Section: The Atlantic (USA)
Why We Stand With NATO
On April 4, 1949, Johannes Kaiv, the acting consul general of Estonia’s government-in-exile sent a letter to Secretary of State Dean Acheson, which read: I have the honor to offer my best wishes to the signatories of the North Atlantic Pact, and to express my confidence that they, inspired by the ideals of democracy, of individual liberty,...
Trump Learns to Live With NATO—and Vice Versa
Two-plus years into the Trump presidency, NATO is learning to live with the U.S. president, and vice versa. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has been praised for his deft touch with Trump—for making him feel his concerns are heard even as he defends NATO’s value. For his part, Trump has long been skeptical of military alliances,...
The Fall and Troubled Rise of a Ukrainian Populist
SLOVIANSK, Ukraine—Yulia Tymoshenko is nothing if not a crowd-pleaser. Running to be Ukraine’s next president, she has promised to triple pension payouts and halve heating-fuel charges; pushed to impeach the incumbent president, Petro Poroshenko, weeks before the presidential election; and said that immediately after being elected, she will...
What to Do When the Russian Government Wants to Blackmail You
MOSCOW—From Jeff Bezos’s allegations of extortion and blackmail by the National Enquirer, a publication with links to President Donald Trump, to Trump’s relations with the Kremlin, one particular word has gained prominence, and it’s not even an English one.Opponents of the government here in Moscow are well versed in the risk of...
The Mueller Probe Was an Unmitigated Success
So much about the rise of Donald Trump defied reason. But in the spring of 2016, he displayed one habit that I found beyond perplexing: He couldn’t stop praising Vladimir Putin. What made his obsequiousness so galling was that it often came in response to questions that warranted moral disdain: What about the assassination of journalists...
What Mueller Leaves Behind
After one year, 10 months, and six days, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has submitted his final report to the attorney general, signaling the end of his investigation into a potential conspiracy between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia.Mueller’s pace has been breakneck, legal experts tell me—especially for a complicated...
No One Wants to Help Bashar al-Assad Rebuild Syria
When the Syrian conflict began, in March 2011, Bashar al-Assad seemed likely to be ousted, like other strongmen swept away by the Arab Spring. Eight years later, Assad is still president, but of a fractured, demolished country. Now one big question is: Who will pay to rebuild Syria?The bill is large. The United Nations estimates the cost of...
Manafort Might Still Have to Answer to Mueller
Seventeen months, two trials, and one voided plea deal later, the former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has finally learned his fate: He’ll spend about seven years in federal prison for crimes he committed over more than a decade, marking one of the biggest prosecutorial victories for Special Counsel Robert Mueller since he launched...
We’re Losing the War on Corruption
It’s too bad that Felicity Huffman has been indicted. That probably so poisons her acting career that she can’t be cast as Paul Manafort’s wife, Kathleen, in the inevitable biopic of the lobbyist’s life. But Huffman and Manafort are spiritually connected, and the fact they are packed together above the fold today is more...
The Two Audiences for Paul Manafort’s Sentencing
Karma has a sense of irony. In 2012 and 2013, Paul Manafort launched a covert campaign to support the imprisonment of Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister of Ukraine and the political rival of Manafort’s patron, Viktor Yanukovych. Manafort used government contacts and the media to smear Tymoshenko and besmirch her character.On...
