Free Republic

New details of Moscow's intelligence work in Cuba were disclosed by Vasili Mitrokhin, a former KGB archivist who defected to Britain in 1992. ...Russian KGB officer Nikolai Leonov became "firm friends," with Mr. Castro's younger brother Raul in Prague in 1953 and then worked together with Fidel from 1956 and after he took power in 1959. The book, the second volume of what is known as the Mitrokhin archive, also reveals how Moscow sought to indirectly defeat the United States during the Cold War through large-scale "disinformation" and influence operations in the developing world. "The KGB really believed they could...

Symposium: When an Evil Empire Returns By Jamie GlazovFrontPageMagazine.com | June 23, 2006  The Cold War is back. Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent, is leading his country back into the dark ages of Soviet totalitarianism and instigating a global confrontation between Russia and the United States -- as well as between Russia and the West as a whole. The Russian President has consistently rolled back democratic freedoms. And he is proving that the genie can be placed back into the bottle: he has centralized authority and suffocated dissent in the media and in the nation at large. Reformers making efforts to build...

A declassified Cold War-era file from the CIA has gone viral over its coverage of a supposed clash between Soviet soldiers and a UFO, passengers of which reportedly turned the troops to stone before blasting off. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the CIA acquired a 250-page KGB report recounting the events that transpired after a platoon fired at a flying saucer over Ukraine. The report included eyewitness accounts and pictures of the aftermath, which one American agent described as “a horrific picture of revenge on the part of extraterrestrial creatures, a picture that makes one’s blood...

We hear a lot of talk about how Trump has “upset norms,” and “abandoned our allies” to “side with a dictator,” but so far as I can tell, while Trump is “siding” with Putin, nobody has ever accused him of “wooing” Putin. “Wooing” isn’t even my word. It’s the Washington Post’s and it’s not about Trump. It’s about Obama. In May 2012, having watched Obama debase himself for the better part of four years, the Post had had enough and called it “wooing.” Trump’s been accused of pretty much everything as it relates to Putin, but never “wooing.” In fact,...

Good evening: I have addressed the Nation a number of times over the past 2 years on the problems of ending a war. Because of the progress we have made toward achieving that goal, this Sunday evening is an appropriate time for us to turn our attention to the challenges of peace. America today has the best opportunity in this century to achieve two of its greatest ideals: to bring about a full generation of peace, and to create a new prosperity without war. Prosperity without war requires action on three fronts: We must create more and better jobs; we...

As Russian tanks rumble through Georgia, and Western pundits talk of the "new Cold War," one trope keeps reappearing in their discourse. Russia's newly aggressive stance, we are told, is partly our fault: After the fall of Communism, the West went out of its way to humiliate and trample Russia instead of treating it as a partner--and now, an oil-powered Russia is striking back. "Russia's litany of indignities dates to the early 1990s when the Soviet empire collapsed," Samantha Power, a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and former Barack Obama adviser, wrote in Time. "A bipolar universe gave...

The first two of 12 Sukhoi Su-30K fighters Angola ordered nearly four years for $1 billion have arrived in the country, giving a country with one of the most formidable air forces in the region some of the best military hardware Russia has to offer. Angola enters the club of African states possessing Su-30s along with Uganda and Algeria. The planes bounced around a lot before they got there. In 2013, Angola inked the purchase with Russia for the fighters, which served with the Indian Air Force from 1998-2005 before returning to Russia in exchange for more modern Su-30MKIs. Via...

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the iconic Cold War thriller "Red Dawn," a film by a Hollywood conservative that showcased patriotism, a love for the American military and warned of the dangers of gun control. Yet, it also taught the man behind the movie a deep lesson about the mentality of liberal Hollywood. Amanda Milius, the daughter of the film’s director, spoke to Fox News Digital about the film’s 40th anniversary, its legacy, and what the movie revealed to her dad. Released in 1984, "Red Dawn" told the story of the Soviet Union invading America and fighting a...

The art in espionage is the ability to hide in plain sight and the greatest of spies are the ones you never learn about. This statement rings true in the case of Anthony Blunt. His life seemed predestined for greatness. A Cambridge graduate with familial ties to the Royal Family, he was the very picture of establishment respectability. His brilliance as a polymath, fluency in multiple languages, and renown as a world-class art historian made him virtually untouchable, and he knew it. Beneath this veneer of aristocratic refinement lurked a secret that would shake Britain to its very foundations. For...

