Earlier this month, in his first speech as secretary of state, Antony Blinken underscored that "the president has promised diplomacy -- not military action -- will always come first." He was building on a sentence from a moment earlier: "More than at any other time in my career -- maybe in my lifetime -- distinctions between domestic and foreign policy have simply fallen away."
In his recent speech outlining the new U.S. foreign policy vision Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a really sensational statement: "We will not promote democracy through costly military interventions or by attempting to overthrow authoritarian regimes by force. We have tried these tactics in the past. However well intentioned, they haven't worked."
Let us review President Biden's "America is back," return to "normal" foreign policy that will be infused with "American values."
One could say the Jan. 6 incident at the U.S. Capitol and resulting impeachment and acquittal of Donald Trump were the culmination of the tumultuous year that was 2020 -- chaotic by definition as a Year of the Rat. In the previous rat year of 2008, something similar happened in a country that was the proving ground for much of what's been happening here, not incidentally because of our meddling in its affairs.
Nowadays, when something bad happens in America, the popular game in Washington is to make bets on how fast Russia and Vladimir Putin will be accused of being responsible. Therefore, it was no surprise to hear exactly that about the Jan. 6 events on Capitol Hill.
So agape was the world at the Jan. 6 spectacle of conservatives setting themselves up for moral equivalence with the left that everyone forgot to invoke the invisible hand of Russia-Putin.
Real geopolitical challenges are facing the next American president: North Korea, Turkey, Iran and China, for example. One hopes that this is where a Biden-Harris-led focus will be, rather than on convenient distractions and comfort zones called Russia.
The approaching Biden-Harris administration is finding itself saturated by an avalanche of unsolicited advice from the media about what it should do once in office.
Being shared among the Russian diaspora on Facebook the week after the U.S. election was a reaction video by 10 or so octogenarians in Russia. Their spokeswoman delivered a tongue-lashing.
It is an undeniable fact that presently America is experiencing serious challenges on both domestic and foreign fronts. The dramatic polarization of society, the largest number of pandemic victims and major disputes between the nuclear powers require strong leadership and social unity.
In recent weeks, the danger of war between neighboring Azerbaijan and Armenia has caused many to ask how this chaos might be resolved before it directly drags in other powerful players.
At a press conference last week in Los Angeles, every tier of lawmaker gathered at city hall to, one by one, condemn Azerbaijan's Turkish-backed invasion of its breakaway ethnic Armenian Republic of Artsakh.
In the three weeks since Vice President Mike Pence's Republican National Convention speech, right-leaning broadcasters have given much play to his quoting of Robert Gates, the Obama-Biden secretary of defense who wrote in his 2014 memoir that then-Vice President Joseph R. Biden "has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades."
As the most powerful nation on Earth prepares to go to the polls in November, decisions will be made that will affect not only the next four years of American politics but also the lives of countless people around the world.
Within the context of a speedily devolving geopolitical roller coaster ride shaped by renewed Cold War era hostilities, an Aug. 5 Politico open letter authored by 103 American foreign policy experts calling for a reset to U.S.-Russia relations appeared to be just what the doctors of reason prescribed.
Last month saw a duo of "news" stories making the rounds about this or that Russia-based hacker group that's "almost certainly linked" to Russian state intelligence. Bloomberg.com and USA Today were among those running with "Russia Accused of Vaccine Hacking," while the AP had a second go at "Russia Behind Spread of Virus Disinformation," which originally surfaced in April.
Amid the intermittent riots and looting; the disbanding of police departments; the increase in armed disagreements between citizens; a four-year coup; an economy in turmoil; and talk of a geographic separation between Americans who have a race-based view of the human condition and those who don't, one would think our country's current upheavals -- unyielding even to a plague (itself partisan) -- would see us wanting to reduce our headaches, perhaps by making nice at least in the international sphere.
Looking at today's America, one would be hard pressed to say that the gods were not interested in destroying this great country. For who can argue that this once proud and noble nation has not fallen into the depths of madness in recent years? After all, what is madness but a self-delusion run amok, far removed from any semblance of reality?
Society values externals, but internally the president may be the least crazy person on Earth.
President Trump wanted to transform the G-7 to G-8, then to G-11, but are G-12 or G-5 the better choices?
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