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mhikaric.bsky.social
IR, national security, economic policy, and Caucasus/Black Sea. Current: Georgetown SSP, UPenn Fels. Previous: Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Congressional Research Service, DOD. RT≠E. Views my own.
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I'm living in a city that was brutally bombed for years, and I mean YEARS, every day from just across the border while we were denied the ability to return fire to defend ourselves. We're still bombed, but it's not nearly as intense as when russian missile launchers and

submitted 3 hours ago • 14 comments

This is a wonderful way to boost starlink alternatives, scuttle any appetite for a resource deal, and blow apart the political capital being invested on quixotic bilateral negotiations with a warmongering adversary

submitted 12 hours ago • 0 comments

Steve Bannon whipped up the CPAC crowd by talking about the possibility of Trump staying in office for a third term—and concluded his speech by giving a provocative gesture that resembled the controversial salute Elon Musk gave at a post-inauguration rally last month.

submitted 2 days ago • 1947 comments

⚡️🇩🇪🇺🇸 German Foreign Minister Baerbock threatens the U.S. with a severing of ties over Trump’s remarks on Zelensky and Ukraine. "We will increase pressure on the Americans to make them realize they have a lot to lose if they stop supporting Europe's liberal democracies," Baerbock stated.

submitted 1 day ago • 87 comments

A sober and depressing discussion of where Higher Ed seems to be going from Paul Musgrave. musgrave.substack.com/p/the-end-of...

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

FOLLOWUP: SECDEF Hegseth also firing the CNO, the USAF Vice-Chief, and somewhat unusually and ominously to do in the same breath, the senior JAGs of the Army, Navy, and USAF

submitted 1 day ago • 98 comments

I'm partial to the Matrix theory - 1999 was the height of human civilization. Runner up - Marty McFly tripped into a wood chipper and failed to fix the timeline

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

There's this crazy idea that Ukraine doesn't have agency or options. It's the premier land power in Europe right now, and has ruined the Russian military to the point of exhaustion. They will not just lay down and die because someone told them to.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

I rewatched the Band of Brothers episode, "Why We Fight" today. It’s a stark reminder of what happens when fascism goes unchecked. Every call, email, and protest eats away at this technofascist cancer. With each act, we inch closer toward a future that can surpass even the many flaws of our past.

submitted 1 day ago • 7 comments

Ukraine is the largest and most battle hardened land power in Europe.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

submitted 1 day ago • 671 comments

China came out in support of US President Donald Trump's bid to strike a deal with Russia to end the war in Ukraine, at a G20 meeting in South Africa, while US allies rallied around Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy reut.rs/4kaKS0c

submitted 1 day ago • 38 comments

New fork plan just dropped www.ajc.com/news/busines...

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Constantin Brancusi, iconic modern sculptor born on this day in 1876, with his beloved canine companion Polaire

submitted 3 days ago • 3 comments

Recent footage of Lukashenka reacting to Riyadh

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

russian occupation is not peace, it is a death camp. #Izium

submitted 4 days ago • 5 comments

No one better than the @nytimes.com to turn the idea of an aggressive, illegal land grab into a story about the US domestic electoral horse race. Completely embarrassing journalism.

submitted 5 days ago • 31 comments

If you wanted to cut waste, fraud, and abuse, you would empower the inspectors general. If you wanted more waste, fraud, and abuse, you would fire them.

submitted 5 days ago • 2289 comments

@juliusgoat.bsky.social

submitted 5 days ago • 728 comments

Tbilisi tightens its grip on #GeorgiaProtests, steering the country toward an authoritarian model like Azerbaijan. Armenia remains one of the few regional allies engaging with its embattled leadership. More in my latest column: evnreport.com/columns/geor...

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

The Trump administration has started firing hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration probationary employees who maintain critical air traffic control infrastructure, according to their union. cnn.it/42Ymbxy

submitted 5 days ago • 148 comments

This is the Washington Post guys thehill.com/media/514849...

submitted 5 days ago • 2 comments

Sorry folks I tried this for scrambled eggs and it was disgusting. Zero stars

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

The measles outbreak in Texas is reminding me of the public letter Roald Dahl wrote about losing his daughter to measles in 1962, just before the vaccine was publicly available.

submitted 7 days ago • 410 comments

Something the US has a very hard time understanding is other countries have agency and that major powers can be quite constrained. Pre-modern power politics was not stronger powers getting everything they wanted, but powers contesting other powers—and the industrialized mass warfare it produced.

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Can you show up to DOGE claiming to be from DOGE

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Refilling their strategic political prisoner reserves

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Allegory alert!

submitted 8 days ago • 224 comments

Not sure how I feel about this

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

🧵1/6 Europe won't survive sleeping through another wake-up call. We should jump out of bed and throw on a shirt. We should do what we can, with what we’ve got. And we’ve got a lot. Here's how to step things up as the US steps down:

submitted 9 days ago • 77 comments

looking back, AOL had it right. 30 hours of internet per month was the right amount.

submitted 9 days ago • 212 comments

True story: when my older boys were little, they both got whooping cough even though they were vaccinated. It was bad. We asked the pediatrician what would’ve happened if they hadn’t been vaccinated. They would’ve died, he said. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

submitted 9 days ago • 226 comments

Learning from the Past, Wrong Answers Only

submitted 9 days ago • 3 comments

If this is really the new policy position, it is a stunning self-imposed abdication of US influence and strategic interests.

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

BREAKING On Monday, Popular Information broke the news that the NIH had frozen virtually all grant funding in violation of 2 federal court orders On Wednesday, NIH leadership distributed a memo, acknowledging that its funding freeze was illegal and directing staff to resume issuing grants.

submitted 10 days ago • 373 comments

submitted 11 days ago • 3 comments

With the CPI creeping up, an addiction to tariffs and trade wars, and a hawkish Fed, I fear stagflation is coming www.cnbc.com/2025/02/12/c...

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

US aid freeze claims first victims as oxygen supplies cut off Seventy-one-year-old woman dies after being sent home from USAID funded hospital. Others die after hospitals close in refugee camps www.telegraph.co.uk/global-healt...

submitted 11 days ago • 381 comments

Just got a tip from a guy at the FAA. You'll never believe who is still getting new government contracts while all the contracts at the Department of Education and USAID and other agencies are being nuked from orbit.

submitted 11 days ago • 672 comments

While meeting with the King of Jordan and a visibly uncomfortable Rubio today, Trump now changes his position from yesterday and says the US is not going to buy Gaza, we are just going to take it: “We’re gonna take it, we’re gonna hold it, we’re gonna cherish it.”

submitted 11 days ago • 1433 comments