Lee Hockstader

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Lt. Gen. Andreas Marlow, head of the German Elements MN Corps/Basic Military Organization at Strausberg, speaks next to a Leopard 1A5 main battle tank during a media day of the European Union Military Assistance Mission in support of Ukraine in Klietz, Germany, on Aug. 17. (Annegret Hilse/Reuters)

Europa, , ,

The Biden administration has committed an impressive amount of aid to Ukraine in the 18 months since Russia’s full-scale invasion — roughly $75 billion, not counting the administration’s recent request for an additional $21 billion. That sum is fast approaching more than half of all U.S. assistance to Israel since its founding in 1948. Astonishingly, though, Europe has collectively committed even more to help Ukrainians survive, fight and stave off financial collapse.

That will make sense to many Americans. Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion triggered what is, after all, a European war — the continent’s biggest, bloodiest and most shape-shifting conflict since World War II.…  Seguir leyendo »

A National Guardsman takes part in a training at Mezaine military training ground in Latvia on Sept. 10, 2022. (GINTS IVUSKANS/AFP via Getty Images)

InternacionalOTAN

On the day tens of thousands of Russian soldiers stormed into Ukraine last year, U.S. paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade, kitted out in full battle gear, landed at the airport here in Latvia — a boots-on-the-ground symbol of Washington’s commitment to defend its most vulnerable NATO allies in Europe.

On paper, that commitment has been ironclad since the U.S.-led alliance extended its collective security umbrella guarantee to Latvia and its sister Baltic states, Lithuania and Estonia, almost 20 years ago. In practice, fulfilling that promise would be a nightmare, given the current lack of resources and the rising threat of Russian aggression, which has mounted exponentially.…  Seguir leyendo »

Officers stand guard during riots in Lille, France, on Friday after the death of Nahel, a teenager killed by a French police officer in Nanterre during a traffic stop. (Nacho Doce/Reuters)

EuropaUnión Europea, ,

In the sprawling housing projects that ring many French cities, heavily populated by working-class minorities, the rage is rarely far from the surface. Often, for good reason, it is directed at the police.

That simmering fury erupted in waves of violence in suburbs and cities across France this week after police shot to death a 17-year-old named Nahel M., from a family of North African origin, in a town just west of Paris. Video of the incident, which went viral almost instantly, showed a policeman opening fire as the boy started to pull away from two motorcycle officers who had stopped his car.…  Seguir leyendo »

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman greets French President Emmanuel Macron on June 16 in Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

EuropaUnión EuropeaPolítica Exterior

President Emmanuel Macron stands accused of tyranny by much of the French public, furious that he raised France’s retirement age to 64. It’s a bizarre claim. In fact, Macron did what he promised to do in his reelection campaign last year; he did it by constitutional means; and even under his reform, most French workers remain younger when they qualify for retirement, at full pension, than in other advanced Western countries.

The real problem with Macron’s record, and the main danger for his legacy, is not that he is a closet dictator. It is that he has courted, coddled and kowtowed to actual dictators.…  Seguir leyendo »

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni in Rome on Thursday. (Roberto Monaldo/LaPresse/AP)

EuropaUnión Europea

When she was sworn in last October, one question about Giorgia Meloni — Italy’s first female prime minister and its most right-wing leader since World War II — was: Would she still be in office in time for the panettone?

Defying predictions from (mainly male) pundits, Meloni did remain in power at Christmas, when Italians feast on their traditional fruitcake. And when it came time for colomba, the pastry they prize at Easter, her grip looked even firmer.

Meloni — 46 years old, telegenic, fast on her feet, whip-smart — has been a political operator since her teens. She is in her element working crowds, winning debates and wonking out on policy.…  Seguir leyendo »

Self-service scooters in the middle of the street in Paris on Monday. (Teresa Suarez/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

EuropaUnión Europea,

In “Full Time”, a French movie released this year in the United States, the main character is tormented by paralysis — not her own, but Paris’s. The grand French capital and its much less grand suburbs are gripped by strikes that play havoc with public transit and turn roadways into oceans of idling cars. Julie, the young working mother at the center of the action, sprints through streets, thumbs rides on highways and squeezes into packed buses, but still she is delayed, deflated and defeated. Immobility bears down on her like France’s famous high-speed train, the TGV. (Not that it’s moving, either.)…  Seguir leyendo »

Vladimir Putin, then Russian prime minister, lays a wreath to the Memorial of Soviet soldiers in Vienna on April 25, 2010. (Aleksey Nikolsky/AFP via Getty Images)

Europa

Before he became a pariah in the West, Vladimir Putin made frequent trips through Europe, swanning through London with the queen and grinning with other heads of state and celebrities in the club of democracies he once aspired to join. His travels included frequent pilgrimages to memorials in Central and Eastern Europe glorifying the former Soviet Union’s costly victories in World War II, many of which are now objects of local contempt as Putin prosecutes his war in Ukraine.

The Russian leader was particularly fond of a stone-and-marble behemoth in downtown Vienna, dedicated to the Red Army. It features a solemn colonnade along with a column atop which a Soviet soldier stands cradling a submachine gun — a structure known to generations of Viennese as the “Monument to the Unknown Looter”.…  Seguir leyendo »