... charge of a relatively weaker Russia taking on the most powerful nation in the world and regardless of the election’s outcome, Putin had already won: he took to heart von Clausewitz’s maxim that “War is the continuation of policy [or politics] by other means,” something that Obama seems to have missed. Putin had essentially “weaponized” WikiLeaks (and, in the process, the unwitting U.S. news media) against Clinton, the Democratic Party, the U.S. electoral process, and American democracy itself. And almost overnight,...
... commercial dispute court in Stockholm, Sweden.
If it seemed the players of Team Putin gave up too easily on having RUE taken out of the game, they had other plans in motion to counter Tymoshenko’s effort to limit Russian influence in Ukrainian politics.
Criminal Scheme #2: Manafort Key Agent in Laundering Dirty Gas Money to U.S. During Crackdown
Even before Putin agreed to let Tymoshenko kill RUE, his agents—including Firtash, Mogilevich, and Yanukovych (the latter with Manafort ...
... this involves two separate sovereign nations today, many of the dynamics still resemble those of Russian/Soviet intranational politics; conversely, the South of the United States experimented with secession as a unit from 1861-1865 and tried to form its ... ... and to attempts by the U.S. federal government to bring it along with other national projects, from segregation to the ACA (Obamacare) and any of a whole host of other items.
As in the case with Georgia, at the heart of all this tension are ethnic ...
... possible total meltdown of the global financial and economic systems).
Now, America’s first non-white president, Barack Obama, has encountered a level of obstructionism and partisanship from Congress unseen since the Civil War; the elation and hope ... ... refugees.
Leaders like Angela Merkel of Germany, trying to show kindness and compassion to refugees, may be ousted sooner by politics rather than later for her troubles, and other governments balk at attempts to coordinate regional refugee and economic ...
People claiming that the withdrawal from Iraq of U.S. forces carried out by the Obama Administration from 2010-2011 explains the rise of the terrorist group ISIS have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. A simple look at the timeline, geography, facts, context, and history concerning the withdrawal and the rise of ISIS ...
In the wake of Turkey’s downing of a Russian military jet that violated its airspace and Russia’s resulting casualties, tensions are certainly on the rise. Despite the fact that these tensions should not be overblown, important questions about Putin’s aims need to be addressed. Yet in the end, the saddest thing is how avoidable this incident was and how easy it would be to improve this situation dramatically.
By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981), originally...
By intervening squarely on the side of Shiite Bashar Assad against his own mainly Sunni people and the entire Sunni Middle East, Russia may once again be the center of attention from the global Sunni jihadist movement. But, unlike the 1980s in Afghanistan, these mujahadeen are much more experienced, much more sophisticated, much more capable, have a larger radicalized population from which to draw, and are able to strike anywhere, including Russia itself.
By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook...
... end of Bush’s first term and all of his second (this poisonous political atmosphere only got worse after Obama was elected). Furthermore, if Obama was able to muster Congressional support, it would empower him that much more in the public and politics senses. And yet, Obama’s putting so much power and influence in the hands of Congress on so crucial an action showed that he had learned almost nothing at all from his previous interactions with Congress, whether with insecure Democrats nervous about retaining their ...
... Administration deserved some credit as well for agreeing to the initial timetable to which Obama stuck. And, as will be discussed below, he handled the ISIS in Iraq debacle in a way that very much aided Iraq’s long-term interests.
Grade: A+
Obama withdrew from Iraq and was ahead of the curve compared to many in realizing American troops could not bring about the politics necessary to stabilize Iraq, but he did so in a responsible, gradual way that no sane person could say caused a drastic power vacuum or directly caused Iraq’s more recent woes. Just like Bush (and like any U.S. president would have), he ...
... advanced peaceful research, often medical
Iran will submit to more nuclear inspections that any other country in the world today or in the history of nuclear technology. These inspections will be “robust and intrusive,” to quote President Obama, and he noted too that “If Iran cheats, the world will know it” and that “this deal is not based on trust. It’s based on unprecedented verification.”
Economic sanctions on Iran will be lifted
The agreement will last ...