Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy flew into a key U.S. swing state this week on a taxpayer-funded aircraft after publicly criticizing former President Donald Trump and Republican Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance.
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Democratic Rep. Brittany Pettersen of Colorado is one of several Democrats who have called on President Joe Biden to drop out of the election following the president’s press briefing on Thursday.
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President Joe Biden held his first solo press conference since November on Thursday evening, after he concluded the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) annual summit, and amid increased concern over his physical and mental fitness.
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Whereas Donald Trump as the 2016 Republican presidential nominee battled the GOP establishment over changing the party’s direction and in 2020 faced substantive internal resistance during his reelection bid, he now appears as the 2024 nominee to have won control of a party apparatus willing to embrace his policy platform and earnestly support his efforts.
The Republican National Committee on Monday formally adopted Trump’s 2024 party platform, which focused heavily on economy and border security issues. While both issues have been topline issues for Trump throughout his political career, the platform’s inclusion of other provisions highlighted the extent to which his own agenda had inserted itself into the party.
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Nearly eleven months ago, in August 2023, the New York Times reported that U.S. officials had estimated that some 500,000 Russians and Ukrainians had been killed, wounded, or missing in the then 18-month Ukrainian War.
Both Russia and Ukraine underreport their losses. Hundreds of thousands of additional casualties have followed in the 28 months of fighting.
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President Joe Biden struck a major agreement with Ukraine this week that builds on his administration’s push to involve the U.S. in the nation’s security, further expanding Washington’s commitments to Kyiv.
Biden attended the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Italy this week and signed a deal with Ukraine, which includes a 10-year commitment to Ukraine’s defenses and fast-track its eventual accession to NATO. The deal underscores Biden’s growing number of commitments and promises to Kyiv, including loosening weapons restrictions and providing billions in aid, as the U.S. becomes more involved in the ongoing conflict in Eastern Europe.
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NATO nations are bolstering their borders, with Poland taking particularly robust measures, in response to threats posed by Russia and Belarus, which critics of the Biden administration say is markedly different from the current security at the U.S. border.
Poland, Ukraine, Finland, Norway and the Baltic States agreed to create a “drone wall” last week, but Poland stepped up support for its border officials after a Polish Army soldier was stabbed by a person attempting to enter from Belarus on Tuesday.
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As Russia’s war against Ukraine drags on, the U.S. and the NATO alliance are increasing their involvement in the conflict, presenting risks for a more direct confrontation with Moscow.
President Joe Biden reportedly gave Ukraine the green light in May to start firing U.S.-provided weapons directly into certain parts of Russian territory, as NATO members consider a similar policy and the possibility of sending trainers to train the Ukrainian military. The new initiatives would represent a shift in NATO’s policy of engagement in the war and could further escalate the proxy conflict with Russia.
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Next month, on June 15 and 16, a high-level peace conference will be held in Bürgenstock, Switzerland, at the request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on achieving peace in Ukraine. 70 to 90 countries reportedly will be represented. Some heads of state will attend, including French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
However, there will be some notable absences—Russia and China. President Biden does not plan to attend and will send junior officials to the conference.
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During Bush’s years as president, Democrats frequently criticized his foreign policy, complaining that he acted like a cowboy, pursuing wars unilaterally without the imprimatur of the “international community.” Internationalism was a particular obsession of 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, who lambasted the Bush administration for snubbing the United Nations and upsetting France with its Iraq policy.
Obama was mostly a darling of foreign leaders, as he ceded American power and prestige in a bid to right what he considered the historic wrongs of colonialism and western chauvinism. This was evident in his obsession with completing the Iran deal, participating in the Kyoto accords, assisting NATO attacks on Libya and Syria, and in the general tone of public diplomacy during the Arab Spring.
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Given the realities of the past three years of the Biden Administration, this article expands on the thesis we have made in these pages that the American presidential election of 2024 will be the most important since 1860. That is not hyperbole, but a recognition of the grave conditions the American people face—these are matters of life and death for the country. Like in 1860, the election on November 5, 2024, will determine the course of history and whether or not the United States survives as a constitutional republic. While the deep roots of this crisis have been many decades in the making, the immediate causes are found in the Biden administration’s unconstitutional, illegal, reckless, and revolutionary actions against President Trump, his advisors, the leaders and supporters of the Make America Great Again movement—and ultimately the American people.
