Latest news with #WalterRussellMead
Wall Street Journal
2 days ago
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
Political Realism Requires Transatlantic Ties
Walter Russell Mead's 'Friedrich Merz, Our Man in Berlin' (Global View, July 15) recounts the remarkable way the U.S. learned from its infantile, quixotic and explosively dangerous foreign policy toward Germany after World War I. America realized that global stability was more likely if Washington maintained pragmatic involvement and economic policy that dovetailed with foreign policy—rather than stand-alone or counterproductive economic policy. In the interwar years, the U.S. condoned the German military buildup under warped views of equality between Germany and France, and it enforced German reparations while loaning Germany twice the amount of reparations due—defending each policy in a vacuum. After World War II, America made peace with the idea of U.S. involvement in Europe, and it came to understand the necessity of financial investment in Europe.
Wall Street Journal
04-07-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
What the U.S. Learned From the 12-Day War
In his Weekend Interview with Walter Russell Mead, 'The Strike on Iran Was 'Jacksonian' ' (June 28), Tunku Varadarajan notes that Israel is in many ways America's 'most reliable partner' in global security matters. Mr. Mead refers to the Jewish state as 'a fantastic ally' that spends a greater share of its gross domestic product on defense than does the U.S. In 2021, Ron Dermer, now Israel's minister of strategic affairs, predicted that Jerusalem would become Washington's most important ally. That, he admitted, was a big claim for a country the size of New Jersey. But a hypothetical helped to test it: If the U.S. had to choose only one ally, which would it choose?
Wall Street Journal
15-06-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
Who Are India's True Allies?
Walter Russell Mead asks, 'Will Trump Lose India?' (Global View, June 10). That's a fine question—but how cooperatively has our friend in the Indo-Pacific behaved? I was on the House floor on June 22, 2023, when Prime Minister Modi addressed a joint session of Congress and lauded India as America's strong ally for democracy. Come 2024, however, Mr. Modi was embracing President Putin and Chairman Xi with open arms. India is among the top purchasers of Russian oil, which helps finance Mr. Putin's war against Ukraine. Unless and until that changes, perhaps we should be more concerned with whether Mr. Modi will lose the U.S. Robert Pittenger
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Europe: Show you're serious about Ukraine by tightening sanctions on Russia
As the U.S. tries to make headway on a plan to end the war in Ukraine, European allies are moving to defend the country—and their continent—from Russia in the future. Discussions indicate that a coalition of the willing could provide a 'presence on the ground, in the air, and at sea, as well as air defense.' This support is not set in stone. Right now, however, there's a way Europe can show it's serious: intensify its economic sanctions against Russia. The first step is putting an end to Russian shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG), which have been soaring. Last year, the European Union imported a record 16.5 million metric tons of LNG from Russia. Most of it was destined for one country: Germany. Although Germany ostensibly bans imports of Russian LNG, its national energy company in 2024 bought 58 cargoes of gas through the French port at Dunkirk alone—a sixfold increase over the prior year. Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands are also major depots. The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) reported on April 10 that EU fossil fuel imports from Russia in 2024 totaled $24 billion, a huge boon to Putin's war effort. This reliance must stop. As Walter Russell Mead wrote in the Wall Street Journal shortly before the Oval Office debacle, European countries 'have seized every opportunity to trade with Russia, even when that trade weakened European security and strengthened Moscow.' A new report by CREA found that the EU spent more on oil and gas from Russia last year than it spent on financial aid to Ukraine. Vaibhav Raghunandan, coauthor of the report, said, 'Purchasing Russian fossil fuels is, quite plainly, akin to sending financial aid to the Kremlin and enabling its invasion.' In 2024, oil and gas tax revenues paid for 30% of the Russian government's budget, according to the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. Russia is the No. 2 exporter of LNG to Europe, but the United States is No. 1—and U.S. industry is prepared to pick up the slack when the Europeans finally decide to end their dependence on Russia. The Ukrainian private energy company DTEK last year signed a deal to buy LNG shipped from Louisiana by Venture Global. EU countries should follow this strategy. At the end of 2024, Kyiv finally turned off Russia's gas pipeline gas to Europe with the completion of a decades-old deal that allowed the transit of natural gas produced by Russian energy giant Gazprom through Ukraine. But pipeline gas continues to flow to parts of Europe through Turkey. That loophole needs addressing, too. Energy isn't the only sanctions gap that Europe has to seal. An American Enterprise Institute report by Chris Miller and Caroline Nowak last year concluded that 'Russian mineral and metal export volumes remain largely untouched.' Russia exports of cobalt, lead, titanium, platinum, and gold have all risen since the start of the war. At a Hudson Institute panel discussion in February, Oleksandr Kalenkov, president of Ukraine's trade association for metals, said that Europe is his industry's home market, but 'it is really painful to see that Russian products are still imported by the European Union.' He pointed to EU exemptions for such Russian steel inputs as pig iron and iron ore and to 'high quotas that haven't hurt' Russian exporters of products like slabs that are used to make steel coils and plates. Kalenkov says that European countries are buying about $4 billion worth of Russian metal products a year. Sanctions require a consensus of the EU's 27 countries, and member states like Italy, Belgium, Denmark, and the Czech Republic host Russian factories, such as steel rolling plants, that use Russian metal inputs. 'The Russians are taking hostage the employees of these plants,' says Kalenkov. 'It's a sad situation.' And an utterly unnecessary one. Europeans can force the sale of those Russian plants or get metals from other countries, including Ukraine, which is doubly suffering. First, the Russians have destroyed many of their metal factories, including the 95-year-old Azovstal Iron and Steel Works in Mariupol, one of the largest in Europe; second, the Russians are still selling into European markets with cheaper metals, squeezing out Ukrainian competitors. Evidence is increasing that the Russian economy is faltering. Financial Times commentator Martin Sandbu wrote in January that "Russia's war economy is a house of cards.' Hudson Institute's Peter Rough and Thomas Duesterberg reported, 'While the Kremlin's own figures put countrywide inflation at 9%, interest rates in Russia tell a different story: 21% for private debt, with reports hinting at up to 25% soon.' Russia also has a 'chronic shortage of workers,' writes Olga Chyzh of the University of Toronto in the Guardian, 'thanks to its ageing population and the exodus of some 700,000 working-age individuals at the start of the war.' Europe can't back Ukraine on the one hand and keep sending billions to Russia on the other. The time to end this absurdity is now. The opinions expressed in commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune. This story was originally featured on
