“Great wars sometimes start over small offenses. A murdered duke. An angered pope. The belief of a lonely king that his rivals aren’t playing fair,” Time magazine reminds us. And, Time says, “When historians study why armies began gathering in Europe during the plague of 2021, th[...]
Archive for the ‘Foreign Affairs’ Category
February 20th, 2022 - 2:26 am § in Foreign Affairs, Russia
Did a teenage girl trigger the Ukraine crisis?
Predicting wars is hard
The First World War, it is often said, was a war that no one wanted but just happened, unforeseeably triggered by an assassination of an unimportant royal in the periphery of Europe. (One of the best books on this subject is Barbara Tuchman’s “The Guns of August.”) Is it possible t[...]
February 9th, 2022 - 2:48 pm § in Foreign Affairs
PHOTOGRAPHY: Tableux
For interpretation, go here. Return to The-Ave.US Home Page[...]
How Biden deals with Putin
Biden is something of a Ukraine expert, and now a negotiator with expert knowledge of Putin, having been deeply involved with both for many years. When serving as Obama’s vice president, he made numerous trips to Ukraine at the time it was breaking free of Russian domination under a pro-Moscow[...]
February 7th, 2022 - 4:15 pm § in Foreign Affairs, Russia
Hey Vlad, you sure about this?
“Intercepted communications … revealed that some Russian officials have worried that a large-scale invasion of Ukraine would be costlier and more difficult than … Putin and other Kremlin leaders realize,” CNN reported on Monday, February 7, 2022, just days before Russia is ex[...]
Things could get ugly for Russian invaders
Ukraine’s military can’t match Russia’s for heavy hardware like ships, aircraft, tanks, and artillery (not to mention tactical nukes). But how do they use that military power against angry Ukrainian civilians with guns, who could make life a bleeding hell for Russian occupiers? And[...]
5-minute Ukraine briefing
I’m pretty certain there’s going to be a war. And although I hate to say this, a quick conquest of Ukraine by the Russian army might be the best thing for world peace, because a protracted conflict may not end like the Soviet-Afghanistan fiasco did; Putin might respond to unexpected setb[...]
January 26th, 2022 - 10:01 pm § in Foreign Affairs, Russia
Can Ukraine be defended?
From the map below (click on it to enlarge), it doesn’t look like it, as two-thirds of the country is a salient. A topo map of Ukraine (here) isn’t encouraging; except for the Carpathian mountains in the west, the landscape is mostly plains, steppes, and plateaus (details here). Harsh wi[...]
62% of GOPers are Putin fans
A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll has found that 62% of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents think Putin is “a stronger leader” than Biden. A former CIA station chief who ran operations in Russia isn’t having it. “Shame on them,” he says. “That’s incredibly, incredibly myopi[...]
We’re in the silly season now
Election-year campaigns are called the “silly season” because that’s when normally irrational politicians go completely over-the-top bonkers. There’s an election later this year, and we must be in silly season now. Case in point: Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), a friend of Trump, who[...]