In his first extended remarks in nearly a month about the conflict in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that peace talks had reached a “dead end” and pledged that Russia’s “military operation will continue until its full completion.”  Putin defined a more limited aim for the war, focusing on control of the Donbass — and not all of Ukraine. Putin reiterated that Russia’s actions so far in several regions of Ukraine were intended only to tie down enemy forces and carry...

If one wishes to be exposed to news, information or perspective that contravenes the prevailing US/NATO view on the war in Ukraine, a rigorous search is required. And there is no guarantee that search will succeed. That is because the state/corporate censorship regime that has been imposed in the West with regard to this war is stunningly aggressive, rapid and comprehensive. On a virtually daily basis, any off-key news agency, independent platform or individual citizen is liable to be banished...

Robert Kagan, neoconservative writer and husband to Deputy Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland, wrote a piece called “The Price of Hegemony” in Foreign Affairs last week that was fascinating. If I’d written his opening, people would denounce me as a Putin-concubine: Although it is obscene to blame the United States for Putin’s inhumane attack on Ukraine, to insist that the invasion was entirely unprovoked is misleading. Just as Pearl Harbor was the consequence of US efforts to blunt...

The US should not use its military power to deter China from invading Taiwan. It is unnecessary, and anything more than what is already being done is more likely to help provoke a war than stop one. It might even be better to turn down US enthusiasm a notch or two. The current status of strategic ambiguity serves two important American goals – it keeps the peace and allows for a productive trilateral++ relationship among China, Taiwan, US and the rest of Asia. Those two goals work in lockstep,...

The United States is suddenly very concerned about human rights violations in India, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken telling the press on Monday that "we are monitoring some recent concerning developments in India including a rise in human rights abuses by some government, police and prison officials." While it is true that India's right-wing government is guilty of human rights abuses and has been for years, it is also true that the US State Department does not actually care about...

Late last year, a Gallup poll showed that Americans’ trust in the mainstream media has fallen to its second lowest level on record. Only seven percent of Americans responded that they have a “great deal” of trust in the media.That loss of trust has been well-earned by the mainstream media, and it explains the massive growth of independent media and alternative voices on social media. The response to the rise of independent media voices has been a rush to “cancel” any voice outside the accepted...

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is in the middle of a “fundamental transformation” and planning a massive military buildup along Russian borders. Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said NATO will undergo a major “reset” and plans to put enough troops in states that border Russia to repel an invasion. The alliance currently has 40,000 troops in eastern member states. NATO considers its forces in Eastern Europe a deterrent against Russia but insufficient to actually stop incoming forces....

If you've got a gut feeling that your rulers are working to control your perception of the war in Ukraine, it is safe to trust that feeling. If you feel like there's been a concerted effort from the most powerful government and media institutions in the western world to manipulate your understanding of what's going on with this war, it's because that's exactly what has been happening. If you can't recall ever seeing such intense mass media spin about a war before, it's because you haven't. If...

In a late March press conference, President Biden said, "there’s going to be a new world order out there, and we’ve got to lead it. And we’ve got to unite the rest of the free world in doing it."Since then the Biden Administration has made support for Ukraine the center of its foreign policy, even as the US finds itself closer to nuclear conflict with Russia than at any time since perhaps the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.Are we really ready for armageddon for Ukraine?The propaganda blasted out...

The lack of self-awareness among the many American officials who are striking a moralistic pose in opposition to the Russian invasion of Ukraine is striking. For example, Foreign Policy has published a column by Col. Yevgeny Vindman, asking how the world can tolerate a country like Russia on the United Nations Security Council. His specific point was that any country that invades another country must not be allowed veto power in the United Nations. Responding to Vindman, however,...

NBC News has a new report out citing multiple anonymous US officials, humorously titled "In a break with the past, U.S. is using intel to fight an info war with Russia, even when the intel isn't rock solid". The officials say the Biden administration has been rapidly pushing out "intelligence" about Russia's plans in Ukraine that is "low-confidence" or "based more on analysis than hard evidence", or even just plain false, in order to fight an information war against Putin.The report says that...

Part One: The Road To WarFor years, from Mali to Afghanistan, I have worked for peace and risked my life for it. It is therefore not a question of justifying war, but of understanding what led us to it. I notice that the “experts” who take turns on television analyze the situation on the basis of dubious information, most often hypotheses erected as facts—and then we no longer manage to understand what is happening. This is how panics are created.The problem is not so much to know who is right...

“The senator from Kentucky is now working for Vladimir Putin,” fumed John McCain back in March 2017. His target: Rand Paul, who had committed the unforgivable offense of momentarily delaying the latest round of NATO expansion. Montenegro, a tiny country in southeastern Europe that most Americans have never heard of, was about to join the sprawling military alliance — and McCain was determined to see the final ratification ritual proceed with as little debate as possible. So he hurled the...

"To mount an effective response to the reigning egalitarianism of our age, therefore, it is necessary but scarcely sufficient to demonstrate the absurdity, the anti-scientific nature, the self-contradictory nature, of the egalitarian doctrine, as well as the disastrous consequences of the egalitarian program. All this is well and good. But it misses the essential nature of, as well as the most effective rebuttal to, the egalitarian program: to expose it as a mask for the drive to power of the...

Since Donald Trump was elected in 2016, populist currents have swept across the American Right. The failed nation-building enterprises launched by the Bush administration and continued by the succeeding Obama administration sowed the seeds for a non-interventionist reaction on the Right. Throughout modern American political history there has existed a significant anti-interventionist bloc within the Right. From the Old Right to the presidential campaigns of former Congressman Ron Paul,...

The view that war is politics by other means, the realist idea nations pursue strategic goals with some sort of calculation behind them, is not for us. Americans must reduce everything to good versus evil, democracy versus autocracy, light versus dark. Leaders throughout history have sold wars with this B.S.; America’s problem is we seem to actually believe it’s true. Let’s see how it plays out in the real world. Imagine facing an enemy who refuses to surrender despite overwhelming odds,...