Marc Champion

Trump Doesn’t Understand His Enemy. That Gives Iran an Edge. Iran’s appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei as supreme leader has been likely since the day US-Israeli air strikes “martyred” his father. It became inevitable the moment Donald Trump said he’d be an “unacc...

Trump knows the power of leverage, but not of asymmetry, which is the strength of weaker parties like Iran or Ukraine. He needs to learn fast. My column for Bloomberg Opinion

www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Iran Could Be a ‘Forever War’ If the Kurds Join the Fight You can’t accuse the US of mission creep one week into a war, especially when the initial goals for Operation Epic Fury were so broadly defined as to be unknowable. But taking President Donald Trump’s...

Kurdish fighters could enter Iran as the US/Israeli air attack's missing ground force. Sounds logical but it's reckless. Think Libya, think previous US use and abandonment of the Kurds.
www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Trump’s Ambitions for Iran Are Now Clear: He Wants Everything US President Donald Trump never did explain to Congress or anyone else what his justifications and goals would be for attacking Iran. Now, with “Operation Epic Fury” underway, we know. The answer was ...

The US goal for an Iran strike proved to be "Everything." But one aim will rule them all and that's regime change, making this an existential and unpredictable fight. My column for Bloomberg @opinion
www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Here’s a War Trump Really Could — and Should — Prevent Donald Trump is fond of saying wars don’t start on his watch and that he’s ended some we never knew possible. That’s at least up for debate, as the US president lays his finger on the trigger of anoth...

Trump says he's stopped wars we never even knew were going to happen. I doubt that. But war is coming in Ethiopia again, so here's his chance. My column for Bloomberg Opinion
www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Putin Has Weaponized the Peace Talks. The US Can Stop Him During the Biden administration, the most effective tool Russia’s President Vladimir Putin had to sustain his invasion of Ukraine proved to be his warnings of nuclear escalation, a tactic that prompte...

Trump has let Putin weaponize the peace process for Ukraine. That can and must end. My column for Bloomberg @opinion www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

A Lasting Gaza Peace Needs Two Elections and One Prisoner Release The remains of the final Israeli hostage Hamas abducted to Gaza during the group’s savage Oct. 7, 2023, attack on kibbutzim have now returned home. The event marks a turning point for the US-led peace...

Trump's Gaza peace plan is weird, but a start. Phase 2 needs elections to sweep out the old on both sides, plus an experiment: Releasing Marwan Barghouti - the one politician who could unite Palestinians - so he can run. My column for Bloomberg @opinion
www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Europe Can’t Afford a Throwdown Over Greenland As a US citizen living abroad, I sympathize with European outrage over Donald Trump’s naked attempt to bully Denmark, a particularly loyal NATO ally, into handing over Greenland. In fact, if he stays ...

Europe is right to defend principles over Greenland, but this is about power and that's what Trump has and it lacks. My column for @opinion.bloomberg.com

www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

America's Venezuela Playbook Won't Work in Iran You know Iran’s leaders are worried about the implications of last weekend’s US raid in Venezuela when the editor of the hardline Javan newspaper feels he has to write a polemic — headlined Iran Is No...

Trumps threats and pressure against Iran's regime at its moment of weakness are good policy. But don't imagine it's another Venezuela. My column for @opinion.bloomberg.com

www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

The Greenland Alarm Is Sounding. Europe Needs to Hear It Denmark was worried about US intentions toward Greenland even before Donald Trump sent his troops and bombers into Venezuela over the weekend, but now the Danes are truly alarmed — and so they should ...

Venezuela marks the passing of the old US order, replaced by a free-for-all among the great powers. That's bad news for Greenland, Denmark and Europe as a whole. My column for Bloomberg Opinion

www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Ukraine’s Peace Deal Is Stuck on Territory for Good Reason Of the two main sticking points in getting a deal to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that Kyiv, if not Moscow, can accept, there seems to have been a breakthrough on security guarantees. Territorial ...

To understand why Ukraine finds it so hard to give up territory, remember it's about everything but land. My column this morning. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...?

Has Ukraine Lost the War? Its Top General Is Pushing Back Over the past week, Ukraine’s top military commander has given his most detailed assessment yet of the fight to halt Russia’s invasion. This wasn’t prompted by any sudden battlefield reversal. It refl...

Ukraine hasn't lost the war, but it has lost the narrative and it's top commander knows that could lead to the same bad outcome. My column for Bloomberg @opinion.
www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Why Russia Loves the US National Security Strategy Nothing about the Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy should shock European leaders, still less the enthusiastic welcome that this confirmation of a revolution in US foreign policy h...

The Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy unites US with Russian policy against the EU; both see liberal Europe as an enemy that's better defeated when divided. My column for Bloomberg @opinion .

www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Trump Doesn’t Have to Be Bad News for Ukraine His “peace-in-a-day” is ludicrous, but if he does the groundwork he can avoid capitulation and engineer a win.

Israel's military has transformed the balance of power in the Middle East. But reliance on force is not improving security anymore. My column for Bloomberg @opinion

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The EU Is the Wrong Power Player for Ukraine Late in the summer of 1939, the Soviet and German Foreign Ministers Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop signed the infamous non-aggression pact that divided Eastern Europe between their nati...

The EU is incapable by design of projecting the hard power required to compete in a geopolitical world, and yet Europe has to. The answer lies outside the bloc and in Ukraine's defense. My column for @opinion.

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Erdogan and Putin Have Something to Teach the West Turkey has recently taken a range of steps that together look a lot like a realignment with the West. It reduced imports of Russian oil and natural gas; is considering US and South Korean companies ov...

