With all eyes on Ukraine, where Russia's neo-imperial efforts have raised the specter of a new Cold War between Moscow and the West, another alarming facet of the Kremlin's contemporary foreign policy has gone largely unnoticed; namely, its growing military presence in, and strategic designs on, the Western Hemisphere.
Are we on the cusp of a new Cold War? The events of the past month have put the final nail in the coffin of the ill-fated "reset" with Russia that preoccupied much of the Obama administration's foreign policy agenda during its first years in office. Relations between Moscow and Washington are now at their lowest ebb in more than two decades thanks to Russian President Vladimir Putin's neo-imperial efforts to subvert neighboring Ukraine. Washington and European capitals are still struggling to formulate a coherent response to the Kremlin's aggression, but it's already clear that the U.S. and Russia are drifting back into the old adversarial roles that defined the international system for much of the past century.
Vice President Biden was in Warsaw last week to reassure our eastern NATO allies that they have the support of a “steadfast ally.” But if Russia moved against Poland or the Baltic States, would the United States really go to war? Or would we do nothing and effectively destroy the NATO alliance?
Putting aside Russia's phony claims of "threats to ethnic Russians" and "Ukrainian fascists run amok," there are real reasons for its invasion of Ukraine. Understanding these is central to crafting the West's long-term response. And it must be a long-term response, because Crimea isn't the end of Russia's neo-imperial ambitions.
Missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 has acquainted the world with a long-forgotten corner of the Indian Ocean: the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (ANI). Known to few outside India, the island chain constitutes a valuable geopolitical asset for that country and is positioned to play a pivotal role in any maritime competition between India and China in the 21st century. In December 2012, I traveled to the ANI to conduct research for my new book, Cold Peace: China-India Rivalry in the 21st Century. Here’s what I found.
There's no question that the Kremlin's policy toward Ukraine is paying concrete dividends, at least in Russia.
On March 7, tens of thousands of people rallied in Moscow's Red Square to support the Kremlin's expanding control over Crimea and formally incorporating the peninsula into the Russian Federation. Russian officials have taken up the call. In her recent meeting with the chairman of Crimea's parliament, Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko pledged that "if the decision is made, then Crimea will become an absolutely equal subject of the Russian Federation."
Perhaps the most surprising thing about Russia's two-week-old invasion of Ukraine is that it surprised so many people.
On the eve of Moscow's incursion into the Crimean Peninsula, the U.S. intelligence community apparently concluded that Putin's military mobilization was nothing more than a bluff. So did CNN's esteemed foreign policy czar, Fareed Zakaria, who judged the possibility of a Russian invasion to be exceedingly unlikely, despite convincing signs to the contrary. In truth, however, the writing had been on the wall for quite some time.
Russia has shattered the presumption that we can take European security for granted. In the past two weeks, President Vladimir Putin has committed outright acts of war by invading Crimea and threatening to invade eastern Ukraine. It now appears that Russia will annex Crimea and perhaps go further unless confronted with a stronger resolve than visible so far from the United States and Europe.
The United States and the international community are rightly outraged by Russia’s aggressive actions in Ukraine. However, the Kremlin maintains that Russia has acted within the bounds of international law, and the case against Moscow is complicated when Russian president Vladimir Putin employs arguments that sound very much like Obama administration talking poin
What happens when you spend hundreds of millions of dollars to mold American public opinion about the Middle East, but no one pays attention? The region's premier media outlet is finding out the answer the hard wa
Since its start in 1987, the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin has become famous for its cutting-edge music and film performances, in addition to a focus on technology. But this year's festivities featured a little something extra: a virtual appearance by controversial National Security Agency whistle-blower Edward Snowden.
The U.S. focus on Ukraine has shifted attention away from this week’s remarkable set of exchanges, direct and indirect, between U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that speaks additional volumes about Obama’s take on prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace.
The campaign to reach “global zero” — the elimination of all nuclear weapons worldwide — has become a cause celebre among an array of retired statesmen, as well as an important policy priority of President Obama himself. But this effort is handicapped by its adoption of several seriously wrong-headed assumptions, positions and ideas that U.S. media outlets have tended to swallow without careful scrutiny.