At root, this radical neo-Marxist revolution started under the Obama administration with the declaration to “fundamentally transform” America and has continued under the Biden administration, which has implemented and executed the tenets of that revolution across all aspects of the United States, our government and against the citizenry. This has taken many forms, but the most important has been, and continues to be, the permanent weaponization of government against political opponents to cause their defeat, to decapitate their political movement, and to coerce and demoralize their members and supporters so that there is no challenge to their power. The tactics employed against President Trump have been specifically designed by the totalitarian left to interfere in this presidential election by consuming his time and draining resources away from his campaign in this critically important election year. The raids, indictments, trials, and gag orders against a former president—and leading 2024 presidential candidate—demonstrate that these neo-Marxist totalitarians will violate the constitutional rights of the most prominent political figure in American politics in this century. The direct and stark implication is that if this can happen to Trump, then it can happen to all Americans.
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There is only one word to describe the result of President Biden’s foreign policy: chaos.
Just consider how we have seen the Biden administration treat Israel, one of America’s closest and most important allies.
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The mainstream media and political establishment are outraged over Donald Trump’s latest comments about NATO. Instead of all the dramatic pearl-clutching, they should be embracing his position.
Trump recently issued a stern warning to America’s NATO allies, specifically those who are still failing to uphold their commitment to spending at least 2 percent of GDP on defense. Recounting a conversation he had with the leader of a delinquent NATO member who sought reassurance that America would defend their country from Russian attack, Trump declared that he would let Russia do “whatever the hell they want” to NATO countries that refuse to make minimum expenditures toward their own defense.
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Donald Trump resumed his role as the “wise fool” in recent, off-the-cuff remarks about NATO. He suggested that free-riding NATO members who do not pay their fair share might have to fight Russia on their own. National security hawks and Trump’s media enemies responded with lots of pious talk about our sacred NATO obligations. Joe Biden even said Trump was “un-American.”
Trump is not the first to suggest NATO partners should pay their fair share. But unlike his predecessors, he is willing to employ some leverage to make it happen. The real dirty secret here, as evidenced by how long this situation has gone on, is that enabling the Europeans to neglect their own defense is a feature and not a bug of America’s dominance over the NATO organization.
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The hysteria in response to President Trump’s comment about NATO offers a great insight into Swamp Talk™. It’s how swamp creatures use their media dominance to gaslight Americans into voting for Democrats in spite of always disastrous results. They frighten voters into opposing candidates like President Trump, who want to make America stronger, safer, more prosperous, and free.
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Writing in The Atlantic, David Frum, former speechwriter for President George W. Bush and cheerleader for endless wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Global War on Terror, warns us that if Donald Trump wins the 2024 presidential election NATO will be wrecked, our allies around the world will suffer “potential disaster,” and “above all” Ukraine will be left to the mercy of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Given Frum’s track record of advice about wars, one wonders why anyone would take his advice. Frum takes credit for Bush’s phrase the “axis of evil” to describe Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. Frum’s advice about war should be labeled the “axis of error.”
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For the first time in a millennium, Europe no longer plays a critical role in promoting Western civilization nor in world history at large.
Ostensibly it should. Some 750 million people live on the European subcontinent.
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GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy released a statement on Tuesday condemning Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after the foreign leader said elections in his country during wartime would only take place if allied countries shared the cost.
Zelensky, according to Reuters, said his country would only hold elections next year “if the US and Europe provide financial support,” adding, “I will not take money from weapons and give it to elections.”
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The Biden administration is seeking to hammer out a long-term Ukraine aid agreement with European allies in hopes of both preventing Russia from gaining an edge on the battlefield and hamstringing a future president’s ability to scale back U.S. commitments, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
The scheme emerged during sideline talks among Group of Seven leaders at a NATO summit in July, and so far involves negotiations between the U.S. and Ukraine, and between the United Kingdom (U.K.) and Ukraine, according to the WSJ. It’s an attempt, in part, to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin he can simply wait until a new American administration, as several top GOP political contenders have expressed intention to reduce or eliminate U.S. aid that makes up the brunt of Western support.
