PATRICK LAWRENCE: Desperation Row
Reflecting Volodymyr Zelensky’s confidence that the Trumpster would oblige him, he, Zelensky, actually visited Raytheon, the Tomahawk’s maker, before his session at the White House. What a big game Volodymyr Zelensky talked before his latest little while in the Oval…
Patrick Lawrence: That Big, Beautiful Summit in Alaska
No, the Trump–Putin summit at a joint-forces military base in Anchorage last Friday did not produce an agreement on a ceasefire in Ukraine. President Trump made no reference to “severe consequences” if Vladimir Putin did not consent to such an…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Trump Dead-Ends Putin
For a good long time what’s been happening in Ukraine is nothing more than postwar gore. If you have lost a war but cannot admit it, you are playing the old game of pretend. Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: For Whom the Drones Buzz
If military drones are “revolutionizing” instruments, then wherever we are, we are in a field of battle. Those drone attacks on five Russian airfields last week were nothing if not daring. No final report from Moscow yet, but three figures’ worth of Ukrainian…
Patrick Lawrence: War in Our Time
BERLIN—Friedrich Merz has been in office as Germany’s new chancellor a matter of weeks, and already he has the German capital aflutter with worry about the increasing danger of a third world war. More to the point, while Germans are…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Diplomatic Chess, Ukraine the Pawn
In Istanbul, a door was pried open after a soap opera’s worth of chicanery in London, Paris, Berlin and Kiev. Now the question is what Trump can do to address Russia’s concerns. As was universally expected, little came out of Istanbul…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Chihuahuas, Not Dobermans
Trump’s determination to end the Ukraine war has forced the Europeans, at last, to go their own way. And they charge in precisely the wrong direction. I have never been much for schadenfreude: It is always best to occupy one’s mind with worthier…
Patrick Lawrence: What Odds, as Trump Takes on the Deep State?
This is the second of two essays considering President Trump’s unfolding offensive against the institutions and agencies comprising the deep state — the permanent state or the invisible government, as it is also commonly known. The first in this series…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Trump 2.0 Crosses the Atlantic
Whatever the future may hold — and seldom does it present such promise and peril as now — Trump and his national-security team set a lot of wheels in motion last week. Eight years ago, at precisely this moment in…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Trump & the Russophobes
The extent to which Trump’s démarche toward Moscow succeeds will be the extent to which the U.S. can transcend a long, regrettable history and finally embrace the 21st century. There is no saying yet whether Donald Trump will succeed in…