| Jun 21, 2017 | Peace / SecurityThere’s a lot to say about Trump reversing some of the Obama administration’s policies on Cuba. The White House recently announced it was banning individual travel to the island and further restricting what business Americans can do there. Yes,...
| Feb 9, 2016 | Peace / SecurityThe Pentagon budget unveiled this week calls for quadrupling spending on efforts to counter Russia. The money would move more troops, tanks, and artillery into position near the Russia border. This last Obama budget would also fund another installment in a $1 trillion...
| Nov 19, 2014 | Rights / DemocracyIt was November 9, 1989. I was at the library at Northwestern University, putting the final touches on my first book — which happened to be about Soviet foreign policy. In a mad rush to beat my deadline, I dashed out and dropped the manuscript in the FedEx box just...
| Jul 2, 2014 | Peace / SecurityThanks to Iraq’s latest woes, it’s getting pretty hard to pay attention to all that unrest in the former Soviet Union. Remember those poor Ukrainians? All they want is to be independent and left alone. Or at least that’s what they claim. In truth,...
| Nov 6, 2013 | Peace / SecurityThese days, you can get the feeling the Cold War never ended. Le Carré-style intrigue has, it turns out, barely skipped a beat. The 9/11 attacks injected the U.S. spymaster apparatus with steroids. But 23 years ago this week, the Cold War did end. I don’t...