Russian President Vladimir Putin is moving on several fronts simultaneously, both military and political, to take advantage of a United States that is distracted and divided ahead of next week’s presidential election. Putin’s risky move to bring thousands of North Korean soldiers to Russia to fight Ukraine, and his doubling down to push for pro-Kremlin
History sometimes gets stuck on a bad outcome, without any hope of altering it at acceptable risk and over a reasonable time frame. For more than thirty years, that has been the case with Iran’s destabilization of the Middle East alongside its proxy network, which includes Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and the Houthis
The coming months will determine whether Israel’s stunning offensive against Hezbollah over the past month, which has now triggered an Iranian ballistic missile attack on Israel, perpetuates and escalates the relentless cycle of Middle East violence or marks a positive tipping point against Iranian-backed aggression. Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah—made possible by rock-solid
NEW YORK—Two dark clouds hung over the United Nations General Assembly this week in New York. The first was the growing peril of Chinese-Russian common cause. The second was uncertainty about whether US leadership will rise to the challenge after the November elections. It’s impossible to separate the two issues, as the disruptive dangers of
During his press conference at the NATO Summit in Washington earlier this month, Joe Biden said of his presidential campaign, “I’m not in this for my legacy.” Two weeks and one difficult decision to bow out of the race later, his legacy is suddenly front and center. That legacy, however, depends importantly on something he
TAIPEI, Taiwan—Watching Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Pyongyang summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un from the vantage point of this at-risk democracy’s capital makes the significance of the meeting all the more terrifying. It isn’t so much the contents of the new Putin-Kim agreement, which depending on who you listen to is either a
Senior Biden administration officials are concerned that Russian President Vladimir Putin has more surprises in store for them regarding Ukraine, timed to disrupt and upstage NATO’s seventy-fifth anniversary summit in Washington from July 9 to 11. “He wants nothing more than to rain on our parade,” one senior US official recently told me. Some administration
At the heart of the Biden administration’s growing frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is what the White House considers his failure to articulate and execute a strategy that will make Israel more secure, while engaging in tactics that are making it less so. Two individuals familiar with the administration’s thinking recently spoke to
Forgive the Israelis if they aren’t in the mood to take the victory lap the White House has suggested to them, following the remarkable defense of their territory from an unprecedented Iranian barrage of more than three hundred explosive-laden drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles. “You got a win,” US President Joe Biden told Israeli
Perhaps it takes a Polish leader—one with an American wife and a son who is a US soldier—to explain to a US Congressional minority why its reluctance to arm Ukraine is putting the global future at risk. Polish Foreign Minister Radosław “Radek” Sikorski, speaking yesterday at the Atlantic Council, appealed to US House Speaker Mike
