American Committee for US-Russia Accord

The Trump administration has reportedly taken an essential step towards a peace settlement in Ukraine. It has stopped calling for an unconditional early ceasefire — which the Russians have always rejected — and instead offered concrete and detailed terms to Moscow.

We’ve seen a lot of turmoil in the South Caucasus recently, from Azerbeijan’s support for the US/Israeli attack on Iran to a crack down on political opposition in Armenia and previously an attempt in Georgia to oust the elected government by something very reminiscent of the Euro-Maidan in Ukraine. Pascal Lottaz and Lasha Kasradze are joined by Jeffrey Sachs.

Last week the nuclear rhetoric between the US and Russia made some of us feel like we were transported back to 1962. Back then, Soviet moves to place nuclear-capable missiles 90 miles off our coast in Cuba led to the greatest crisis of the Cold War. The United States and its president, John F. Kennedy, could not tolerate such weapons placed by a hostile power on its doorstep and the world only knew years later how close we were to nuclear war.

Trump has offered no compelling explanation for his stunning volte-face, with his plan to further empty American military arsenals for Kiev and impose additional economic sanctions on Moscow. He has advanced neither the impossible case that American security is at risk nor the implausible claim that Moscow plans to conquer the rest of Europe. What else could justify incurring nuclear risks that he long warned against?

This being the eightieth anniversary of Hiroshima, the nuclear powers have clearly opted to celebrate the occasion by preparing for a repeat exercise, one that will far surpass the original in scale and destruction.

ACURA Board member Cynthia Lazaroff writes,

As we commemorate the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it’s time to dispel the myth that we can count on deterrence to prevent nuclear war. The concept that nuclear powers will be deterred from starting a nuclear war because of the threat of retaliation and mutual annihilation is fundamentally flawed.

Ignoring millennia of human behavior, deterrence rests on the naive assumption that leaders will act rationally and resist the temptation to push the button first,100% of the time, even in peak crisis moments and the fog of war. Deterrence fails to address the risks of unintended escalation and accidental nuclear war including blunder, miscalculation, mistake, and false alarm. We have already had many false alarms and narrowly escaped Armageddon. The only way to avert nuclear war is to eliminate nuclear weapons before they eliminate us. The landmark Nuclear Ban Treaty offers an inspiring pathway forward.

Truman’s crime goes beyond slaughtering innocent civilians. Making Truman’s actions totally indefensible was the fact that Truman knew that he was beginning a process that could end all life on the planet and said so on at least three occasions.

When Donald Trump entered the White House for his second term as president, he had an excellent opportunity to extricate the United States from the quagmire war between Russia and Ukraine.  His instincts–that continued involvement in that conflict was not in America’s best interests—were sound.  Indeed, he signaled throughout the 2024 presidential campaign that he intended to terminate military and financial aid to Kyiv as soon as possible.  Most of his MAGA supporters seemed to agree that the Biden administration’s willingness to send billions of dollars to Ukraine when the United States had pressing needs at home was disgraceful.

India will keep purchasing oil from Russia despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats of penalties, two Indian government sources told Reuters on Saturday, not wishing to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at a press briefing that Russia “does not wish to become involved” in an exchange with the United States over nuclear threats. His comments came after U.S. President Donald Trump announced he was deploying two nuclear-powered submarines toward Russia in response to social media posts by former President Dmitry Medvedev, who had threatened the use of nuclear weapons.

President Donald Trump ordered U.S. nuclear submarines to be positioned in “the appropriate regions” after former Russian President Dimitri Medvedev reminded Trump of Moscow’s nuclear capabilities ad told him to watch the apocalyptic series “The Walking Dead.”

Sometime in 2016, I opened the door of my Brooklyn apartment to a woman dropping off her toddler to play with my toddler. “Aren’t you so ashamed to be Russian today?” the woman asked me, by way of a greeting.

There is a growing sentiment in the west that the Ukraine war is drawing gradually to a close, with Russia as the victor.

Zelensky has been completely immune from criticism in the west, with allegations dismissed and labelled as Kremlin talking points, and accusers called out as Quislings.

Yet, in an instant, that illusion has been shattered.

Although Robert Mueller failed to find an election conspiracy between Donald Trump and Moscow, the former Special Counsel threw a lifeline to the Russiagate narrative by alleging that the Kremlin had engaged in a “sweeping and systematic” effort to get Trump elected and “sow discord” among Americans.

Six years later, that questionable but enduring claim continues to unravel.

A wide-ranging interview with journalist Tucker Carlson, touching on Russia, Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza.

The following is an interview with Nicolai N. Petro about his book, The Tragedy of Ukraine (De Gruyter, 2023).

While Washington media has often lumped Colby in with the MAGA movement’s restrainer camp — with some critics even calling his views akin to “isolationist” — the label does not quite fit. Instead, Colby has long argued that U.S. national security policy should focus on deterring China, even if that means reducing military commitments in Europe or the Middle East. His critics see that as a retreat; his allies argue it’s overdue triage. But he has nonetheless become the flashpoint in the latest drama inside Trump’s foreign policy team.

Trump’s instinct to find a diplomatic end to the war is still correct. Ukraine cannot generate enough manpower — and the West cannot produce enough weapons — for victory in what has become a war of attrition to be realistic. And although Russia cannot conquer and govern all of Ukraine, the war threatens to leave in its wake not only millions of dead and wounded combatants, but an unreconstructed and dysfunctional Ukrainian rump state that could radiate instability into the broader region for years to come and dangerously stoke tension between Russia and the West.