Free Republic

... Washington’s formulation calls for balancing interest and justice. While in terms of justice, we should offer Ukraine as much support as we can afford, that support is necessarily limited by our own interests. One such interest is to avoid being drawn into an unnecessary war. Another is to be able to fight a war if it should come. Regarding the first, as I recently wrote in GoLocalProv, “The desire to aid Ukraine in repelling Russian aggression is understandable, but our policymakers have to ask themselves if we, like the European leaders of 1914, are sleepwalking into a war, the...

Two interesting developments in the Russo-Ukrainian War have been the large number of both Russian generals who have been relieved, and senior Russian officers who have been killed by hostile fire. Recent reports indicate that 12 general officers have been killed during the two-month campaign, an astounding figure for such a short period of time. By way of comparison, just six U.S. generals died from hostile fire during all of the Vietnam War. The two developments are related and both can be at least partially explained via something I wrote for American Greatness not too long ago. It appears that...

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has taken a serious beating recently, both in the media and the halls of Congress. His critics have accused him of everything from "insensitivity toward the troops" to being personally responsible for perceived failures in Iraq. For Democrats, Rumsfeld is a useful surrogate for President Bush. The latter may have won the election handily but Democrats can still damage him by "getting" the architect of the hated war in Iraq. But Rumsfeld has his critics on the right as well. Senators John McCain and Chuck Hagel have been highly critical of the secretary. So...