When nations put ideology before real-world geopolitics in formulating grand strategy they embark upon a sure path to failure.
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Hamas is Israel’s Golem
Hamas is a golem, a monstrous creature from Jewish folklore created from mud and made animate, which escaped his master and turned against him.
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The World De-Dollarized
A de-dollarized world, where the U.S. dollar is not the preeminent global currency, approaches quickly but this is nothing new—historically speaking—nor is it bad.
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Steeped in Islamic Orthodoxy, Hamas Is Israel’s Permanent Enemy
It is necessary to be aware of the ambitions of political Islam and to harbor no illusions about its goals.
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Israel’s Strategic Dilemma
Israel will face an impossible strategic situation if it enters urban warfare in Gaza. Far from being a sign of weakness, exercising restraint in the face of Hamas’ provocations is the sound and politically profitable course of action.
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Shock and Awe by Hamas
This weekend’s unprecedented attack on Israel from Hamas exposes weaknesses in intelligence, fault lines in ongoing efforts to maintain stability and peace in the broader Middle East region, and potential dangers ahead for all parties.
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The New Middle East Strategic Landscape
Without U.S. engagement the Middle East is assuming peace and stability as a new balance of power quickly develops.
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Kissinger in China
Henry Kissinger’s fears and misgivings about the future of U.S.-Chinese relations may prove just as prophetic as George Kennan's warnings about Russia and NATO expansion.
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War in Ukraine: U.S. Analysts Sink to New Depths
The topic of Ukraine brings once-reputable journals and senior analysts down to the level of propagandistic hacks. A particularly egregious example was recently published in an online edition of Foreign Policy.
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Armenians in Peril, Again
The ongoing war between Azerbaijan and Armenia threatens the existence of Christian communities in the Near East. The Biden White House is unlikely to intervene in any way for fear of losing support from Turkey.
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The Russian Conundrum
It is in the American interest to avoid the risk of direct intervention in Ukraine regardless of the course of the war because neither the security nor the prosperity of the United States depends upon its outcome.
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A Post-Riot Letter from France: A Tense Bastille Day
The targeted burning of France's public schools and libraries in its latest riots shows that the rejection of French education and culture by Muslim immigrants has become overt and systematic. France is a nation shattering into ghettos.
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A Very Russian Drama
The aborted Wagner coup was an internal conflict within Russia's elites. Although resolved peacefully, it undermined Putin's authority and has increased the chance that he will be tempted to make risky moves—even nuclear ones.
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Silvio Berlusconi: An Italian Saga
Berlusconi was a singular phenomenon in Italian politics, a revolutionary and explosive blend of dynamic innovation and respect for tradition. With his death, a major chapter in the history of the Italian Republic comes to a close.
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Is Direct Clash Between NATO and Russia Possible?
Chronicles Foreign Affairs Editor Srdja Trifkovic assesses the status of the Russo-Ukrainian War after the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam.
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The Importance of Bahkmut
After the fall of Bakhmut, the moment of truth will come if the Ukrainian counteroffensive fizzles out, and especially if the Russians respond by starting a major advance of their own.
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Blinken, the Posthuman Diplomat
Antony Blinken is an inherently corrupt Washington insider: he is an ideologue who seeks permanent cultural revolution at home and the imposition of its fruits abroad.
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Erdoğan Victorious
Erdoğan narrowly won a third term as Turkey’s president in the most momentous electoral contest of the year. Critics of his record on Western-style human rights fail to grasp that his blend of nationalism, Islamism, and neo-Ottoman visions of imperial grandeur has been enormously successful.
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Letter from South Tyrol: Austria’s Crimea
There are many arbitrarily drawn borders in the world, none more so than the one on the Brenner Pass (4,500 ft) between Austria and Italy. As you drive south along the Brenner Autobahn, the Alpine landscape does not change. Only the bilingual signposts indicate that you have crossed from Austria into Italy. Most people speak German, and all local stations...
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Russia Blues
The Ukrainian campaign is not just the fight to retain strategic depth along Russia’s vulnerable southwestern flank; it is also the struggle to retain its status as a great power. The Biden administration is now more than ready for reckless escalation, a deadly game of chicken with nuclear stakes. The future is dark.
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Letter From Austria: Freedom Party Rising
A historic electoral win by the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party in the country’s largest state shows that the ire of the easygoing Austrians has been stoked against unchecked immigration and the overbearing European Union
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Letter From Istanbul: A Beleaguered Sultan
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is a wily, seasoned politician who identifies Turkey with himself. Even his opponents privately admit that it is hard to imagine his orderly departure from the helm.
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Europe Diminished
The foreign policy consensus between Europe and the U.S. leads only to unnecessary new wars abroad and to the suicide pact of multiculturalism at home.
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Syria: A Merciful Regime-Change Failure
The failure of the American-instigated jihadist rebellion in Syria is a good thing. America’s involvement in a faraway land, where no vital U.S. interest exists, was and is an inherently bad idea.
