moscow would have traded peace for a Ukrainian promise not to join NATO. He also twice states that the West intervened and discouraged that trade and a diplomatic settlement to the war. Arakhamiya is the head of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party. He led the Ukrainian negotiating team in both the Belarus and Istanbul talks. He says...

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It’s Unanimous: Ukrainian Neutrality Could Have Brought Peace

It’s Unanimous: Ukrainian Neutrality Could Have Brought Peace

by | Dec 5, 2023 | ,

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...

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NATO Chief Puts Hypocrisy on Full Display

NATO Chief Puts Hypocrisy on Full Display

by | Nov 29, 2023 | ,

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...

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

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

by | Nov 20, 2023 | ,

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...

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Ted Snider

Ted Snider is a regular columnist on U.S. foreign policy and history at Antiwar.com and The Libertarian Institute. He is also a frequent contributor to Responsible Statecraft and The American Conservative as well as other outlets. To support his work or for media or virtual presentation requests, contact him at tedsnider@bell.net



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Last Rights: The Death of American Liberty

Last Rights: The Death of American Liberty

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Americans today have “freedom” to be fleeced, groped, injected, harassed, surveilled, vilified, disarmed, beaten, detained, and maybe shot by federal agents. From hapless homeowners hit by SWAT raids to pandemic lockdowns pointlessly paralyzing lives, government...

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