Hear us out here. The Donald himself is the approximate casus belli of the World War III prelude now raging in Ukraine, reminding us once again that sometimes history morphs in the strangest ways. But the truth is, Trump single-handed generated such a deep, intense and irrational wave of TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) in the Imperial City that Washington—berserk with anti-Putin hysteria—essentially shoved Cool Hand Vlad right over the brink. To to be sure, before Trump came down the...

If you’re looking for the infamous Dr Anthony Fauci, you might want to check your local television stations, or some random YouTube channels, because the man has seemingly joined the primetime cable milk carton.  COVID Mania has become deeply unpopular with the American people, and a Democratic polling firm recently convinced the Biden Administration and its allies in Congress to drop the hysteria. With midterms around the corner, and trouble raging in Eastern Europe, it was time to put the...

Suppose that Brazil had invaded a relatively peaceful United States several times in the last century. The foreign policy of the latter country would surely be to arrange for a cordon sanitaire south of its border. That would pretty much be the be all and end all of its international endeavors. But posit that the Brazilians set up a CATO (Central American Treaty Organization). They successively enrolled in it Columbia, then Panama, then Costa Rica, then Nicaragua, then El Salvador, Honduras,...

The MICC’s grand-strategic chickens are coming home to roost big time. While war is bad, the Russo-Ukrainian War has the champagne corks quietly popping in the Pentagon, on K Street, in the defense industry, and throughout the halls of Congress. Taxpayers are going to be paying for their party for a long time. It is no accident that the United States is on the cusp of the Second Cold War. Future historians may well view the last 30 years as a case study in the institutional survival of the...

How convenient for western leaders that every time another country defies the West’s projection of power, the western media can agree on one thing: that the foreign government in question is led by a madman, a psychopath or a megalomaniac. At a drop of a hat, western leaders are absolved of guilt or even responsibility for the terrible events that unfold. The West remains virtuous, simply a victim of the world’s madmen. Nothing the West did was a provocation. Nothing they could have done would...

It’s of course possible that Vladimir Putin was always hell-bent on invading Ukraine, that his decision was taken months if not years ago, and that no diplomatic intervention would have made any difference. Yes, that is possible. But it is also the case that the only country capable of making any difference in addressing the “security” concerns Putin claimed were driving his behavior — and thus, the only relevant diplomatic player in the situation — was the US. Many have pointed out that...

As most everyone knows, the hatred that US officials have for Julian Assange has no bounds. For years, they have relentlessly and obsessively done everything they can to destroy, isolate, persecute, prosecute, incarcerate, torture, and hound the guy to death. They have even contemplated assassinating him through their omnipotent, dark-side, non-reviewable power of assassination, a power that the US national-security establishment wields and exercises on a regular basis without any interference...

In the weeks leading up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, those warning of the possible dangers of U.S. involvement were assured that such concerns were baseless. The prevailing line insisted that nobody in Washington is even considering let alone advocating that the U.S. become militarily involved in a conflict with Russia. That the concern was based not on the belief that the U.S. would actively seek such a war, but rather on the oft-unintended consequences of being swamped with war...

When the Bush Administration announced in 2008 that Ukraine and Georgia would be eligible for NATO membership, I knew it was a terrible idea. Nearly two decades after the end of both the Warsaw Pact and the Cold War, expanding NATO made no sense. NATO itself made no sense. Explaining my “no” vote on a bill to endorse the expansion, I said at the time: NATO is an organization whose purpose ended with the end of its Warsaw Pact adversary… This current round of NATO expansion is a political...

(This is a version of an RPI update to subscribers sent yesterday. Subscribe here.)The media and the war machine (or do I repeat myself?) want us to take sides in the Russo/Ukraine war. To those of us with long histories in military conflicts in which the US foreign policy establishment, media, and military have an interest, the terms are always framed as white hats and black hats - and you had better choose a side!  "Are you on the side of FREEDOM or are you a puppet of [insert Hitler proxy...

As of this writing, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is hunkered down in his bunker somewhere in Kiev, as the sound of the encroaching war gets closer and closer. A grim scene, to be sure.All the US and EU kisses and roses leading up to this end have turned to dust and barbed wire, as a no-doubt deeply bitter Zelensky has nothing left but to cry out in anger: Zelensky earlier: "Who is ready to fight with us? I do not see anyone. Who is ready to give Ukraine a guarantee of NATO...