What’s New about Biden’s National Defence Strategy on November 7, 2022Last week the Biden administration released its unclassified National Defense Strategy (NDS). The document was well written and proposed several new concepts and definitions that differed from the past Obama and Trump NDS’s. The aims of these two prior NDS’s were variants of “contain, compete, deter and if war arises defeat” China, Russia, North Korea, […]
Is Ukraine More Dangerous Than the Cuban Missile Crisis? on October 31, 2022Sixty years ago this month, the US and Soviet Union faced off in, arguably, the most dangerous superpower nuclear confrontation of the Cold War. The Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved in thirteen days. Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev agreed to remove Russian missiles from Cuba. Ukraine is pounding Russian troops and recapturing formerly occupied territory. Vladimir […]
Proxy Wars and 21st Century Merchants Of Death on October 24, 2022The conflict in Ukraine is, by any definition, a “proxy war.” But it is being fought entirely differently by the US, the West and Russia. The US and the West are waging a traditional proxy war that FDR used to aid Great Britain persevere against Nazi Germany prior to Pearl Harbor and the CIA in […]
Not One but Many Ticking Time Bombs on October 17, 2022The most dangerous global crisis today is in Ukraine. And the war is escalating. Ukraine knocked out part of the $4 billion Kerch Bridge connecting Russia’s only direct route across the Sea of Azov with Crimea. This was a strategic, tactical and psychological victory paralleling the stunning Ukrainian army advances in retaking territory formerly seized […]
Speaker Trump? on October 11, 2022If Dickens’ first sentence in Tale of Two Cities was re-written for 2022, it might read, “It was the most dangerous of times, it was also the most bizarre.” Here is a small sampling of why. Vladimir Putin has threatened to use “all available means” to defend Russia against assaults by the West. A well-known […]
The Putin enigma and the Zelensky trap on October 3, 2022Last week, Vladimir Putin’s pre-recorded address to his nation threatened the West with the veiled reference to using “all available means” to defend Russia. Clearly, that warning was meant to include nuclear, as well as energy, denial to Europe among Russian threats. Over the weekend, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan went on talk shows; repeatedly […]
Why Last Week was Important? on September 26, 2022Some weeks are more important than others. Two weeks ago was one of them. But, regarding three particular stories, much of their significance has been missed. The death of HM Queen II led to a well-established transition of the crown compared with the refusal of too many Americans to recognize Joe Biden’s election as president. […]
President Elizabeth Mountbatten Windsor on September 19, 2022In a brilliant piece on the legacy of Queen Elizabeth II, the Marquess Robert Lord Salisbury wrote about the role of the crown as head of state. Of particular interest in his column were the comparisons made between the crown and elected heads of state, namely presidents. That raised an intriguing question: suppose Queen Elizabeth […]
The Soul of the Nation is the Constitution on September 8, 2022President Joe Biden faces what he calls two possibly existential conflicts. The first is the struggle between autocracy and democracy. The second was declared last week in Philadelphia: the fight for the soul of the nation against Trump “MAGA Republicans.” This column disagrees that the great struggle is between democracy and autocracy. The crucial question […]
Will America Survive This Decade? on August 29, 2022America has had some close calls. After the Revolution and well into the 19th century, while protected by two oceans, America remained vulnerable to outside interlopers from Europe. The British burned Congress and the White House in the War of 1812 and a war with British Canada loomed. The Civil War could have partitioned America […]