Harlan Ullman

In the great and not so great submarine war movies, the image of a sonar operator grasping his headphones anxiously listening for the sounds of an enemy U-boat disintegrating in the depths below is almost as iconic as the chiselled appearance of the commanding officer awaiting acknowledgement of the kill. One wonders, metaphorically, if the […]

Last week’s column raised some truly terrifying “what ifs” that even seven or eight years ago were deemed unthinkable. But that field is so fertile and ripe, that a second or even third column would not exhaust the range of these now possible or at least plausible scenarios. A convicted felon being elected president from […]

In 1962, the redoubtable Herman Kahn released his follow on to “On Thermonuclear War.” This book was called “Thinking the Unthinkable.” Then, the consequences of thermonuclear war were unthinkable. A thermonuclear weapon is 1000 times more powerful than a nuclear one as fusion produces that much greater energy than fission does. Warheads made of Plutonium […]

Who was the US president responsible for creating the greatest economic boom in the nation’s history? And for what was he better known? One hundred years and one month ago, President Warren Harding died of a heart attack in San Francisco after only eighteen months of taking office on March 4, 1921. The Harding Administration […]

On several occasions, Donald Trump has uttered one of the few truthful statements he probably has ever made. When asked about the murderous sides of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Trump growled, “We kill people too.” But as we will see, once again, the Donald was misguided. Last week’s […]

Tragedy has almost as many definitions and meanings as it has actual examples. In terms of foreign policy, tragedy can mean a collision of two seemingly valid principles that come into conflict. In Vietnam, the noble aim of bringing some measure of peace, stability and justice to a war-ravaged country was unachievable under the guise […]

News of eleven Russian and Chinese warships sailing in international waters off the Alaskan coastlines has sounded a tsunami of alarms in America. But why the alarms? The US has routinely practised Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONO) in the Taiwan Straits and elsewhere since the Cold War began. Now Beijing and Moscow are following suit; […]

By virtually every measure, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been a disaster. Vladimir Putin’s expectation that his army would quickly capture Kyiv by the end of February 2022 and Ukraine would have to capitulate could not have been more incorrect. And it only got worse for Moscow. The invasion stalled. Russian forces were savaged. Over […]

Two of the most unanswerable questions about the war in Ukraine are when and how it will end. Those who hoped that Ukraine would seize the offensive and force Russia to return all or some of the territories that were illegally occupied are likely to be disappointed. Others who predicted that Vladimir Putin would be […]

My last column asked if America has hit a political bottom. Last week also answered that question with an emphatic NO. Why? The House of Representatives presented two examples of unimpeachable proof of how low American politics have descended and keep descending. The inquisition of FBI Director Christopher Wray and the floor “debate” on the […]