What Will a Desperate Putin Do?

On the menu today: CIA director William Burns tells Georgia Tech students that, "given the potential desperation of President Putin and the Russian leadership, given the setbacks that they've faced so far militarily, none of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low-yield nuclear weapons." The West faces a catch-22: The better the Ukrainian forces perform, the more desperate Putin gets, with the May 9 "Victory Day" celebrations looming as a psychological deadline for his regime. Meanwhile, there's a stark contrast between how Republicans talk about inflation and how Democrats talk about it — when Democrats are willing to talk about it at all.

Assessing the Nuclear Threat

We're now coming up on two months of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and by a lot of measures, Ukraine appears to be winning. Kyiv and most major cities remain in Ukrainian hands, and the Russian military's attempt to conquer Kyiv appears to have been repelled, at least for now.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is still alive, still giving orders, and still asking the world for more help. The key port city of ... READ MORE

A magisterial intellectual history of American conservatism

A sweeping account of how conservatism began as networks of intellectuals, developing and institutionalizing a vision that grew over time, until they began to buckle under new pressures. The Right is essential reading for anyone looking to understand American conservatism.

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