Author: Edward Lozansky

According to many French, both ordinary folks and politicians, their president Macron could think of nothing crazier to divert attention away from farmers’ problems and increase his low 24% rating. The leader of the extreme left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, said so explicitly: “Pitting one nuclear power against another nuclear power is madness.” In turn, Marine Le Pen, who represents extreme right-wing forces, said that Macron is playing with “the lives of our children.”

More influential forces, such as the Socialist Party and conservative Republicans, also condemned “the French president’s muscle play.” Notably, in the run-up to June’s European elections, Macron’s centrist liberal party is significantly behind the left and right parties in the polls.

Continue reading “Macron Plans a Crusade”

For the record, I knew Simon Wiesenthal well, he was an honorary member of the Board of my non-profit Andrei Sakharov Institute, and I am a contributor to his anti-Nazi Simon Wiesenthal Center. Occasionally, I contribute to some other charities, including the Holocaust memorial in DC.

The reason I mentioned the American Jewish Committee in the headline is that I keep getting numerous Dear Edward letters from AJC about their activities and requests for contributions.

Continue reading “War in Ukraine, Neo-Nazis, and the American Jewish Committee”

During the Cold War there were similar dangerous moments, but John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, as well as Ronald Reagan and Michael Gorbachev, managed to avoid the worst-case scenario. George H.W. Bush talked in 1990 about a “Europe whole and free” and a new “security architecture from Vancouver to Vladivostok,” while Boris Yeltsin, during his 1992 address to the joint chambers of Congress, exclaimed, “God bless America.”

So, what went wrong? Why are we talking about nuclear war again? According to Washington, Putin and his desire to restore the Soviet empire are to blame. Moscow points the finger back at Washington for its vision of a unipolar world order under the U.S. hegemony.

Below is my brief take, which I would be happy to debate with those who see it differently. Perhaps during such exchanges, we could come up with some ideas for avoiding our mutual extinction.

Continue reading “How Bill Clinton Looted Russia and Started NATO Expansion”

The phrase “The Emperor has no clothes” belongs to the folktale written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, but variations of it have been adopted for use in many countries around the world. I’d leave it to economic, financial, and military experts to analyze what is going on in their respective fields, but when it comes to democracy and values, I have a feeling that this fairytale has become reality right here in the US.

These two words – “democracy” and “values” — which have been repeated non-stop by politicians and the media, are practically devalued. Politics in general is a cynical enterprise but nowadays when we have a deeply polarized society, when the majority on both sides believes that the government is taking the country in the wrong direction, hearing the repetitive messaging of the superiority of US democracy and values is pretty pathetic.

Continue reading “Edward Lozansky on The Other America”

At this moment, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Doomsday Clock now stands at only 90 seconds before midnight. Thus, as we move closer and closer to a nuclear World War 3, why not identify the major steps that took us to this dangerously slippery road? Who knows, perhaps this exercise could help to bring some perspective to those who are pushing us into oblivion. They have families and children too. Sometimes even the greatest villains have the moment of repentance.

Here is my take of the ten such major events in the chronological order and those responsible for them: 

1. 1998 – Beginning of NATO expansion – Bill Clinton

Many prominent former US government officials, members of Congress, diplomats, and foreign policy experts have objected to this expansion. “We’ll be back on a hair-trigger,” said Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a New York Democrat, during the debates in the Senate. Moynihan continued: “We’re talking about nuclear war. It is a curiously ironic outcome that at the end of the Cold War we might face a nuclear Armageddon.”

Continue reading “10 Steps to the Edge of the Abyss”

We hold in our hands vast power to both create and destroy, the likes of which have never been seen in history.

The nuclear age inaugurated by U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 almost reached its deadly culmination in October 1962, but Kennedy and Khrushchev prevailed over the militarists in both camps and found a diplomatic solution. Mature statecraft led to an agreement to respect each other’s security interests. Russia removed its nuclear weapons from Cuba, and the USA followed suit by removing its Jupiter nuclear missiles from Turkey and Italy soon thereafter while promising not to invade Cuba.

Kennedy created several precedents for future leaders to learn from, starting with his Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963, his plans to halt the US invasion of Vietnam, his vision for a U.S.-Soviet joint space program, and his dream of ending the Cold War.

Continue reading “Humanity at a Crossroads: Cooperation or Extinction”