Free Republic

Something worse than anything seen even amidst the dark years of the Cold War has awoken, Matthew Ehret writes. It feels like today’s world is spinning quickly out of control. Fear of nuclear confrontation between Russia and NATO has increased to a fever pitch and something worse than anything seen even amidst the dark years of the Cold War has awoken. A strange form of insanity has swept across the collective west as the US Congress infuses billions of dollars of more lethal aid to a regime in Kiev which a smiling Senator Lindsey Graham has said Kiev “will fight...

The U.S. is running out of time to prevent a cataclysmic war in the Western Pacific. While the world has been focused on Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, Xi Jinping appears to be preparing for an even more consequential onslaught against Taiwan. Mr. Xi’s China is fueled by a dangerous mix of strength and weakness: Faced with profound economic, demographic and strategic problems, it will be tempted to use its burgeoning military power to transform the existing order while it still has the opportunity.This peaking-power syndrome—the tendency for rising states to become more aggressive as they become more fearful of...