With NATO’s latest gathering this week in Vilnius, Washington is understandably focused on what the United States and its allies should do next to help Ukraine rebuff Russia. Moscow’s invasion, however, is part of a larger, multi-nation challenge to which Washington has not yet developed a comprehensive response. That challenge is the axis of deepening …
Continue reading “US Needs More Holistic Response to Emerging Axis”
President Joe Biden has revamped U.S. goals in Ukraine from de-escalation and negotiations to a Ukrainian victory and the “degrading” of Russia’s military, reflecting a long-overdue reappraisal of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his war aims. It is not the first time of late that Washington has come to see that conventional wisdom about a …
Continue reading “Will Russia’s Ukraine War Prompt An American Awakening On Iran?”
Foreign policy does not allow for compartmentalization when you’re the world’s leading power. What America does in response to any significant global challenge has important implications for other dilemmas and crises. With authoritarianism rising and freedom shrinking around the world for nearly two decades now, the United States should avoid steps that will embolden autocrats …
Continue reading “If we de-list the IRGC, what will the dictators think?”
How to Make Russia Pay – When asked, after his speech on Thursday, why the United States and its allies weren’t then kicking Russia completely out of SWIFT, the global banking communications system, over its invasion of Ukraine, President Biden said, “[It] is always an option. But right now, that’s not the position that the …
Continue reading “How To Make Russia Pay Over Ukraine: Deploy Every Financial Weapon Possible”
Even at this extremely polarized time in Washington, a bipartisan consensus continues to grow that China now represents the biggest threat to the United States. President Joe Biden is implementing a “pivot to Asia” that President Barack Obama first enunciated, inking a new U.S. alliance with Britain and Australia that will help the latter deploy …
Continue reading “Don’t Let China Overshadow the Russia Threat”
Iran’s impending entry into the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), the Eurasian bloc that China and Russia lead, has great potential to limit U.S., Israeli and Western leeway in confronting Tehran’s nuclear and hegemonic aspirations, sponsorship of international terrorism and efforts at regional de-stabilization. Iran’s SCO entry comes as the Institute for Science and International Security, …
Continue reading “Iran’s SCO Entry Could Complicate U.S.-Israeli Strategic Options”
“The politicization of sports will damage the spirit of the Olympic Charter and the interests of athletes from all countries,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said recently about calls for the United States and other nations to boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing over China’s human-rights abuses. That’s a bit rich because, frankly, the …
Continue reading “Move the 2022 Beijing Olympics or Shun Beijing”