Publications

Trump’s Opportunity To Arm Ukraine

June 29, 2017 Stephen Blank The Wall Street Journal

President Trump's trip to Poland next week is an exceptional opportunity to reassert U.S. leadership and American greatness. In Warsaw Mr. Trump can reaffirm the U.S. commitment to European security by giving Ukraine the weapons it urgently needs to defend itself against Russia's continuing aggression.

Russia’s Cease-Fire Fiction

April 4, 2016 Stephen Blank U.S. News & World Report

Russian President Vladimir Putin's March 14 announcement of a partial withdrawal of forces from Syria predictably surprised the Obama administration, which is habitually surprised by the current occupant of the Kremlin. In doing so, it became part of a larger pattern. Recent Russian-American ties demonstrate all too clearly that President Barack Obama still fails to grasp what it is, exactly, that Russia wants - and why it is successfully achieving these objectives despite the country's growing domestic crises.

Countering Putin begins with knowing what his regime is saying

February 17, 2016 Stephen Blank The Hill

Recent media accounts have argued that the U.S. government suffers from an absence of high-quality expertise on Russia. These accounts correctly note that funding for careers to ensure career opportunities for a continuing flow of people interested in Russia has dried up as well as the quantitative as well as qualitative lack of capable analysts. Undoubtedly we suffer from a shortage of funding and of professional interest in Russia, which is widely regarded as a busted flush of little account despite Ukraine and Syria. This shortage tallies with the president and his administration’s view that Russia is a declining regional power. Yet, as we have seen reality continues to belie such shortsighted thinking, particularly when it comes to the information battlefield and America’s struggle to contest Russian dominance in the weaponization of information used by the Kremlin against the United States and NATO.