Dodgy intelligence supports ramping up for war against a troublesome four-letter Middle Eastern country starting with ‘I’—what could possibly go wrong? If you feel like you’ve seen this movie before, it’s because you have. Today, Tehran announced its partial withdrawal...
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Russian Activities Across Europe (A Contrarian Assessment)
I was asked by the Pentagon to write up my thoughts on Putin’s Russia and its strategic intentions towards the US, NATO and the West for a DoD Strategic Multilayer Assessment (SMA) White Paper. That paper has been released to...
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The Full Story of Trump’s Russia Ties Will Come Out—But It’ll Take Time
The big problem with getting to the bottom of President Donald Trump’s Kremlin ties isn’t just secrecy and classification—it’s that practically nobody in Washington wants to know the messy and complex truth. You need to shut up about what you...
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The Steele Dossier Is the Gift That Keeps on Giving—For Both Trump and the Kremlin
Ever since BuzzFeed published it 10 days before Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, the notorious Steele dossier has never been out of the news. The 35-pager was always of dubious intelligence value, so why anybody is still discussing that controversial document...
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Ghosts of the Balkan wars are returning in unlikely places
Why is the Christchurch far-right terrorist obsessed with the crazy-haired Serb that the UN just sentenced to life in prison? How Balkan war criminals became idols to Western extremists is a bizarre story that shouldn’t be real, but is. Twenty...
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The fall of Paul John Manafort Jr.
Today was supposed to be the big, final day in court for Paul John Manafort Jr., the once-flamboyant political maven and ostrich jacket-wearer turned convicted felon. For decades a controversial character in our nation’s capital, Manafort capped his career in politics as...
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North Korea humiliates Trump before the world
No diplomats anywhere enjoy dealing with North Korea. Pyongyang is difficult, indeed obstreperous at the best of times, while the Kim dynasty and its emissaries are notorious worldwide for their aggressive and undiplomatic trash-talking when they are displeased. Which they...
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Who—or What—Was the FBI’s Mole at the Heart of the Trump Campaign?
Feds claim vaguely to know a lot about President Donald Trump’s secret Kremlin ties. What’s behind the spy mystery here? How much does the FBI know and how does it know it? At last, we have more than hints. Ignominiously...
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Bibi blows up Israel’s Central European alliance
Nationalism is a supremely powerful force in politics, but it’s perennially difficult to forge lasting alliances between competing nationalisms – as this week’s news demonstrates yet again. No country has benefited more from the growing split between Brussels and the...
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Trust me I’m a Russia hawk – the Democrats are going too far
If only President Richard Nixon could go to China, per the hoary Beltway cliché, perhaps only yours truly could write this column. Longer than just about anybody, I’ve warned the public about the threat to Western democracy posed by Vladimir...