Category: History

The Ongoing Underperformance of American Foreign Policy in Ukraine

January 31, 2025

Current indications from within the Trump administration show an intent to end a decade-long failure to adequately confront Russian aggression in Ukraine to what by now can be considered an impending capitulation to Vladimir Putin’s intransigence. This as he heaps praise on the U.S. President for his reelection. Putin has gone on to regard Donald Trump as a “clever and pragmatic man” and to suggest that “if his victory had not been stolen in 2020,” then there may not have been a crisis. In return, the latter remarkably has blamed Volodymyr Zelensky for the war when he chose not to surrender Ukraine in the face of the February, 2022 Russian invasion, suggesting a serious lack of understanding of the situation by an ill-informed president. The current state of ignorance follows several years of U.S. leadership that has not confronted the depth of Putin’s intentions in Eastern Europe and Ukraine in particular. … More The Ongoing Underperformance of American Foreign Policy in Ukraine

Negotiating with a War Criminal – A History of Deceit

January 1, 2025

In 1938, Chancellor Adolph Hitler of Germany positioned troops along Czechoslovakia’s border with the apparent intention of invading its Sudetenland region on the false pretense that its predominant resident German population was under threat. In hopes of averting another world war after a number of provocative actions had already been undertaken in recent years by Germany, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain met with Hitler, Italy’s Benito Mussolini and France’s Édouard Daladier, with Czechoslovakia’s President Edvard Beneš notably absent. … More Negotiating with a War Criminal – A History of Deceit

The Global Russian Pox

August 28, 2024

Vladimir Putin’s malevolence spreads well beyond the borders of Ukraine. Russia’s immediate neighbors in the European Union (EU) can attest to the various means by which they are threatened – engineered mass migration that attempts to destabilize social order, cyberattacks upon financial and governmental institutions, disinformation campaigns focused upon societal grievances, sabotage, assassinations and other devices to be elaborated upon here. Territorial proximity, however, is not a prerequisite for Russian intrusion. Similar approaches have been applied to other nations throughout the world and particularly in the West which Putin regards as his archetypal enemy in the manner typical of his Soviet upbringing. … More The Global Russian Pox

The Time Has Come for Decisiveness in Ukraine

June 11, 2024

Since its inception and until recently, an asymmetric war has been underway in Ukraine. It has sparked remarkable innovation on the part of Ukraine but has also prevented its military from conducting their war effort with the same strategic options and advantages available to the Russian invader. Defensive weaponry was provided early in the course of the war and used with great effect to repel the Russians from much of their initial territorial gains.   … More The Time Has Come for Decisiveness in Ukraine

Putin, an Anachronism

May 6, 2024

While several leaders in the West and elsewhere, whatever their age, are intent on remaining current with awareness both of their own place in history and the aspirations of their respective nations, an aging Vladimir Putin seems never to have left his past behind nor even those of his predecessors. He is a resurrection from another era, intent on regaining a past glory of Russia which he believes once existed. … More Putin, an Anachronism

Misjudgments About the War in Europe

April 12, 2024

A recent troubling development has come to public attention regarding pressure placed upon Ukraine by the United States (U.S.) to end its targeting of Russian oil refineries, storage depots and port facilities in response to Russia’s invasion and its unceasing attacks on civilian infrastructure. Global oil prices have trended upward to 15% currently and may effect U.S. gasoline prices in the course of the year, escalating inflation concerns as yet another consequence of Russian malfeasance. In the end, protracting this conflict with decision-making in the West that falls short of the mark does little to bring Ukraine or the world some promise of a decisive conclusion with restoration of a sovereign nation. … More Misjudgments About the War in Europe

Putin’s Designs on Empire vs Putin’s Fear of NATO Encroachment

July 1, 2023

A number of essays have appeared over the past year regarding the actions of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in fueling Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine, a sovereign nation, in an attempt to overtake its government for the apparent purpose of preventing its assimilation within NATO. In essence, it was NATO’s gradual and willful encroachment upon Russia that was the crux of the matter. Putin’s stated goal, however, was to deNazify and demilitarize Ukraine because he saw it as a threat to Russia and all ethnic Russians in Ukraine. We have yet to see a lucid argument justifying the accusation and subsequent actions that doesn’t shame his regime and Russia before most of the world. … More Putin’s Designs on Empire vs Putin’s Fear of NATO Encroachment

Russian Disinformation and the Inconvenience of Truth – 1941 and 2022

May 10, 2023

This is the scene that has been unfolding for Russia in its invasion of Ukraine. It is witness to familiar elements of what we have come to regard as the worst of humanity – indiscriminate destruction of cities, mass executions, kidnapping of children, displacement of millions of civilians, rape, forced prostitution and torture, highlighted recently by the savagery of beheading prisoners. The bare truth underlying this Russian invasion is that it is entirely unjustified. … More Russian Disinformation and the Inconvenience of Truth – 1941 and 2022

Moldova and the Putin Playbook

March 11, 2023

Moldova, a nation of 2.62 million people, shares a 759-mile border with Ukraine to the latter’s southwest. It emerged from a troubled history in the 20th century having gained its independence in 1991 from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), only to be threatened again by Russian authoritarianism and imperialist aspirations as it enters the 21st. The country possesses a pro-Russian separatist territory to its east, a situation not unlike its neighbor, Ukraine, that is now in open conflict with Russia and also not unlike that in the Republic of Georgia, invaded by Russia in 2008 for similar reasons. The pattern is quite familiar and it underlines Russia’s intent to retake territory that history has somehow proclaimed belongs to it. … More Moldova and the Putin Playbook

A History of Ukrainian Nationalism and its Partisan Movement

February 11, 2023

Global responses to efforts by Russia to label Ukrainians as Nazis have ranged from polite disbelief to cynical laughter over yet another clumsy propagandist attempt to justify its need to invade Ukraine. The label has served as a way of dehumanizing a people for daring to oppose what Putin believes to be Russia’s destiny. This opposition is, in reality, an expression of nationalism, an ideology that emphasizes loyalty, devotion or allegiance to a nation according to Britannica. Ukrainian resistance to Russian oppression has existed since the time of the Russian Empire dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries but, in the present day, it is convenient for Putin’s regime to conflate Ukraine’s sense of nationhood with fascist ideology. … More A History of Ukrainian Nationalism and its Partisan Movement