Harlan Ullman

Having spent nearly a week here speaking to the usual and unusual suspects, some very high up the political and national security and defense ladder, there is unanimity, to repeat unanimity, on the dire consequences the Trump presidency poses for Britain and much of the world in just 100 days. The gloom, matched by sadness […]

Whether President George E. Bush’s ill-fated decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was America’s worst geostrategic blunder since World War II and Vietnam or not, Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs may prove worse. By imposing global tariffs, Trump is performing a hat trick of sorts. First, he has more than decimated US stock markets so […]

Today is the day that Donald Trump’s tariff scheme should go into effect. Possibly they shall if the president is not using tariffs for negotiations or other tools. Or perhaps the president has different motives. And tomorrow could be the day of reckoning. Regardless, the threat and uncertainty of impending tariffs have shaken markets and […]

No matter what one may think about President Donald Trump, he certainly has moved to end the war in Ukraine in ways many thought would not succeed. And it may not work. But yesterday’s phone call with President Vladimir Putin seemed to start in motion a possible ceasefire or truce. Caution is needed. As in […]

Much of my 2025 will be devoted to co-authoring a book with my great English friend David Richards. The title is The Great Paradox: Strategic Thinking in an Unstrategic World. David’s more formal title is General The Lord Richards of Herstmonceux, a peerage conferred for his long and distinguished service culminating as Chief of the […]

Donald Trump has promised to impose disruptive change on government. Most of his appointees have been chosen for that purpose. And Congress is not immune if Trump is able to persuade both Houses to grant him recess appointments. That would neuter the Senate and its advise and consent constitutionality authority. Whether or not all Trump’s […]

For the past eight days, most reporting on the presidential election was why Donald Trump won and why Kamala Harris lost. Now, with the initial announcements of cabinet picks, speculation abounds over where the second Trump administration is headed. Of course, not until all major cabinet appointments including the Attorney General, Treasury, Defense, Secretary of […]

Trump won a decisive presidential victory. Simply put, why? That question will dominate discussion and provoke answers for decades to come. After all, no prior presidential candidate in American history had such potentially disqualifying baggage as Trump. Could Americans re-elect someone who had been twice impeached as president; was a convicted felon; a sexual predator […]

At long last, election 2024 is upon us. Six days from now, November 5th, marks E-Day. But when the 47th president of the United States is formally determined may take weeks or months. In that context and as this column has noted, in the UK November 5th is Guy Fawkes Day when in 1605, a […]

Writing in his newsletter Inflection Points, my good friend and close colleague Fred Kempe, President and CEO of the Atlantic Council, speculates that whoever Americans elect on November 5th may indeed become a wartime president. Referring to the world in November 1940 just a year before the attack on Pearl Harbor forced America to declare […]