Central Asia

The rhetoric coming out of the Republican presidential primary candidates would have you believe that President Barack Obama is actively engaged in a foreign policy whose sole purpose is to weaken America's standing on the global stage.  This is, of course, nonsense.  But it also hides the fact that Obama has been rather consistently engaged in a foreign policy strategy followed by the hero of the Republican Right, Ronald Reagan, who himself was following a policy originally laid down by Pres. Harry S Truman.

It’s winter in Europe, time for snow, St. Nicholas, and the annual Russia-Ukraine dispute over natural gas supplies. On Wednesday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned his counterparts in Ukraine not to try to modify a 10-year gas supply contract between the two countries.