Author: Alyssa Blakemore

With NATO’s annual summit just a month away, member nations affirm their commitment to Ukraine’s long-term security needs. But Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky wants more. The country’s leader recently conditioned his attendance at next month’s Vilnius gathering on a concrete pledge for membership. The question of Ukraine’s future in the alliance stands less as a matter of if and more a matter of when, for good reason. Consensus on the extent of support for the war-torn nation in midst of conflict continues to allude member nations. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak confidently declared earlier this month that “Ukraine’s rightful place…

Top House lawmakers are pressing the Pentagon for information on the lead-up to the 2021 Abbey Gate explosion after a Marine sniper’s March testimony suggested positive identification of the bomber prior to the attack and command denial for engagement. (RELATED: US Soldier Says Snipers Could’ve Taken Out Kabul Airport Suicide Bomber – But Weren’t Allowed To) “Marine Sergeant Tyler Vargas-Andrews, a sniper badly wounded in the explosion, testified that his sniper team believed they identified the suicide bomber responsible for the attack earlier in the day,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike…

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said that he would invite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Congress if the President fails to invite Israel’s leader to the White House. “I expect the White House to invite the prime minister over for a meeting, especially with the 75th anniversary,” Speaker McCarthy publicly pressured President Biden during a press conference in Jerusalem. The Republican leader led a bipartisan delegation to Israel as the country celebrates its 75th anniversary of nationhood. Relations between the two allies turned icy earlier this year as Biden lobbed criticism at Netanyahu for his government’s contentious proposal to overhaul Israel’s…

Blame Tennessee lawmakers, right-wing publications and even the victims. Whatever you do, don’t award the perpetrator any responsibility for her crime. In America, membership in an oppressed class justifies violence for the cause, and the reaction to the March 27 shooting at a private Christian school offers yet another example of this disturbing trend. Whatever the alleged oppression, Americans must stop justifying or excusing violence. Flip the script just months before when a shooter gunned down five people at a Colorado LGTBTQ club. President Joe Biden said Americans “cannot and must not tolerate hate.” Where’s the condemnation now? Instead, the…

In a thinly veiled warning to NATO, Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled plans Saturday to station tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus. The announcement constitutes Russia’s most overt nuclear signal since its invasion of Ukraine in February of last year. Putin cited stepped-up allied support for Ukraine as the reason for the escalatory move. Britain last week confirmed it would arm Ukraine’s forces with armor-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium, prompting swift backlash from the Kremlin. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov labeled the munitions “a step towards accelerating escalation” after Putin falsely decried the munitions’ “nuclear components.” Despite the British ministry’s…

Massachusetts Democratic Senator Ed Markey and Democratic Representative Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania made waves last week at President Biden’s State of the Union Address for proudly sporting “abortion” pins. The attention-getting detail in the pins was the heart shape that replaced the first “o” in the word. “Abortion is essential healthcare and we need to codify this right,” Markey tweeted ahead of the president’s speech. Captioning a photo of her donning the prominent lapel pin, Representative Dean likewise tweeted, “Abortion is health care. Abortion care saves lives.” Not only has it become all too easy to reduce life inside the…

All eyes are on Germany and the United States, as the pair struck a deal Wednesday to send battle tanks to a war-weary Ukraine. The dual announcement mends a growing rift among allies in arming Ukraine with more sophisticated weaponry and represents a sudden reversal in policy for the Biden administration. Another in a long line of calculated risks, the U.S.’s decision is more a symbolic move to preserve the alliance and invoke greater allied involvement. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the United States for its new commitment, just days after his advisor slammed Western indecision for killing more of…

Service members could see the end to the hotly debated vaccine mandate, but the bill’s passage doesn’t mean much for those already discharged for vaccine refusal. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) now sits on the President’s desk for signature after the Senate approved the bill in a vote of 83-11 on Thursday. Alongside the largest military pay raise in two decades, the $858 billion package would also repeal the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for service members. The bill’s passage spells the end of the vaccine mandate “not more than 30 days” after it goes into effect. Both the White House…

While U.S. foreign policy remains heavily fixed on Ukraine, a new Pentagon report shows China is on track to grow its arsenal of nuclear warheads from 400 to more than 1,500 by 2035. The Pentagon’s newest predictions far outpace their last assessment just two years ago, Business Insider found. In 2020, the Pentagon believed China’s stockpile of nuclear warheads to be in the “low-200s and expected to at least double by 2030,” according to the DoD’s report to Congress. In two years’ time, the Communist state rapidly accelerated its production, prompting new DoD estimates of Chinese nuclear warheads at more…

The midterms are over. Presidential election season draws near. Now is the time for the Biden administration to move past ideals and into reality. In his speech to gathered allied partners and policymakers in Canada last weekend, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reiterated the West’s “why” for Ukraine. The “what” is less clear and the “how” uncertain. The current Ukraine policy is full of tensions and carries significant risks. What is clear is the basis for the U.S.’s policy posture on Ukraine. The Biden administration invokes ideals in its “stand against global politics of fear and coercion.” The U.S. justifies…