Rusia

The Danger of Worsening Relations With Both Russia and China

Q: “Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?”  (CBS News)

A: “Yes.” (President Joe Biden, May 23, 2022)

Q: “ You are?” (CBS)

A: “That’s the commitment we made.” (President Biden)

Once again, an unplanned and impromptu remark from President Biden has generated controversy, although this represents his third (incorrect) reference to a commitment to defend Taiwan. Each time, Biden’s national security team has tried to walk back the president’s remarks, but the fact of the matter is that the United States is pursuing a policy of confrontation and containment with China. There has been no attempt to pursue a diplomatic solution to our differences with China or to give Chinese leader Xi Jinping reason to believe that Sino-American relations could be improved through pursuit of a serious diplomatic dialogue.

National Security Crisis: Russia’s and China’s Nuclear Threats

Russia has not only been modernizing its nuclear triad; it has also been developing new types of nuclear systems….

Russia, of course, is not the only nuclear threat to the United States. China has accelerated its nuclear buildup to the extent that Admiral Charles Richard, Commander of U.S. Strategic Command told the Senate Armed Services Committee last April, “For the first time in our history, the nation is on a trajectory to face two nuclear-capable, strategic peer adversaries at the same time, who must be deterred differently. We can no longer assume the risk of strategic deterrence failure in conflict will always remain low.”

Lithuanian Parliament Declares Russia A Terrorist State, War In Ukraine A Genocide And Says Putin Must Stand Trial

As so often in the past, Lithuania has openly declared what many believe but are unwilling for one reason or another to say. The Lithuanian parliament in a unanimous vote declared Russia to be a terrorist state and its war in Ukraine an act of genocide against the population there, actions for which Russian leaders, including Putin, must stand trial.

In an Age of Proxy Wars, the U.S. Is Playing With Fire

Ukraine wasn’t supposed to stand much of a chance in a military conflict with Russia. It was outgunned and outmanned. In the first months of 2022, as the threat of an invasion loomed, the Russian military was expected to quickly and decisively defeat its much weaker neighbor with ease. Many experts were asking not if Russia could win the coming war, but how far its ambitions stretched within and beyond Ukraine.

For Finland, the Cold War never ended. That’s why it’s ready for NATO.

Since its founding, NATO’s key challenge has been ensuring that its members have the military means to fulfill their political commitments to each other. With Finland, which filed its application along with Sweden this week, the Alliance can rest easy: The Nordic nation not only meets the threshold criteria of defense capability for membership, but exceeds it.

Don’t ignore the exchange rate: How a strong ruble can shield Russia

As the Russian ruble began its recovery in March from a sanctions-induced collapse following the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, Western governments began arguing that the exchange rate shouldn’t be used as an indicator of the effectiveness of their sanctions. The Russian financial system may have withstood the initial shock—but a fall in gross domestic product (GDP) and crippling input shortages, they claimed, would force Moscow to eventually de-escalate as the war entered a grinding phase.

Three possible futures for a frozen conflict in Ukraine

Three months into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the prospects for a decisive Kremlin victory have evaporated. Yet even amid Russia’s battlefield failures, the heroic Ukrainian resistance, and abundant Western military aid, the tide has not completely turned.