Russia
January 4, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Matt Taibbi posted two more Twitter Files threads yesterday afternoon. They are the eleventh and twelfth such threads posted by the journalists to whom Elon Musk has opened the files of old Twitter. Taibbi has taken the lead in documenting The eleventh thread includes 33 tweets that can be accessed via the first (below). 1.THREAD: The Twitter FilesHow Twitter Let the Intelligence Community In — Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3,
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December 9, 2022 — Scott Johnson
The trade of WNBA star Brittney Griner for Russian “Merchant of Death” Viktor Bout amounts to the best deal of its kind since President Obama traded Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban leaders held at Guantanamo. As I recall, Obama national security adviser Susan Rice declared that Bergdahl had served with “honor and distinction” (before he deserted). Susan Rice is back in the White House working for President Biden. It would
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November 22, 2022 — Scott Johnson
The Washington Free Beacon’s Chuck Ross reports that Michael Bloomberg rendered an apology last week at his conference in Singapore: Michael Bloomberg, who leads the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board, apologized to attendees of his annual economic forum after former British prime minister Boris Johnson called the Chinese government a “coercive autocracy.” Bloomberg on Thursday said that Johnson’s remarks were “his thoughts and his thoughts alone” and were not cleared with
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November 15, 2022 — Steven Hayward
The “severe” sanctions the West (supposedly) imposed on Russia were supposed to be “crippling” to the Russian economy. Joe Biden promised us, after all. But after an initial swoon, the Russian Ruble has rebounded, and concerning Russian exports, well. . .
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October 20, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Miranda Devine’s New York Post column revisits the 51 intelligence officers whose letter bore all the earmarks of a dirty political intelligence operation taking advantage of their former offices. Let us not forget that Politico acted the media arm of the operation. Devine’s column — “It’s been two years since 51 intelligence agents interfered with an election — they still won’t apologize” — confines itself to the Dirty 51. Having
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October 7, 2022 — John Hinderaker
Joe Biden’s dementia took center stage in world diplomatic circles when he went off-script at a fundraiser last night. He was quoted as saying: “We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since [President JFK] Kennedy and the [1962] Cuban missile crisis. “I don’t think there’s any such thing as the ability to easily use a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon.” *** Mr Biden said he
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October 4, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Edward Jay Epstein is my favorite investigative journalist and the author of several of my favorite books including, most recently, How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft. Ed’s memoir Assume Nothing
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September 28, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines? Your guess is as good as mine. It does seem peculiar to think Russia would have blown up their own pipeline, but it is not inconceivable that a faction of Russia’s military is trying to sabotage Putin as a prelude for ousting him, or that Putin sees it as a kind of “Cortez burning his ships” moment to indicate that he is all-in
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September 4, 2022 — John Hinderaker
Sweden has established a new Psychological Defence Agency to combat potential Russian disinformation, the London Times reports. The agency hasn’t actually spotted any Russian disinformation yet, the article says, but it knows where to look: Staff at the agency, which has its headquarters in the western city of Karlstad, are working in a nation increasingly plagued by polarisation and mistrust. Next week, parliamentary elections will take place in a climate
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August 31, 2022 — Steven Hayward
When Gorbachev became general secretary in 1985, Reagan wrote in his diary that he was “too cynical” to believe reports that Gorbachev was a “different kind” of Soviet leader. Gorbachev thought Reagan was “a dinosaur,” fully slavish to America’s capitalist class. But by degrees they warmed to each other personally, ironically by means of bitter and direct philosophical arguments in their unprecedented five face-to-face meetings over the next three years that
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August 22, 2022 — John Hinderaker
Darya Dugina was the daughter of Alexander Dugin, one of Vladimir Putin’s close associates, a leading pro-Putin intellectual, and a vigorous supporter of the Ukraine invasion. Dugin is an exponent of “Eurasianism,” arguing that Russia is a unique civilization that has rejected Western liberalism and is the heir to the Russian Empire. Darya herself was a journalist and a supporter of her father’s ideas and Putin’s regime. On Saturday night,
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July 30, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Emina Melonic is the perfect person to reflect on the meaning of the Vogue cover shot of the Zelenskyys: The war in Ukraine has been odd, to say the least. At the beginning, I was following it closely, especially since I saw the echoes of my own experience, namely in war-torn Bosnia. I saw innocent people dying and displaced out of their homes. But just like most things in this strange,
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July 29, 2022 — John Hinderaker
A friend sent me a link to this paper, which says that, contrary to much of what we see in the press, Western sanctions are devastating Russia’s economy. The authors are all associated with Yale; subject to that caveat, here it is: As the Russian invasion of Ukraine enters into its fifth month, a common narrative has emerged that the unity of the world in standing up to Russia has
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July 5, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Boris Johnson is both the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the author of a respectful book on Winston Churchill. He holds himself out as a conservative to boot. Yet Walter Russell Mead captures BoJo in an emission of pandering pap that ought to embarrass him. In his weekly Wall Street column today Mead quotes Johnson speaking to German media between the Group of Seven and NATO summits late
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July 1, 2022 — Scott Johnson
I missed the news that Western leaders leaders “jok[ed] about” Putin at the G7 summit this week, as the AP puts it in its story today. I think “mocked” would probably be more accurate. They mocked Putin’s public displays of manliness: As they sat down for talks, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson jested that G7 leaders could take their clothes off to “show that we’re tougher than Putin” amid Russia-West
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May 24, 2022 — John Hinderaker
As I’ve written before, Americans are remarkably united on the Russia-Ukraine war. Almost everyone is on Ukraine’s side, and almost no one wants us to send troops. So differences in opinion are relatively nuanced: how far should we go to support Ukraine’s war effort? How one answers that question depends partly on whether one sees a risk of wider, possibly nuclear, war, and partly on how one sees our support
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May 17, 2022 — John Hinderaker
For me, the war in Ukraine is simple: Ukraine didn’t invade Russia, Russia invaded Ukraine. So I am on the Ukrainians’ side. But at the same time, my perspective is nuanced. The nuance consists of wondering whether it really is in our interest to send tens of billions of dollars worth of war materiel to the Ukrainians. What interest, exactly, do we have in the conflict that makes such an
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