The collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian government in late November and early December 2024 occurred with stunning speed. There was little question that Joe Biden’s administration and several U.S. allies, especially Turkey, were pleased with the outcome. Washington worked diligently to force Assad from power since 2011, even though the effort triggered a civil war that produced more than 600,000 fatalities and over thirteen million people displaced. Russia’s military intervention in 2015, though, gave the Assad regime and the Syrian military a new lease on life. Until the latest offensive,...

When the Soviet Union dissolved in late 1991, the world seemed poised for a new, more peaceful era no longer haunted by the fear of a nuclear Armageddon. The principal successor state from the wreckage of the USSR was a noncommunist Russia that was intent on becoming part of the democratic, capitalist West. President George H. W. Bush and his top advisers exercised considerable diplomatic skill in managing the twilight years and ultimate demise of the Soviet Union. Their core achievement was to gain Moscow’s assent to Germany’s reunification and membership in NATO. The implicit tradeoff...

Donald Trump’s re-election as president is fueling speculation that he will terminate U.S. financial and logistical support for Ukraine’s war effort against Russia. Trump himself contributed to that speculation during his June 28, 2024 debate with President Joe Biden when he said, “If we had a real president, a president that was respected by [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, he would have never invaded Ukraine.” Indeed, Trump has boasted that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in twenty-four hours. His critics, both in the United States and the other NATO countries, however, contend that...