Section: The Atlantic (USA)
A Year of War Completely Destroyed the Donetsk Airport
In Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine, the Sergey Prokofiev International Airport has been reduced from a modern transportation hub to piles of scorched rubble in less than a year of warfare. As recently as last May, the airport was still operating and in good condition, though international flights had slowed due to the growing unrest. On May 26,...
Against ‘Muscular Foreign Policy’
DVIDSHUB/Flickr Newspaper editors, lend me your ears: Please, never allow the phrase “muscular foreign policy” to blight your pages again. Yesterday, Jonathan Martin and Jeremy W. Peters of The New York Times used variations of it three times in a single article. Republican presidential candidates, they declared, “are “scrambling to outmuscle one...
Watching a Shaky Cease-Fire in Ukraine
Earlier this month, a cease-fire agreement was signed in Minsk, Belarus, after long talks between leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany, and France. Ukrainian government troops and rebel forces in Eastern Ukraine agreed to cease hostilities by February 15 and withdraw heavy weapons at least 30 miles from the agreed-upon buffer zone stretching...
Shaky Cease-Fire in Ukraine
Earlier this month, a cease-fire agreement was signed in Minsk, Belarus, after long talks between leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany, and France. Ukrainian government troops and rebel forces in Eastern Ukraine agreed to cease hostilities by February 15 and withdraw heavy weapons at least 30 miles from the agreed-upon buffer zone stretching...
What Does It Mean for Obama to Love or Hate America?
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters Rudy Giuliani is developing a productive sideline in rage-baiting. Fresh off a largely incoherent comment about black-on-black crime following the Michael Brown case, America’s Mayor said Wednesday night that President Obama doesn’t love America. Here’s what Giuliani said, according to Politico, during a...
If Jeb Bush Isn’t George W. Bush, Who Is He?
Jason Reed/Reuters When people say that Jeb Bush has a name problem, they often mean that he has a foreign-policy problem—his association with his older brother’s much-maligned stewardship of global affairs. On Wednesday afternoon, he made his first move in trying to solve that problem. Speaking at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs,...
When a Ceasefire Is Not a Ceasefire
Mykhailo Palinchak/Reuters One of the enduring ironies about ceasefires is that they can immediately produce more violence as combatants struggle for advantage before the deadline to put down their weapons. The lag between the signing and the implementation of last week’s Ukrainian ceasefire reflected this pattern. Nor did the fighting end...
Be Not Afraid
It often befalls presidents to be most criticized in office for what later turn out to have been their particular strengths. Disparaged at the time as simplemindedness, timidity, and slickness, Ronald Reagan’s firmness, George H. W. Bush’s caution, and Bill Clinton’s adaptability look in hindsight like features, not bugs....
The American Education of Vladimir Putin
Win McNamee/Reuters “The problem you Americans have in dealing with us is that you think you understand us, but you don’t. You look at the Chinese and you think: ‘They’re not like us.’ You look at us Russians, and you think, ‘They’re like us.’ But you’re wrong. We are not like you.” Over...
A New and Unimproved Ceasefire
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko followed by Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Minsk (Grigory Dukor/Reuters/The Atlantic) There are plenty of reasons to be pessimistic about the new Ukrainian ceasefire that was signed in Minsk, Belarus, on Thursday morning after nearly 17 hours of negotiations....
