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L. Todd Wood

L. Todd Wood

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

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, left, and Chinese President Xi Jinping pose for photographers prior to their bilateral meeting held on the sidelines of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Monday, May 15, 2017. (Etienne Oliveau/Pool Photo via AP)

China to Philippines: ‘We’ll go to war’ over South China Sea

After winning a United Nations tribunal ruling last year over the South China Sea, Philippine President Duterte promptly made friends with China and Russia in an afront to the United States and Obama, due to U.S. criticism over Duterte's war on drug dealers and other human rights issues. It seems this newfound lovefest between the two South Asian nations is built on shaky ground.

May 23, 2017
CORRECTS TO UNDATED PHOTO - In this undated photo distributed by the North Korean government Monday, May 22, 2017, a solid-fuel "Pukguksong-2" missile lifts off during its launch test at an undisclosed location in North Korea. North Korea fired a solid-fuel ballistic missile Sunday that can be harder for outsiders to detect before launch and later said the test was hailed as perfect by leader Kim Jong Un. The official Korean Central News Agency confirmed Monday the missile was a Pukguksong-2, a medium-to-long range ballistic missile also launched in February. The missile flew about 500 kilometers (310 miles) and reached a height of 560 kilometers (350 miles) Sunday before plunging into the Pacific Ocean. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this photo. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)

N. Korea boasts nuclear warhead capable to reach U.S.

The regime of Kim Jong-un conducted its second successful missile test recently after several failures on the launch pad or immediately after launch. North Korea now says it is ready to mass produce the Pukguksong-2 intermediate-range missile and boasts it can now target the U.S. mainland with a projectile large enough to carry a nuclear warhead.

May 22, 2017
U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, center, addresses the European Parliament, while EU Parliament president Antonio Tajani leaves in Strasbourg, eastern France, Wednesday, May 17, 2017. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias)

EU deepens its own crisis with attacks on Hungary, Poland

The European Parliament has condemned Hungary for human rights issues and a breakdown of the rule of law. Brussels is now threatening all-out financial war against both Hungary and Poland, among others, for alleged human rights abuses and anti-democratic policies and actions. But with conservative governments insisting on their sovereign right to protect their borders and preserve their national identities, Europe is headed for an existential crisis from which it may not recover in its current form.

May 18, 2017

TRAVEL: Uzbekistan: Where religious tolerance prevails

Our media are inundated with stories of strife, especially from the arch of instability which reaches from the Atlas Mountains to Afghanistan. However, there are some areas where one can experience moderate and tolerant Islam, which lived for centuries in peace with Christians and Jews. Take Uzbekistan in Central Asia.

May 18, 2017
A woman walks by a TV news program showing images of North Korean missile launch, published in the country's Rodong Sinmun newspaper, at Seoul Railway station in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, May 15, 2017. North Korea said Monday the missile it launched over the weekend was a new type of "medium long-range" ballistic rocket that can carry a heavy nuclear warhead. A jubilant leader Kim Jong Un promised more nuclear and missile tests and warned that North Korean weapons could strike the U.S. mainland and Pacific holdings. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

North Korea developing nuclear warheads faster than expected

South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo confirmed North Korea launched a missile Sunday which was large enough to carry a nuclear warhead and with the range to possibly deliver that warhead against targets on the mainland United States. This development is faster than many analysts had predicted for the North to acquire such a capability.

May 17, 2017
Polls (Illustration by Gary Varvel for Creators Syndicate)

Fake polls threaten U.S. democracy

Even the mainstream media had to admit after the 2016 presidential election that the corporate media polls were just simply wrong. Most likely they were wrong because of a progressive, anti-Donald Trump agenda that attempted to discourage Republican voters and lower turnout against Hillary Clinton.

