Many of America’s so-called allies are major liabilities rather than assets to U.S. foreign policy. Indeed, they are potential snares, ones that can entangle America in unnecessary military confrontations.

It is a time for cold realism rather than an outdated nostalgia for American exceptionalism.

Policymakers in Moscow, Washington, and European capitals might have second thoughts about their current fractured and self-absorbed way of defining and addressing the Ukrainian crisis.

“Sitting at the embassy in Moscow in the mid-nineties, it seemed to me that NATO expansion was premature at best and needlessly provocative at worst.” This sentence is particularly timely now with tensions between the West and Russia escalating over Ukraine. Odd as it may seem, it came from one of America’s most seasoned diplomats, William J. Burns, then serving at the US Embassy in Moscow and now director at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The US-NATO military alliance is preparing for war, and the western media are playing its game.

The possibility of further eastward NATO expansion and the reality of NATO military involvement in Ukraine are major causes of the current Ukraine crisis, but there is a stubborn refusal in the West to acknowledge the alliance’s role in creating the standoff with Russia.

The one-sided indictments of Moscow’s behavior invariably ignore numerous missteps that took place, beginning with President Clinton.

If there are no prompt responses to Russia’s legitimate security concerns, then the next phase entails a more robust military-technical realm

Russian president’s attention-seeking diplomatic demands speak to long-held grievances

Promises that the bloc wouldn’t expand appear to have been ignored in Washington’s quest for influence in Europe.