Russia

100 Years of Communism—and 100 Million Dead

By David Satter - Nov. 6, 2017

Principles of Government · September 30, 2022 ·

The Bolshevik plague that began in Russia was the greatest catastrophe in human history.

Armed Bolsheviks seized the Winter Palace in Petrograd—now St. Petersburg—100 years ago this week and arrested ministers of Russia’s provisional government. They set in motion a chain of events that would kill millions and inflict a near-fatal wound on Western civilization.

Although the Bolsheviks called for the abolition of private property, their real goal was spiritual: to translate Marxist-Leninist ideology into reality. For the first time, a state was created that was based explicitly on atheism and claimed infallibility. This was totally incompatible with Western civilization, which presumes the existence of a higher power over and above society and the state.

The Bolshevik coup had two consequences. In countries where communism came to hold sway, it hollowed out society’s moral core, degrading the individual and turning him into a cog in the machinery of the state. Communists committed murder on such a scale as to all but eliminate the value of life and to destroy the individual conscience in survivors.

But the Bolsheviks’ influence was not limited to these countries. In the West, communism inverted society’s understanding of the source of its values, creating political confusion that persists to this day. Read More

Restore Reagan’s Military ‘Margin of Safety’

By Roger Zakheim - Aug. 28, 2022

Principles of Government · September 13, 2022 ·

While foreign policy ‘realists’ urge detente with China and Russia, only strength ensures peace. The U.S. faces the most daunting security landscape in 45 years. That’s no coincidence. Earlier this year Russia launched the bloodiest armed conflict in Europe since World War II, and this summer China publicly displayed plans to strangle or swallow the… Read More

A Homeric Age of Statesmanship

By Robert D. Kaplan - Aug. 26, 2022

Principles of Government · September 5, 2022 ·

Standing in contrast to these misdeeds are the records of three great Republican secretaries of state who shepherded American diplomacy during the middle and late phases of the Cold War: Henry Kissinger, George Shultz and James Baker III. Their successes were inextricable from their understanding of America as a nation-state, a worldview that put the needs of the U.S. above all else. Read More

Is Lincoln Speaking to us?

By John Walters – August 19, 2022

Principles of Government · August 29, 2022 ·

By and large, we do not believe that there are individuals with great ruling talent who “thirst and burn” to shatter the existing order for the sake of dominating others — individuals who have desires that make them a fundamentally different type of human being: animals of prey, a profoundly different human type from the rest of us. …Is Lincoln’s warning grounded in a timeless truth? Is it a truth alive today?
…The world has faced such a threat several times in the past 100 years but misunderstood it, underestimated it, and let it grow horribly out of control. We need only think of Stalin, Mao, and, of course, Hitler. Can we learn from this terrible history?

Specifically, are Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping just such individuals? They sit atop oligarchies. However, they now largely control the levers of power and use that power in a brutal and unified manner. Most of all, in word and deed, they seek to shatter the existing order and bring the world around them under their domination….

But little national-security analysis focuses on deterring an adversary’s most important power — its leader and leadership. Why not focus on the tyrant and the immediate circle around him? Isolate him and use some of the unique information and cyber power of our time to create suspicion, division, and contempt (the great acid that dissolves authority). In short, analyze the tyrant’s sources of power narrowly — money, respect, fear, key subordinates — and systematically strip them away.

Outdated Nuclear Treaties Heighten the Risk of Nuclear War

By Franklin C. Miller – April 21, 2022

Principles of Government · August 21, 2022 ·

U.S. policy makers have lost sight of the crucial link between arms control and deterrence.

U.S. nuclear deterrence policy and U.S. nuclear arms-control policy have become dangerously disconnected.

Longstanding deterrence policy requires that the U.S. have sufficient capacity to target what potential enemy leaders value most. Arms control is supposed to augment deterrence by limiting, and if possible reducing, the threats while allowing the U.S. to deploy a force that deters an attack on America or our allies. The policies were tightly linked throughout the closing decades of the Cold War, providing the U.S. and its allies with a credible deterrent … Read More

Putin’s Deterrence Succeeds as the West Holds Back in Ukraine

By Seth G. Jones and Philip G. Wasielewski - July 20, 2022

Principles of Government · July 23, 2022 ·

The risks of American hesitancy are growing every day—and aren’t confined to Europe. The Biden administration’s reluctance to provide Ukraine with more sophisticated weapons critical to its defense comes at a high cost. Russia now controls a quarter of Ukraine and is gradually pushing westward. If the U.S. fails to change its policy, Russia will… Read More

What It Will Take to Supply Ukraine for the Long Haul

By Jacquelyn Schneider - July 7, 2022

Principles of Government · July 22, 2022 ·

Support for Ukraine can dovetail with these priorities, however. Investing in defense production capacity and weapons stockpiles can help shore up U.S. deterrence in Taiwan and elsewhere—convincing states looking for a quick win that the U.S. is willing and prepared to sustain support for the long-term. That message will be especially important as the U.S. balances both a rising China and a revisionist Russia. Moreover, the U.S. can draw on its history, as it has successfully surged its economy to support wartime weapons production in the past: The U.S. “arsenal of democracy” was a key factor in the Allies’ victory in World War II.

The U.S. can support Ukraine through its war of attrition with Russia. But to do so, it will need to make significant reforms to its defense acquisition and production policies. Those changes will have to happen fast, because Ukraine might not have “as long as it takes” to survive. Read More

The U.S. Should Show It Can Win a Nuclear War

By Seth Cropsey - April 27, 2022

Principles of Government · May 26, 2022 ·

Washington might study Cold War-era practices that had a major effect on Soviet policy making. Russia conducted its first test of the Sarmat, an intercontinental ballistic missile that carries a heavy nuclear payload, on April 20. Vladimir Putin and his advisers have issued nuclear warnings throughout the war in Ukraine, threatening the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization… Read More

The Stakes in the Battle for the Donbas

By The Editorial Board - April 22, 2022

Principles of Government · April 24, 2022 ·

A Russian general lifts the veil on Putin’s plans to grab Ukraine’s south. As Russia consolidates its forces for an offensive in Ukraine’s east, the temptation is to think the stakes have shrunk for NATO and the West after Russia lost the battle of Kyiv. But Vladimir Putin can still win a major victory that would leave… Read More

Handing Putin the Nuclear Advantage

By The Editorial Board - April 20, 2022