Tag: foreign policy

The Russian-Ukrainian Crisis

  

I’ve refrained until now from commenting on the situation in Ukraine. I know this is a tough situation with few easy answers. The history of tension between Ukraine and Russia goes back a long ways. One of the worst episodes in twentieth-century history occurred in Ukraine in the winter of 1932-1933 when Josef Stalin was the undisputed leader of the Soviet Union. During that winter, Stalin, in an attempt to strangle Ukrainian resistance to his destruction of independent farmers, removed… Read more »

A Foreign Foreign Policy

  

Secretary of State John Kerry certainly takes his job seriously. He always seems to be in a foreign country. And he’s always giving speeches or making statements that can grab the headlines. Last week, in the midst of a crisis in Ukraine, the growing threat of Al Qaeda in Syria, the Iranian drive to develop nuclear weapons, and the Venezuelan crackdown on the massive protest against its socialist dictatorship, what does he decide to focus on? While Americans are digging… Read more »

Our Foreign Foreign Policy

  

For most of the Obama tenure, the focus of critics has been on his domestic policies primarily, although The Great American Apology Tour was noted and decried from the start. From his abysmal attempts to jumpstart the economy to the imposition of the bureaucratic nightmare of Obamacare, this president has demonstrated his ideological blindness and his incomparable incompetence. Both of those features have now come to the forefront in his foreign policies as well. Which is worse? They appear to… Read more »

Battle of the Strategies

  

It was a battle of strategies last night in the final presidential debate. The Obama strategy was clear from the start: get in Romney’s face, get under his skin, push him into making a mistake by appearing to be a warmonger, and “win” by being the aggressor. The Romney strategy took longer to decipher, but it gradually came into focus: avoid getting into the tangles of details about who knew what when on Libya, appear knowledgeable about foreign affairs, stay… Read more »

Needed: Another Ronald Reagan Moment

  

The third, and final, presidential debate is tonight, and the topic is foreign policy. Most Americans, apparently, find the topic of lesser interest than domestic policy, yet is has a direct impact not only on pocketbook issues but our very survival as a nation. I guess what I’m saying is that we ought to be intensely interested in what transpires overseas. America has always been affected by the ideologies and actions of foreign nations. In our first decade, with George… Read more »

The Present Crisis

  

The intent of yesterday’s post was to ensure we understand that there have always been bad times in American history, and that we’ve been at the point of despair before. Our future as a nation is still open; the decisions we make now will determine our path. Today I do want to emphasize the severity of our current problems, as a kind of counterpoint to yesterday’s hopeful thoughts. It’s important that we don’t put our heads in the sand, figuratively… Read more »

Double Standards & Discernment

  

In the wake of the successful takeout of bin Laden, there are some who say we shouldn’t criticize the president anymore. I say we give him credit where it is due, but we keep in mind his overall performance and not let one correct decision cloud our memories or lead us to think that in foreign policy and the war on terror, he is on target. In fact, I believe the following illustration is a perfect representation of where he… Read more »