Category: Obama Administration

China and Russia Press Ahead, Together

The G20 summit in China marked a possible tectonic shift in global economic power, with China’s President Xi pushing for a new model based on physical connectivity, like “One Belt, One Road,” writes ex-British diplomat Alastair Crooke.

The Existential Madness of Putin-Bashing

Exclusive: Official Washington loves its Putin-bashing but demonizing the Russian leader stops a rational debate about U.S.-Russia relations and pushes the two nuclear powers toward an existential brink, writes Robert Parry.

Pushing NATO to Russia’s Southern Flank

Exclusive: In pursuit of a new Cold War with Russia, Official Washington wants to expand NATO into the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia, creating the potential for nuclear war to protect a sometimes reckless “ally,” writes Jonathan Marshall.

North Korea’s Understandable Fears

Official Washington is in full-throated fury over a new North Korean nuclear test, but fails to note that North Koreans face a vast array of U.S./South Korean military might, including potential U.S. nuclear weapons, writes James Bradley.

Netanyahu’s Land-Grab Strategy

Behind the smokescreen of the broader Mideast chaos, Israel pursues a strategy of gobbling up Palestinian lands to establish de facto control of the West Bank while confining indigenous Arabs to isolated cantons, explains Alon Ben-Meir.

Donald Trump Is Us

Pundits like to pretend that Donald Trump is some strange aberration in the American political-media process, but he is more like the illogical but logical result of a repudiation of rational thought, writes ethics professor Daniel C. Maguire.

Greenwashing Wars and the US Military

A recent congress of major conservation groups soft-pedaled criticism of the U.S. military and other war-makers despite the massive damage they inflict on humans, animals, plants, cultural sites and the environment, reports retired Col. Ann Wright.

Greasing the Outstretched Hands

Donald Trump with his tangled business dealings is a walking conflict of interest, but Hillary Clinton’s connections to the world of high finance and political pull creates its own problems with outstretched palms, writes Michael Winship.

Obama Flinches at Renouncing Nuke First Strike

Exclusive: The U.S. threat to launch a first-strike nuclear attack has little real strategic value – though it poses a real risk to human survival – but President Obama fears political criticism if he changes the policy, as Jonathan Marshall explains.