Free Republic

Ukraine has begun its long-awaited counteroffensive after withstanding a months-long and ongoing battering from Russian missiles and drones. Nine new Ukrainian brigades, totaling perhaps 30,000 troops, with modern armored vehicles and well-trained soldiers (though little air power) are moving into action. But because Russia has prepared for them, they face uncertain prospects. Even the recent Putin-Prigozhin melodrama might not change the standoff substantially — though it is too soon to be sure how Wagner mercenaries will perform with their former leader on the ropes.

Shanghai Academy acts as a front for Chinese spy recruitment, according to FBI The Brookings Institution, a prominent Washington, D.C., think tank, partnered with a Shanghai policy center that the FBI has described as a front for China’s intelligence and spy recruitment operations, according to public records and federal court documents. The Brookings Doha Center, the think tank’s hub in Qatar, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences in January 2018, the institution said. The academy is a policy center funded by the Shanghai municipal government that has raised flags within the FBI. The partnership...

Michael O’Hanlon — an appointee to the Central Intelligence Agency External Advisory Board under the Obama-Biden administration — visited a Chinese Communist Party-run think tank identified by the U.S. government as conducting “undercover intelligence gathering” operations and seeking to coerce foreign actors into backing the Chinese Communist Party’s “preferred policies.” Also at the Director of the Brooking Institute’s Foreign Policy Research Team and adjunct professor at Georgetown and Columbia Universities, O’Hanlon visited the China Association for International Friendly Contact (CAIFC) on August 23rd, 2012 – the same year his Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) External Advisory Board stint ended. Under President...

AS 2007 comes to close, how should we understand the situation in Iraq? Are we witnessing the greatest American military comeback late in a war since Sherman’s march to the sea in 1864? Or is Iraq still a weakly governed and very violent place where sectarian reconciliation is starkly absent? The problem for American policymakers, troops and voters is that both these situations are simultaneously real. Iraq’s security environment is considerably improved, with security at its best levels since early 2004. This is largely thanks to the surge-based strategy of Gen. David Petraeus and the heroic efforts — and sacrifice...

How can one gather and assess information about Iraq -- collected on a trip or from any other source? Information from a war zone is difficult to attain and interpretation is open to many views. Unfortunately, much of the blogosphere and other media outlets have emphasized the wrong question, challenging the integrity of anyone who dares to express politically incorrect views about Iraq. Last week, Jonathan Finer criticized on this page [" Green Zone Blinders," Aug. 18] a New York Times essay that Ken Pollack and I wrote, as well as the comments of several senators, for claiming too much...

It's certainly premature to make any hard and fast predictions at this point, but could it be that the tide of war in Iraq is turning in favor of the U.S. and the Iraqi military and that the nightmare that the left and the Democrats have been dreading --- defeat of the insurgents and terrorists --- is about to be visited on them? As observed by William Kristol in the Weekly Standard and Michael Barone in the political website Realclearpolitics.com, some recent developments seem to point to a positive turn in the war for the U.S. and the Bush administration....

Few editorials have generated as much heated debate as rapidly as the recent article from Brookings Institution scholars Mike O'Hanlon and Ken Pollock in the New York Times titled "A War We Just Might Win." The piece is the result of their extended visit to Iraq and discussions with military and political leaders there, which have led them to conclude that the Bush surge and some of the associated strategy changes are actually advancing our objectives in Iraq more than many expected or are aware of here in the US, especially in the media. In coverage of the articles and...

Some centrist Democrats say attacks by their party leaders on the Bush administration's eavesdropping on suspected terrorist conversations will further weaken the party's credibility on national security. That concern arises from recent moves by liberal Democrats to block the extension of parts of the USA Patriot Act in the Senate and denunciations of President Bush amid concerns that these initiatives could violate the civil liberties of innocent Americans. "I think when you suggest that civil liberties are just as much at risk today as the country is from terrorism, you've gone too far if you leave that impression. I don't...

"Is There a Santa Claus?" - Editorial Page The New York Sun Francis P. Church, September 21, 1897 We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun: Dear Editor-- "I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. "Papa says, 'If you see it in The Sun, it's so.' "Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?" Virginia O'Hanlon 115 West Ninety-fifth Street Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They...