The Ukraine War Has Never Been America’s War

Although supporters of the Russian invasion, occupation, and annexation of Ukraine blame “U.S. imperialism” for the Ukraine War, the U.S. role has been relatively minor.  The major actors have been Ukrainians, striving for independence, and Russians, striving to end it.

For centuries, a great many Ukrainians, chafing under Czarist and, later, Soviet rule, longed for national independence.  This rejection of Russian domination―based in part on Stalin’s extermination of four read more

Whose Red Lines?

In the conflict-ridden realm of international relations, certain terms are particularly useful, and one of them is “Red Lines.”  Derived from the concept of a “line in the sand,” first employed in antiquity, the term “Red Lines” appears to have emerged in the 1970s to denote what one nation regards as unacceptable from other nations.  In short, it is an implicit threat.

Vladimir Putin, self-anointed restorer of the Russian empire, has tossed about the term repeatedly in recent years.  read more

Who Speaks for the World?

Russia’s brutal war upon the nation of Ukraine should remind us that, for thousands of years, great powers have used their military might to launch military assaults upon smaller, weaker societies.

Since World War II alone, these acts of aggression have included France’s colonial wars in Indochina and Algeria, Britain’s military intervention in the Middle East and Africa, the Soviet Union’s military conquest of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Afghanistan, China’s invasions of Tibet and Vietnam, read more

The Imperialist Roots of Putin’s Policy

A key factor that explains Vladimir Putin’s military invasion of Ukraine is traditional Russian imperialism.

Throughout the world’s long and bloody history, other powerful territories (and, later, nations) expanded their lands through imperial conquest, including Rome, China, Spain, France, Britain, Germany, Japan, and the United States.

Russia was no exception.  Beginning with the small principality of Moscow in 1300, Russia employed read more

What the Cuban Missile Crisis Can Teach Us About the Ukraine Crisis

Commentators on the current Ukraine crisis have sometimes compared it to the Cuban missile crisis.  This is a good comparison―and not only because they both involve a dangerous U.S.-Russian confrontation capable of leading to a nuclear war.

During the 1962 Cuban crisis, the situation was remarkably similar to that in today’s Eastern Europe, although the great power roles were reversed.

In 1962, the Soviet Union had encroached on the U.S. government’s self-defined sphere of influence by installing read more

Blinded by impeachment mania: Giuliani’s a Slimeball but Bribing Maduro to Quit Office was Less Evil than Bolton’s Efforts to Spark a Coup or Civil War

By Dave Lindorff

The latest Trump administration news is a Washington Post article reporting that Trump’s “personal lawyer” Rudy Giuliani, was working a private “back channel” negotiation this past year with embattled Venezuelan President  Nicolás Maduro in a failed effort to persuade Maduro to quit his office and leave the country.

The Post, and some of the congressional Democrats who are always salivating at opportunities to raise further impeachment issues with which read more