Betrayal triggers the strongest emotions in all of us: rage, despair and the longing for revenge. Betrayals in high politics trigger much the same emotions as in private life. The resentment and bitterness that whole peoples can feel when they are betrayed decide what they are determined to avenge and what they are willing to […]

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Among the many striking features of Trump’s appalling betrayal of Ukraine has been the gaucheness and utter naïveté of the Trump ‘team’s’ diplomacy. Perhaps Trump thinks it’s clever to break basic rules of effective negotiation, who knows. Watching the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, meet the new US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio in Saudi Arabia […]

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A little-remembered magazine interview from 1987 may hold clues about what Trump and Putin are ultimately up to. What was on Trump’s mind back then — besides dispensing unsolicited foreign policy advice in full page newspaper ads? Nothing less than making a deal with the Soviets to jointly seize the world’s nuclear weapons and thus […]

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It has become an article of faith in Washington circles that conflict between China and Taiwan is a palpably real near-term concern. Most recently this idea has been given new life because funding for Taiwan is baked into the Biden administration’s massive $105 billion aid bill for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan — even though the […]

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War, beyond being just a struggle for territory, is a process. Long-running wars, in particular, have the potential to transform geopolitics, and this is playing out in Putin’s war in Ukraine. Sanctions initially intended to isolate Russia have created a bifurcated world where the G7 nations have shunned the slavic state, while other nations are […]

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