Russia

What do you think: is it manifest destiny that the United States acquire or at least exercise control over Greenland? That’s pretty much how we got Texas, California, New Mexico, Hawaii, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam and American Samoa. Then there was the Louisiana purchase. In 1803, Thomas Jefferson doubled the size of the United States, paying France $15 million or a bit less than three cents per acre for a land mass that is about 26 percent of the contiguous United States. And let’s not forget about Alaska. A few facts about Greenland. It is big: 836,000 square miles. It is home to about 50,000 people, mostly Inuits. Historically,

Boris Johnson has urged European leaders to hand $247 billion of frozen Russian central bank assets to Ukraine – but says he fears they “lack the courage” to do so, in an interview with The Spectator. The former British prime minister also warned that Trump is at risk of “morally polluting” himself if he caves to Putin’s demands in peace negotiations and encouraged his negotiating team to stop the “nauseating deals” they are discussing about joint business ventures. “I think Europe is at a very difficult point because Europe has got to do the reparations alone,” Johnson said. “And I’m worried that they lack the courage. They must do it.

No one ever tucked themselves up in bed to read a government document – at least not in the expectation of enjoying it. The standard format is one of hundreds of pages of impenetrable jargon yielding no more than nuggets of significant ideas. The Trump administration has admirably cut through that tendency to produce a National Security Strategy (NSS) that is worth reading: a coherent outlining of America’s strategic intentions on the world stage. Originally composed by Michael Anton, a brilliant mind who is sadly leaving the State Department, the document concisely lays out a Trumpian vision of America’s role in the 21st century. It stands as a corrective to

Believing that time and destiny are on his side, Putin is sticking to his maximalist war aims

In Ukraine, peace will be a hard sell

Yuri Ushakov seems to be the prime mover behind Russia’s negotiating position

Everything turns on security guarantees, which are so far undefined

As the Kremlin sees it, Russia is winning regardless

Zelensky will find nothing good in the latest plan