Harlan K. Ullman
The Hill
Washington, DC, United States
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Past articles by Harlan:
Is Turkey the new geostrategic center of gravity?
While Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is prickly, failing to agree to the new entrants would strike a devastating blow to NATO. → Read More
Did NATO cause the war in Ukraine?
When America intervened in Afghanistan in late 2001, Putin was irritated because the Bush team rejected Russian advice based on its decade-long failure in that country. → Read More
Let’s Hyperventilate over the Right Issue
Too often, American public opinion operates as if it were a school of fish. Even the slightest disturbance in the water can impel the school to change course instantly and en masse as if it were a practised drill team. Elevating China and Russia from competitors to adversaries is a case in point by exaggerating […] → Read More
Why do we Never seem to Learn?
With the withdrawal from Afghanistan complete and the agreement to end “combat” missions in Iraq before the new year, the question of why the US never seems to learn from its past is so obvious and trenchant that it is unlikely to be fully answered. And the question applies more broadly across the US, domestically […] → Read More
The Rocket Man
If you want to go to space, call the Russians, Chinese or the Indians. Anyone but the US government as it is out of that business. Or, instead, call one of the three Rocket Men who can actually deliver. And Little Rocket Man, North Korea’s Kim Jung Un, is not one of them. Three multi-multi-billionaires, […] → Read More
Why were small pox and polio easily beaten and not Covid?
Why was the United States able to conquer the polio virus beginning in the late 1940’s, vaccinat- ing over 90% of all American children and in a month vaccinate virtually all New Yorkers against a return of smallpox in May 1947 when today we are hard pressed to inoculate even half of all Americans against […] → Read More
What Covid?
Bucharest, Romania: Interestingly, the last trip I made in late February 2020 was to Bucharest just before Covid-19 shut everything down. Now, some sixteen months later, the first trip I made post-pandemic was to Bucharest. And here, as in much of America, there are few signs of Covid. For the time being, cases and deaths […] → Read More
Is the US irrational?
Russia and China, as well as some of America’s closest allies, are questioning the rationality of the country’s politics. Not only that, Moscow and Beijing view the US as a nation in decline. Indeed, they point to the January 6 riots on Capitol Hill as the final proof. And who can blame them? For when […] → Read More
‘She reminds me of my mother’
Unlike his predecessor’s first trip to Europe, thus far, President Joe Biden’s performance and preparation deserve a gold star. Of course, the main event is the sit-down with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which was just getting underway at the time of writing. But, as this column has observed, as long as that meeting does not […] → Read More
Joe versus Vlad
Later this week, US President Joe Biden will make his first international trip. Unlike Donald Trump whose first trip was to Saudi Arabia, Biden will see America’s closest allies first before heading to Geneva to confront or cajole Vladimir Putin on Russia’s relationships with the US and NATO. After the G-7 summit in Cornwall in […] → Read More
Salmaan Taseer — a great man and friend
It was an honour and privilege to consider the late Salmaan Taseer a very close friend. He was an extraordinary person. A successful businessman and politician, Salmaan possessed extraordinary intellect; an abundance of courage; an exceptional sense of decency; a dry and rapier sharp wit; with no tolerance for the substandard whether in government or […] → Read More
Common sense, RIP!
“To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavouring to convert an atheist by scripture” — Thomas Paine, The American Crisis ‘Common Sense” might only be 48-pages long but remains one of […] → Read More
Russia ain’t ten feet tall!
May 8 commemorates Victory in Europe Day. That is, the surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945 to the Allies which brought World War II to a formal end. On its ashes came the Cold War and NATO, which started off as a collective defence mechanism for western Europe. It is now seventy-six years later and […] → Read More
‘Failings of Leadership’
At his Senate confirmation hearing to become the 77th Secretary of the Navy, retired Rear Admiral and Ambassador to Norway Kenneth Braithwaite would have made John McCain proud with some “straight talk.” The Ambassador was blunt: “It saddens me to say: the Department of the Navy is in troubled waters due to many factors, primarily the failings of leadership.”1 Ambassador Braithwaite then… → Read More
Prime Minister Trump
In Nevada or something more serious. Given the performance of the contenders, the clear winner was Donald Trump. However, a so far invisible → Read More
The stupid gene
In Anatomy of Failure: Why America Loses Every War It Starts, one of the endemic causes of failure was due to the acute lack of knowledge → Read More
A frightening new face of old war?
Make no mistake: the attacks against Saudi oil facilities last Saturday were impressive by any standard. While countries with advanced weapons could have imposed as much damage, attacking without absolute attribution is a far more difficult and higher bar of operational prowess. But regardless of attribution, these strikes are especially worrying well beyond whether or … → Read More
Call sign chaos: leading from the front
Former U.S. Defense Secretary, retired Marine General James Mattis, with Francis (“Bing”) West, authored a remarkable book on leadership applicable well beyond the frontiers of military service. Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead is a modern day equivalent of Marcus Aurelius’ Emperor’s Handbook. CHAOS, Mattis’ Marine Corps call sign, arose from an irreverent compliment for … → Read More
Brexit: don't forget, people change their minds
Eighteen years have elapsed since the attacks of September 11th. The impact on America and well beyond the Middle East and Persian Gulf has been profound. Great Britain now is experiencing a tectonic unraveling in the form BREXIT that could have equally far reaching effects for Europe and the Atlantic Alliance as September 11th had … → Read More
The greatest threat to us: us
Geese fly in V-formations. At the apex is a leader. Without a leader, geese would become a disorderly gaggle. This analogy applies to the international order. After World War I, no international leader emerged. America became isolationist. Britain and France were bled white by the war. Germany lay in ruins with her future prospects crippled … → Read More