President Zelensky’s ambassador to the United States caused a scandal with Republican lawmakers during his recent visit to Pennsylvania. She set up a visit to the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant, where much-needed 155mm artillery rounds are made. The visit turned into a clumsy attempt to help Democrats garner votes in this important state. Republicans expressed... Read More

Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban just announced the country will re-open its embassy in Muscat, Oman. This follows the United Arab Emirates’ acceptance of the credentials of the Afghan ambassador in August. And in January, Chinese leader Xi Jinping personally accepted the credentials of the Afghan ambassador to Beijing. (China’s new ambassador to Afghanistan was officially received... Read More

It is encouraging to see European nations stepping up to arm Ukraine, but their flagship effort at a coordinated strategy is faltering badly. According to a report released Monday by the Czech Senate, the Czech Munitions Initiative—a key component of this strategy—is falling short of its goals. The Czech Munitions Initiative was conceived to leverage... Read More

If you are a foreign official visiting Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, Prime Minister Petr Fiala will undoubtedly urge you to praise and contribute to his munition’s initiative. While many praise it, few are willing to back their words with financial support, and perhaps for good reason. The controversy began when President Petr... Read More

Throughout the U.S. effort to support war-torn Ukraine, Republican politicians asked where the money was going in Ukraine, and who was profiting from it. President Joe Biden and the Democrats accused anyone who raised questions about the aid package of siding with Russia. In a joint op-ed, U.S. Senators Kyrsten Sinema and John Kennedy raised... Read More

Though Iran is famous (or infamous) for its growing suite of weapons, recently the Islamic Republic has been making progress in civil aerospace. Iran Observer recently reported that Iran mastered the single crystal turbine blade technology of the CFM56-5B series aircraft engine, widely used in many Boeing and Airbus aircraft. Single-crystal technology, which is highly... Read More

In January 2024, Chinese president Xi Jinping accepted the credentials of the ambassador of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the Taliban) to China. And in September 2023 China was the first country to name a new ambassador to the Islamic Emirate since August 2021. Today, over a dozen countries maintain diplomatic representation in Kabul, though... Read More

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute recently released the results of the 2023 Reagan National Defense Survey. The survey found that Americans support increased spending for a strong national defense, engagement with the world, and strong support for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan. However, in may key areas, the preferences of young Americans (under 30... Read More

Osama bin Laden may be in Hell, but he could be having the last laugh. TikTokers recently discovered Osama bin Laden’s “Letter to America” which was written in 2002 and residing online in plain sight. The letter, allegedly written by bin Laden’s #2, the late Ayman al-Zawahiri, was al-Qaeda’s justification for attacking America on 11... Read More

Since independence in 1991, the Central Asian republics have had an up and down relationship with the American monitors of worldwide religious freedom, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and the U.S. State Department Office of International Religious Freedom. In its 2023 report, USCIRF criticized four of the five Central Asian republics,... Read More

Next year, the U.S. military will spend an unprecedented $900 billion dollars of the taxpayers’ money but it continues to fail to interest young Americans in military service. “Gen Z is unpatriotic!” and won’t join the military we’re told, but are they really? If so, why? It’s partly poor health and an inability to pass... Read More

In the summer of 2023, the Taliban implemented the ban on opium poppy decreed by supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzadain in April 2022. The Taliban told the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) they banned poppy cultivation because of the harmful effects of opium and because it violates their religious beliefs, despite the 2022 crop being “the most... Read More

In April 2023, John Thornton, Director of the Global Leadership Program at Tsinghua University in Beijing and former President and Co-Chief Operating Officer of the Goldman Sachs Group, disclosed that in 2013 China’s president Xi Jinping told then-U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that American participation in the One Belt, One Road development project was... Read More

Instead of being “Being Fustest with the Mostest” in Central Asia, an area of intense interest to China and Russia, the U.S. and Europe may be “too little, too late.” The dwindling relevance of Washington and Brussels to Central Asia was on display when Chinese leader Xi Jinping hosted the leaders of the five Central... Read More

In April, six Republican senators introduced S. 1048 – Ending the Notorious, Aggressive, and Remorseless Criminal Organizations and Syndicates (NARCOS) Act of 2023. The bill would designate the Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and set the stage for military action against them. At the same time, Republican members of the House of Representatives... Read More

April has been a signal time for Afghanistan. First, the foreign ministers of China, Russia, Pakistan, and Iran met in Samarkand, Uzbekistan about alleviating Afghanistan’s economic crisis. Then, the Taliban government announced the Chinese mining company Gochin would invest up to $10 billion USD to mine the country’s lithium reserves, and would assist developing other... Read More

The U.S. and NATO hastily evacuated Afghanistan on 15 August 2021, ending the two-decade, $2 trillion-dollar effort to turn Afghanistan into Denmark with mountains or, more truthfully, to reform Pashtun culture to Western standards. The “mission transition” AKA “retreat” left Afghanistan without the hardware mod cons that, with the software – an enlightened Afghans populace... Read More