What a difference a couple of months can make. This summer, the Bipartisan Policy Center released a new report from Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, the original co-chairmen of the 9/11 Commission. That study, titled "Today's Rising Terrorist Threat and the Danger to the United States," warned that America was running the risk of becoming a victim of its own counterterrorism success.
My fellow Americans:
I want to speak with you tonight about an issue of vital national security, and that's the challenge presented by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria - the radical terrorist organization that has seized a vast amount of territory in those countries, and that has threatened to attack the United States.
Last fall, in a speech before the Organization of American States, Secretary of State John Kerry announced with great fanfare that the "era of the Monroe Doctrine is over." Kerry's pronouncement was a distinctly political one, intended to reassure regional powers that the heavy-handed interventionism that at times had characterized America's approach to Latin America was a thing of the past. But it was also very much a sign of the times, because the United States is in strategic retreat in its own hemisphere.
Ukrainian government and the Russian-directed separatist movement occupying parts of two Ukrainian provinces and Crimea. Few expect it to last because neither side is ready to live with the status quo.
Ukraine needs to resume fighting to prevent Moscow from permanently controlling separatist-occupied Ukraine. Moscow needs to resume fighting to achieve its further territorial ambitions in Ukraine. Further, if Russian President Vladimir Putin is stopped in Ukraine, it will complicate his designs on the territory of Kazakhstan, Belarus, Moldova and other parts of the former USSR. How is this likely to play out?
Don’t let the latest news out of Ukraine fool you; Russia actually invaded Ukraine six months ago. What is happening today is just an intensification of that assault.