John Pietro

If you listened only to the rhetoric of so-called national conservatives, you would think progressives were their polar opposites. But on the issue of foreign policy, it seems like they can find some common ground. It was reported on Tuesday that the Congressional Progressive Caucus sent a letter to President Biden asking him to negotiate with Russia. It was later reported that the same letter had been hastily withdrawn after massive backlash within the Democratic Party. The missive was apparently written and signed in June, updated recently, and somehow carelessly published without all of the signatories’ consent. Either way, it seems to represent something real within the Democrats' progressive wing.

Traditionally, the GOP has been the favorite of those concerned with safety and national security. The party of Ronald Reagan emphasized the need for strong engagement abroad, a willingness to project power when necessary, and a commitment to the free world. Yet the contours of the conservative movement have begun to change in recent years, calling into question the GOP’s credibility on the issue of security. The growing support for a sort of soft isolationism is a problem. It is also fundamentally not conservative. Prominent voices from the American right have been carrying the banner of soft isolationism for years, from Tucker Carlson and J.D. Vance to Senator Josh Hawley and former president Donald Trump.

Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine is coming up on its eighth month, and the costs to the Kremlin’s military have been immense. Increasingly isolated on the world stage, Vladimir Putin has joined the world’s club of pariah states, the only group willing to give him support. Chief among his allies is the Islamic Republic of Iran, a state with similarly imperialistic designs and global isolation. This axis has been brewing for some time — the two nations worked together extensively in Syria, for example — but the relationship has reached new heights as the Russian armed forces buckle under the strain of war. Perhaps the most potent symbols of this relationship are the hundreds of Iranian drones flooding into Ukraine to fill a gap in Russia’s weapons inventory.

As the world wonders what happened to the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, many suspect that Russian President Vladimir Putin is behind the sabotage. At first glance, it appears strange that Russia would damage pipelines that its own companies run. But Putin has several possible reasons for carrying out the attack. One reason could be that Gazprom (the Russian state-owned gas giant) wants to avoid paying penalties for failing to fulfill its contractual obligations. Since August 31, Russia has halted gas exports via both Nord Stream pipelines, which follows a similar move in July where the Kremlin cited erroneous maintenance issues as the cause of the short shutdown that month.

British prime minister Liz Truss’s speech at the United Nations this week was spot-on. It was clear, concise and left no question that the UK would do everything in its power to lead in the defense of the West and its values. President Biden’s address, by contrast, left you feeling overwhelmed and unsatisfied. That's not to say he failed to speak about Ukraine — he spent a reasonable amount of time on it — but the substance just was not there. Truss made a clear commitment to continue to “sustain or increase... military support to Ukraine, for as long as it takes,” a concrete and actionable statement. Though Biden issued a ringing condemnation of Putin’s war, he only made a vague pledge to “stand in solidarity against Russia’s aggression.

If Vladimir Putin’s goal is to reestablish Russian influence, his ambitions are on track for another major setback. Far less high-profile than the war in Ukraine, a slow and quiet revolution has been brewing south of Russia’s borders in Central Asia and the Caucasus. These nations, members of the former Soviet Union, have traditionally been in Russia’s sphere of influence. That, however, is now changing. At the start of the year, it looked like Russia was ascendant. Putin had over 150,000 troops waiting to invade Ukraine, and was receiving a steady stream of Western visitors pleading with him to step back. When Kazakhstan was engulfed in popular protests, Putin stepped in and deployed about 2,500 Russian troops after an appeal by the Kazakh president to help quell the unrest.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Uzbekistan during this week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — and a lot had happened since their last meeting. With the Russian Army on the back-foot in Ukraine and its economy forecasted to contract by over 4 percent in 2022, Putin is in a far worse position. Whether this impacted the meeting is hard to tell, though Putin indicated that Xi had “questions and concerns about [Ukraine].” Nevertheless, both countries expressed support for one another, touching on their respective concerns. Xi stated that China wanted to work with Russia “to set an example of a responsible world power,” a jab at the Western powers that both countries are positioning themselves against.

With the stunning, rapid advance of its military against the Russians, Ukraine has shot back into the headlines. The focus is, understandably, on the battlefield, but the happenings behind the lines deserve attention too. Since the first weeks of the war, information has trickled in about Russia’s massive, criminal attempts to relocate Ukrainian civilians. While much of the situation in the Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine remains murky, what is known provides a rough outline. Russia’s attempt at social control in Ukraine consists of two key elements: filtration and forced relocation.