What’s a dictator to do when his military forces are clearly third-rate? — As the war in Ukraine moves into its third month, NATO members are slowly recovering from their premature defeatism and spinelessness, albeit at a glacial pace and still always doing too little, too late. The West, which regarded Russia’s military as a near-peer force, now sees that in reality Russian…

Why it’s a mistake to say « Non, je ne regrette rien » — Now I’ve reached “a certain age” I tend to find myself being asked to listen to the monologues of those equally or even more ancient than myself. …

How we continue to increase the risk of Russian escalation — Most parents fail to grasp the basic dynamic of the parent-child relationship. Consequently, most toddlers quickly learn to exploit their parents’ ineptitude, especially in public, in order to get what they want. …

The fundamentals: why there will be neither sanctions nor military opposition — Although sanctions have never had any effect on any military campaign in history, they do enable windy Western politicians to pretend to be “doing something” while actually doing nothing meaningful to oppose aggression. The West has continued to exclude a wide range of Russian exports from the supposedly “punitive” sanctions…

How Russia’s inept invasion of Ukraine will inform China’s forthcoming invasion of Taiwan — Two months ago, Western analysts regarded Russia’s military as a near-peer force. Thanks to receiving over $1.6 …

As Western civilization ends, what lessons can we learn in the hope that future generations may manage things better? — It is a terrible irony that we live in a time when the frontiers of human understanding are being pushed back further and faster and on many more fronts than at any previous time in human history, yet we can do nothing to prevent the collapse of our civilization. Our…

An analysis of why our self-inflicted dysfunction serves tyrants everywhere — Some weeks ago I wrote in an article that people who voted for Brexit and people who voted for Trump — and by extension anyone who voted for the UK Conservative Party or the US Republican Party — in no small measure enabled Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. …

Just how credible is this oft-repeated talking point, favored by Russian trolls and Western apologists alike? — According to the generic Kremlin narrative, endlessly repeated by pro-Russian commentators around the globe, Russia’s unprovoked invasion of peaceful Ukraine was an existential necessity driven by naughty NATO’s expansion up to poor defenseless Russia’s borders. If only NATO had refused to accept the many former Warsaw Pact nations that were…

What will Putin do next? — One thing is certain: no one could possibly have predicted the present situation in Ukraine. Prior to the Russian invasion, naïve, gullible, and endlessly complacent Westerners assumed Putin was assembling 190,000 men and materiel on three sides of Ukraine merely to threaten rather than invade — even as Western intelligence…