Although President Trump promised to avoid unnecessary wars, he still is seeking a major increase in the already gigantic U.S. military budget, a risky contradiction, says Ivan Eland.
Much of Official Washington wants to escalate the confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia, ignoring the terrifying reality that this game of chicken could end life on the planet, as Norman Solomon observes.
President Trump will have his first meeting with President Putin at a time of dangerous U.S.-Russian tensions, amid demands to “get tough,” but ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern, a former presidential briefer, urges Trump to see Putin’s side.
In recent years, many American leaders have grown cavalier about nuclear war, especially with Russia, but there is also risk of a devastating conflict with China, as former U.S. Ambassador Chas W. Freeman Jr. observes.
Official Washington has a near mystical faith in “intelligence,” especially when it’s warning of some foreign enemy, but ideological bias and groupthink often creep in as shown in an insightful Cold War memoir, reports John V. Walsh.
Appeasing the Saudi-Israel axis in the Mideast, President Trump is talking tough against Iran and bringing his administration even more into line with neocon orthodoxy, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar explains.
The U.S. establishment is so disturbed by the erosion of its “uni-polar world” domination that it is pushing compliant allies like Australia into potentially devastating conflicts, writes John Pilger.
Months of Democratic Russia-bashing and Trump-baiting achieved their predictable result as the thin-skinned and rash President is now proving his “toughness” by firing off missiles and risking World War III, warns Norman Solomon.
The Trump administration is continuing a boycott, started by its predecessors in the Obama administration, against U.N. talks aimed at banning nuclear weapons, as Greg Mello explains.
Exclusive: Official Washington’s anti-Russian hysteria has distorted U.S. politics while also escalating risks of a nuclear war as U.S. war planners dream of “winning” a first-strike attack on Russia, reports Jonathan Marshall.