Anatol Lieven: Freeze NATO expansion now or risk war (VIDEO) | Responsible Statecraft

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Analysis | Europe

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The Russians want NATO to close its doors to Ukraine and all further expansion into Eastern Europe — this is the red line Moscow as declared. Quincy Institute senior fellow Anatol Lieven talks here about why the U.S. and NATO must decide whether denying Russia is worth the bloody conflict that it might cause. He also talks about the imperative of revisiting the Minsk II agreement, resolving the Donbas dispute, and Ukraine neutrality as a longterm solution.

He also explains why he believes negotiations should take place between the U.S. and Russia only, how Europe is divided, and the consequences of U.S. military intervention (directly or indirectly) in anticipation of, or after a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Analysis | Europe

Trump will be sore when Cuba domino refuses to fall

Top photo credit: President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at White House meeting oof oil executives in wake of the Venezuela invasion Jan. 9, 2026 (Reuters/Evelyn Hockstein); A man carries a photo of Fidel Castro in Revolution Square , Havana, the day after his death in 2016 (Shutterstock/Yandry_kw)

Trump will be sore when Cuba domino refuses to fall

Of the 100 or more people killed in the U.S. military operation that abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, 32 were Cuban security officers, most of them part of Maduro’s personal security detail who died “in direct combat against the attackers,” according to Havana.

How did Cubans come to be the Praetorian Guard for Venezuela’s president, and what does the decapitation of the Venezuelan government mean for Cuba?

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Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman

Top photo credit: UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan receives Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the Presidential Airport in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates November 27, 2019. WAM/Handout via REUTERS

Is the Saudi-UAE rivalry heading for more violence?

On January 7, Saudi-backed forces established control over much of the former South Yemen, including Aden, its capital, reversing gains made by the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) in early December.

Meanwhile, the head of the STC, Aidarous al-Zubaidi, failed to board a flight to Riyadh for a meeting with other separatists: he seems to have fled to Somaliland and then to Abu Dhabi. The STC is a secessionist movement pushing for the former South Yemen to regain independence. The latest turn of events marks a major setback to the UAE’s regional ambitions.

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Monroe Doctrine

Top photo credit: Political cartoon depicting Uncle Sam as a large rooster protecting smaller roosters—Latin American countries—and Europe “cooped up” by the Monroe Doctrine. Library of Congress, Artist J.S. Pugh 1901

Nostalgia isn't strategy: Stop the Monroe revisionism and listen

“[T]herefore you may rest assured that if the Nicaraguan activities were brought to light, they would furnish one of the largest scandals in the history of the country.”

Such was the concluding line of a letter from Marine Corps Sergeant Harry Boyle to Idaho Senator William Borah on April 23, 1930. Boyle’s warning was not merely an artifact of a bygone intervention, but a caution against imperial hubris — one newly relevant in the wake of “Operation Absolute Resolve" in Venezuela.

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