The Nuances of Navigating a Politically Charged Northeast Asia
Seventy-five years ago, on Sept. 2, 1945, dignitaries from nine Allied Powers boarded the USS Missouri to bear witness to history. Three days earlier, the magnificent warship had entered Tokyo Bay. It was flying the same flag flown over the White House on December 7, 1941, the day of the surprise Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor that catapulted the United […]
What Pearl Harbor Still Has to Teach Us
Thinking about Pearl Harbor and avoiding inevitable war, I recently revisited the solemn Arizona battleship memorial at Pearl Harbor while on a brief layover in Hawaii, after spending two enlightening weeks traveling deep within the complex Russian Far East.
These Are the High Stakes of the NATO and Trump-Putin Summits
Trump and America’s allies must stand firm while also not sleep-walking into war. The summit between President Donald Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin scheduled for July 16 in Helsinki is now a certainty. While all such encounters between the United States and Russia carry strategic weight, this one is crucial. The Russian meeting is […]
Zapad 2017: Should We Fear Russia’s Latest Military Dress Rehearsal?
The Russian military is now a sharpened policy tool of choice for an emboldened but strategically defensive regime that relies on preemption. In mid-September, Russia will conduct Zapad “West” 2017, a major quadrennial military exercise that takes place near the borders of the Baltic States and Poland as well as inside independent Belarus and the […]