Carol J. Williams is a retired foreign correspondent with 30 years' reporting abroad for the Los Angeles Times and Associated Press. She has reported from more than 80 countries, with a focus on USSR/Russia and Eastern Europe.
The hostilities riling the world today differ from those of the Cold War in that the adversaries are now more numerous and fractured than during the superpower confrontation.
Here are the countries, large and small, where stark choices confront voters struggling through economic difficulties and indifference to the political stakes when they fail to engage in decisions that will influence how and by whom they are governed.
“Think about the signal that delayed Ukraine aid sends to the leaders and people of Taiwan. If, God forbid, they are faced with the decision of whether to fight or capitulate to the People’s Republic of China, they will need to soberly assess the credibility of America’s commitment to helping them defend their island. Right now, we are sending a terrible message."
What began as a small radical right-wing Republican bloc in the U.S. House of Representatives opposed to further aid to Ukraine has expanded in the chaotic aftermath of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s ouster two months ago.
“The full-scale invasion of Ukraine that Russia launched on February 24, 2022, has precipitated by far the most significant crisis in Russian studies since the collapse of the Soviet Union."
The attacks on U.S. military and diplomatic sites over the past week are suspected to have been orchestrated by Iran and designed to further sabotage prospects for a U.S.-brokered peace accord between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
There is no hope of diplomatic resolution of the crisis taking the lives of hundreds on both sides each day. Death tolls have soared beyond 2,000, with more bodies and atrocities being discovered as IDF reach massacre scenes and Hamas fighters dig out from the rubble of punishing Israeli aerial bombardment.
The Kremlin leader has burned through Russia’s arsenal of sophisticated missiles in the 18 months since he launched his “special military operation” to conquer Ukraine. He now must rely on barter with impoverished Soviet-era allies to resupply his stalled war machine.