The Trump administration has watered down U.S. global leadership to coercive deal-making. The dangerous contours of a world in crisis are now coming into stark relief.

  UPDATED WASHINGTON: US commercial satellite sales to AsiaSat, and the company’s leasing of communications bandwidth to China, are not threats to US national security, say experts — contrary to charges by Republican Senators Charles Grassley and Joni Ernst. Instead, US export control law very deliberately has been crafted to encourage such sales in a… Keep reading →

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wants to establish a 20-country coalition to protect commercial shipping in the Middle East. But the US already leads a 33-country coalition doing just that.

A day after two commercial tankers are hit in the Gulf of Oman, reports emerge the Houthis are firing — and hitting — US aircraft.

As troops and hardware are on the move in the Gulf, diplomats signal that no one is eager for war.

“For far too long, Russia has violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with impunity,” a statement from the White House said. Moscow has refused to admit that it has for years been “covertly developing and fielding a prohibited missile system that poses a direct threat to our allies and troops abroad.”

WASHINGTON: After two years of reassuring US allies that Donald Trump’s America would not abandon them, Jim Mattis finally had enough. Even before Trump was sworn in as president, the announcement that he would pick Mattis as his Secretary of Defense was met with delighted relief “from the right, from the left, and from overseas.”… Keep reading →

After five years of talks and a wall of Russian denials, NATO and Washington call Putin’s bluff and say they’re ready to do something about Russian violations of a 31 year-old arms control treaty. But Europe is worried.

CAPITOL HILL: Defense Secretary James Mattis fired off a new letter to House Armed Services leadership on Tuesday, asking lawmakers again to vote in favor of waivers for certain countries Washington is trying to sway into its orbit, but who continue to do business with Russian defense firms. The letter was delivered to HASC chairman Rep.… Keep reading →

The relationship between India and the U.S. is one both sides want to nurture, but Russian military sales, the demands both sides are making over production, and and other tough issues remain to be ironed out.