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Jessica Berlin, a policy analyst writing in the Center for European Policy Analysis’ online journal, has proposed a NATO without limits–an expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to all democratic nations. “The 21st-century threat landscape,” she contends, “calls for a global alliance capable of mutual defense.” “NATO must open its doors,” she writes, “to new members beyond Europe and North America.” Her proposal is breathtaking in scope: an attack on any democracy is an attack on all democracies. It is a recipe for endless wars on all continents and a reckless extension of America’s nuclear guarantee to all the world’s democracies. It turns John Quincy Adams’ prudent counsel on its head: America goes abroad in search of monsters to destroy and is the champion and vindicator of the freedom and independence of all democracies.
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Although Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has dominated worldwide headlines for more than a year and refocused the attention of U.S. policymakers on NATO and Eastern Europe, Americans are much more worried about China’s emerging power.
In an open question asked by RealClear Opinion Research, 53% of registered voters named the People’s Republic of China as “the greatest threat to the United States.” Russia was cited by 29% of respondents, while 4% named North Korea – the same percentage who answered that America’s biggest threat was the United States itself.
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The United States has given roughly twice as much military aid to Ukraine during the first year of Russia’s invasion as European Union countries, a disparity that has renewed debate among U.S. lawmakers.
The U.S. gave $47 billion in the first year, according Kiel Institute for the World Economy data reviewed by The New York Times.
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President Joe Biden says that Ukraine is not ready to join NATO because the country’s war with Russia must end before the military alliance can consider allowing Kyiv to join.
“I don’t think there is unanimity in NATO about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the NATO family now, at this moment, in the middle of a war,” Biden told CNN in an interview aired Sunday. “We’re determined to commit [to] every inch of territory that is NATO territory. It’s a commitment that we’ve all made no matter what. If the war is going on, then we’re all in war. We’re at war with Russia, if that were the case.”
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As President Joe Biden prepares for this weekend’s North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit, U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) is asking the president to hold NATO accountable.
Johnson joined 34 of his Republican colleagues in sending Biden a letter asking that he remind NATO allies to honor their commitment to spend at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense.
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Finland officially became the 31st member of the NATO military alliance Tuesday, an event brought on by the shock of Russia’s aggression in eastern Europe, according to Reuters.
Finland and Sweden reversed a decades-long nonalignment policy after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, beginning the process of seeking entry to the alliance that requires all members to come to the defense of any one attacked in May, Reuters reported. NATO members ratified Finland’s entrance on Thursday, sparking threats of “countermeasures” from Moscow.
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According to a report by Jonathan Masters and Will Merrow, since Russia’s invasion in February of 2022, Ukraine has become far and away the top recipient of U.S. foreign aid. It’s the first time that a European country has held the top spot since the Harry S. Truman administration directed vast sums into rebuilding the continent through the Marshall Plan after World War II.
Since the war began, the Biden administration and the U.S. Congress have directed about $75 billion in assistance to Ukraine, which includes humanitarian, financial, and military support. The number is documented in a report by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German research institute, analyzed by Masters and Merrow.
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There’s lots not to like about the war in Ukraine, and people should be allowed to argue the case without being demonized by those who have a different opinion. But the more those who urge caution are demonized as pro-Putin by the pro-war people, the more they, and probably their audience, become suspicious, or should become suspicious, of the pro-war faction.
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In a vote of 95-1, the United States Senate approved the expansion of NATO (North American Treaty Organization) by allowing membership to two new nations Sweden and Finland. The only Senator to vote “no” was Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO). Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) voted “present.” In his floor speech before the vote Sen. Hawley made a powerful argument that expanding NATO is not in America’s national interest. Whether in foreign policy, trade policy and trying to resurrect manufacturing, fighting against the radical woke social agenda, defending our borders, or defending the Constitution, Sen. Josh Hawley is demonstrating that he is not only a conservative leader, but is truly fighting to place America First and protect our nation’s sovereignty.
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The United States Senate voted to approve a treaty to allow Sweden and Finland to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on Wednesday.
