Free Republic

Concerns over a new multi-front Russian offensive in Ukraine are legitimate but exaggerated. Lukashenko is deeply hesitant to participate in Putin's war. The dictator has so far resisted significant pressure from Putin to join. Lukashenko recognizes the battlefield crisis facing Russia and wants to avoid further Western sanctions against his struggling country's economy. Even if he is an odd character, Lukashenko is not stupid. He knows that the war unpopular in Belarus, and the Belorussian military is relatively small. If the Belorussian military enters the war and suffers major losses, Lukashenko risks losing his means of controlling restive population. That...

Russia is increasingly concerned about the war in Ukraine, and rightly so. Ukrainian forces have the initiative in battlefield momentum, morale, equipment, and training. So serious are Russia's concerns that the Kremlin has now grudgingly accepted that the reality cannot be completely hidden from domestic social media and news reporting. Leshkov said he volunteered before being conscripted. But when it came to his military training, Leshkov said, "I and most of the servicemen were not satisfied with its quality. ... In our free time, we had to prepare ourselves, beg the officers to conduct additional classes with us." Leshkov added...

Shared U.S.-Indian concerns over China's aggressive expansionism led Modi to join the "Quad" partnership alongside the U.S., Australia, and Japan. Benefiting from military export relaxations introduced by the Trump administration, India is also increasing its purchase of U.S. arms and related equipment. Yet even as this cooperation might seem like proof positive of a budding U.S.-Indian alliance, other factors undermine that consideration. For a start, India fails the reciprocity test when it comes to supporting U.S. security concerns. The Pentagon has not responded to my query as to whether the U.S. military attachés in New Delhi are to be afforded...

On Wednesday, Biden authorizedto supply Ukraine with a new $800 million military package including helicopters, armored vehicles, and cannon artillery. Unfortunately, Biden has failed to get Ukraine anywhere the number of weapons it needs to fight Russia ....Ukraine needs longer-range drones, rocket artillery, and more lethal tactical combat drones. Biden has called Russia's war a genocide. The president has the means to help Ukraine stop that genocide in favor of victory. He should do so

EXCLUSIVE — At least two Iranians belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards’ covert-action Quds Force have been plotting to assassinate former national security adviser John Bolton, according to a Justice Department official with direct knowledge of the investigation. The source tells the Washington Examiner that the department possesses indictable evidence against the Iranians but that Biden administration officials are resisting publicly indicting the men for fear that it could derail their drive for a nuclear deal with Iran, currently nearing completion in negotiations in Vienna, Austria. Biden’s hope is to resume the 2015 JCPOA Iran nuclear accord. Former President Donald...

The United States would achieve three objectives by purchasing a number of Shortfin Barracuda submarines from France and then giving them to Vietnam. First, the Biden administration would repair relations with America's oldest ally. Second, it would supply a rising security partner with newly potent means of challenging China's imperialism. Third, it would test President Emmanuel Macron's commitment to international security in the South China Sea. This option bears note as France rages over Australia's cancellation of a submarine contract worth tens of billions of dollars. France is mixing justifiable anger (it has lost a lucrative contract worth thousands of...

One of the new terms which has come out of the rapidly intensifying talk of UFO sightings by U.S. Navy personnel and the upcoming government report on UFOs is “transmedium” – which refers to unidentified vehicles flying over, hovering above and diving into the ocean. While it has been noted many times that the transmedium UFOs or UAPs emerged from the water unexpectedly and never surfaced again after diving in, no one seemed to discuss the idea that they could be accompanied by, or in fact exist primarily as, unidentified ‘submersible’ objects (USOs) which should be tracked by Navy submarines...

When, in November 2016, Nikki Haley was nominated U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Professor Charles Tiefer of the University of Baltimore reacted with outrage. "No one in the United Nations," Tiefer said, "will think that Haley is someone to talk to who will be either knowledgeable or close to the president." Tiefer must feel a bit stupid right now.

On this week's edition of the syndicated public affairs show The McLaughlin Group, panelist Eleanor Clift argued Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's wealth could be good for her. "This is nice work if you can get it and it’s the way our society works right now," Clift said. Acknowledging Hillary Clinton "would probably be the richest president ever," Clift likened the former Secretary of State to former President Franklin D. Roosevelt, saying he did great things for the "little people."

I have been watching this stupid show for decades -somehow have an enduring affection for it- but it does get increasingly harder... Now hearing stalwart anti-immigrant Pat Buchanan stress the point that the French satire magazine Charlie Hedbo 'repeatedly provoked' the Kalishnikov-wielding jihadi's senseless slaughter came as a surprise to me, thus eliminating one of the few policy areas I still found myself agreement. You expect it from Eleanor Clift ('We have laws against hate crimes in this country, you know'), but I thought Pat was going to blame it on the immigration problem: once he's forgiving terrorists attacks like...