The bipartisan consensus in the Beltway on the United States being the ‘indispensable’ world power is usually attributed to the neocons who have been the driving force of the US foreign and security policy in successive administrations since the 1970s.

“We are carrying out NATO’s mission.” As Ukraine’s defense minister acknowledges the proxy war, NATO proxy warriors disregard the toll.

Why did Russia make the decision to go to war in Ukraine in 2022? It had been over two decades since the US and NATO broke their promise and marched nearly a thousand miles east toward Russia’s borders. It had been eight years since the US supported a coup in Ukraine that removed a democratically elected pro-Russian government and replaced it with a hand picked government that was pro-West. Worse, from Russia’s perspective, the newly installed government was anti-Russian. It had been five years since the US dissolved the boundary between defensive and offensive weapons and begun flooding Ukraine with lethal weapons.

Two British “voluntary workers” Andrew Bagshaw and Christopher Parry, are missing in Ukraine.They had set off into the centre of the fiercest fighting in the town of Soledar which has been surrounded on three sides by advancing Russian forces. Were they mad? Or did they just believe the general western propaganda that Ukraine was winning the war and advancing (when the reality was exactly the opposite and they were heading for mortal danger.) The devastating Russian advances in this area and in Bakhmut have simply not been reported.

As fighting rages across Ukraine, two versions of reality that underlie the conflict stare across a deep divide, neither conceding any truth to the other.

As the Russo-Ukraine War approaches its second year with no end in sight, the incoming Republican-controlled United States House of Representatives faces two options regarding America’s posture toward the conflict.

Building hit by 6 US-made HIMARS missiles on New Year Day killing at least 89 Russian conscripts, Makeyevka, Ukraine

Any of the three most likely scenarios are fraught with difficulties absent a successful negotiated settlement.

More than one-third of the U.S. population was born after 1970, and thus has no personal memories of the Cold War, particularly the Berlin crises or the Cuban missile crisis. Since we are in the early stages of a new Cold War, it’s a good time to review the tensions that we will confront. Spoiler alert: Cold War 2.0 will be more costly and risky than its predecessor.

I have confirmed that the Defense Intelligence Agency is relying solely on Ukraine for the intelligence on Russian and Ukrainian casualties. In other words, if Ukraine tells its DIA liaison officer that Ukraine killed 400 Russians in its latest HIMARS strike then that is what DIA tells the U.S. General commanding EUCOM. This is more than troubling. This is dangerous.