As the high-speed downhill drama of the Winter Olympic Games wraps up in Sochi, one issue has faded from public view amid the spectacle: Russia's corrosive culture of corruption.
This is notable because before the Opening Ceremony, the Sochi Games had come under unflattering scrutiny. Myriad mishaps that have accompanied the Games — from bizarre toilets to brown water to malfunctioning door locks — went viral. Now those issues have disappeared.
"What's Next for Syria?" the New York Times headlined its latest editorial on the subject this week. Its answer reflects the mushy-headed thinking that all too often emanates these days from America's "paper of record."
When Yugoslavia collapsed in 1991, the EU proclaimed that the "hour of Europe" had arrived. Unfortunately, the lofty proclamation was followed not by decisive action, but by policy paralysis and political bickering, with tragic human consequences.
For decades, Turkey has served as a stalwart ally of the West and NATO's representative in the Middle East. But the times may be changing, as Turkey's exploration of new political and economic opportunities in Asia calls into question its traditional relationship with the West.
College students call something that has gone completely wrong an “epic fail.” Today, the foreign policy of U.S. President Barack Obama fully merits this label. In the last few months, it has become exceedingly clear not only that the administration has no idea how to relate the use of force to diplomacy but also that it is safer to be America’s adversary (or even its enemy) than to be its ally.
In recent years China’s attempts to alter the status quo in its territorial disputes with Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam have seized global headlines. The games of brinksmanship being played by Chinese naval forces in the Western Pacific have put the region on edge, propelling Asia into becoming “the most militarized region in the world.” Yet while the world’s attention has been focused on the maritime arena, it is China’s neighbor to the south, India, that has quietly become the world’s largest importer of arms.
Rare is the moment when an unscripted comment from a Secretary of State symbolizes all that's wrong with America's foreign policy, but it appeared the other day in the context of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
In his State of the Union address last week, President Obama threatened to veto any bill imposing new sanctions on Iran. “For the sake of our national security,” he said, “we must give diplomacy a chance to succeed.” But there is no way to know if diplomacy is succeeding if the terms of the deal with Iran are kept secret, and the mystery shrouding the agreement only encourages those seeking definitive action through sanctions.
An authentic revolution is now occurring in Ukraine, with uprisings in the capital city of Kyiv (Kiev) and throughout both Western and Eastern Ukraine. This groundswell of popular unrest underscores not only the loss of legitimacy suffered by Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, but also the danger of the country’s potential disintegration if a resolution is not reached soon.
The loss of the region to enemy forces caused resentment and despair. The central question asked was: "Why did we fight and die"? Veterans groups and soldiers were outraged, the public was in an uproar and the political leaders were tone-deaf.
That state of affairs refers not to Iraq in 2014, but to another American foreign intervention long ago: the 1745 battle of Louisbourg in what is today Nova Scotia, Canada. The American side lost 561 men — mostly from Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine and New Hampshire — in that battle and its aftermath, only to have the British trade the city back to France three years later.
That President Obama attempted to put a positive spin on his Administration's beleaguered foreign policy in his fifth State of the Union Address should have come as a surprise to no one. From the Middle East to Asia, recent months have witnessed a United States in strategic retreat and a growing list of adversaries emboldened by America's perceived weakness. So it was to be expected that the president's speech on Tuesday evening entailed a significant burnishing of his meager accomplishments abroad.
If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump too? The answer clearly depends on how high the bridge is, but what the question really asks is if carelessly following others is in fact sensible.
The question comes to mind when debating whether to protect critical national infrastructure against large scale electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, events. Although EMP is a well-documented security issue, and one of the very few things that experts believe can dramatically alter our modern way of life, the U.S. government has sadly followed the lead of too many others and done little. This inaction could well prove fatal.
