History Forces Biden's Hand

Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with U.S. President Joe Biden during their meeting in Geneva on June 16, 2021. (Getty Images)

Not since Jimmy Carter’s presidency has the U.S. faced a concatenation of crises and setbacks on this scale, writes Walter Russell Mead in The Wall Street Journal. The Ukraine crisis has not yet peaked, China and Russia aren’t going anywhere, and they won’t cease probing America’s global position for weaknesses. The Biden administration will be defined, like it or not, by how effectively it responds to challenges it once hoped to avoid.

A Strategic Defense Initiative for This Century

B-2A Spirit bomber. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Bennie J. Davis III)

The People’s Republic of China is radically expanding its nuclear forces while engaging in unprecedented bellicosity. In an essay for The National Interest, Hudson Distinguished Fellow Michael R. Pompeo argues the United States must follow Hudson Founder Herman Kahn’s approach to “think about the unthinkable” when confronting strategic threats, which will enhance our defenses and prevent a worst-case scenario conflict with China.

Virtual Event | What's Next for Ukraine? A Conversation with Former President of Estonia Toomas Ilves

Civilian participants in a Kyiv Territorial Defense unit train on a Saturday in a forest on January 22, 2022, in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Getty Images)

With more than 100,000 Russian troops poised to invade Ukraine for the second time in the past ten years, the NATO alliance appears worryingly divided on an appropriate response. What are Vladimir Putin’s intentions? Does the West still have the will and capacity to deter Russia? Join Toomas Ilves, former president of Estonia and noted geostrategic analyst, for a conversation with Hudson Institute Walter P. Stern Distinguished Fellow Kenneth R. Weinstein on the Ukraine crisis and prospects for an effective policy response from the West.

🎙Making a Killing | Ep. 33 Defending Ukraine and Punishing Putin with Peter Rough

On the latest episode of Making a Killing, Hudson Senior Fellow Peter Rough joins Paul Massaro and Nate Sibley to discuss policy options to deter Russia from invading Ukraine and the challenges to transatlantic cooperation on this crisis. Be sure to listen and subscribe. 

Biden's Inviting Putin To Invade Ukraine — He Needs To Fortify It Instead

A Ukrainian Military Forces serviceman watches through spyglass in a trench on the frontline with Russia-backed separatists near to Avdiivka, southeastern Ukraine, on January 9, 2022. (Getty Images)

President Biden’s weak response to a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine does little to strike fear into the heart of the Kremlin, writes Peter Rough in the New York Post. America faces a choice: the watered-down consensus of multilateral economic sanctions or the rapid provision of large-scale defensive weapons to Ukraine. To stop Putin, it’s time to embrace the tried and tested methods of military deterrence.

BEFORE YOU GO...

How did we arrive at a point where the U.S.-led security system, which has protected Europe for more than 70 years, appears to be tottering in the face of Russian saber-rattling? In a December 2021 piece for The Wall Street Journal, William Schneider makes the case for arming NATO’s frontline states to prevent the collapse of the European security system.