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.
Author: Srdja Trifkovic (Srdja Trifkovic)
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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.
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The West on the Precipice: A Warning and a Hope
Traditional Christians should unite against the satanic vision of liberal-democratic nirvana, which continually threatens the West.
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NATO’s Road to Perdition
NATO's recent Madrid Summit reveals a hardening, monolithic West that is likely soon to be challenged by a rising China and a multipolar world.
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The Revolution and Modern France
The myth of the French Revolution inherently perpetuates an emotional, moral, and intellectual schism within a great nation. It has been poisoning the bonds among members of the French polity for over two centuries.
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Three Classic Critics of the Revolution: A Bastille-Day Meditation (Part II)
Edmund Burke was not the only great early critic of the French Revolution. De Maistre and Taine also developed strong, distinct criticisms of the revolutionaries in the period immediately following the Terror.
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Reign of Terror: A Bastille-Day Meditation
On the anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille, an accounting of the sadistic Reign of Terror is in order.
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Time to Allow a Cease-Fire in Ukraine
U.S. and UK officials have been sabotaging attempts to reach a cease-fire in Ukraine in an attempt to embroil Russia in a war of attrition. It’s time for a sober reassessment of a strategy that has backfired on Western leaders.
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A Fork in Europe’s Road
European leaders have a decision to make: treat Russia as an integral part of Europe with legitimate security concerns, or treat her as an Asiatic pariah to be crippled.
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Cracks in the Narrative on Ukraine
Recent statements by Germany's foreign policy adviser, Jens Plotner, have exposed a general weakening of the narrative that asserts a perfectly monolithic Western world, rock-solid in its determination to punish Russia.
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Is There a Western “Plan B” in Ukraine?
If Ukraine's resistance to Russian forces suddenly collapses in the east, the Western alliance will need a "Plan B" for their proxy war, but it is unlikely to escalate to a nuclear exchange.
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Ukraine, a Hundred Days Later
Putin is unlikely to take the bold action necessary to salvage Russia's special military operation in Ukraine, a campaign that drags on, undermined by strategic errors and indecisive leadership.
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Letter from Italy: Signs of Hope in Veneto
The popular and fearless Stefano Valdegamberi, of Verona, speaks openly about Italy's corrupted political establishment, which is at odds with the true welfare of Italians.
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Allies on the Transatlantic Right
Conservative nationalists in Europe face the same uphill struggle against the dominant left as do their American counterparts.
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The Punishment That Europe Imposed on Itself
The hegemonic clique that conducts American foreign policy has managed to bring Europe under control more firmly and radically than at any time during the Cold War. And this is not a temporary, transient phenomenon.
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A Melancholy Parade
Russian President Vladimir Putin had nothing to offer that could be passed off as victory at this year's traditional military parade. His power may be weakening after a long list of failures—but the world may come to regret the consequences if he falls.
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A Ukrainian Tragedy
Having designated a traditionalist, conservative, overwhelmingly Christian Orthodox Russia as the enemy, the rulers of an Orwellian "Great Reset" West will be free to cancel conservatives of all stripes even more radically than before.
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The Ghost of Hitler in the 21st Century
Today marks the 133rd anniversary of the birth of Adolf Hitler, and this year also coincides with the English-language publication of Hitler’s National Socialism, by Rainer Zitelmann, a distinguished German historian and free market economist. Reprising material from his German scholarship of more than 30 years ago, Zitelmann presents his provocative, well-founded interpretation of the Nazi...
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French Presidential Election Déjà Vu
The first round of France’s presidential election on April 10 ended with President Emmanuel Macron coming in first, with just under 28 percent of the vote. As in 2017, his opponent in the second round on April 24 will be Marine Le Pen (“MLP”), the Rassemblement National (“National Rally”) candidate, who won 23.1 percent of...
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Madeleine Albright: America’s Ribbentrop
In May of 1996, Lesley Stahl, of 60 Minutes, asked the future Secretary of State Madeleine Albright about the humanitarian disaster in Iraq, which was caused by U.S.-led sanctions. “We have heard that a half a million children have died,” Stahl said. “I mean that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And—you know, is the...
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Putin’s Miscalculation
“This is worse than a crime,” Talleyrand famously said of Napoleon’s execution of the Duke of Enghien: “it is a mistake.” The same can be said of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, almost four weeks after it was launched. However the battle turns out–even if the Russian army achieves its operational...
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Middle Kingdom Rising
In 1935 the Nazi regime was two years old, fully consolidated at home, and increasingly assertive abroad. It enacted the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws and announced that Germany would start a massive rearmament program, in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Meanwhile, Britain and France were focused on condemning Mussolini’s intervention in Ethiopia and on punishing...
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The Russian Invasion: Three Scenarios
The issue of what constitutes an invasion is no longer relevant as of 5 a.m. Moscow time on Feb. 24, 2022, when Russia attacked Ukraine across several fronts with troops, armor, and missile strikes. Indignant Western rhetoric aside, the Russian military’s strategic objective and President Vladimir Putin’s subsequent long-term political objective are what matters now. The...
