Harlan Ullman

Bucharest, Romania: Interestingly, the last trip I made in late February 2020 was to Bucharest just before Covid-19 shut everything down. Now, some sixteen months later, the first trip I made post-pandemic was to Bucharest. And here, as in much of America, there are few signs of Covid. For the time being, cases and deaths […]

Russia and China, as well as some of America’s closest allies, are questioning the rationality of the country’s politics. Not only that, Moscow and Beijing view the US as a nation in decline. Indeed, they point to the January 6 riots on Capitol Hill as the final proof. And who can blame them? For when […]

Unlike his predecessor’s first trip to Europe, thus far, President Joe Biden’s performance and preparation deserve a gold star. Of course, the main event is the sit-down with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which was just getting underway at the time of writing. But, as this column has observed, as long as that meeting does not […]

Later this week, US President Joe Biden will make his first international trip. Unlike Donald Trump whose first trip was to Saudi Arabia, Biden will see America’s closest allies first before heading to Geneva to confront or cajole Vladimir Putin on Russia’s relationships with the US and NATO. After the G-7 summit in Cornwall in […]

It was an honour and privilege to consider the late Salmaan Taseer a very close friend. He was an extraordinary person. A successful businessman and politician, Salmaan possessed extraordinary intellect; an abundance of courage; an exceptional sense of decency; a dry and rapier sharp wit; with no tolerance for the substandard whether in government or […]

“To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavouring to convert an atheist by scripture” —  Thomas Paine, The American Crisis ‘Common Sense” might only be 48-pages long but remains one of […]

May 8 commemorates Victory in Europe Day. That is, the surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945 to the Allies which brought World War II to a formal end. On its ashes came the Cold War and NATO, which started off as a collective defence mechanism for western Europe. It is now seventy-six years later and […]

If Charles Dickens’ best of times could be magically transplanted to today’s America, what would that world look like? To say that Republicans and Democrats have diametrically opposed views on virtually every issue is a great understatement. Hence, it becomes self-evident how these two parties would see their respective best of times. For Republicans, the […]

At a critical moment during the thirteen-day Cuban Missile Crisis back of October 1962, some 22 Soviet missile-carrying ships heading for Cuba reversed course. Thereby effectively pulling the US and the USSR back from the brink of nuclear war and prompting then secretary of State Dean Rusk to famously observe: “I think the other side […]

The American Civil War technically ended on April 9, 1865 with Confederate General Robert E Lee’s surrender to Union General Ulysses S Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. It would, however, take another 16 months for President Andrew Johnson to formally declare and end to the conflict in August 1866. Now, more than a century-and-a-half later, the […]