The media and the war machine (or do I repeat myself?) want us to take sides in the Russo/Ukraine war. To those of us with long histories in military conflicts in which the US foreign policy establishment, media, and military have an interest, the terms are always framed as white …

Russia’s long-predicted invasion of Ukraine finally happened, but the reasons for it are widely misrepresented. Basic history is necessary in order to understand it. The Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, from Russia, under the Baltic Sea, to Germany, was planned in order to enable greatly increased sales-volume of the …

The first signs of the dual track in Russia’s hybrid war in Ukraine have surfaced. By Thursday evening, the Kremlin held out an olive branch to the Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky. Succinctly put, President Vladimir Putin expressed his preparedness to engage in discussions with his Ukrainian counterpart with a focus …

Ukraine Will Make Russia Regret This War The West has underestimated Vladimir Putin again. Time and time again, the aging Russian president has declared that Ukraine is not a real country, that Russia’s historic lands sit in Ukraine, and that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is a Western puppet and an …

Chinese-Russian Convergence and the Future of American Order The greatest strategic problem the United States faces is the convergence of its two main rivals, China and Russia—countries that don’t always like or trust each other but nonetheless derive great benefits from their simultaneous assaults on the existing international order. And …

Russia’s Invasion Could Unleash Forces the Kremlin Can’t Control Russian forces have struck targets across Ukraine and seized key facilities and swaths of territory. The Ukrainian military is no match for this Russian juggernaut. Although some reports suggest Ukrainian troops have rebuffed attacks in certain parts of the country, it …

This Special Report seeks to outline what Russia is trying to achieve in Ukraine, and how it is operationalising that intent through the synchronised application of state power. The spectre of war looms over Europe. As Russian troops mass around Ukraine’s borders there is a palpable sense of crisis. In …

As Vladimir Putin moves his troops into eastern Ukraine, the signs are that worse is yet to come. World governments have condemned the move of Russian President Vladimir Putin to recognise the ‘independence’ of two Moscow-backed self-proclaimed enclaves in Ukraine. Yet the challenge of responding adequately to Russia’s defiance of …

While Western intelligence assessments were largely proven correct they are not a substitute for strategy itself. In a pre-dawn television statement, President Vladimir Putin announced a ‘special military operation’, beginning the long-anticipated invasion of Ukraine. This escalation comes at the end of months of conventional military build-up on Ukraine’s border, …

The main immediate goal for the Ukrainian resistance will be to survive. If it can do so, and keep inflicting damage on the occupiers, then Vladimir Putin’s gamble will be on course to fail. A new Iron Curtain across the heart of Europe now seems inevitable. Where that curtain is …