May 15, 2017
Russian President Vladimir Putin participated in the Immortal Regiment march at the Red Square in Moscow on Tuesday to mark 72 years since the end of World War II and the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany. (Associated Press)

Vladimir Putin’s ambitions for Russia frozen

After writing about Russia and her adventures abroad for almost a decade now, I've developed a personal barometer for how things are going inside the country -- and how they're being perceived from the outside. Over the past several years, especially since the Sochi Olympics, Moscow has been on a roll, with President Vladimir Putin skillfully playing a weak hand to almost single-handedly return Russia to a position of respect and prominence on the world stage.

May 11, 2017
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reach out to shake hands after a news conference following their talks in Putin's residence in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia, Wednesday, May 3, 2017. The presidents of Russia and Turkey are holding talks on the situation in Syria and also the restoration of full economic ties between their two countries. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool)

Trump arms Kurds in affront to Turkey president

Donald Trump has proved himself willing time after time to upset the way things have always been done. He is proving that again in the Syrian civil war and the fight against the Islamic State.

May 9, 2017
The Botswana mining industry has been massively mismanaged, with executives and ministers siphoning money for personal gain. (Associated Press/File)

Botswana commodities crash reveals corruption, incompetence

The global commodity meltdown, a consequence of the Chinese economic slowdown, has affected many a raw material-producing country around the world. But the largesse of an insatiable customer such as China was back in the boom times tends to mask underlying corruption and inefficiencies. With China now mired in its own titanic struggle for growth, these internal flaws are causing havoc for corrupt and incompetent governments that failed to anticipate the end of the boom.

May 4, 2017
" As Russia reasserts itself in geopolitical affairs, steered by the consummate statesman Vladimir Putin, the memory of the bombing of Serbian forces in the Balkan wars of the 1990s is still fresh in the memory of many Russians," writes columnist L. Todd Wood. (Sergei Karpukhin/Pool Photo via AP)

More Balkan trouble brewing in region famous for mischief

We are seeing this scenario play itself out in the Balkans. The region is a flash point, a world conflict waiting to happen. Consider the charges traded by Albania and Serbia over accession to the European Union. As one reporter from the regional news service Tsarizm stated, it is obvious there is an imposed peace in the Balkans, a peace that right now looks very fragile.

April 27, 2017
FILE - In this Thursday, Oct. 13, 2016 file photo, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, right, speaks with his Albanian counterpart Edi Rama in Belgrade, Serbia. Serbian officials warned on Friday, April 21, 2017 of another war in the Balkans if Albanians try to form a joint state with Kosovo in the war-weary European region and the West does not reject such a plan. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic, File)

Serbia warns of another Balkan War

Serbian officials warned of another war in the Balkans, an infamous historical flashpoint for human conflict, if Albania moves forward with moves to create a 'super-Albanian' state for Muslims on the Balkan Peninsula, namely Kosovo.

April 21, 2017
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence arrives with U.S. Gen. Vincent Brooks, second from right, commander of the United Nations Command, U.S. Forces Korea and Combined Forces Command, and South Korean Deputy Commander of the Combined Force Command Gen. Leem Ho-young, left, at the border village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) which has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War, South Korea, Monday, April 17, 2017. Viewing his adversaries in the distance, Pence traveled to the tense zone dividing North and South Korea and warned Pyongyang that after years of testing the U.S. and South Korea with its nuclear ambitions, "the era of strategic patience is over." (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

North Korea won’t talk to China

As tensions rise over the North Korean nuclear program and its aggressive behavior toward the United States and its allies, the leader of the communist regime, Kim Jong-un, is not even talking to his long-term benefactor, China.

April 17, 2017
A European Union flag waves in the wind in front of the Chancellery in Berlin on Oct. 12, 2012. **FILE**

EU’s pressure on its own shows the extent of its cultural rot

This week the existential problems facing the European Union came into stark relief as Belgium threatened Poland and Hungary with legal action if they did not agree to commit cultural suicide by letting in hundreds of thousands of "refugees" from the Middle East. This comes on the heels of Facebook-livestreamed rapes in Sweden, truck attacks in France and other Western European capitals, and jihadist bombs targeting the buses of famous soccer teams in Germany.

April 13, 2017