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The Ephemeral and the Historic
The International Criminal Court’s sham indictment of Vladimir Putin for war crimes is overshadowed by China’s truly historic rise in diplomacy.
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Hungary’s Orbán: Europe Should Distance Itself from the United States
As the NATO proxy war in Ukraine reached its first anniversary, Hungary’s leaders suggested investigating the U.S. for the Nord Stream sabotage, and creating a new European alliance—without the U.S.
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Uncertain Endgame in Ukraine
The war in Ukraine was started by Russia, but it was willed, engineered and choreographed by the U.S.-led West. It is both a mistake and a crime, a minus-sum game for the declining European remnant.
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What We Are Reading: March 2023
Brief reviews of Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, and The Death of Punishment, by Robert Blecker.
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A Tale of Three War Orations
Three speeches given on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the Russo-Ukrainian War reveal that the most principled voice of realism and moderation is coming from a small European nation, Hungary, whose leader is keeping his nation out of the unfolding tragedy.
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Stalingrad, 80 Years Later: Amnesia and Folly
Willful amnesia, such as Germany recently exhibited on the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad, ensures that past debacles will be repeated.
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Modi and the Art of Realpolitik
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an unabashed realist who has been using the crisis between Russia and the collective West to increase his country’s global clout.
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Ukraine in the Balance: A Current Assessment
Sometime before the end of 2023, the U.S. and its European minions are likely to face an unpleasant choice: risk an open war by reinforcing Ukraine’s depleted ranks with NATO troops, or let Russia prevail.
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Farewell to a Good Pope
Christian believers will remember Benedict XVI as a great teacher of the faith who was never willing to subject Christianity to the destructive standards of post-Christian Western culture.
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Kissinger’s Flawed Blueprint for Peace
The war in Ukraine is most unlikely to end in a negotiated compromise because a mutually acceptable agreement is structurally impossible. It will continue until one side concludes that its continuation is not worth the cost.
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Western Leaders Clash Over Ending the War in Ukraine
Given the opportunity to make endless billions off the war in Ukraine, the military-industrial-congressional complex is likely to prevail over the growing chorus of reasonable voices seeking to end the conflict.
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Emperor Xi of the CCP
China's 20th National Congress of the CCP brought two novelties: a new emphasis on military strength and the complete consolidation of power into the hands of President Xi Jinping.
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Why Putin Will Have to Go
Putin must go if Russia is to recover from the current impasse created by him, if she is to avoid becoming China’s supplicant, or a brutally carved-up Western colony.
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Putin’s Surrender of Kherson May Spell His Doom
Putin's abandonment of Kherson, the only regional center that Russia managed to capture in over eight months, was an unforced error that will erode his ability to stay in power.
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Nationalism in a Manufactured Nation
The problem with Italian nationalism is that it is a manufactured concept resting on flawed foundations. Its political class is rotten to the core and its recent election offers only a false promise of rebirth and renewal.
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Putin’s Lack of a Grand Strategy
Vladimir Putin lacks the kind of grand vision and decisive temperament needed to make Russia a highly respected world power in the current global environment.
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An Inglorious Exit at 10 Downing Street
British bookmakers are betting on Boris Johnson’s return after Liz Truss’s resignation.
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Letter From Germany: A Witch-Hunt in a Wounded Land
The capitulation of Germany’s elite to the Woke Empire led by the U.S. could mean a dark future of deindustrialized insignificance for the country.
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A World Poised Between Orders
The realignment of global forces resulting from the war in Ukraine is certain to confront American hegemony and to undermine the status of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
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Italy’s General Election: Not Uniformly Good News
While the center-right achieved a resounding victory in Italy, new PM Giorgia Meloni is, by many indications, on her way to selling Italy to the U.S.-NATO-EU leviathan.
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Putin’s Hesitant Mobilization
The limited mobilization of Russian troops in the Ukraine conflict is the natural result of Putin’s hesitant and risk-averse leadership. It makes sense only if it is the first step toward total mobilization, both military and economic.
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Smyrna: A Melancholy Centennial
The 1922 massacre of Greeks at the ancient city of Smyrna was the bitter final blow in a long century of Turkish-Muslim persecution of the Christians in Asia Minor.
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Viktor Orban and the Serbian Patriarch: Lights in a Dark World
Serbian Patriarch Porfirije and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban call for Christian unity and solidarity against the rising tide of woke degeneracy in the Western world.
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Afghanistan, One Year After the U.S. Withdrawal
The bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan did not damage the global power of the U.S., but it altered the geopolitical landscape in that region, and it left a trail of humanitarian destruction in its wake.
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Mikhail Gorbachev: Failed Politician
Mikhail Gorbachev was perhaps the most abject failure among late 20th-century leaders. He let a destructive genie out of the bottle that led to NATO’s eastward expansion and laid the groundwork for the war in Ukraine.
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Russia’s Strawman Svengali Feels the West’s Wrath
The assassination of Aleksandr Dugin's daughter, Darya, is a tragic consequence of the Western-media myth that he is Putin's political mastermind. In reality, the eccentric philosopher wields no influence in Russia.