Billionaires Can Arm Ukraine

Dear Jeff Bezos, I know these are trou­bling times for you and the 2,667 oth­er mem­bers of the world’s bil­lion­aire club. Accord­ing to Forbes, there used to be 2,755 of you, but the world’s cur­rent tur­bu­lence has rel­e­gat­ed 87 of you to the mere ranks of mul­ti­mil­lion­aires and shaved your col­lec­tive worth by $400 bil­lion, to…

Commonwealth Meeting in Rwanda Has a Long Agenda. Human Rights Isn’t on It.

A sum­mit of the orga­ni­za­tion that was born out of the embers of the British Empire is being held for the first time in the African coun­try, but dis­cus­sion of the host’s alleged abus­es is con­spic­u­ous­ly miss­ing. KIGALI, Rwan­da — Pres­i­dents, princes and prime min­is­ters from across the world gath­ered on Fri­day in Kigali, the…

U.S. Restraint Has Created an Unstable and Dangerous World

The Biden admin­is­tra­tion failed to deter Rus­sia from its sec­ond inva­sion of Ukraine. Like his pre­de­ces­sors in the White House, U.S. Pres­i­dent Joe Biden went to great lengths to pla­cate and reas­sure Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin in return for sta­ble rela­tions. Biden defied Con­gress when he refused to sanc­tion the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, unilaterally…

Biden’s Defense Chief Puts Alliances at Center Stage of U.S. Defense

Wel­come back to For­eign Pol­i­cy’s SitRep! Jack and Rob­bie here, chuck­ling at Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Zelenksy’s vis­i­ble dis­com­fort with French Pres­i­dent Emmanuel Macron’s PDA dur­ing his vis­it to Kyiv, Ukraine’s cap­i­tal, today. Alright, back to work. Here’s what’s on tap for the day: U.S. Defense Sec­re­tary Lloyd Austin tries to walk and chew gum between deterring…

But CAN the United States defend Taiwan?

Pres­i­dent Joe Biden has yet again stat­ed that if Chi­na attacked Tai­wan to reuni­fy what Bei­jing sees as a rene­gade province with the main­land, the Unit­ed States would come to Taiwan’s mil­i­tary defense. White House staff has again fol­lowed up these off-the-cuff pres­i­den­tial com­ments with a “clar­i­fi­ca­tion” that in fact, strate­gic ambi­gu­i­ty remains Amer­i­can pol­i­cy. Somewhat…