March 29, 2014 War fever is in the air. Fifty thousand Russian troops and armor are massed on Ukraine’s eastern border. Europe and Washington worry that the reborn Red Army may sweep west across Ukraine, Moldova, the Baltics – even into Poland. The West is suffering from a bad case […]


15 March 2014 Many Americans have trouble understanding modern Russia or leader Vladimir Putin. That’s in good part because they have little or no understanding of Russia’s history or geopolitics. “The Soviets Union will return” I wrote in 1991 after the collapse of the USSR deprived the Russian imperium of […]


Feb. 27, 2014 The surging crisis in Ukraine is a dramatic example of how wars begin. Take arrogance, toxic nationalism, tribalism, moral outrage and profound miscalculation, mix thoroughly, and, voilà !, another great leap forward in the march of human folly. Russia just mobilized its western regions armed forces, an […]