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Putin’s Risky Move
Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree on Monday to recognize the two self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk (the Donbass) in eastern Ukraine. His decision, announced in an hour-long live address, was immediately followed by an order to Russian units to move into the disputed territories in a “peacekeeping” mission. By Monday evening their...
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Letter From Egypt: The Battle for the Nile (pt. II)
Water rights are at the heart of a growing geopolitical conflict between Egypt and its neighbors, as I discussed in my missive last week during my annual trip to the region. In the center of this conflict is the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) under construction in Ethiopia since 2011, and which Egypt is concerned...
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Letter From Egypt: The Battle for the Nile (Pt. 1)
My annual Middle Eastern tour this winter is limited to Egypt, mainly due to the less rigid Corona-related restrictions there than elsewhere in the region. An additional motive is the fact that this country of over a hundred million souls faces an unprecedented geopolitical crisis that is not sufficiently known in the outside world yet...
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The Madness of Russophobia
“Rule One, on page one of the book of war, is: ‘Do not march on Moscow,’” Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery told the House of Lords in 1962. “Various people have tried it, Napoleon and Hitler, and it is no good.” The victor of El Alamein made an understatement. Napoleon’s invasion in June 1812 took...
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U.S-Russia Tensions May Abate After Geneva Meeting
Amid the ongoing Ukrainian crisis, multiple U.S. and defense officials have told the press that the Biden administration is in the final stages of selecting military units for deployment to Eastern Europe. The U.S. accuses Russia of planning to invade Ukraine, despite threats of heavy reprisals, while Moscow insists on guarantees that there would be...
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Mussolini’s Unnatural Alliance
“Although I deal with the Italian attempt to build a fascist state,” Chronicles editor Paul Gottfried wrote in response to an obtuse critic of his latest book, Antifascism: Course of a Crusade, “I am also quite critical of Mussolini’s career, especially his involvement with Hitler’s Third Reich and the unfortunate anti-Semitic laws that Il Duce...
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Winter of European Discontent
When British foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey famously said on the eve of the Great War that “the lamps are going out all over Europe,” his metaphor struck a chord with generations of Europeans both then and in the ensuing decades. Grey’s words are worth recalling now, as the Old Continent enters the new year...
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Germany’s Quest for a European Wokedom
The European version of wokedom is unfolding under the watchful eye of Germany’s new foreign minister Annalena Baerbock. As discussed in a previous article, Baerbock looks like she will be the most interventionist-minded, Russophobic, and Euro-federalist German foreign minister ever, one who promotes a nebulous concept of European strategic sovereignty. Europe’s leftists are positively elated...
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Germany’s Quest for a European Wokedom
The European version of wokedom is unfolding under the watchful eye of Germany’s new foreign minister Annalena Baerbock. As discussed in a previous article, Baerbock looks like she will be the most interventionist-minded, Russophobic, and Euro-federalist German foreign minister ever, one who promotes a nebulous concept of European strategic sovereignty. Europe’s leftists are positively elated...
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A ‘Woke’ Crusader at Germany’s Helm
Angela Merkel’s unprecedented 16 years in power came to an end on Dec. 8 when Olaf Scholz was sworn in as the new German chancellor, symbolically breaking with tradition by omitting “so help me God” from the oath. Scholz steered his Social Democratic Party (SPD) to the dominant position in last September’s general election by presenting...
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A ‘Woke’ Crusader at Germany’s Helm
Angela Merkel’s unprecedented 16 years in power came to an end on Dec. 8 when Olaf Scholz was sworn in as the new German chancellor, symbolically breaking with tradition by omitting “so help me God” from the oath. Scholz steered his Social Democratic Party (SPD) to the dominant position in last September’s general election by presenting...
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Unvetted Afghan Immigrants: The Enemy Inside the Gates
The Biden administration has allowed tens of thousands of Afghan refugees to enter the United States without any meaningful vetting, blatantly disregarding its previous assurances and formally stated policy guidelines. Such reckless endangerment of national security is scandalous, but it has proceeded virtually unreported by the regime-friendly media machine. At the tail end of the Afghan...
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Global Hot Spots in 2022
Today’s commentariat is prone to ignore history, or to simplify past events to make them fit their current ideological preferences. The discourse of regime-approved conservative intellectuals and their mass media cohorts—such as Victor Davis Hanson and the tedious George Will—remains liberally optimistic and upwardly linear. The notion that our civilization is on a downward course...
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Hybrid Warfare in an Age of Wokeness
I recently attended a two-day conference in Budapest on hybrid war entitled “The Role and Missions of Armed Forces in Below-Threshold Conflicts.” Hosted by the Hungarian Defense Forces (HDF) Transformation Command, a military think tank with the authority and responsibility to chart the modernization and innovation of the country’s military forces. Contemporary security challenges include...