Conflict
Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - 06:37
During an informal question-and-answer session at the pro-Kremlin Seliger youth camp on August 29, a young woman expressed concern about the "growth of nationalism" in Kazakhstan. The woman wondered if a "Ukraine scenario" was possible there if longtime Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev left office -- and asked what the Kremlin's strategy was for dealing with this eventuality.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - 06:14
In just the last five or six years the world has been fundamentally transformed. Instead of the old accustomed Western-inspired postwar global order, crafted and ensured by the United States and its European and Japanese partners, there is now mostly chaos, from Ukraine to Syria to the South China Sea. Or, rather, there may be emerging new rules, given that we are still frozen in a Wild West moment, when everyone in the saloon has drawn his six-shooter, paused, and is wondering what happened to the sheriff — and wondering, too, who will be the first to dare start shooting.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - 05:59
Until Anne Applebaum’s August 29 essay in the Washington Post, even the greatest of pessimists did not warn that there was a risk of a premeditated, head-on military collision between Russia and the West. Contributing to the risk of accidental war in the Ukraine crisis was the failure of the United States and Europe to anticipate Russia’s moves, which at every step exceeded Western expectations of what Russia was willing to do and the risks it was prepared to take to advance its interests.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - 05:55
Russia and Ukraine are now at war. At least 2,200 people have died in the conflict; thousands more may die yet. The Western powers — America, Europe, NATO — now have no good options, but they cannot do nothing. President Vladimir V. Putin has left us with two dire choices, both fraught with risk: Either we arm Ukraine, or we force Kiev to surrender and let Mr. Putin carve whatever territories he wants into a Russian-occupied zone of “frozen conflict.”
Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - 05:50
In retrospect, all of them now look naive. Instead of celebrating weddings, they should have dropped everything, mobilized, prepared for total war while it was still possible. And now I have to ask: Should Ukrainians, in the summer of 2014, do the same? Should central Europeans join them?
Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - 05:46
When Russian-backed separatists seized control of Georgia’s Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions in the early 1990s, it didn’t make international headlines. Likewise, when separatist fighters in Moldova’s Transdniester region took control of that strip of territory with Moscow’s implicit blessing, it was largely met with a collective yawn in the international community.
Friday, August 29, 2014 - 11:24
The New York Times’ reported that the United Arab Emirates and Egypt cooperated to execute airstrikes against Islamist fighters in Tripoli, Libya twice over the past several weeks. If this is true, it would be an unusual step in overt military tactics for two important recipients of U.S. military equipment.
Friday, August 29, 2014 - 08:15
President Juan Manuel Santos announced peace talks between FARC and the Colombian government exactly two years ago on Wednesday.
Friday, August 29, 2014 - 08:11
Según el reporte de las autoridades, la captura se efectuó en el barrio Carlos Holguín, en el municipio de Roldanillo (Valle del Cauca) desde donde manejaba su centro de operaciones.
Friday, August 29, 2014 - 06:41
It is becoming harder and harder to ignore Russia’s growing military intervention in Ukraine. The diplomatic and economic efforts of President Barack Obama and European leaders have failed to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin’s repeated escalation of this crisis. It is irresponsible to not examine how the West can use a limited amount of force to prevent Russia from conquering more of Ukraine.