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.
Tag: Ukraine
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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.
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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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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.
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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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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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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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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.
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The Unmentionable Paleoconservatives
Unlike the rigid groupthink of the American conservative establishment, paleoconservatism offers latitude for serious debate grounded in time-honored principles.
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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.
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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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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.
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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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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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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.
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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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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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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.
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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.
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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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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.
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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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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.
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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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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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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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Polemics & Exchanges: August 2022
Correspondence on "More Hand-Wringing About the Radical Right," by Paul Gottfried and "A Fork in Europe's Road," by Srdja Trifkovic.
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What Makes Biden So Pugnacious?
President Biden has a history of painting himself as heroic in personal encounters where few contemporaries recall him that way.
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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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Polemics & Exchanges: July 2022
Letters from readers about Chronicles articles "Revolt of the Fatherless," "America's 'Female Future' Has Open Borders," and about the war in Ukraine.
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The Failure of Liberalism and the Conservative Crisis of Faith
The crisis of conservatism stems from the failure of classical liberalism and the resultant politicization of the economy. Big State meets Big Capital to create our present-day arrangement: woke capitalism.
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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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U.S. and Ukraine, Goals in Conflict
Zelenskyy desires a Russian defeat, but the war is now generating greater risks and dangers for the U.S. than any additional rewards we might realize from "weakening" Russia with further fighting.
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Russia, Ukraine, and the Return of Nationalism
The Russia-Ukraine War has become a proxy fight between American-led globalism and the alternative: a multipolar world of nation-states free from American hegemony.
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Quo Vadis, Mother Russia?
The advance of U.S.-led NATO is shrinking the buffer of neutral territories that were once Russian lands. But if the West continues to isolate Russia, there is only one direction it can go: to the East, and China.