In recent months, discussions of Russia in Washington and European capitals have focused on the Kremlin's ongoing neoimperialist aggression against Ukraine. But Wednesday's coordinated terrorist assault on the Chechen capitol of Grozny—which left at least 20 dead and scores more injured—should refocus global attention on a problem that Russia itself increasingly is confronting: a resilient wave of radical Islam.
Welcome to the Ukraine war, round two. In recent days, European observers, NATO forces and media outlets have all reported what amounts to a massive influx of Russian war material and personnel into Ukraine — a development that has fanned fears of a fresh cycle of violence between Moscow and Kiev. The news is a timely reminder that the conflict precipitated earlier this year by Russia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and subsequent efforts at subversion in eastern and southern Ukraine is, in fact, far from over.
A quarter-century ago this month, East Germany's communist leaders announced they were opening the Berlin Wall in an act that, as much as anything else during that momentous year, symbolized the Cold War's end.
To say U.S.–Israeli relations are on the rocks would be something of an understatement. It has been quite obvious for some time that diplomatic ties between Jerusalem and Washington have become badly frayed, with President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu failing to see eye to eye on a range of issues. Even so, bilateral relations are now unquestionably at a new nadir, as a recent bombshell article by Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic details.
Sometimes, it's difficult to see the forest for the trees. Optimism may currently be running high in Washington that next month's deadline for negotiations will yield some sort of durable deal over Iran's nuclear program. But amid all of the diplomatic euphoria, one aspect of the Iranian challenge has received remarkably short shrift: its expanding presence and activities in our own hemisphere.