Turkey's Erdogan looks a lot like he's realigning with the West latey, but in reality it's the West that's turning toward Erdogan. My column for Bloomberg Opinion
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Ukraine’s Pokrovsk Is Falling. Don’t Make It a Defeat. First Bakhmut, then Avdiivka, now Pokrovsk. In each of the last three years, Russia’s generals have identified a midsize Ukrainian town as their invasion’s next critical target, expending vast amounts...

Whether or not the apparently imminent fall of Pokrovsk proves an important Russian victory and worth the enormous price paid for it will depend on how Ukraine's allies respond. My column for Bloomberg @opinion
www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Ukraine Has a Plan for Victory. Its Allies Don’t. Ukraine is about to suffer its most brutal winter since Russia invaded in 2022. That isn’t a risk but a certainty as both sides sense they’re blocked on the ground and focus on the long-range air war....

Putin has a plan for victory, and Kyiv has a plan to survive it. I returned to Ukraine to see what that is and how much it depends on inconstant allies. My column for Bloomberg
@opinion
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Sanctions or Tomahawks? Only Credible Threats Will Convince Putin. Could the US imposition of sanctions on Russia’s two biggest oil companies, backed by similar measures from Europe, mark the moment when the transatlantic alliance finally does what it takes to pressu...

Sanctions, seizing assets and the threat to arm Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles will only deter Putin if they're integrated into a coherent transatlantic strategy that shows genuine resolve. So far they don't. My column for Bloomberg @opinion
www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Trump’s Peacemaking Is as Lethal for Ukraine as Ever There’s every reason to believe leaked accounts that a shouting match erupted between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskiy when they met in Washington last week. We’ve seen it before, after all, on ca...

One phone call and Trump is back to pressing Ukraine into a deal crafted by Putin to further his war aims, not peace. Ukraine and Europe face some disastrous choices as a result. My column for Bloomberg @opinion www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Europe’s Most Important Startups Are in Ukraine At the General Chereshnya drone factory, Maxym, a tattooed former aircraft engineer with ear tunnels the size of quarters in his lobes opens a door to the whirr and clatter of 74 busy 3D printers. The...

The first rule of 'drone wall' is to change the name: It should be nothing like a wall and more like a Porcupine. The second is to build it with Ukraine. My column for Bloomberg @opinion. (Temporarily no pay wall)
www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Gaza Ceasefire Is No Peace, But Even So It’s ‘Huge’ Israel and Hamas have reached a ceasefire deal, the first stage in a 20-point plan to end the war. Does this, as Donald Trump says, mean we’re on the cusp of everlasting peace in the Middle East? Will...

Trump's ceasefire has a long road to get to peace, but it has more promise than its predecessors and he'll deserve credit if it lasts. My column for Bloomberg @opinion www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

US Gaza Plan Is Working, But Will Take Sustained Pressure When Donald Trump returned to office promising to end to the war in Gaza, he not unreasonably touted his first term success in negotiating the so-called Abraham accords between Israel and its Arab nei...

Trump's decision to make time for negotiations over his Gaza peace plan was a good one, but he'll need a patience and focus he isn't renowned for to produce a lasting peace. My column for @opinion.bloomberg.com
www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Ukraine Is Now The Strongest Ally Europe Can Rely On Trump’s U-turn leaves the pair to fight Putin on their own.

Trump walked away from the Russia-Ukraine war and is clearly ambivalent about NATO. What next for Europeans? To recognize that Kyiv, its army and drones are now their strongest reliable defense against Russia. My column for Bloomberg Opinion
www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Russia’s War on Elections in Moldova Is No Hoax Sunday’s vote may decide if it’s too late for Europe there.

We all need to watch and learn in Moldova on Sunday. Russia is exploiting the new reality of elections by TikTok to the full, and it won't be the only one. My column for Bloomberg @opinion
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Five Lessons From Putin’s Reckless Polish Drone Strike The US and Europe have a lot to learn from Russia’s warning shot at Poland

The drone is very much in NATO's court after Russia's shot at Poland. My column for Bloomberg @opinion
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Netanyahu's bet fails The consequences of Israel's attack in Qatar

This is an (unsurprisingly) excellent post from Lawrence Freedman on Netanyahu's miss in Qatar. Well worth the read. open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/n...

Western Dysfunction Is Bolstering China This week’s Tianjin military summit shone by its coherence alone.

China didn't have to build new institutions or lasting alliances for its summit to succeed. It just had to show coherent goals and the means to achieve them - the contrast with chaos and weakness in the West do the rest. My column for Bloomberg @opinion
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Trump Says Ceasefires Don’t Matter. Oh Yes They Do. Even the six peace deals he cited as evidence don’t support him.

Trump says he ended six wars and they prove his belief that ceasefires -including for Ukraine - are just "nice to haves." That's wrong on so many counts. My column for Bloomberg Opinion
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Ukraine Got a Reprieve in Washington — Not an Escape Trump thinking that Putin wants to make peace as a favor really is “crazy.”

The Alaska de-brief went better than expected, but don't lose track of the ball: no ceasefire and no US pressure on Putin means the war goes on. My column on @opinion.bloomberg.com

www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Trump and Putin’s Alaska Theatrics Imperil Ukraine — and Europe Two versions of the US president could have attended the tete-a-tete. Unfortunately, the wrong one did.

In Alaska, Putin looks to have gotten all he needed: Trump's permission to continue the war while pretending the negotiate a peace. My column for Bloomberg @opinion
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