Responsible Statecraft
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For the last several months, relations between Ukraine and Poland — one of Ukraine’s main supporters in its war with Russia — have been unusually strained. The trigger for renewed mutual recriminations was the decision in June by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to name a Ukrainian military unit after the “Heroes of the UPA,” which was the Ukrainian Insurgent Army , the armed wing of the…
The Ukraine war has become fertile ground for a dangerously misguided way of thinking about the dynamics between Russia and the West — one that, if left unchecked, will set the stage for a larger and more destructive confrontation in the coming years. The increasingly popular narrative goes something like this: President Donald Trump, by undermining the transatlantic alliance, has provided Putin…
NATO continues to prepare for life without the United States, at least as the dominant alliance member. “Europeans are already backfilling what the U.S. cannot any longer promise,” explained Secretary-General Mark Rutte . America's foreign policy establishmentarians have long worried about losing influence as a result. Indeed, by driving Europe away from America, Donald Trump may be inadvertently…
For those casually observing the war in Ukraine, the failure of Kyiv’s recent strikes on Russian territory to impact the battlefield might be disappointing, even inexplicable. For those who have paid close attention to the war, it is just the latest demonstration that there is no feasible military solution to the conflict. Earlier this summer, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced a…
Over the course of a few short weeks, a grim new reality has taken shape in Ukraine. Russia has shown that it need not conquer and occupy Ukraine’s entire Black Sea coastline to turn that country into the equivalent of a landlocked state. It need only deny access to Ukraine’s critically important Odessa port complex, something it is doing quite effectively through air and missile strikes on port…
Questions continue to swirl around the flash flood of nearly 60,000 migrants who swam or walked from Morocco into Ceuta, a tiny Spanish enclave on the tip of Africa last week. How did so many migrants manage to breach Moroccan border security forces, who appear to have largely disappeared from their stations? Why had so many migrants received social media messages encouraging them to swarm the…
Every government institution should periodically be asked a simple question: is it still performing the mission for which Congress created it? That principle has become a hallmark of the Trump administration. Through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the closing of USAID, and the restructuring of federal agencies, the administration has encouraged the reexamination of longstanding…
Reuters reported this morning that the U.S. has used “virtually all” its long-range precision strike missiles during its war on Iran. Reuters’ sources would not say exactly how many of these surface to surface weapons, known as Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM), the U.S. military has left. This comes amid news that the U.S. has burned through other key…
As the Senate returns to Washington for its last week in session until mid-September, it faces a long to-do list. But for many senators, the top priority is not enacting legislation that will help Americans but instead rushing to approve the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia Act of 2026 , known colloquially as the “Russia sanctions bill.” A passion project of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, the…
Last month, as world leaders prepared to gather in France for the G7 Summit, French officials had Donald Trump on the mind. Using its privileges as host, Paris worked diligently to avoid any hiccups that might upset the U.S. president. First, it delayed the meeting from June 14 to June 16, ensuring that it wouldn’t interfere with Trump’s 80th birthday celebration, or the cage match on the White…
Encouraged by Ukraine’s sustained advances in drone warfare, Western media is abuzz with the idea that Kyiv just might be able to defeat Russia after more than four years of bitter fighting. In May, TIME hailed Ukraine’s drone industry as giving Kyiv “the cards to win without U.S. help.” Last month, CNN lauded Ukrainian drone strikes near Moscow as “a likely turning point” in the war. Earlier this…
