Harlan Ullman

Make no mistake:  As deadly and as disruptive as the Coronavirus/Covid-19 pandemic is, this disease is a harbinger of even worse crises that could follow if a broader danger is not recognized.  That danger is a new MAD, not the Mutual Assured Destruction of the Cold War and the existential specter of thermonuclear armageddon but […]

Is the U.S. government capable of exercising any degree of competence? Or has incompetence become the new standard?  In terms of going to war, the last war America decisively won was World War II.  Vietnam, Afghanistan and the second Iraq War were varying degrees of disaster.  The incompetence in those wars was not asking the […]

With 2020 over, great expectations persist that 2021 will reverse the ghastliness and massive disruption of the past year and finally end the Corona/Covid-19 pandemic that has claimed nearly 400,000 American lives.  With the transition to a president who takes his responsibilities more seriously than the last one who ignored and dismissed the pandemic in […]

Whether one admires or abhors Donald Trump, about one observation all can agree.  Trump is the most transparent president in the nation’s history.  Wielding Twitter as a machine gun, the president unleashes torrents of 140 letter commentary about everything and everyone.  The last outburst was over vetoing the Defence Authorization Bill and after various threats […]

At this time of year, Charles Dickens makes a regular appearance in this column. Last year, the “ghosts” of Christmas Past, Present and Future who haunted President Donald Trump were Abraham Lincoln, John McCain and Vladimir Putin. This year, the number of ghosts vying for these three roles were, as Albert Einstein observed about the […]

President-elect Joe Biden’s pick for his secretary of defence, retired Army General Lloyd Austin, has created quite a bit of controversy. By all accounts, the general has served with distinction and heroism. His Silver Star is the nation’s third highest award for valour in combat. That General Austin would be the first black secretary of […]

Because of the response to last week’s column over a possible American pre-emptive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, a second piece seemed appropriate. Suppose a president concluded that Iran was within 6-18 months of enriching sufficient uranium to build several atom bombs. And suppose that same president had promised Iran would never be allowed to […]

Given reports of Iran’s continuing uranium enrichment program in its Natanz’ nuclear facilities, according to the New York Times, on November 12th, the president met with his key national security advisors to discuss striking those nuclear facilities. The president, apparently, was keen to take action. His advisors, fearing consequences that were unpredictable and unacceptable, cautioned […]

A pandemic is war by different means.  Death counts are far greater. The enemy is invisible.  But, paradoxically, rallying publics against a pandemic is much more difficult than in wartime.  This paradox between the disparity of magnitude of loss and public support is partly what makes a pandemic potentially dangerous to the political and not […]

At first, comparisons between Woodrow Wilson and Donald Trump as presidents a century apart would seem misplaced. The only commonality was that both were confronted with two pandemics: the Spanish Flu of 1918-1920 and Corona/Covid-19 of 2020. The first came at the end of World War I at a time of great disruption and civil […]