Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute

Is America a Rogue Superpower?

by Ted Snider | Mar 27, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

“Unipolar” used to mean that the United States was, at least in theory, alone in leading the world. Now “unipolar” means that the United States is alone and isolated in opposition to the world. In global affairs, a hegemon is a nation that leads because it has the consent of the other nations who believe in its goals and values. The United States has recently demonstrated, though, that it has given up any pretense of using its leadership to pursue the goals of the global community, and instead is openly using the global community to pursue its own goals. In his new book, The Lost Peace,...

Why is the West Suddenly Revealing Its Troop Presence in Ukraine?

by Ted Snider | Mar 18, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

It has long been an open secret that the West has been providing Ukraine with funding, weapons, training, maintenance, targeting intelligence, and intelligence on the position of Russian forces and vulnerabilities, and even war-gaming. They have provided Ukraine with everything but the bodies. President Joe Biden has long insisted that American troops “are not and will not be engaged in a conflict with Russia in Ukraine." The West has long denied that it is directly involved in the war or that they have troops in Ukraine. And that is mostly true. It is Ukrainian soldiers that are being...

The Stories You’re Not Hearing About the Russo-Ukrainian War…

by Ted Snider | Mar 4, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Several, seemingly small events in the Russo-Ukrainian War went largely unnoticed in western media recently. But each of them, in their own way, may be significant. The Fall of Avdiivka On February 25, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since Russia invaded his country two years ago. It was the first time he had released a number of dead. He wouldn’t provide the number of wounded. On February 4, he said, “About 26% of the national territory is still under occupation,” before adding that “the Russian army cannot make much progress. We...

Selecting Syrsky: The Untold Half of the Zaluzhny Story

by Ted Snider | Feb 23, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

There were probably many reasons why Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky fired Ukraine’s popular commander in chief of the armed forces, Valerii Zaluzhny, on February 8, but one of the biggest seems to have been a disagreement over how to go forward in a war that seemed to have overwhelmingly turned against them. Zelensky spoke of a need for “the same vision of the war,” and Zaluzhny said “a decision was made about the need to change approaches and strategy.” When the war began, Zelensky said that Ukraine “will definitely win” but stressed life over land. “Our land is important, yes, but...

Washington, Pro-Democracy? Depends on the Country

by Ted Snider | Feb 19, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Pakistan just held an election; Venezuela is about to. Both incumbent governments have banned the leading opposition figure from competing. The United States sanctioned one and was silent on the other. What was the difference? Not international law or responsible leadership, both of which require a consistent application of laws and a consistent response. The important difference was that the United States supported the incumbent coup government in one case and opposed the incumbent coup survivor in the other. On January 30, the United States reversed the small and rare diplomatic progress...

America’s Answer Is More Violence

by Ted Snider | Feb 8, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

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...

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

by Ted Snider | Jan 31, 2024 | Book Reviews, Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

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...

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

by Ted Snider | Jan 25, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

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...