Outside the Beltway

The most likely outcome is not a happy one.

Strikes near the Polish border show the real possibility of escalation.

Whether dupes or active participants, the damage is real (and points us back to 2016).

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.

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.

Most people liked it more than I did.

The American President is once again leading the free world.

Pundits like Thomas Friedman struggle with premature prognostication.

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.

News and commentary of note.

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

Deterring Russia is a matter of principle.

The military threat is smaller, but the political one is bigger.

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.

Russia’s leader sees the situation in the former Soviet Republic quite differently than the West.

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

President Biden was advised to keep troops in Afghanistan . . . for no apparent reason.

Our brains are wired to seek approval but may not be equipped to handle our modern existence.

If it’s made in France, it’s “sparkling wine.”

Some recent news items that add to concern about American democracy.

Some good news in the hacking wars.

Empowering authoritarians.

The fecklessness of U.S. human rights policy in full display.

The iconoclastic journalist is out at the publication he founded.

Rudy Giuliani and a hack tabloid are trying to revive the Burisma story.

A defense of the indefensible.

A shocking and yet completely unsurprising development.

CNN has a lengthy, deeply reported piece on Trump’s phone calls to other heads of state.

The President should have known about the plot. There’s a good chance he didn’t.

We need a better vocabulary for treating the spectrum between rude and horrific.

Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos alone have lost $15 billion in net worth since January.

There are two theories, neither of them good.

Moscow helped Trump in 2016. Do they want him back?

A bold new plan for security in the Middle East.

Notwithstanding Russia’s weak position vis a vis the west, It’s Putin who seems to be winning.