The treaty received bipartisan support and was passed with 95-1 votes in favor of expanding NATO, The New York Times reported. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell voiced their support for the ratification of the treaty and the growth of the organization.
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Virginia had the most representatives voting ‘Nay’ on Monday against a resolution supporting adding Sweden and Finland to NATO. The resolution passed with 394 votes in favor, just 18 votes against, all Republican, and 19 members not voting. Three of Virginia’s four Republican congressmen voted against the measure: Congressmen Morgan Griffith (R-VA-09), Bob Good (R-VA-05), and Ben Cline (R-VA-06), while Congressman Rob Wittman (R-VA-01) voted in favor.
In a press release, Griffith said that the Senate has the constitutional power to ratify adding the two countries to NATO, but not the House. He said that the resolution also calls for other NATO countries to support adding the two countries.
“I think that goes well beyond the House’s jurisdiction,” Griffith said.
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The Russian Ministry of Defense announced the buildup of forces in the nation’s Western Military District as a response to the mounting NATO forces near its borders.
“Twelve military units and subunits will be formed in the Western Military District by the end of the year,” said Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who highlighted the Swedish and Finnish bids to join NATO as factors in the buildup, according to Russian state media outlet Tass.
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From 1936 to 1939, the civil war in Spain became a European laboratory of new tactics, strategies, logistics, wartime morality, and weapons. Right-wing nationalists under General Francisco Franco finally defeated loyal supporters of an evolutionary socialist republic—but only after much of the Western world had variously weighed in.
The cost to the Spanish people of such brutal and vicious strife was horrific. Over 500,000 Spaniards would die in a little over two-and-a-half years. The country was left in shambles.
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Americans, like the planet’s other 7.5 billion people, are not prone to talk or think much about nuclear weapons.
Of course, some of us are old enough to remember how “mutually assured destruction,” or MAD, was supposed to ensure the general peace.
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The House of Representatives passed Congressman Gerry Connolly’s (D-VA-11) resolution supporting NATO and calling on President Joe Biden to support establishing a Center for Democratic Resilience (CDR) within NATO. The resolution received Democratic support and significant support from Republicans, but 30 percent of House Republicans voted against the bill, including half of Virginia’s Republican congressmen.
“Our commitment to shared democratic values is what distinguishes NATO from other military alliances,” Connolly said in a Tuesday press release. “Without it, NATO is just another military block that does not like Russia. This commitment cannot remain purely aspirational or rhetorical. It must be operationalized. This is why we believe that we need formal architecture in NATO itself. There are divisions and units within NATO dedicated to collective defense, terrorism, hybrid warfare, cyber, climate change, and all other security challenges. But after 72 years, there’s not even a broom closet in NATO headquarters dedicated to democratic institution building.”
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There are several historical referents we should keep in mind about the Ukraine war.
First, no-fly zones. Lots of Westerners are calling for NATO aircraft to establish a no-fly zone above Ukraine to stop Russian bombing of Ukrainian cities.
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So how did that work when Joe Biden announced that Vladmir Putin is a “butcher” who “cannot remain in power” only for Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to follow up with a pay-no-attention-to-the angry-old-guy-shouting-at-the-clouds correction. According to Blinken, the United States does not “have a strategy of regime change in Russia or anywhere else.”
Well, that’s a relief. Otherwise Putin might get the idea that U.S. and NATO involvement in Ukraine poses an existential threat that would prompt him to do something really crazy like use tactical nukes or chemical or biological weapons to win at all costs. Because, after all, if the U.S. and NATO are trying to topple his government, then what does he have to lose?
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In my past role as founder and CEO of Varsity Brands, I came across every old business adage in the book. Some were cheesy, some were over simplified, but many had wisdom as their foundation. One such phrase that’s commonly used is, and with which I struggled because of my compassion for my employees, is, “Don’t bring your problems from home into the office with you.”
There is a variation of that phrase that should be introduced to our political leaders in Washington, albeit a bit too late. Their version of the “leave it at the doorstep” rule needs to be, “Leave your domestic political problems at your shores when conducting foreign policy.”
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As President Joe Biden prepares to go to Europe, we must recognize that, unless things change, there are likely to be two outcomes to the Russian war on Ukraine – and both are bad for America and the rule of law.
