The lives of the babushkas in Chernobyl are evidence that God exists everywhere, and that while destruction can often reign supreme, creation, however small, affirms our propensity for the good.
Tag: Ukraine
Ukraine and the Daunting, Haunting Rites of Spring
Events in Ukraine cannot help but remind observers of the haunting events of the spring of 1914.
U.S. Flunks Its Own Election Standards
Freedom House sees election corruption everywhere except in the U.S., where the government pays its bills, and the legal system coordinates with the administration to impoverish and imprison the conservative opposition.
A Letter from Switzerland: Alpine Redoubt Stays Neutral
Switzerland provides a model for a morally neutral foreign policy based on pragmatic interests rather than “defining values” and self-proclaimed exceptionality. Americans need to learn from the Swiss.
Joe Biden Is Too Dangerous to Mock
If the right keeps laughing at Joe Biden, it risks sleepwalking into another devastating defeat for itself and the country.
Putin Almost Blew It
None of what Putin said is new to those who have closely followed the sad saga of post-Soviet Ukraine, but the tens, perhaps hundreds, of millions of people who will watch this interview because of the identity of the interviewer, are unlikely ever again to accept uncritically the standard narrative spewed out by Western regimes and their media lapdogs.
How Giorgia Meloni Became Standard-Bearer of the European Right
Once a marginal figure, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni's success on the European stage stems partly from the rising popularity of the European right, but, above all, from what she has accomplished.
Global Implications of U.S. Failure in Ukraine
After Ukraine, Beltway grandees will have to choose between accepting that America is but one great power among other great powers in a multipolar world, or continuing to pursue their insane obsession with America being the world’s “benevolent global hegemon.”
‘International Chaos’—Connect the Dots to Biden
Biden's retreat from leadership is in keeping with his long-standing policies and example, with predictable results on the international scene.
War in the Democratic Party—and at the Opera
In art as in politics, liberals find wickedness only in our own institutions.
Israel’s Lesson for 2024: A Liberal Crackup
The new New Left has the potential to spark a civil war among progressives, especially as causes like Black Lives Matter and anti-police policies entwine with "anti-colonial" and anti-Israel ideology.
Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness … Unless Talking About Trump or His Foreign Policy
Too many very public Christians in politics seem to have a problem honoring the ninth commandment when it comes to Trump, his supporters, and their foreign policy preferences.
Books in Brief: October 2023
Short reviews of The Constitution of Non-State Government, by T. L. Hulsey, and The Past Is a Future Country, by J.O.A. Rayner-Hilles.
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.
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.
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.
Civilizations Clash—in Ukraine and at Home
Ukraine and Russia were at peace until a civilizational divide: one chose the West and one chose Slavic-Orthodoxy. Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" thesis has proven correct—and predicts a similar rift within America.
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.
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.
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.
Polemics & Exchanges: May 2023
Letters between Polish-American Chronicles columnist Tom Piatak and Polish national Michal Krupa, debating Poland's role in the Russo-Ukrainian War.
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.
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.
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.
Ron DeSantis Joins the Fight for Sanity Against the Foreign Policy Blob
The truth is that the vitriolic reaction to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis this week says everything about the foreign blob’s personal and vocational insecurities, and nothing about DeSantis’ call for measured prudence in Eastern Europe.
The Unmentionable Paleoconservatives
Unlike the rigid groupthink of the American conservative establishment, paleoconservatism offers latitude for serious debate grounded in time-honored principles.
On Unjust Peace
The Ukrainian invasion may not have happened if the American government had not tried to push NATO to the borders of Russia. Conflict happens in international relations and does not require woke ideological hysteria as a response.
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.
Are We the Baddies?
It appears the U.S. government has attacked the civilian infrastructure of a NATO ally for the purposes of maintaining geostrategic advantage over both Europe and Russia, revealing the utter moral bankruptcy of U.S. foreign policy.
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.
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.
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.
Putin’s ‘Winter War’ on Ukraine
Vladimir Putin intends to conscript the coming winter of 2022-23 as an ally of his failing army—a strategy that has worked for Russia is past conflicts.
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.
Progressives Make a Half-Hearted Call for Peace in Ukraine
Now that the American empire has become explicitly leftist—committed to gay rights, feminism, abortion, and “democracy”—the left has become bloodthirsty cheerleaders for its wars.
Of Dirty Bombs and False Flags
Russia’s claim about Ukraine’s intent to detonate a false-flag dirty bomb is one more narrative in a long line of political narratives that bombard the average citizen.
Where U.S. and Ukrainian War Aims Collide
The closer Putin comes to defeat, the closer America comes to nuclear war, for that increasingly appears to be the only way Putin can prevent a Russian defeat, disgrace, and humiliation.
The Ideological Tyranny of Liberal Interventionism
Elon Musk found out the hard way that the foreign policy elite demands total compliance and consensus for its interventionism. His peace proposal drew their ire because they want war.
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.
The U.S. Needs to Change Course Right Now in Ukraine
Americans do not—and should not—care whether an ethnically divided, strategically unimportant, historically contested Slavic subregion or two in eastern Ukraine ultimately takes orders from Kyiv or Moscow.
Putin, Holding a Weak Hand, Raises the Stakes
Putin intends to conscript thousands to defend newly annexed regions and will not rule out the use of nuclear weapons.
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.
A Day of Infamy in Europe
The destruction of two Russian gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea fits into a suspicious pattern of U.S. economic sabotage, and will have disastrous long-term consequences for both Europeans and Americans.
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.
Putin’s Narrowing Options
In Putin’s War, the tide is turning against the Russians, and Putin faces the prospect of having been the ruler who launched Russia's least necessary war. His situation is growing desperate.
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.
The War’s Destruction of Ukrainian Culture
One of the forgotten casualties of the war in Ukraine, as in all wars, is the loss of high-cultural monuments and works of art.
Apocalyptic Warnings
While politicians and media stars talk casually of nuclear war, the risk of a catastrophe that could kill the majority of human life rises ever higher.
Speaking Russian in Ukraine
Since the Maidan coup in 2014, the multitude of Russian speakers in Ukraine are gradually facing more and more political pressure to abandon their mother tongue.
Winners and Losers From the Ukraine War
America is not the winner in the Ukraine War. Our involvement has not made us safer or in any way strengthened us.