Articles by Ben Wolfgang
Just 24 hours after a last-minute deal stopped a looming government assault on the Syrian rebel stronghold of Idlib, the inadvertent downing of a Russian reconnaissance plane over the Mediterranean Sea provided a stark illustration of how difficult it will be to forge a lasting peace deal, as Russia and Israel traded blame for the incident and the deaths of all 15 crew members on board.
Published
September 18, 2018
Shares Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that he had struck a deal with Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan to table a planned offensive against the Syrian rebel stronghold of Idlib, a last-minute agreement that led all sides of the 7-year-old conflict to breathe a sigh of relief despite a host of unanswered questions about whether the so-called demilitarized zone will hold.
Published
September 17, 2018
Shares With Bashar Assad and his Russian allies on the verge of victory in Syria's civil war, the Trump administration is facing new pressure to respond forcefully and prevent a bloodbath of historic proportions -- but analysts say the U.S. has virtually no good options, as seven years of muddy American policy toward Syria has left Moscow holding all the cards.
Published
September 16, 2018
Shares In a blistering takedown of U.S. policy toward Syria, Rep. Adam Kinzinger on Thursday said "it's time to act" in the war-torn nation as dictator Bashar Assad's forces prepare to launch an assault on Idlib that many fear could one of the bloodiest campaigns in the ongoing war.
Published
September 14, 2018
Shares The Trump administration on Wednesday said it was sticking with Saudi Arabia and its allies, telling Congress that they are doing all they can to avoid civilian casualties in Yemen's bloody civil war.
Published
September 12, 2018
Shares Top Trump administration officials on Wednesday came to the defense of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, arguing that the two nations are doing their best to reduce civilian casualties in the bloody, three-year-old conflict in Yemen.
Published
September 12, 2018
Shares The U.S. military will move ahead with all future military exercises on the Korean Peninsula, Defense Secretary James N. Mattis said Tuesday, suggesting that America's brief suspension of the drills as a show of "good faith" toward North Korea has not paid dividends in the struggling denuclearization talks with Pyongyang.
Published
August 28, 2018
Shares Defense Secretary James N. Mattis said Tuesday the U.S. is in close consultation with Russia in the hopes of preventing a looming chemical weapons attack in Idlib, Syria -- an attack that could lead to new American military strikes against Syrian dictator Bashar Assad's government and surely would add a new spark to an already volatile situation on the ground.
Published
August 28, 2018
Shares Russia on Monday officially called off a major peace conference on Afghanistan scheduled for next week after both the U.S. and Afghan governments said they wouldn't attend, leaving the Taliban as the only key player left on the guest list.
Published
August 27, 2018
Shares The Trump administration's decision late last week to cancel another round of in-person talks with North Korea was met with harsh reaction over the weekend, with a state-run newspaper in Pyongyang accusing the U.S. of "hatching a criminal plot" against the reclusive country and Chinese officials blasting the White House as "irresponsible."
Published
August 26, 2018
Shares The unlikely marriage between the U.S. military and one of the nation's most offbeat, liberal enclaves officially kicked off Friday with the opening the Army Futures Command in the heart of downtown Austin.
Published
August 24, 2018
Shares Led by President Trump, critics have zeroed in on the proliferation of security clearances and cast them as "golden tickets" to high-paying jobs and positions of power and influence.
Published
August 23, 2018
Shares South Africa faces potential economic calamity if it moves ahead with the seizure of largely white-owned farmland, analysts warned this week, as global investors reacted to a plan that government leaders say is necessary to correct decades-old wrongs of apartheid that left deep, systemic wealth inequalities and land ownership disparities along racial lines.
Published
August 22, 2018
Shares President Trump relies on the mere mention of troop withdrawal as a negotiating tool with defense officials, continually forcing them to justify troop deployments anywhere in the world, experts say.
Published
August 20, 2018
Shares A U.S. helicopter crashed in Iraq on Monday morning, killing one and injuring at least three others, American officials said in a statement, marking the second fatal crash so far this year.
Published
August 20, 2018
Shares China's military is "likely training for strikes" against U.S. targets in the Pacific, the Defense Department warned Thursday in a sobering report that says Beijing's broader strategy is to develop armed forces capabilities able to "degrade" American advantages.
Published
August 17, 2018
Shares President Trump has nominated a top aide to Defense Secretary James Mattis to serve as the next head of U.S. Southern Command.
Published
August 16, 2018
Shares President Trump's military parade could cost as much as $92 million, U.S. officials said Thursday, putting a massive price tag on the Veterans Day event that originally was estimated to run no more than $30 million.
Published
August 16, 2018
Shares The U.S. military will help provide security later this year for a key G-20 summit in Argentina, Defense Secretary James N. Mattis said Wednesday, casting the gathering as a key example of deepening ties between the two nations.
Published
August 16, 2018
Shares Osama Bin Laden has been dead for years and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's "caliphate" in the Middle East has crumbled, but the global jihadist threat continues to boil as extremists retreat underground to plot terror strikes around the world.
Published
August 14, 2018
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