Columnist @ForeignPolicy. Insomniac, naturalist, frequenter of diners. Ex-WaPo, ex-Newsweek. Own worst enemy.

Washington, DC
Joined January 2011
Christian Caryl retweeted
For the @ResistBureau, I spoke with #Kenya's former Chief Justice @dkmaraga about protecting the integrity of the 2027 election, his candidacy, fighting corruption, and his lifelong commitment to 'never accept a bribe.' His insights are worth hearing. 🔗 youtube.com/watch?v=eVCG0C71…
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Christian Caryl retweeted
A senior Ukrainian commander told me he lost more than $1 million in drones the first night StarShield went out. The next 3 days, speeds remained so unstable they canceled almost all ops striking RU logistics to protect Ukrainian infantry in the kill zone nytimes.com/2026/10/21/world…
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Christian Caryl retweeted
Steve Witkoff's an imbecile. In addition to the million plus dead, Putin hunts and kills Russian dissidents & has abducted thousands of children from their families.
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Christian Caryl retweeted
Churchill could have shortened WW2 by years if he had just “done a deal” with Hitler. George Washington could have done a deal to end the American Revolution. Zelenskyy is in good company.
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Absolutely appalling
us special envoy steve witkoff to president putin: “you talk so much about my president, president trump, being a humanitarian. you are a humanitarian also, sir, and i salute that.” truly hard to watch.
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Christian Caryl retweeted
“The Ukrainians are not going to fold. They're not going to surrender. You can cut off their Patriots, you can cut off their intelligence. But people don't like to live on their knees. Ukrainians are not going to give up their territory because doing so would condemn all the people in that territory to torture, rape and murder. So it's not going to happen.” “So what President Trump has actually done is he's undermined his own objective, to get to a quick resolution of the war, which I think he really wants, by pursuing a strategy which is to lower pressure on Putin and to raise pressure on Ukraine, which is going to achieve the opposite result.” “So, it's not going to work, because you can't choose a country's fate without including that country and its people. 44 million people who have a right to dignity and sovereignty and a say over how they live. And none of those people want to live under the cruel rule of Vladimir Putin, no matter what President Trump thinks about it.” “And then you add the fact that Trump is actively aiding Putin, by promoting a narrative of the war that is false, exactly matches Russian propaganda, and places Zelensky in a terrible position where he's got to either decide to live in Trump's reality, which is a bunch of lies about how the war started and how how it's going, or to defend his people and do his job as the president of the country.” “You add all those things together, it's a perfect storm of toxicity whereby the president is putting America on the side of the aggressor and the war criminals and against the side of the victims of this conflict. And it's bizarre. And there's no way to to look at that and to say that's anything that America has ever stood for in the past. Yet, here we are.” “And the result is very predictable and predicted. He's going to get a lot of Ukrainians killed without actually solving the problem. And that's a tragedy.”
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Christian Caryl retweeted
You gotta hand it to Trump: he holds the consistent position that, Republican OR Democrat, bribery is not a crime. He'll cook up any number of bogus charges to take down his political enemies. But he'll never go after bribery, even if it's his enemies doing it.
NEW: Lindsay Graham and Jim Clyburn were under FBI investigation for bribery. Then Trump dismantled the DOJ & FBI public corruption units. The investigation died. We unearthed it:
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Christian Caryl retweeted
"Ukrainians who have offered democracies a beacon of light in a world where the forces of authoritarian evil dim our hopes for a better future. The Ukrainians have given us more than we could ever repay." Responding to Trump's "Ukraine has given us nothing" statement. mickryan.substack.com/p/what…
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Christian Caryl retweeted
Rejection of Alberta separatism was Trump's first midterm defeat
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Agreed. Utterly disgraceful
Shameful. Over a thousand Allied Soldiers were killed in Afghanistan fighting alongside US Soldiers and Marines. Why would the Secretary think it was appropriate to disparage our Allies in front of these young Cadets, future Officers?
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Christian Caryl retweeted
I have long since given up believing in conspiratorial explanations of the Trump-Putin relationship. If evidence for some nefarious tie existed, it would’ve been uncovered by now, especially after four years of Democratic control of the executive branch. Zelensky had a more compelling theory when he said that Trump simply has a fondness for autocrats and the uber-wealthy—and Putin is both. wapo.st/47o44SX
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Christian Caryl retweeted
Donald Trump has abandoned the Western order, turning America into a Russian ally, @RadioFreeTom argues: theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/1…
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My latest for @ForeignPolicy : "At this point, few political observers in Washington would be surprised to see Hegseth become Trump’s fall guy for the Iran debacle. Impeachment might not even be needed in the end." foreignpolicy.com/2026/10/14…
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I think that all of Trump's opponents should think start thinking seriously about this possibility. No one should assume that this is beyond Trump's capacity. axios.com/2026/10/16/trumps-…
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Christian Caryl retweeted
This has been Putin's dream for years: That his country, with GDP per capita lower than Poland, unable to conquer Donbas since 2014, will be treated as an equal to the US and China. wsj.com/world/russia/putin-f…
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Christian Caryl retweeted
The Russians know that Trump is their ally. The author of the tweet below is the Russian special envoy who repeatedly met with Kushner and Witkoff in Miami in 2025 and 2026.
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It's already been said many times that the U.S., under President Donald Trump, was turning its back on Ukraine. But the past few days show something worse than abandonment: Trump is now actively helping Russia win the war. kyivindependent.com/editoria…
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Christian Caryl retweeted
Hegseth’s single-minded devotion to lethality is a bizarre strategic priority for a military that has already demonstrated a considerable capacity for killing, writes columnist @ccaryl. foreignpolicy.com/2026/10/14…
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Christian Caryl retweeted
Very honored that my last story for @washingtonpost, which published after I was laid off, won Le @PrixBayeux. It detailed the terrifying journey of a soldier trapped in the kill zone for 177 days. Was so glad to accept it in person with Anastacia Galouchka and Serhii Korolchuk.
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