Section: The Huffington Post (USA)
Putin Drops the Bombs and Deals the Cards in Syria and Ukraine
Moscow appears to have better positioned itself to exploit the tumult in Syria as well as Ukraine. On the other hand, within the Euro-Atlantic alliance, the lack of vision and will has ushered in a policy of presumed containment in Syria and Ukraine, more or less by default. The consequence, (or at least until Russia rushed in), has been more a...
60 Years in Journalism: Russia Reverting to Type
A year after President Obama met with Vladimir Putin and described him slouching and “looking like that bored schoolboy in the back of the classroom,” the two have met again. Putin now has a huge bargaining chip on his shoulder, that is, his willingness to send his military into Ukraine, followed by Syria. And every such move helps...
Why Britain Is Escalating Its Anti-ISIS Campaign in Syria
On July 17, 2015, a Freedom of Information request from London-based pressure group Reprieve revealed that the British military had conducted airstrikes against ISIS in Syria. This revelation was embarrassing for David Cameron’s Conservative government as the airstrikes occurred without approval from Westminster. The British Parliament had...
Praise for Putin Is Misplaced, and Dangerous
It seems fashionable in some circles to praise Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, for being some sort of a hero for world peace and justice. The most recent instance of this Putin-praise came in the aftermath of Mr. Putin’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly in which he suggested that the world really ought to find a...
The U.S. and Russia, Syria and Ukraine: Neo-Cons vs. Liberal Interventionists
As it stands today, United States policy in Syria insists that President Bashar al-Assad must go. But if the U.S. succeeds and the Assad government is scattered to the wind it raises the question: Who will defend the ethnic and religious minorities in Syria from the Islamic State, the al-Nusra Front, and all the other heavily armed homicidal...
Why Afghanistan Is Going To Fall To The Taliban Again. And It’s Not Why You Think.
Last week, the Taliban began the process of retaking Afghanistan, starting with the northern city of Kunduz. The U.S. and Afghan governments have since been battling to recapture it — a fight that included the U.S. bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital that killed at least 12 medical staff, along with at least seven patients, on...
Putin the Terrible: Understanding Russia’s New Tsar
Russian President Vladimir Putin The first Russian monarch to claim the title of “Tsar” was Ivan IV (1530-1584). Tsar was a corruption of the Latin word Caesar, the title assumed by Roman emperors in classical antiquity. Ivan IV would go down in history with an additional moniker, Ivan the Terrible. It was under Ivan IV that the...
Maps Are The Ammo In The Information Wars Over Russia’s Military Campaign In Syria
As Russian jets strike Syria for a third day, the information war about which groups Moscow is targeting and why fiercely continues.Russia says it is bombing the Islamic State and various other “associated terrorist groups,” which it declines to name. When Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was asked to explain who Moscow is...
Putin Scores Another Much-Needed Win in Syria
When Boris Yeltsin appointed Vladimir Putin prime minister in 1999, Putin had an approval rating in Russia of 31 percent. About 37 percent of Russians didn’t even know who he was. After a series of mysterious bombings in Moscow, Putin blamed Chechen separatists and promised to flush Chechens down their toilets (his words). Bombing began in...
The Geopolitics of Respect: U.S., China, Iran and Russia
When the Chinese Communist party took power in 1949, Mao Zedong declared to a party conference, “The Chinese people, comprising one quarter of humanity, have now stood up. The Chinese have always been a great, courageous and industrious nation; it is only in modern times that they have fallen behind. That was due entirely to oppression and...
