India - 2024 National Elections
"Inside the Issues" host Amrit Singh is joined by Markos Kounalakis, visiting fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, who discusses the largest democratic election on Earth taking place in India this week.
Ukraine War commentary on Spectrum News
Ukraine War Analysis on Spectrum News
“Inside the Issues” host Amrit Singh was joined by Markos Kounalakis, a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, to discuss the latest on the war in Ukraine. On Spectrum News 1, December 13, 2023.
Spectrum News' Renee Eng speaks with Markos Kounalakis, visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, to discuss the ongoing war in Ukraine. Live on Spectrum on November 7, 2023.
In fight for Libya, Russia and Turkey keep a 19th-century war on the front burner
Russia and Turkey just escalated their two-front war over which country will be the big dog in the Middle East. The two rivals have been at this game for a couple of centuries, but it just got a lot more serious this week when Russia introduced jet fighters into the Libyan civil war.
Coronavirus may have shut down Texas beauty parlors and Louisiana bars, stopped international travel and cleared streets across the globe, but hasn’t brought war to a halt. Rather, Russia and Turkey are in the midst of a multifront proxy escalation in both Libya and Syria.
Russians have long memories. They recall when Imperial Russia fought Ottoman Turkey in the bloody Crimean War. Ottoman Muslim forces fought Christian Tsarist troops on the Black Sea peninsula, where more fighters fell to the Asiatic cholera epidemic than on the battlefield.
Turkey won. Russia today, however, once again occupies Crimea. The 19th-century Crimean War was the crucible in which were forged Russo-Turkish antagonisms and their 21st-century imperial dreams. READ MORE
Trump has traded American values, interests and dignity for the false promise of Putin’s friendship
Donald Trump is likely to go down as the president who lost Russia. Not for lack of trying to make good with Moscow. In fact, it is because he has tried so hard to make it right and to pursue a personal and respectful relationship with Vladimir Putin that his ability to make any meaningful deals with Russia is doomed.
The result is an American foreign policy that is stuck with a confrontational posture and caught in a tit-for-tat policy trap preventing the pursuit of real U.S. interests with Russia. The reason is an underlying popular belief that President Trump has been incapable, at best, and, at worst, actively curried personal and political favor from Moscow over the years — regardless of what the Mueller report says or how it is interpreted.
From his 2016 campaign fumbles to his presidential summit stumbles, Trump has made an unending string of unforced errors that have caused Americans to question his motivations. That perception and reality actively limit his latitude for dealing with Russia. READ MORE
Venezuelans will have to fight for their democracy. Trump can’t, and won’t, do it for them
American presidents — and all political leaders — inevitably face trade-offs between conflicting priorities. In Venezuela, President Trump is stuck between a policy rock and a preference hard place, caught between a democratic and humanitarian demand to side with the Venezuelan people and the tough reality that there is very little he can — or really wants — to do.
Trump’s declared “sovereignty doctrine” is now in direct conflict with his desired petro-policy and the reinvigoration of the Monroe Doctrine — and it is all playing out in the streets of Caracas.
The losers? Invariably the good people of Venezuela. They are victims of “President” Nicholás Maduro and his regime’s continual and cynically systemic use of food and energy resources to keep political friends and allies happy while shunting and starving his opponents. Millions have chosen to leave and live in exile as refugees, while others head to the Venezuelan streets to topple Maduro. They bear the brunt of simmering tensions and escalating violence. READ MORE
Trump’s foreign policy is pushing allies into China and Russia’s waiting arms
Nuclear tensions on the Korean Peninsula have diminished since last summer’s Singapore summit between President Trump and North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. In the run-up to this month’s Vietnam summit, Trump is acutely aware that a potential landmark deal on Kim’s complete, verifiable and permanent denuclearization would be a significant foreign policy win for him, the region and the world.
Unfortunately, that potential deal is where Trump’s foreign policy successes both start and end.
By any other measure, the president’s aggressive pursuit of nativist policies has weakened America’s global leverage, given its adversaries strategic openings and made the world a little less safe for democracy and human rights. In normal times, this would be seen as a failure of leadership and a threat to America’s fundamental values, global stature and international dominance.
These are not, however, normal times. READ MORE