Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will leave for a trip to Europe on Tuesday to speak with defense officials in Belgium, Poland and Lithuania as the potential of a Russian invasion of Ukraine continues to increase, chief Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said. In Belgium, Austin will meet with NATO leaders and …

The Islamic State group is a growing threat in northeastern Syria despite the killing of its leader in a U.S. commando operation last week, says the chief commander of the U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish-led force. Mazloum Abdi, who heads the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, warned that IS fighters are still very …

Bipolarity is no longer returning—it is here, and it is here to stay for the foreseeable future. News today is dominated by US-China relations, indicating a recognition of today’s bipolar system, and China continues to close the gap in the economic realm. The effects of this bipolarity have substantially deepened …

Putin could have gotten out of this trap, had the Russian side positively evaluated the limited Western concessions that are on the table: arms control of medium-range weapons systems, as well as confidence-building, transparency, and verification measures in the NATO-Russia borderlands, and measures of crisis communication. A specter is haunting …

Although the response in Western capitals to Russia’s aggressive military posturing on its border with Ukraine has been couched in clear diplomacy-first terms, military contingency planning has stepped up a notch in recent weeks. The intent of these moves, at least judging from the rhetoric of U.S. and NATO leaders …

The British World War II military leader Field Marshal Montgomery once famously stated “Rule 1, on page 1 of the book of war, is: Do not march on Moscow. Various people have tried it, Napoleon and Hitler, and it is no good.” The point he was making is that the …

At their January summit, US President Joe Biden and Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida , reiterated their resolve to thwart China’s “attempt to change the ‘status quo’ in the East China Sea.” For the U.S. this is blatantly disingenuous and hypocritical because it is doing the same thing in the …

Tensions between Russia and the US-led NATO alliance are soaring over the possible invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Although Russia has repeatedly said that it does not intend to invade Ukraine, however, the Western alliance is beating war drums for the last few weeks. Diplomatic efforts have not made a …

Canadian truck drivers are continuing their protest against the government’s covid/vaccine mandates. The protest was triggered by the federal government’s November mandate that truck drivers must be fully vaccinated by January 15 or they would be subject to mandatory testing and quarantine requirements when entering Canada. It is worth noting …

It was on March 23, 2019 that the last remnant of Islamic State (IS) territory, the village of Baghuz, fell to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). It marked the decisive defeat of the militant theocracy that had once conquered and controlled huge areas of Iraq and Syria. Tens of …