First, the terror campaign of destroying cities and killing women and children is having a devastating effect. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, out of compassion for his people, is talking more and more about a negotiated settlement. A negotiated settlement will clearly give Vladimir Putin most of what he wants. It will be a Russian victory – an expensive Russian victory, but a Russian victory.
A negotiated settlement with Russia winning will be a disaster for the rule of law. It will be a signal to dictators everywhere that with a weak American President and timid democracies, despots can attack their neighbors with virtual impunity.
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One. Reassuring an enemy what one will not do ensures that the enemy will do just that and more. Unpredictability and occasional enigmatic silence bolster deterrence. But Joe Biden’s predictable reassurance to Russian President Vladimir Putin that he will show restraint means Putin likely will not.
Two. No-fly zones don’t work in a big-power, symmetrical standoff. In a cost-benefit analysis, they are not worth the risk of shooting down the planes of a nuclear power. They usually do little to stop planes outside of such zones shooting missiles into them. Sending long-range, high-altitude anti-aircraft batteries to Ukraine to deny Russian air superiority is a far better way of regaining air parity.
Three. Europe, NATO members, and Germany in particular have de facto admitted that their past decades of shutting down nuclear plants, coal mines, and oil and gas fields have left Europe at the mercy of Russia. They are promising to rearm and meet their promised military contributions. By their actions, they are admitting that their critics, the United States in particular, were right, and they were dangerously wrong in empowering Putin.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that NATO member countries have a “green light” to send fighter jets as military aid to Ukraine.
The United States is reportedly in talks with Poland to send U.S. planes to replace any Soviet-era fighter jets that Warsaw sends to Ukraine, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Sending planes to Ukraine “gets a green light,” Blinken told CBS News on Sunday.
“In fact, we’re talking with our Polish friends right now about what we might be able to do to backfill their needs, if, in fact, they choose to provide these fighter jets to the Ukrainians,” he said. “What can we do? How can we help to make sure that they get something to backfill the planes that they’re handing over to the Ukrainians? We’re in very active discussions with them about that.”
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I admit, I was surprised by Russia’s attack on Ukraine. I thought Vladimir Putin had decided, instead of invading, to recognize the separatist republics and send in “peacekeepers.” Given the binary choice of invading or losing face, Plan C seemed the most clever, something similar to the limited “hybrid” campaign in Crimea. Instead, he has launched a massive, multipronged attack on Ukraine with the goal of “demilitarizing” the country.
The best analogy is the Russian attack on Georgia in response to its attack on the separatist province of South Ossetia in 2008. There, Russia surprised the West with its swift, decisive, and effective action against the pro-Western Georgians. Russia succeeded in its aims to degrade Georgia’s military and strengthen the separatists. These actions sent a message to Georgian leaders and its neighbors that a dalliance with the West may come at a high cost if Russia perceives it as a threat.
A war of some kind has been going on for eight years in Ukraine. While the West is now hyper-focused on the Russian invasion and its costs, the people of Donetsk have been shelled nearly every day by Ukrainian forces since 2014. And the so-called Revolution of Dignity was the culmination of a months-long violent riot in Kiev.
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Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri called on President Joe Biden to abandon NATO’s pledge to accept Ukraine as a member of the organization.
“It is not clear that Ukraine’s accession would serve U.S. interests,” Hawley wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “Indeed, deteriorating conditions in the global security environment caution otherwise.”
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned the West that its “panic” over Russia potentially invading his country risked hurting its economy, BBC News reported.
“There are signals even from respected leaders of states, they just say that tomorrow there will be war,” Zelensky told reporters at a press conference, BBC News reported. “This is panic – how much does it cost for our state?”
The Ukrainian criticized Western countries choosing to withdraw diplomats from Ukraine, calling the move a mistake, BBC News reported. “The destabilisation of the situation inside the country” is the biggest threat to Ukraine, he said.
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As usual, the media coverage on the Ukraine crisis is largely inadequate. Perversely, most of the aggressive left-wing media want to escalate the feud with Russian President Vladimir Putin to the point of driving Russia into the arms of China. This is the only way Russia (whose GDP is smaller than Canada’s) could seriously damage the West.
