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Matlock on escalating war: 'It’s hard to see how we get out of this'

The former American ambassador spoke at a recent retrospective on the Cuban Missile Crisis and lamented the lessons lost.

Europe

Jack Matlock Jr., who was a young U.S. foreign service officer stationed in Moscow during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and then ambassador there 20 years later under the Reagan Administration, joined a seasoned panel of national security specialists, scholars, and journalists last week to discuss Oct. 27, 1962 — the most militarily fraught day of the crisis before back channel talks between Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and U.S. President John F. Kennedy produced an agreement and averted nuclear war.

Matlock, who has been quite vocal about the diplomatic mistakes made by the U.S. after the fall of the Soviet Union — including NATO expansion — said he was worried that events today in Ukraine have gone well beyond control, with both sides raising the specter of nuclear war again, but this time with no talking. "It’s hard to see how we get out of this,” he said, shaking his head.

He was joined for the event (co-sponsored by the American Committee for U.S.-Russia Accord and the Quincy Institute) by moderator Katrina vanden Heuvel (ACURA/The Nation), Svetlana Savranskaya (National Security Archive, George Washington University), and Tom Blanton (director, National Security Archive).

Blanton, who has done extensive research into declassified materials relating to the Cuban Missile Crisis timeline, warned that like 1962, “events are in the saddle and riding mankind. The lessons are that nukes are a fundamentally destabilizing dark alley where none of us should go.” 

Please listen to the entire event, here (opening remarks by me):


60th Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis event, Tabard Inn, Washington, on Oct. 27, 2022. From left, Svetlana Savranskaya, Katrina vanden Heuvel, and Jack Matlock Jr. (Photo by Khody Akhavi)
Europe
Mark Levin
Top photo credit: Erick Stakelbeck on TBN/Screengrab

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Mark Levin appears to be having a meltdown.

The veteran neoconservative talk host is repulsed by reports that President Donald Trump might be inching closer to an Iranian nuclear deal, reducing the likelihood of war. In addition to his rants on how this would hurt Israel, Levin has been howling to anyone who will listen that any deal with Iran needs approval from Congress (funny he doesn’t have the same attitude for waging war, only for making peace).

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Congress is on track to finish work on the fiscal year 2025 Pentagon budget this week, and odds are that it will add $150 billion to its funding for the next few years beyond what the department even asked for. Meanwhile, President Trump has announced a goal of over $1 trillion for the Pentagon for fiscal year 2026.

With these immense sums flying out the door, it’s a good time to take a critical look at the Pentagon budget, from the rationales given to justify near record levels of spending to the impact of that spending in the real world. Here are five things you should know about the Pentagon budget and the military-industrial complex that keeps the churn going.

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Will Sudan attack the UAE?

Africa

Recent weeks events have dramatically cast the Sudanese civil war back into the international spotlight, drawing renewed scrutiny to the role of external actors, particularly the United Arab Emirates.

This shift has been driven by Sudan's accusations at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against the UAE concerning violations of the Genocide Convention, alongside drone strikes on Port Sudan that Khartoum vociferously attributes to direct Emirati participation. Concurrently, Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly reaffirmed the UAE's deep entanglement in the conflict at a Senate hearing last week.

From Washington, another significant and sudden development also surfaced last week: the imposition of U.S. sanctions on the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) for alleged chemical weapons use. This dramatic accusation was met by an immediate denial from Sudan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which vehemently dismissed the claims as "unfounded" and criticized the U.S. for bypassing the proper international mechanisms, specifically the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, despite Sudan's active membership on its Executive Council.

Despite the gravity of such an accusation, corroboration for the use of chemical agents in Sudan’s war remains conspicuously absent from public debate or reporting, save for a January 2025 New York Times article citing unnamed U.S. officials. That report itself contained a curious disclaimer: "Officials briefed on the intelligence said the information did not come from the United Arab Emirates, an American ally that is also a staunch supporter of the R.S.F."

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