Vladimir Putin is potentially the most important leader of our era. He is in equal measure misunderstood and condemned. He has been at the helm of the world’s largest country since late 1999, and his decisions have shaped not only Russia but also some of the key issues in world politics. It is therefore crucial to understand what motivates the man, what shapes his policies, and what have been the consequences. [Read more…] about Richard Sakwa: Putin and the Pandemic: Testing the Paradoxes of Putinism
Ted Galen Carpenter: Time To Reassess The United States’ Relationship With Ukraine
Lost in all the partisan bickering is a more important issue: Washington’s overall relationship with Ukraine and whether that relationship really serves America’s best interests.
AFP: For Russians, humble dacha provides refuge from coronavirus
With half the world on some form of lockdown because of the coronavirus pandemic, countless millions of city dwellers are stuck inside, with only the occasional trip out to relieve their isolation.
Robert Wright: Samantha and the Power of Denial
Members of the foreign policy establishment—the agglomeration of liberal hawks and neocon ultrahawks that have been dubbed “the blob”—scratch each other’s backs and forgive each other for making the same kinds of bad calls they’ve made. So the blob keeps blobbing.
Anatol Lieven: Climate Change and the State: A Case for Environmental Realism
In the West today, only the truly paranoid (or those seeking to protect military budgets) seriously assert the possibility of a Russian invasion of NATO. Western security anxieties concerning Russia (and increasingly China as well) have instead become focused on Moscow’s capacity to encourage and manipulate the internal discontent and division within Western democracy, thereby undermining the legitimacy of Western democratic systems.
Daniel McCarthy: The Real Reason Donald Trump Could Be Impeached
I know it’s far-fetched, but if, just for a moment, we imagine that Hunter Biden does not have the skills of the sort that a Ukrainian oil company needs badly enough to purchase for $600,000 per year, then what could possibly have prompted a generous oligarch to lavish such sums on this lucky American?
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute: Global military expenditure sees largest annual increase in a decade
The five largest spenders in 2019, which accounted for 62 per cent of expenditure, were the United States, China, India, Russia and Saudi Arabia.
Paul Robinson: Liberal Illiberalism
Much has been said of late of Russia’s alleged ‘conservative turn’.
Robert Wright: Let’s kill the aiding-and-abetting meme once and for all!
If you raise questions about, say, the wisdom of America’s arming rebels in Syria, you are an Assad sympathizer and a Putin stooge. If you argue that engagement with China makes sense in spite of its human rights record and its lack of transparency (oops, I meant to say, its cover up) during the first phase of the Covid contagion—well, obviously, your allegiances are suspect.
Lev Golinkin: The Full Scope of Ukraine’s Impact on the 2016 Election Has Yet to Be Examined
Vulnerabilities in US election security need attention, and Ukraine’s 2016 impact could be instructive.
Samuel Clowes Huneke: An End to Totalitarianism
Fixating on whether Trump’s response to COVID-19 is totalitarian makes it difficult to have a nuanced discussion about the role government should play in times of crisis.
Stephen F. Cohen: Cracks emerge in NATO confrontation of Russia
Stephen F. Cohen argues that cracks are emerging within the NATO-led consensus that has pushed Moscow from the West.
MK Bhadrakumar: Trump and Putin revisit the “Spirit of the Elbe”
In the absence of New START, the US and Russia will have to revise the assumptions and modernisation plans of their nuclear weapons and industry at enormous costs that they can ill-afford.
Lawrence Wilkerson: America’s Rush Back to Nuclear Weapons
In this interview with Foreign Policy in Focus, Lawrence Wilkerson discusses the Trump administration’s approach to military security.
Lawfare: When Can the President Withdraw From the Open Skies Treaty?
Several weeks ago, in early April 2020, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reportedly agreed to begin withdrawing the United States from the Treaty on Open Skies, a multilateral agreement that facilitates reconnaissance overflights among its members in order to promote military transparency.
Steven Pifer: The Death of the INF Treaty Has Given Birth to New Missile Possibilities
The groundwork is being laid for expensive new races in intermediate-range missile systems in Europe and Asia, which will likely decrease stability in both regions.
Andrew Bacevich: Joe Biden’s Foreign Policy Gave Us Donald Trump
Biden is not one not to tarry over mistakes.
Ted Galen Carpenter: America’s Ukraine Hypocrisy
Historical records show that Washington has meddled in the political affairs of dozens of countries–including many democracies.
PODCAST: Michael Hudson: How the US makes countries pay for its wars
Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton talk with economist Michael Hudson on the economics of Washington’s empire, the role of the IMF and World Bank, BRICS and attempts to create alternative financial systems, and the new cold war on China and Russia.
Peter Van Buren: Political Journalism is Dead
The uber-false narrative Max Boot and others Frankensteined into existence was Russiagate. Trump wasn’t the Manchurian Candidate and there was no quid pro quo for Russian election help. Yet the media literally accused the president of treason by melding together otherwise unrelated truthlets…