Section: Foreign Policy (USA)
For Army General, Military Risks Self-Delusion If It Ignores Past Wars’ Lessons
For someone tasked with thinking about the future, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster is obsessed with the past. In the hour he spent talking with reporters on Thursday morning, the historical lessons came fast and furious, as McMaster discussed Napoleon, the 2006 Lebanon War, Vietnam, the Korean War, the bombardment of London during World War Two, and why...
Say It Ain’t So, Phil
A visiting delegation from Ukraine recently provided the office of Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) with photographs that purported to show Russian units operating in Ukraine. Some of the images were published in the Washington Free Beacon — and then all hell broke loose. It didn’t take long for someone (in this case, Dan Trombly) to do a...
What’s In a Name?
There is a new acronym in official Washington: CVE. It stands for “countering violent extremism.” The latter two words comprise the term that President Obama, and his spokespeople in the executive branch, insist on employing in place of Islamist terrorism, which accurately describes the plague that has been inflicted on Christians, Jews, Shia...
FP’s Situation Report: Russia warns Ukraine about peacekeepers; Syrian rebel force begins to take shape; Carter wants civilian control of DoD; and much more from around the world.
By David Francis with Sabine Muscat Russia warns Ukraine about international peacekeepers. Ukrainian forces finished a brutal and bloody retreat from Debaltseve on Wednesday, closing the curtain on a theater of fighting with pro-Russian separatists. Now, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko wants an international force to keep the fragile...
Somalia on the Mediterranean
The Islamic State’s beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya, and Egypt’s subsequent airstrikes on Libyan soil, have relaunched debate over what to do about the mounting crisis in that country. The situation in Libya — previously seen as a success of Western intervention and a victory for the heady, if unsteady, forces of...
Jeb Bush: On Foreign Policy, I Am Not George W. Bush
In an attempt to distance himself from his brother, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush found vagueness was a virtue when he went before the Chicago Council on Global Affairs Wednesday to deliver what was billed as a major foreign-policy address. Bush presented a somewhat hawkish vision of America’s role in the world — decrying cuts to defense...
The Draft Dodgers of Ukraine
KIEV, Ukraine — Roman has been dodging the draft for almost a month now. A longtime political activist and accountant in Lviv, in western Ukraine, he no longer lives where he’s registered at his parents’ house in a small village outside the city, so he wasn’t there when the local draft board tried to serve him notice on Jan. 16....
Let’s Call the Ukrainian Cease-Fire What It Is
One need only look to the forced retreat of Ukrainian forces Feb. 18 in the strategic city of Debaltseve to see that the cease-fire that emerged last week from the meeting of French, German, Ukrainian, and Russian leaders in Minsk is less than meets the eye. Even if a shaky truce begins to hold after the Ukrainian retreat, the cease-fire...
The Most Outspoken Chinese Real Estate Mogul Just Made Some New Enemies
As the focus of a growing personality cult and the architect of a sweeping crackdown on dissent, Chinese President Xi Jinping may be the strongest leader China has seen in decades. But that hasn’t stopped Ren Zhiqiang, a 64 year-old real estate mogul and outspoken blogger with 29 million followers on Chinese social media platform Sina...
After Debaltseve, What Comes Next in the Fight for Eastern Ukraine?
When German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande returned from Minsk over the weekend, there was a fragile hope that the cease-fire agreement they secured might halt fighting in eastern Ukraine. That hope was smashed this week in Debaltseve, a rail junction between the rebel-held cities of Donetsk and Luhansk. On...
