Outside the Beltway

An incredibly isolated Russian leader is not interested in running the country.

The disintegrating military situation is leading to escalating brutality.

Vladimir Putin is banning commodity exports.

It’s hard to see how this crisis ends.

Actions deemed unthinkable days earlier are suddenly mandatory.

One can see the faintest hint of a backbone in the former Vice President.

Putin is a monster, but he may also be just as irrational as the rest of us.

The ferocity of the global reaction to Putin’s invasion is stunning.

The Russian leader is isolated and under tremendous pressure.

The American President is once again leading the free world.

Pundits like Thomas Friedman struggle with premature prognostication.

Links and infographics.

Addressing an analytical pet peeve (and, more importantly, correcting a mistake).

NATO has stepped up in a pleasantly surprising way to resist the Ukraine invasion.

Sanctions are already taking a toll. But the West could do more if it had the will.

Deterring Russia is a matter of principle.

Putin’s forces are in Kyiv.

The first shoe has dropped.

The much-anticipated escalation has happened. Now to see how the United States and its allies respond.

Western intelligence agencies continue to predict an invasion under absurd pretexts.

There’s no keeping politics out of these Games.

Expert opinion on the standoff differs sharply.

The United States and its NATO allies are in a dangerous standoff.

Not every argument can be tested on a Pinocchio scale.

Russia may invade Ukraine again. The United States would prefer otherwise.

The trailblazing soldier-statesman has died at 84.

American cheese will henceforth be known as liberté cheese. And not because of the metric system.

After 20 years, the conflict closes much as it began.

The collapse is not his doing. But he’s accountable for the poor planning.

The postmortems are well underway.

A shameful exit from an ill-conceived war.

The President has overturned decades of US foreign policy and alienated a NATO ally for, well, reasons.

An exceptional choice that breaks the recent tradition of politicos in the post.

Our enemies are getting more brazen and sophisticated in their cyber warfare.

He seems to have taken his ball and gone home.

The venerable military newspaper lives to print another day.

The Russians are at it again, with the cooperation of the Trump administration and its enablers.

The National Security Advisor to Presidents Ford and GHW Bush has died.

The reporting demonstrates the uncomfortable truth.

A reckoning for 2500 Kosovar Serb civilians who were slaughtered is at hand.

Some explosive charges in the former National Security Advisor’s book.

There are two theories, neither of them good.

As if the country needed more turmoil.

President Erdogan is playing a dangerous game.

Because you needed one more thing to worry about.

More on presidential nonsense with a brief diversion into blogging philosophy.

A bold new plan for security in the Middle East.