Transnational criminal syndicates, terrorist organizations and Islamic extremists are increasingly turning to wildlife trafficking to bankroll their operations. Specifically, elephant and rhinoceros ivory accounts for an increasing share of the budget of Somali militant groups and al-Qaeda affiliates. So far, the White House and international agencies have failed to effectively address this emerging threat.
Vladimir Putin must be worried.
Six-and-a-half years ago, Russia's president successfully lobbied the International Olympic Committee at its meeting in Guatemala to have his government host the world's biggest sporting event. Mr. Putin's arguments (and his pledge to spend a hefty $12 billion on the event) carried the day, with Sochi beating out Salzburg, Austria, and Pyeongchang, South Korea, to serve as the site of the 2014 Winter Games. The decision was a major political victory for Russia, then still struggling to re-emerge on the world stage.
Is an Israeli military attack against Iran truly off the table? Conventional wisdom certainly seems to think that it is. In the aftermath of the signing of an interim nuclear deal in Geneva this past November, the foreign policy cognoscenti in Washington, and elsewhere, have been vocal about the fact that they believe the bell has effectively tolled on the possibility of Israeli military action.
Starting next Monday, Iran will formally implement an interim agreement with the West. President Rohani has described the accord as the world "bowing to Iran's might, power and resistance." The Islamic Republic has agreed to limit certain aspects of its nuclear activities for six months in return for what has been called "modest" relief from the crippling international sanctions imposed for most of the last decade. But the West, by rolling back the sanctions regime, has given Tehran an opportunity to reinvigorate its economic and diplomatic ties with the rest of the world, and Western countries have eagerly exploited the opening to do business with Iran. Re-legitimizing business as usual before Iran makes any significant concessions on its nuclear program not only sends the wrong message, but impairs the West's ability to negotiate effectively.
In recent months, the world's attention has been focused on China's provocative behavior in its Senkaku/Diaoyu island dispute with Japan, and for good reason. That dispute demands our utmost attention, and poses a tangible risk of for interstate conflict in the years to come.
Last month was a bloody one in Russia. On December 29th and 30th, two suicide bombings in the southern city of Volgograd killed a combined total of 34 people and injured many more. In the process, they shone a rare spotlight on the true state of Russia's counterterrorism policy.
America's top foreign policy to-do's in 2014 include preventing Iran from reaching the nuclear threshold, addressing the humanitarian disaster in Syria, containing an expansionist Russia, managing a rising China and reclaiming its own voice on human rights. Let's take these one at a time.
On Dec. 29, a female suicide bomber blew herself up in the main train station of Volgograd, a city of one million in southern Russia. The explosion killed 16 and wounded scores more. A day later, a similar attack targeted a trolley bus in the same city, killing at least 10. The bombings were a shot across the Kremlin's bow—and a portent of things to come.
Vladimir Putin is betting big in Ukraine. For weeks now, Russia’s wily president has worked feverishly behind the scenes to derail the former Soviet satellite’s tenuous pro-Western trajector
UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, is tasked with assisting Palestinian refugees. The films, pictures, slides and prints the organization has collected on the refugees' plight will now be displayed in Jerusalem's Old City in an exhibit entitled "The Long Journey," which will then tour Europe and North America. The images, available online, are heartbreakingly powerful and emotive.
Start preparing for Pax Iranica. That is the unspoken message behind the interim nuclear agreement hammered out between the P5+1 powers and Iran in Geneva last month. For, despite the insistence in Washington and European capitals that it is only temporary, the new deal has nonetheless prompted what amounts to a seismic shift in Middle Eastern politics.
You have to hand it to the Ukrainians. They sure know how to stage a revolution.
In November of 2004, popular outrage over the dubious victory of pro-Kremlin candidate Viktor Yanukovych in presidential elections blatantly manipulated by Moscow brought hundreds of thousands into the streets in what came to be known as the "Orange Revolution." The protesters succeeded beyond their wildest dreams; over the course of two months, the original results of the vote were annulled and a new election held. In it, popular, Western-leaning candidate Viktor Yushchenko handily defeated Yanukovych in what was widely seen as a referendum for a new national direction — one free of Russian influence.
