The problem with the American policy (and polity) goes even deeper than that: The U.S. is a bitterly divided country, and it wasn’t Russian propagandists who created these divisions, though they were happy to read about them in the U.S. media and use them in their efforts.
Analysis
Kremlin Caricature: Washington’s Distorted View of Russia and Putin (Paul Starobin)
No candidate from either party is bringing forth bold, fresh ideas for putting U.S.-Russian relations on a new footing—and that goes for President Obama, too. How about a bilateral summit between the leaders to see whether, as the Kremlin has hinted, it is ready to move beyond the Assad regime in Syria? Or directly involving Russia in a discussion at the United Nations Security Council to arrive at a plan of action against ISIS in the wake of the Paris attacks?
Robert Parry: Learning to Love McCarthyism
There seems to be little or no concern that the Establishment is using Russia-gate as a smokescreen for clamping down on independent media sites on the Internet.
‘THE ALTERNATIVE REALITY OF PROPAGANDA’ (Paul Robinson)
One of the advantages of working at a university is having access to a large number of academic journals. In this post, therefore, I will take the opportunity to highlight a couple of recent articles from these.
Masha Gessen: Russian Interference in the 2016 Election: A Cacophony, Not a Conspiracy
The picture of Papadopoulos which has emerged over the last few days – including from the indictment against him – is of a young man (he is only 30) who was seriously out of his depth…None of his activities – which centred on his attempts to set up a meeting before the election between Putin and Trump – however fantastic they might have been, were however in the least unlawful or can be said to have done any harm.
Daniel McCarthy: Trump, Papadopoulous and the Russia Connection
Everything we know so far suggests not a passionate love affair between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin but a series of awkward first dates between amateurs whose espionage credentials would make Boris and Natasha look like James Jesus Angleton.
The new nuclear arms race (Katrina vanden Heuvel)
The increased tension between the U.S. and Russia will have dire global consequences even if neither side launches a weapon. Defeating the Islamic State is likely impossible without Russia as part of a broad coalition. Not only does Russia bring advanced military capabilities and general resources to the fight, it also brings intelligence, diplomatic and political ties in the Middle East that the United States simply does not have.
Chris Floyd: Don Draper Rules: Russian Ads and American Madness
So we’ve finally seen some of the social media ads which we are told skewed the entire election in 2016 and constituted a key part of the internet assault on America launched by Vladimir Putin’s “troll army.” Scary stuff, blazoned across front pages and screen scrolls everywhere. But before going on, perhaps we should find out what makes a social media account part of Putin’s invasion force?
Aaron J Mate: Why the Papadopoulos Plea Isn’t a Smoking Gun
In liberal circles, there seems to be little doubt that the first indictments from special counsel Robert Mueller have resolved the issue at the heart of Russiagate.
George Beebe: Containing Our Intelligence War with Russia
We should be wary of conflating Moscow’s desire to change our international behavior with an intent to destroy our nation.
Jeremy Scahill: Intercepted Podcast Talks Trump/Russia Indictments
The most nuanced discussion you will hear on what we know, what we don’t know, and the challenge of criminally prosecuting anyone for actually conspiring with Russia to interfere in the election.
Putin’s Popularity, Explained (Matthew Dal Santo)
Mainstream Western media usually cast Putin’s popularity as the result of Russians’ heavy reliance on government-controlled television, i.e. ‘brain-washing.’ But such a one-sided view may misrepresent the relationship between power and public opinion. Tellingly, only 34 percent of Russians say they trust the media.
Anatol Lieven: What I Saw at the Valdai Club Conference
I was surprised to find that some of the Western conference participants had not modified their stance of Olympian superiority towards Russia on such issues.
James Carden: Are More NATO Members Needed?
At the end of October, NATO officials told The Wall Street Journal that the alliance will likely consider and approve the creation of two new command centers, one focusing on sea lanes in the Atlantic and Arctic oceans and one to manage cross-border logistics, at an upcoming meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels on November 8.
A New Approach to U.S.-Russia Relations Is Needed (Jeffrey Sommers)
The Syrian crisis presents an opportunity for a real “reset” with U.S.-Russia relations. Policy and opinion makers in both countries poorly understand each other. The United States presents policy objectives in the normative language of democracy, delinked from concrete interests.
Robert Parry: Sorting Out the Russia Mess
If prosecutor Mueller had direct evidence that Papadopoulos had informed the Trump campaign about the Clinton emails, you would assume that the proof would have been included in Monday’s disclosures.
Let’s deal with the Devil: we should work with Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad in Syria (Boris Johnson)
Paul Robinson: Wall of Grief
It’s interesting to see how this works. Putin unveils a monument to Stalin’s victims, but Western reporting doesn’t focus on that, nor link it to other memorials which repudiate communism (Butovo, Sretenskii, etc), but instead uses the event as what journalists call a ‘hook’ to write a story about political repression under Putin and the Russian state’s alleged rehabilitation of Stalin.
PODCAST: Stephen F. Cohen Talks to John Batchelor
ACEWA Founding Board Member and Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies Stephen F. Cohen continues his weekly talks with John Batchelor. This week
Cohen frames recent developments in the context of the now nearly month-old proposal by French President Hollande and Russian President Putin for a US-European-Russian military and political coalition against the Islamic State in Syria, Iraq, and possibly Libya.Nick Turse: US Special Operations Forces Have Quietly Moved Onto the Russian Border
For months, while Russia insisted its war game [Zapad] would involve fewer than 13,000 soldiers, the United States and its allies had warned that, in reality, up to 100,000 troops would flood into Belarus. Of those Russian troop levels, Lt. Col. Thomas Möller, a Swedish military observer who attended Zapad, said, “We reported about 12,400.”