Michael J. Totten's Blog, page 8

Why Europe is Falling Apart

My newest long-form piece was published in The Tower magazine over the weekend. Here’s the first part.

Europe as we have known it for over five decades has been a stable and prosperous place at peace with itself, famous for its museums, cafes, classical architecture, and graceful retirement from history. But today, it’s under assault. The greatest refugee crisis since World War II is overwhelming the continent, while Jews flee by the thousands. Populist parties so outrageous that they make...

In Assad’s Syria, the Lesser of Two Evils is Still Evil

I finished my latest piece for The Tower magazine mere hours before the White House ordered a battery of missile strikes against Syria’s Assad regime. Here’s the first part.

Last week, the Trump administration replaced Barack Obama’s spineless and counterproductive Syria policy with an even more spineless and counterproductive policy of its own.

For five years, the Obama administration impotently called for the removal of Syria’s blood-soaked tyrant Bashar al-Assad, but UN Ambassador Nikki H...

Why Vladimir Putin Covets Montenegro

“Probe with bayonets,” Soviet ruler Vladimir Lenin famously said. “If you encounter mush, proceed; if you encounter steel, stop.”

Like his late predecessor, Russian President Vladimir Putin will advance until he meets steel. Until this week he met mush in, of all places, the United States government thanks to Republican Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky who used an arcane senate rule to block a vote on the accession of tiny Montenegro—the former Yugoslav republic on the Adriatic between Albania...

Donald Trump's Cratering Credibility

FBI Director James Comey finally did his duty this week when he testified under oath before the House Intelligence Committee that no evidence exists that Barack Obama wiretapped Donald Trump’s phone last year. It took Comey more than two weeks to say what everyone with a lick of sense knew was the truth all along, that Trump’s tweet three Saturday’s ago accusing his predecessor of a crime worse than Watergate is a lie.

Contrast Comey’s glacial response time with that of British intelligence....

Brace Yourself for a New Cold War

American-Russian relations are about to take a sharp turn for the worse.

President Donald Trump, like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton before him, hoped to “reset” Washington’s dismal relationship with Moscow, but that was always the longest of long shots. Vladimir Putin’s ideology and perceived national interests require the West as an enemy, and no matter how many times Trump tweets that he respects Putin’s “strength” and says it would be “a good thing” if we could get along with Russia and...

Radical Islam and its Discontents

In his first speech before Congress, President Donald Trump defied his new National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster when he said the United States government is “taking strong measures to protect our nation from radical Islamic terrorism.”

McMaster believes, as does former president Barack Obama, that the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism” alienates America’s Muslim allies and therefore complicates our efforts against Al Qaeda and ISIS.  He implored the president to refrain from using those wo...

The Closing of the Conservative Mind

Donald Trump won last year’s Republican civil war and most of the losers surrendered.

A buffoonish and narcisistic reality TV star who spent his entire life as a boorish Democrat and who had nothing but contempt for the Republican Party and traditional American conservatism has managed, like a conquering warlord, to rally the vanquished around him.

There are exceptions, however, and Claire Berlinski is one of them. She and I spent the last decade covering foreign affairs in the Middle East an...

The Swamp Strikes Back

Mike Flynn is finished as President Donald Trump's national security advisor. He lied to the administration and to the public and denied telling Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that the Trump administration would roll back the Obama administration’s sanctions against Russia. Flynn is admitting now that he “may have” actually said that in a phone call last month, apologized to everybody, and resigned.

How do we know Flynn did it? Because the CIA taped the call and leaked the details. (The CI...

The Swamp Strikes Back

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Mike Flynn is finished as President Donald Trump's national security advisor. He lied to the administration and to the public and denied telling Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that the Trump administration would roll back the Obama administration’s sanctions against Russia. Flynn is admitting now that he “may have” actually said that in a phone call last month, apologized to everybody, and resigned.

How do we know Flynn did it? Because the CIA taped the call and leaked the details. (The CI...

We Are Still Living With Eisenhower’s Biggest Mistake

The Tower magazine just published my latest long-form piece. Here's the first part.

American presidents make the same foreign policy mistakes over and over again. Intervening when they should not. Sitting on the sidelines when it’s the worst possible choice. Treating friends and allies like dirt while trusting duplicitous hostiles. If, as Karl Marx said, history repeats itself first as tragedy and a second time as farce, what are we supposed to say when history repeats itself decade after de...