Vladimir Putin

Trump Administration Foreign Policy Tracker: November

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Trump Risks Violating U.S. Law by Giving Russia Even More Sanctions Relief

The basic rule of negotiation is to get more than you give. With Russia, the Trump administration is taking the opposite approach. On October 27, The New York Times reported the Trump administration...

Washington Should Not Push Europe Back Toward Russian Gas

Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to recover the revenue Russia lost from its decline in gas exports to Europe. In a reversal of longstanding U.S. policy, Washington is trying to help him. At the...

The Perils of Russian Diplomacy

As momentum toward a Ukraine deal builds, the US should be focused on gauging Russian sincerity.

Washington Should Resist Russia’s Gulf Mediation Bid

As Iranian attacks in the Persian Gulf return to wartime highs and Saudi Arabia faces deadly strikes on its infrastructure from the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states...

A letter to the POTUS 

Why you should be the Leader of the Free World

Trump can’t win by throwing Ukraine under the bus

Still reeling from President Donald Trump’s surprise deal lifting sanctions on Russian diesel fuel, Ukraine discovered on Wednesday that its access to a vital American satellite internet service had...

The Russian Milblogger Arrested in Montenegro Is a Kremlin Stalking Horse

For years, Russia has treated the Balkans as a battleground for its geopolitical ambitions, exploiting ethnic divisions, fueling tensions, and challenging Western influence. Now, Montenegro is pushing...

The Next War of Attrition is in Yemen

Battlefield dynamics in Yemen shift quickly, but Houthi aims do not. A movement organized around radical ideology and perpetual conflict now shares a border with a state organized around modernization...

Is Russia playing deadly games with the plague? Look to its history.

Excerpt One of the greatest scourges the world has ever known is in recent headlines: the Plague. A technician at Russia’s Irkutsk Research Anti-Plague Institute has died of “pneumonia of unknown...

A most ignoble Nobel Peace Prize

Navi Pillay deserves denunciation, not accolades

Russia’s Leading Sanctions Evasion Tool Is a New Kind of Illicit Finance Threat

In a blow to Russia’s economy and war effort, on October 8, the United Kingdom sanctioned 38 entities that are helping to prop up the Kremlin. That includes two oil companies, 12 ships trafficking...

Medvedev’s message

The former Russian president explains why Putin fights

Trump’s US, Greenland deal changes less than it seems

Trump's new deal reaffirms broad basing access already in place. To get it, he damaged trust among America's European allies and created strains in NATO. The damage couldn't have come at a worse time.

Putin claims a landslide, but he can’t hide the smoke over Moscow

The Kremlin may have discovered the perfect election strategy: eliminate the possibility of losing. Why bother with opposition or the unpredictability of a free vote when you can simply remove the competition? Russia’s...

The UN is still obsessed with Israel

Antisemitism simmers within the world body, most notably these days in the actions and words of Francesca Albanese, the special rapporteur on the “occupied Palestinian territories.”

Zelenskyy Proposes an ‘Energy Ceasefire,’ Hoping To Secure Patriot Interceptors

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy proposed a reciprocal “energy ceasefire” with Russia during his meeting with President Donald Trump at the UN General Assembly. The move suggested a calculated...

Strait Lines

Strait Lines

Syria’s military is rebuilding, but foreign influence may slow security progress

Foreign influence in the Syrian military, chiefly Turkish and Russian, combined with the continued presence of extremist elements within its ranks, will constrain Damascus’s ability to take steps consistent...