Is anyone surprised that the critics have absolutely savaged the new film, Reagan? I'm not. As a teenager in the 1980s, I came of age during the era when the likes of Dan Rather, Sam Donaldson, and Connie Chung savaged President Reagan on TV every single night. It was then at the pre-dawn of my political awareness that I started asking myself why such a folksy, likeable, patriotic American president like Ronald Reagan was so hated by seemingly everyone on the nightly news. Why did these talking heads despise him so much, while the actual human beings in my life—my...

Professor Jeffrey Sachs is the President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. He is the author of many best selling books, including The End of Poverty and The Ages of Globalization. Here he is with probably the smartest and most accurate assessment of the Ukraine war, and American foreign policy more broadly, ever caught on tape

South Korea said Thursday that it would consider sending arms to Ukraine, a major policy change that was suggested after Russia and North Korea rattled the region and beyond by signing a pact to come to each other's defense in the event of war. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the pact at a summit Wednesday in Pyongyang. Both described it as a major upgrade of bilateral relations, covering security, trade, investment, cultural and humanitarian ties. South Korea, a growing arms exporter with a well-equipped military backed by the United States, has provided humanitarian...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell struck an ominous tone about the state of world affairs Monday while promising that he will serve out the remainder of his current term in the upper chamber. McConnell (R-Ky.) didn’t reveal whether he plans to pursue an eighth term in 2026, but told Louisville’s NewsRadio 840 that his chief mission is pushing back against “isolationists” within the GOP. “I’m not leaving the Senate. And I’m particularly involved in fighting back against the isolationist movement,” the 82-year-old said.

Since Donald Trump’s rise within Republican ranks, conservatives have divided into two competing foreign policy camps. One contends that Trump’s approach suits the world in which we live and supersedes previous GOP national security and foreign affairs outlooks. A smaller contingent contends that Ronald Reagan’s understanding of America and his conduct of diplomacy remain the gold standard for U.S. foreign policy. Atlantic Council colleagues Matthew Kroenig (also a Georgetown professor of government and international relations) and Dan Negrea contend that considerably more agreement about foreign affairs prevails among conservatives than they themselves realize. When fleshed out, a Trump-Reagan fusion represents,...

China and the United States resumed military-to-military contacts with a series of recent meetings, delivering on a decision by their leaders at a November 2023 summit. Michael S. Chase (C, L), U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for China, Taiwan and Mongolia, hosts Chinese delegation led by Maj. Gen. Song Yanchao (C, R), deputy director of the Chinese Central Military Commission Office for International Military Cooperation for meetings at the Pentagon on Jan. 9. Two days of meetings, called the China-U.S. defense policy coordination talks, took place Jan. 8-9 at the Pentagon. It was the first formal in-person encounter between...

A day that changed the course of German history forever: On November 9, 1989 the pressures of revolution brought down the Berlin Wall. This episode of History Stories illustrates how months of protests and mass demonstrations lead up to this fateful day. Archival footage of news coverage of the events as they unfolded is paired with powerful statements from East Berliners as they crossed over to the other side.

A rusted Cold War missile was discovered in a deceased man's garage in Washington state, The Seattle Times reported. What seemed like an ordinary rocket caught the attention of the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, prompting them to alert the Bellevue Police. The museum was made aware of the missile when someone called to offer to donate the rocket, purchased at an estate sale, said reports A bomb squad identified the relic as a Douglas AIR-2 Genie. The unguided air-to-air rocket was designed to carry a 1.5 kt W25 nuclear warhead. Fortunately, the lack of...

Richard Nixon in 1992, shortyl after the fall of the Soviet Union makes a prediction about the future of the cold war and Russia

In a speech at a Council on Foreign Relations dinner in his honor, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles announces that the United States will protect its allies through the “deterrent of massive retaliatory power.” The policy announcement was further evidence of the Eisenhower administration’s decision to rely heavily on the nation’s nuclear arsenal as the primary means of defense against communist aggression. Dulles began his speech by examining communist strategy that, he concluded, had as its goal the “bankruptcy” of the United States through overextension of its military power. Both strategically and economically, the secretary explained, it was unwise...

Synopsis: A panel of Russian commentators on state owned television channel "Russia 1" discussing a recent 'naked party' by Russian elites and their reactions to it. Russia language transcript at the link. Click the 'more' button and you'll see the transcript feature.