Section: The Daily Signal (USA)
Failed Obama ‘Reset’ Has Encouraged Russian Aggression
People seem a bit surprised—even perplexed—by the breathless news reports and video of Russian warplanes “buzzing” an American warship operating in international waters in the Baltic Sea this week. The reality is that they shouldn’t be. That, of course, isn’t to say that we shouldn’t be deeply troubled for the safety of our...
Russia and China Increase Defense Spending While US Continues Cutting
Every year at this time we see the same kind of headlines: “U.S. biggest military spender in the world.” They’re are all based on the release of the global military spending database, an annual report compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). What the headlines usually miss is that U.S. defense spending is...
Ukraine’s Prime Minister Calls It Quits, Pressure Mounts to Form New Coalition
KYIV, Ukraine—In a televised address Sunday, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk announced he would step down Tuesday, marking the end of a two-month-long political crisis. “We cannot allow destabilization of the executive branch during a war,” Yatsenyuk said. Ukrainian forces are still battling combined Russian-separatist forces in a...
US Needs NATO Now as Much as Ever, Student of the Alliance Says
Policy leaders are reflecting on the legacy and future of NATO this week, the anniversary of the alliance’s creation 67 years ago. One of them is Luke Coffey, director of the Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. “[The United States’] involvement in NATO means that Europe stays relatively secure and...
Kyiv, Washington Agree: Russian Threat Isn’t Going Away
KYIV, Ukraine—The Ukraine war is going into its third year, and leaders in Washington and Kyiv are bracing for the possibility that Russian military brinksmanship may be the new status quo in Eastern Europe. In Ukraine, some worry the time soon may be ripe for an uptick in the Russian-backed war in the eastern part of the nation. Warm summer...
Corruption and Lack of Economic Freedom Are Common Themes in Panama Papers
As The Atlantic has reported, “Disclosures from the Panama Papers are rocking the global political elite.” Although not all of the activities alleged in the papers may ultimately be determined to be unethical or illegal, it is instructive to look at the correlations between many of the people named in the papers and the scores of their countries...
You Better Believe NATO Still Matters Today
Recently there have been some who have questioned NATO’s importance in the 21st century. Europe is currently experiencing a belligerent and aggressive Russia with old school 18th-century imperial ambitions. The answer is—very important. Europe is currently experiencing a belligerent and aggressive Russia with old school 18th-century...
Why Estonia’s Future Matters to the US
I recently stood on the Estonian-Russian border. It was freezing cold and snowing lightly. Looking south along the Narva River I could see the Estonian city of Narva on the right and the Russian city of Ivangorod on the left. I was standing on Freedom’s frontier. This river, maybe 100 yards across, is the dividing line between a free and...
Ghosts of Babi Yar: A Visit to the Ravine Where Nazis Murdered 150,000
KYIV, Ukraine—Seventy-four years later, I reached up and broke off a small piece of a branch that was long and gray. It was bent in the strange, contorted ways it had blindly grown to look for light here at the cold bottom of the ravine, where the forest canopy above had turned the sunny spring day into dark winter’s night. The branch...
Has Europe Blinked on Defeating ISIS in the Middle East?
KYIV, Ukraine—The terrorist attacks in Brussels so far have produced an internal evaluation of Belgium’s intelligence and law enforcement missteps, rather than the escalated airstrikes on Islamist targets in Syria that quickly followed the deadly attacks in Paris. Two days after the Nov. 13, 2015, terrorist attacks in Paris, French...
