Free Republic

Ukrainian forces continue to fend off Russian troops as fighting persists Sunday, prompting apparent frustration from Russian President Vladimir Putin and questions regarding strategic miscalculations. Russia’s military is roughly 4.5 times larger than Ukraine’s active-duty force, but Ukrainians continue to hold the capital city of Kyiv as Russian troops encircle it. "The longer this goes on the worse it is for Vladimir Putin," former CIA Moscow station chief Dan Hoffman told Fox News Digital. "There's got to be some questions about miscalculations."

Sinking in the polls, it is time to consider where Obama has gone wrong. In this column, I review Obama’s 5 Biggest Political Miscalculations. Next week I shall cover his Biggest Policy Mistakes. So, from Bad to Worse, lets begin . . . . 5. What’s a Few Czars Between Friends? Actually, when it comes to Congress the answer can be a lot. Yes it is true, as Glenn Beck has described, Obama’s Czars are a rather savory bunch for which Van Jones was just the tip of the iceberg. The Political Miscalculation here, however, is not his Far Left...

On Wednesday morning, Israel awoke to a headline in the London-based daily Al-Quds al-Arabi saying Syria had concentrated troops and tanks along the Lebanese border and summoned reserve forces in preparation for a possible Israeli attack. A few hours later, the security cabinet decided to distribute gas masks to the public. The ministers also approved an unprecedented emergency exercise to be held next week aimed at preparing the country for a nonconventional missile attack. All of this happened a day after Defense Minister Ehud Barak toured the northern border and issued a threat to Syria and Hizbullah declaring that "Israel...

As the war in Iraq winds to its inevitable end, uneasy reflections are taking over Russia's political and military elite. No one in Moscow ever seriously believed that Saddam Hussein might indeed "defeat" the allied forces. But the speed and decisiveness of the offensive has bewildered many. Russian generals were expecting another prolonged so-called non-contact war, like the one against Yugoslavia in 1999, in Afghanistan in 2001 or the first gulf war in 1991, when a four-day ground offensive was preceded by a 39-day air bombardment. It was believed that the Americans were afraid of close hand-to-hand encounters, they would...

<p>At the dawn of the U.S. shuttle program, NASA engineers weighed the risks posed by nagging failures in the twin rocket boosters that propel the spacecraft into orbit.</p> <p>They quickly discovered severe heat damage in the O-rings designed to stop searing gas from spewing from joints in the rockets. NASA weighed the risks and decided the flaw was "tolerable," an analysis that held for 24 flights.</p>