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For those of us old enough to have memories of Ronald Reagan, it is startling to realize that as many years have passed since the end of his presidency as between his inauguration and the end of World War II. Much has been obscured in the intervening 35 years about who he was, what he believed and how he accomplished so much. Reagan is frequently cited but often misunderstood. He is a convenient talking point for Republicans and Democrats alike, but his actual record has receded into the mists of time — obscured by a political mythology that grows stronger with every year.

When Ukrainian forces launched their surprise offensive into Russia’s Kursk region on Aug. 6, the widespread expectation was that this was merely a fast in-and-out operation, akin to the cavalry raids undertaken by both Confederate and Union forces behind enemy lines during the Civil War. More than two weeks later, it is now clear that Ukraine is attempting something much more ambitious: As Ukrainian leaders have explained, their forces are bent on occupying Russian territory indefinitely to create “a buffer zone” against Russian attacks and a bargaining chip for use in any future negotiations.

In economics, “moral hazard” is a term for what happens when one party has an incentive to engage in risky behavior because some other actor will protect it from the consequences of its own actions. We are now seeing how moral hazard works in the Israel-U.S. alliance as the Middle East stands poised on the brink of a major conflict between Israel and Iran.

As the war in Ukraine settled into a stalemate, two assumptions became prevalent among analysts: First, that it is nearly impossible to achieve any surprise on a battlefield blanketed by drones. Second, that it is nearly impossible to mount fast-moving offensive operations, given the extensive defenses erected by both sides. Ukraine has challenged both assumptions over the past few days with its surprise, lightning-fast thrust into Russia’s Kursk region — an area familiar to military historians as the site, during World War II, of the biggest tank battle in history.

Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip is now nearly 10 months old and shows no sign of ending. Meanwhile, its war against Hezbollah is escalating: After a Hezbollah rocket struck a soccer field on Sunday in the Golan Heights, killing 12 children, Israel responded on Tuesday with an airstrike that killed a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut. Israel is also being blamed by Iran, the chief supporter of both Hamas and Hezbollah, for the assassination in Tehran of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, which was announced early Wednesday; the mullahs vow revenge. A larger regional conflict could break out at any moment.

We don’t yet know what will happen in the wake of Sunday’s stolen election in Venezuela, but we can already be relatively certain of one thing: U.S. policy toward that country has been a dismal, bipartisan failure. And, sad to say, there isn’t a more-promising approach on the horizon.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington to address a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday for the fourth time — the most of any foreign leader — at a particularly fraught moment for his embattled country.

After learning of Abraham Lincoln’s murder in 1865, future British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli remarked: “Assassination has never changed the history of the world.” It was true that the most famous political assassination to date, that of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C., did not change the course of history. By appointing himself dictator, Caesar had already destroyed the Roman Republic. His death would merely lead to a new line of emperors beginning with his distant relative Augustus.

There was absolutely nothing surprising about the outcome of the British general election on Thursday: As expected, the Labour Party won in a landslide, capturing 412 seats to the Conservative Party’s 121. By contrast, the French legislative election on Sunday was a shocker: After finishing first in the initial round of voting, the far-right National Rally plummeted to third, winning 143 seats, behind the left-wing New Popular Front (181 seats) and President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist coalition (more than 160). No party has won an absolute majority in the National Assembly. France might now face a period of political paralysis, but that’s better than the Marine Le Pen-led right-wing alternative.

Conventional wisdom holds that vice presidents don’t matter much, either in elections, because voters choose based on the top of the ticket, or in practice, because they have few assigned duties. But Joe Biden’s choice of Kamala D. Harris in 2020 is shaping up to be a momentous decision now that the president might have to leave the race following his disastrous debate performance. So, too, will former president Donald Trump’s soon-to-be-announced choice of a running mate be significant.

When it comes to humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip, there is a serious — and puzzling — disconnect between the statements of Israel and those of U.N. agencies and nongovernmental aid organizations.

The Israeli military agency known as COGAT (the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories) posts regular updates highlighting all of the border crossings it has opened and all of the humanitarian aid trucks getting into Gaza (e.g., 219 trucks on Wednesday). The United Nations, by contrast, keeps warning of a “high risk of famine,” with a panel of experts writing last week that “over 495,000 people (22 percent of the population) are still facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity.”

Visiting Israel, as I did last week, is a depressing experience as the war in Gaza nears its ninth month. I’ve been coming to Israel for a quarter-century, and I’ve never seen Israelis as gloomy as they are now — not even during the second intifada in the early 2000s, when Palestinian terrorists were regularly blowing up public buses.

JERUSALEM — The “comprehensive strategic partnership” treaty signed on Wednesday by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is only the latest manifestation of one of the most sinister and troubling trends in world affairs today: Russia, Iran, North Korea and China are all working together, to a greater or lesser degree, to challenge the U.S.-led, rules-based international order.

It hasn’t received the attention it deserves, but Ukraine’s unexpected victory in the battle of the Black Sea could be a landmark achievement in the annals of naval warfare. Without a standing navy of its own, Ukraine has disabled at least one-third of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, broken the Russian naval blockade and reopened the Black Sea to its grain exports. Ukraine’s export volumes are now approaching prewar levels, providing a huge boon to its wartime economy.

In 2016, Donald Trump promised to a build a wall. This year, he should promise to build a time machine to go back and fix all the world crises he claims would never have happened if only he hadn’t lost the 2020 election.

Americans are conditioned by popular culture to believe from an early age that good inevitably triumphs over evil. For more than a hundred years — from the days of Tom Mix to Tom Cruise — Hollywood has been churning out plotlines in which the villains get their comeuppance before the closing credits.

SEOUL — From Gaza to Ukraine, the world is a pretty bleak place right now. One bright spot is the nascent trilateral relationship among the United States, Japan and South Korea that was heralded less than a year ago at the historic Camp David summit by President Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol. The Seoul-Tokyo relationship had been fraught since the end of Japan’s colonial occupation of Korea in 1945. The Camp David meeting was a breakthrough moment when Biden announced a “new era” of partnership that would strengthen deterrence not only against North Korea but also China.

MAGA Republicans often raise the fanciful specter of foreigners voting in U.S. elections. That almost never happens, because only U.S. citizens can legally vote. But foreign countries enjoy considerable leeway to influence U.S. elections. Russia took advantage in 2016 to intervene on behalf of Donald Trump, helping him eke out a narrow victory. The Kremlin appears to be gearing up another pro-Trump campaign this year.

From the start of Israel’s war in Gaza, President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been divided by a clash of counterinsurgency visions. Israel has been determined to destroy Hamas at all costs, while U.S. officials have worried that Israel was inflicting too many civilian casualties, was not doing enough to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid and lacked a “day after” plan to stabilize Gaza after Hamas’s defeat. As one U.S. official told me, “The Israelis are showing how not to do counterinsurgency.”

In war, you should always expect the unexpected. Ukrainian forces have been bracing for a spring or summer Russian offensive focused on the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, to follow up on Russia’s February success in taking the town of Avdiivka. That attack might still come, but, in the meantime, Russian troops have mounted an unexpected cross-border assault in the Kharkiv region in the country’s northeast.