At the same time, some conservative commentators, including some of the stars at Fox News, are unreasonably accusing those who favor resisting Russian aggression in Ukraine of being warmongers and trying to propel America into endless, useless war. Again.
There is a legitimate American and Western interest in not allowing Russia to trample an independent nation of 40 million underfoot in the middle of Europe to the embarrassment of the Western alliance, and it is not a difficult scenario to avoid.
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The Biden administration appears to be heading in the direction of waging a two-front Cold War over Ukraine in Eastern Europe and Taiwan in East Asia, both of which could turn “hot” any day. The imprudence of such an approach should be obvious, but the great danger is that such “crises” could get out of hand before the leaders involved step back from the brink.
Russia’s Vladimir Putin may want to extend Russia’s rule to Ukraine and other former Soviet republics, but he definitely wants to ensure the end of NATO expansion. China’s Xi Jinping, like all of his predecessors, wants Taiwan unified with the mainland, and while he would prefer to do it peacefully, he may be willing to risk war with the United States to achieve his goal–especially if he believes he can win such a war at an acceptable cost.
That leaves the Biden administration, which to date has been sending mixed signals to both Russia and China. Administration spokespersons have warned of severe consequences should Russia invade Ukraine, but President Biden has stated that those consequences will be primarily economic in the form of sanctions. Meanwhile, President Biden has stated that the United States will defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack, but administration spokespersons have walked that back and reaffirmed the U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity.” This is a recipe for confusion, misunderstanding, and possibly war on two fronts.
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In a lead-up to international security meetings set for January, the American and Russian presidents have set the stage for negotiations aimed at de-escalating tensions over Ukraine.
Their bottom lines are clear: the U.S is gravely concerned about Moscow’s amassing of troops on the Ukraine border while Russia doesn’t want to see NATO expand further into its sphere of influence.
The forthcoming engagements will be held in Geneva. They were scheduled amid heightened tension and rhetoric surrounding Russia, Ukraine, and NATO, with the international community particularly focused on the large numbers of Russian troops that are massed on the border with Ukraine.
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Russia’s looming invasion of Ukraine presents a clear and present danger to the safety of the European Union and a direct challenge to the NATO alliance, but only now are our major media waking up to this dire threat to Western security. We must now confront urgent questions: Did the United States strengthen Russia, did it weaken Ukraine, and did it do so under the nose of these media?
First, a quick run-through of American actions that strengthened Russia. In his 2009 inaugural address, Barack Obama promised to approach adversaries with an open hand, not a closed fist. For this, he won a Nobel Peace Prize, an oxymoronic name, equivalent to the Affordable Care Act.
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Thousands of migrants are stranded at the Belarus-Poland border, with Belarus and Russia performing military demonstrations amid rising tensions in the region, CNN reported Friday.
Up to 2,000 people are trapped between Poland and Belarus, enduring hunger and hypothermia in the freezing forests and camps along the border, CNN reported. The number of migrants at the border has the potential to grow to 10,000 people in the near future if the situation doesn’t change, according to Belarusian authorities.
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Top American military leaders are set for another round of intense congressional grilling on Wednesday, following a day-long Tuesday session that at times featured blistering criticism of their part in the U.S. exit from Afghanistan.
The Tuesday hearing placed on the griddle Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin; U.S. Central Command Chief Gen. Frank McKenzie; and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley.
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It might seem that there is little to be added to what the whole world has witnessed viewing the unutterable shambles of the U.S. departure from Afghanistan. But that would be an illusion. The story of the perilous departure from Afghanistan of NATO forces and civilians and their Afghan collaborators who are now in mortal danger is obviously a matter of great suspense. The United States could certainly tell the Taliban government of Afghanistan that if all those whom the Western powers wished to evacuate were not allowed to leave it would be an act of war. If there were the will to act on that ultimatum, it would be successful.
But under the circumstances, the credibility of such a threat would probably have to be proved by acting on it. As some commentators have mentioned, this would be morally justified and is morally required and the administration would simply have to accept that it has bungled the withdrawal, and must execute an immediate but brief return. The Biden Administration, after seven months, has shown no competence whatever in foreign or national security policy.
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