On July 6, 1914, German Foreign Minister Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg sent a telegram to Germany’s Ambassador to Austria-Hungary instructing him to inform Emperor Francis Joseph that while Kaiser Wilhelm II “cannot interfere in the dispute now going on between…
Washington — Well, now that Americans have had an opportunity to think about the war in Ukraine, cooler heads are coming to the fore. Or they think they are cooler heads. Last week in Washington there gathered a collection of…
In 1946, diplomat and scholar George Kennan wrote a document that woke up the American government to the need to resist Russian post-war expansion. For more than three years, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had been the vital ally of America…
It was the fall of 1943 when Churchill addressed the House of Commons. The hinge of fate had begun to turn. The Nazis had been driven from North Africa, but most of the rest of Europe was still tightly in…
The foreign policy experts are debating the current crisis involving Russian troops on Ukraine’s border and what our response should be in the event of a Russian incursion or invasion. Officials in Washington and in foreign policy think tanks use…
It befuddled the world. Only weeks after Germany’s unconditional surrender on V-E Day, the man who inspired Britain in its darkest hour and who led the anti-Nazi cause to complete victory in Europe had lost his bid for re-election. How…
Political idolatry, like crabgrass, is nearly impossible to get rid of. We want a winning message, we wish to sell it and get support for it, we tout the sizzle of what we stand for to one and sundry —…
Malachi gave voice to a supreme imperative — we humans, being prone to stray, must continuously readjust and return so we can stay our course. Pride and hubris would have us double down until we meet our nemesis and wreck…
As Afghanistan goes from bad to worse, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, these terrible words have been pronounced against the Biden national security team: “Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting.” American forces have withdrawn from Bagram Air Base….
