U.S.-Russia relations are in disarray, with talk of a new Cold War pervasive. Fortunately, framing the conflict in terms of national interests points to a way forward.
Analysis
Trump Needs Iran Deal to Engage Russia and North Korea (Tytti Erästö)
President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to talk to North Korea and improve relations with Russia—the two countries which currently present the greatest challenges on nuclear security. If Trump is serious about pursuing these worthy goals, he must keep the Iran nuclear agreement.
Lame Duck Senate Shouldn’t Ratify NATO’s Inclusion Of Corrupt, Military Midget Montenegro (Doug Bandow)
Historically countries made alliances to improve their defense or otherwise advance important security interests.
For a Concert of Powers (Stephen H. Balch)
We should see the interest of the post-communist states in their “near abroad” as natural, opportunities for bargaining instead of fruitless confrontation. Russia and China, though hardly the states we would like them to be, have the same interests in their security perimeters as we do in ours.
PODCAST: Neo-McCarthyism and the New Cold War (Stephen F Cohen)
Professor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new Cold War. This week they look at the new McCarthyism in the US political-media establishment, with Batchelor reporting on attempts in Congress to recreate a version of the McCarthy-era House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), which conducted a witch-hunt that ruined many lives and chilled public discourse for years.
Putin’s Unclenching Fist (Lobe Log)
Working together in Syria should be only the beginning of broader cooperation in stabilizing the Middle East. Both Russia and the new US administration have proclaimed that fighting “jihadist terrorism” is their top priority. But there is a long way to go to reach a minimal common understanding of the targets in this fight.
Amb. Jack F. Matlock Reviews Mikhail Gorbachev’s New Book, The New Russia
When the Soviet Union came apart at the end of 1991, the nuclear arms race between the United States and the USSR had ended, a negotiated peace that benefited all parties had replaced the Cold War, and the Iron Curtain that divided Europe had vanished. We seemed to be on the threshold of a new Europe.
How the War Ends in Syria (Peter W. Galbraith)
President-elect Donald J. Trump has stated his intention to work with Russia and Mr. Assad to defeat the Islamic State. The sooner America reaches out to Russia, ideally before January’s handover of administration, the better.
The Ukrainian Far Right—and the Danger It Poses (Lev Golinkin)
It should be a priority for the incoming Donald Trump administration to reexamine America’s role in the Ukraine crisis. Over the past year, Washington has focused solely on Kiev’s failure to tackle Ukraine’s endemic corruption, while ignoring another fundamental obstacle to Ukraine’s democracy: the country’s far-right forces.
PODCAST: Trump in the World (feat. Andrew Bacevich, Lawrence Wilkerson and Stephen Walt)
Though there exists room for debate, Trump has staked out a few (surprisingly) reasonable policy positions: ‘spreading democracy’ through exercises in nation-building is not in our national interest; free-riding NATO allies should take on more of the collective burden; de-escalating tensions with Russia is to our benefit. Obviously, there are also numerous grounds for alarm, as well.
Guilt By Association (Paul Robinson)
‘Extremists turn to a leader to protect Western values: Vladimir Putin’. So screams the headline of an article in Sunday’s edition of the New York Times. The article takes up an entire page, an indication that the newspaper’s editors consider its message to be of great importance.
WPost Won’t Retract McCarthyistic Smear (Consortium News)
After publishing a McCarthyistic “black list” that smears some 200 Web sites as “Russian propagandists,” The Washington Post refuses to apologize — and other mainstream media outlets pile on, writes Norman Solomon
The Propaganda About Russian Propaganda (The New Yorker)
The story of PropOrNot should serve as a cautionary tale to those who fixate on malignant digital influences as a primary explanation for Trump’s stunning election.
Who’s Afraid of a Little Russian Propaganda? (Politico Magazine)
The current panic over propaganda led by the American media and the government is only the old panic in a new guise with social media and non-mainstream news outlets taking the bulk of the beating. I wonder if Russian propaganda would be Topic A had Hillary Clinton beaten Donald Trump.
Is a US–Russia Alliance Is Unlikely? (Epoch Times)
While Trump and Putin may share the wish to repair ties between their countries, doing this will likely be a difficult and delicate process.
Trump Should Halt US Missile-Defense Plans in Europe (Joe Cirincione)
Like Wile E. Coyote running past the end of the cliff into thin air, NATO’s missile defense project keeps going even as its grounds disappear: in May, construction of a new missile defense site began in Poland, with the purpose of extending the capacity against the nonexistent threat of intermediate-range missiles.
Donald Trump’s Biggest Headache: Russia’s Nuclear Weapons (Jack Matlock)
The most important foreign policy task President-elect Donald Trump will face when he is inaugurated will be to restore cooperation with Russia to reduce the danger to the world posed by nuclear weapons, writes Amb. Jack F. Matlock, Former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union.
War: What’s in a Word? (Paul Robinson)
Labelling the current tensions between Russia and the West as ‘war’ creates an unproductive, even dangerous, security mentality, and results in undesirable policies. One can see this process at work in the discussions about ‘Russian propaganda’ and Russian ‘information war’.
Giving Voice to Millions of Americans: End US Wars of Intervention (Rep. Tulsi Gabbard)
The crux of my advice to President-elect Trump was this: we must end this ill-conceived, counterproductive regime-change war immediately.
Putin didn’t undermine the election. We did. (Katrina vanden Heuvel)
Our election system is embarrassing not for anything Putin allegedly did. In the “world’s strongest democracy,” this is the second presidential election in the past five in which the winner of the popular vote has lost.