Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute

The Cost of Kursk

by Ted Snider | Aug 21, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

The bold and surprising incursion across the border into the Kursk region of Russia has won Ukraine the temporary possession of several Russian villages and a few hundred square miles of Russian territory. But the strategically cheap Russian land may have been bought at a very costly price. The Ukrainian armed forces managed a lightning advance through largely undefended territory. But that territory is defended now, and the advance seems already to have been slowed. And though it seems to have lost momentum well short of its goals, Ukraine may still have to pay the full price. Ukraine’s...

China’s Rising Diplomatic Power

by Ted Snider | Aug 14, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

The United States is working hard to create a global narrative of itself as the leader of a generational struggle to advance democracy, peace, and international law and push back the forces of autocracy, aggression, and erosion of the rule of law. The facts look strangely different than the fiction. While the U.S. is energetically working to inhibit diplomacy and exploit conflict to advance its own economic and hegemonic interests, China, one of the arch villains of the American narrative, is pushing diplomacy. The U.S. is blocking diplomacy in Ukraine, declining to push diplomacy in Gaza,...

Look Who’s Talking: America, Russia, Ukraine, China, and Palestine

by Ted Snider | Aug 6, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

In recent weeks, a flurry of unexpected talks and signals of willingness for talks have taken place that provide hope in a number of war zones. The U.S. is talking to Russia, there are openings for Russia to talk to Ukraine, Ukraine is talking to China, and China is talking to Palestine. At the beginning of August, the United States and Russia completed a prisoner exchange. The Western media obsessed over two details. One being the fact that it was the biggest prisoner exchange between the U.S. and Russia since the end of the Cold War. And second, that there was a gaping moral inequivalence...

The U.S. Continues to Undermine Its Own Interests in Iran

by Ted Snider | Jul 17, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

The American-led isolation of Iran is springing leaks all over. It seems that wherever Iran knocks, everyone answers. Except the United States. Instead, the U.S. continues to close the door, following a long pattern with Iran of undermining its own interests. In 2016, Bahrain followed Saudi Arabia in cutting ties with Iran. But in 2024, it began to explore following Saudi Arabia in restoring ties with Iran. On March 10, 2023, Iran and Saudi Arabia stunned the world by announcing that China had brokered an agreement “to resume diplomatic relations between them and re-open their embassies and...

Four Questions Joe Biden Should Have to Answer in the First Presidential Debate

by Ted Snider | Jun 26, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Politics

On Thursday night, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will face each other in the first ever debate between a sitting president and a former president. Given their past performances, there are many questions each should have to answer. Here are four topics on the war in Ukraine that Biden should have to address. You Knew, So Why Did You Do It? Biden was aware of warnings from people who knew best that encouraging NATO expansion east was provocative and a dangerous crossing of Russia’s reddest of red lines. He knew because he knew the people who gave the warnings. Robert...

Joe Biden’s Time Interview Should Set Off Alarms

by Ted Snider | Jun 12, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

On May 28, U.S. President Joe Biden gave an interview to Time. His delivery and content were concerning for a number of reasons. Biden, at times, seemed misinformed and detached from reality. Sometimes, he seemed off message; other times, he seemed convinced by his own talking points. But four answers he gave were especially alarming and deserve to be highlighted. The first was Biden’s assertion that America is “the world power.” The truth of that claim can be debated, but making that claim is deaf to the changes taking place in the world. Much of the world is angry at the United States for...

America’s Ugly History with the International Criminal Court

by Ted Snider | May 30, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

On May 20, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced that he was seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as well as for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh, and Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri. Officials in Washington lashed out against the court and began preparations to pressure the ICC to back off on pursuing the arrests. Netanyahu and Gallant, the United States insisted, should be left alone or left to Israel’s courts. The Hamas officials should be held accountable, according to the State...

Did the U.S. Give the Go-Ahead to Strike Russia with Long Range Missiles?

by Ted Snider | May 22, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

There are a number of questions that could be asked about U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken singing “Rockin’ in the Free World” in a bar in Kiev. The first is regarding the appropriateness of singing a song while hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers are being wounded or killed every day in a new Russian push. The second is regarding why Blinken was relaxing in a bar instead of attending all night meetings when the war that the United States encouraged Ukraine to fight instead of exploring a diplomatic settlement has gone so wrong. But the most important question may be whether Blinken got the...

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