Skip to content
TRENDING:
Donald Trump
Advertisement
Author profile
L. Todd Wood

L. Todd Wood

ltwood@123washingtontimes.com

L. Todd Wood, a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, flew special operations helicopters supporting SEAL Team 6, Delta Force and others. After leaving the military, he pursued his other passion, finance, spending 18 years on Wall Street trading emerging market debt, and later, writing. The first of his many thrillers is "Currency." Todd is a contributor to Fox Business, Newsmax TV, Moscow Times, the New York Post, the National Review, Zero Hedge and others. For more information about L. Todd Wood, visit LToddWood.com.

Articles by L. Todd Wood

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence sgreets troops in a hangar at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan on Thursday, Dec. 21, 2017. Mandel Ngan/Pool via AP) **FILE**

U.S. can’t solve Afghanistan problem alone

The West cannot solve the problem of Afghanistan alone. The U.S. and its European allies can treat the symptoms, but they can only stave off the absolute disaster for a period of time, at the cost of much blood and treasure.

January 11, 2018
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, left, speaks with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg during a round table meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission at foreign ministers level at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2016. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Rampant political corruption harms Ukraine’s people

One of the most problematic symptoms of Ukrainian corruption is the influence those with money and power have over the criminal justice system. After writing a series of articles on the subject and its implications for continued aid from the West, I'd like to highlight a chilling event that happened earlier this week which dramatically underscores my point.

January 4, 2018
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Syrian President Bashar Assad watch the troops marching at the Hemeimeem air base in Syria in this Monday, Dec. 11, 2017, file photo. Nearly seven years into the conflict, the war in Syria seems on one level to be winding down, largely because of Russian-backed government victories and local cease-fires aimed at freezing the lines of conflict. (Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

Russia to make Syria forces permanent

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu declared on Tuesday that the Russian armed forces would have a permanent presence in Syria at two facilities, the naval port at Tartus and the inland airbase at Khmeimim.

December 26, 2017
President Donald Trump steps off Marine One after landing at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Thursday, Dec. 21, 2017, in Bethesda, Md. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Trump’s tax win will expose poverty of the leftist economics

When it comes to President Trump's big tax plan, Democrats are worried — not that it will fail but that it will succeed, igniting the U.S. economy and providing so much economic growth that all those low-information voters out there will see the leftist scare talk of the last 25 years has been complete rubbish.

December 21, 2017
A screen shows the prices of bitcoin at a virtual currency exchange office in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017. South Korean is studying ways to regulate speculative trading in crypto currencies as the latest surge in prices stokes a craze over bitcoins. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

North Korea suspected in Bitcoin theft

As more and more people pile into Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which seem to be springing up like weeds on a warm spring day, many a savvy market participant have wondered what the real risks are regarding this new phenomenon to investors.

December 20, 2017

Britain warns of Russian threat to undersea internet communications

British defense officials have warned that Russia, in addition to possibly Iran and China, pose an existential threat to the Western way of life by developing capabilities to target undersea communications cables that carry 97 percent of all digital traffic and $10 trillion in daily financial transactions.

December 15, 2017
Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic (right) meets with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in Podgorica, Montenegro, in October. Despite its small size, Montenegro's NATO bid has already sparked an outsize reaction. (Associated Press) ** FILE **

Haven’t we had enough in Montenegro?

Can you name the Balkan leader who has been in high office longer than Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus? If not, I'll do it for you. In Montenegro, Milo Djukanovic has held power and just about every high-level post there is over the past quarter century. Now he's considering running for the presidency. There is usually only one reason for a politician to not want to give up the reins of power — the risk of being prosecuted for corruption. Sometimes the rabbit hole is just too deep.

December 14, 2017
U.S. President Donald Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin talk during the family photo session at the APEC Summit in Danang, Vietnam, Saturday, Nov. 11, 2017. (Jorge Silva/Pool Photo via AP) ** FILE **

CROSSTALK: Normalize U.S.-Russia relations

As the Mueller investigation drags on, it is becoming apparent day by day that the entire Russia collusion narrative is false and that the Mueller investigation is corrupt.

December 11, 2017
Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures while speaking to employees of Rostec Corporation during an awarding ceremony at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Dec. 7, 2017. The spokesman for Vladimir Putin says the Russian president has not decided yet whether to run for office next year as an independent candidate or secure support from the ruling party. (Sergei Karpukhin/Pool Photo via AP)

Russia’s reform will have to wait for Vladimir Putin’s exit

The doping scandal unfolding in front of our eyes, with the International Olympic Committee this week banning Russia from participating as a nation in the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea, is instructive for those trying to chart Russia's future.

December 7, 2017
Ukrainian lawmakers scuffled during a parliament session in October. Former Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who now heads an opposition party, accuses President Petro Poroshenko of stalling reforms and covering up corruption. (Associated Press/File)

Ukraine’s anti-corruption promise fades by the day

Two years ago in Kiev, I met with Artem Sytnik and his colleagues at the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, along with the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, of Ukraine, and wrote a profile headlined, "Can this man save Ukraine?" Mr. Sytnik at the time had just been installed as the head of NABU.

November 30, 2017
Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to Russian Natural Resources Minister Sergei Donskoi during a meeting at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, Russia, Monday, Nov. 27, 2017. (Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

Russia continues to prepare for war

In addition to massive increases in military spending over the last decades, modernization plans to have 70% of the Russian armed forces fitted with modern equipment by 2020, huge snap drills which readily exercise the Russian military, Russian President Vladimir Putin is putting civilians and private companies on notice that they too must be prepared for war.

November 29, 2017
Ukrainian lawmakers scuffled during a parliament session in October. Former Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who now heads an opposition party, accuses President Petro Poroshenko of stalling reforms and covering up corruption. (Associated Press/File)

Ukraine corruption disputed

After we wrote in our article on October 26th of this year about Ukrainian corruption, titled "Corruption problem in Ukraine cuts far deeper than many know," we received a response from the Chief Military Prosecutor of Ukraine, Anatoly Matios.

November 27, 2017
Communist party supporters carry portraits of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin, left, and Soviet dictator Josef Stalin during a demonstration marking the 100th anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017. Thousands of Communist demonstrators marked the centennial of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution Tuesday by marching across downtown Moscow. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

History of Communist Russia not being taught correctly in U.S. schools

It never ceases to amaze me the way the left attempts to rewrite history. I find it especially dangerous that our millennial generation is so misinformed about the past, communism in particular. Marxism and communism did not die after the Cold War was won, they simply morphed and went underground in our media and education system, only to raise their ugly heads decades later.

November 16, 2017