Afghanistan has undergone a dramatic transformation in half a year of Taliban rule. The country feels safer, less violent than it has in decades, but the once aid-fueled economy is barreling toward collapse. Tens of thousands of Afghans have fled or have been evacuated, including large numbers of educated elites. …

While the U.S. warns that Russia could invade Ukraine any day, the drumbeat of war is all but unheard in Moscow, where pundits and ordinary people alike don’t expect President Vladimir Putin to launch an attack on its ex-Soviet neighbor. The Kremlin has cast the U.S. warnings of an imminent …

Greek-Turkish relations are not moving forward. The (Greek) prime minister may have started his administration believing that progress could be made, but today the impasse is obvious and no light can be seen at the end of the tunnel. Greece, Turkey and Cyprus have entered a pre-election trajectory. It has …

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that he welcomed a security dialogue with the West, and his military reported pulling back some of its troops near Ukraine. But U.S. President Joe Biden said the U.S. had not verified Russia’s claim and that an invasion was still a distinct possibility. Putin …

As soon as Moscow received an American response to its security demands in Ukraine, it answered indirectly by announcing greater military integration between it and three South American countries, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba. Washington’s response, on January 26, to Russia’s demands of withdrawing NATO forces from Eastern Europe and ending …

Случилось чудо. Теперь, может быть, и войны не будет. Камила Валиева допущена до соревнований, апелляции МОК, ISU и WADA не удовлетворены. Я не фанат спорта и не понимаю людей, зацикленных на успехах национальной сборной, но моральную победу Валиевой оцениваю необычайно высоко. Дело в том, что она вундеркинд, а именно любовью …

Die US-Geheimdienste haben aus der Annexion der Krim gelernt und führen Russlands Militärstrategen vor. Für den Kreml-Chef sind die Optionen schlecht. Ben Wallace fühlt sich in der Ukraine-Krise an 1938 erinnert. Ein „Hauch von München“ liege in der Luft, warnte der britische Verteidigungsminister in Anspielung auf die Appeasement-Politik Neville Chamberlains, …

If God forbid the administration fires it, the results will be to wound Moscow, but also to blow off America’s own toes. The Menendez bill on sanctions against Russia could be described as a hair trigger on a single-barrel sawed-off shotgun, with all that weapon’s combination of dreadful effect and …

Economists debating inflation in the United States are confronting a difficult challenge: stripping out volatile price changes to gauge underlying pressures. The most common measure of underlying or “core” inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, has been hard to read during the pandemic. The traditional measure came into …

In perhaps the most predictable column of the year, the Wall Street Journal this week featured a column by Walter Russell Mead declaring it’s “Time to Increase Defense Spending.” Using the Beijing Olympics and the potential Ukraine War to push for funneling ever more taxpayer dollars into military spending, Mead …