You’ve got to feel sorry for Benjamin Netanyahu. Just six months ago, with his government facing what was arguably the most favorable strategic environment in recent memory, Israel’s prime minister could wax cautiously optimistic.
In the deal between Iran and the six world powers, it appears that a rogue regime marching towards nuclearization has outmaneuvered the West. In disarming the sanctions regime so painstakingly put together over the last few years, the Iranians have given almost nothing meaningful in return. Instead, they are employing the same playbook that brought the mullahcracy to power and the very strategy that allowed North Korea to get the bomb. Above all, Iran now has an international mechanism that will allow it to effectively play for time.
The six-month deal between U.S.-led negotiators and Iran will make an Iranian atomic bomb more likely, not less, because it significantly strengthens the very regime in Tehran that so desperately wants nuclear weaponry.
The deal hammered out over the weekend between the P5+1 powers and Iran in Geneva should have come as a surprise to no one. The White House’s dogged pursuit of some sort of diplomatic breakthrough with Iran, whatever the political and international-security cost, meant that an agreement — no matter how bad — was in the offing, unless the Iranians themselves decided it wasn’t in their interest.
Cutting government spending is now more than simply in fashion. It's the law. But there are intelligent ways to fulfill this requirement, and ones that are decidedly less so. Logic dictates that it makes sense not to cut (or to cut only minimally) programs that provide a greater return than the original outlay of funds or that invest successfully in human capital.
Commenting on the gullibility of the credulous American consumer nearly a century ago, the famous showman PT Barnum is said to have remarked that "there's a sucker born every minute." To see what this looks like in practice, you need only look at the deal that the Obama administration was on the verge of signing with Iran.
The New York Times didn’t know or didn’t care that one of its new high-profile “contributing opinion writers” has long displayed a relentless hostility to Israel and posited startling conspiracy theories about “
Bucolic regions in the south of France represent the newest frontier for law enforcement and intelligence officials searching for dirty funds. Since 2008, thousands of illicit actors have reportedly arrived in southwest France from Eastern Europe, Hong Kong and mainland China and snapped up vineyards to launder their money. European and Asian officials must take steps and curb this trend, including establishing Trade Transparency Units (TTUs) to combat trade fraud.
With civil war raging, Syria, a state sponsor of terror, has attacked its own people with chemical weapons and attempted to skirt international sanctions. The United States, the EU, Russia and the UN must identify the full extent of the threat and eliminate Syria's chemical weapons capacity
Yegor Shcherbakov probably didn’t expect to become Russia’s newest national figure. But on October 13, the 25-year-old ethnic Russian turned into just that after he was stabbed to death by an assailant from the Caucasus following a personal dispute in Russia’s capital, Moscow. A full-blown race riot followed, complete with chants of “Russia for the Russians” and “White Power” and the destruction of a shopping center. In all, Moscow police ended up arresting some 400 people, most of them far-right nationalists seeking revenge against foreigners in Russia, and launching a city-wide dragnet for the perpetrator.v
Next month, if all goes well, Ukraine will sign a "deep and comprehensive free-trade agreement" (DCFTA) and an "association agreement" with the European Union. Such accords do not represent applications for or endorsements of Ukrainian membership in the EU. Still, they would mark a milestone in cementing Ukraine's adhesion to European commercial and economic standards, which would immensely enhance Kiev's competitiveness and growth prospects. Most of all, if implemented, the accords would represent a first and decisive step toward real European integratio
The deal that re-opened America’s government and averted a national default should evoke little cheer, for the Washington spectacle of recent weeks has hurt America’s image and influence around the world.
The impacts to date are serious enough. They include a Chinese call to “de-Americanize” the world’s economy to lessen its dependence on the U.S. dollar and more threats from credit rating agencies of a U.S. debt downgrade that, were it to come, would rattle both the U.S. and global economies.
All this has left the Iranian regime battered, and eager for an easing of the economic pain. This is the motivation behind the charm offensive undertaken in recent weeks by Iran’s new, “moderate” president, Hassan Rouhani, as well as his calls for “constructive engagement” with the West.