There is little chance that Moscow and Beijing will play by our preferred rules in this new era of great power competition if we refuse to engage with them over what the rules of the game should be.
Analysis
Erik Wemple: David Corn and the Steele dossier: Just checking the facts!
When the [Steele] dossier’s allegations were fresh and sexy and unvetted they were suitable for inclusion in Mother Jones. Once they were vetted and found wanting, however, they lost their appeal.
Adrian Campbell: The wild decade: how the 1990s laid the foundations for Vladimir Putin’s Russia
After 20 years in power, the narrative of Russia’s chaotic 1990s remains core to Putin’s legitimacy as the leader who restored stability.
Doug Bandow: The Obama Administration Wrecked Libya For A Generation
Libya’s ongoing destruction belongs to Hillary Clinton more than anyone else.
Paul Sperry: Meet the Steele Dossier’s ‘Primary Subsource’
The mysterious “Primary Subsource” that Christopher Steele has long hidden behind to defend his discredited Trump-Russia dossier is a former Brookings Institution analyst — Igor “Iggy” Danchenko, a Russian national whose past includes criminal convictions and other personal baggage ignored by the FBI in vetting him and the information he fed to Steele, according to congressional sources and records obtained by RealClearInvestigations.
Jessica Schulberg: War With Iran Nothing To Worry About, Say Men Who Launched Iraq War
In a sane and just society, the architects of the nearly 17-year-old war in Iraq – which is still ongoing and has left an estimated half-million people dead – would face war crimes charges and those who cheered them on would be thoroughly discredited.
Daniel L. Davis: The Risk of Too Many Freedom of Navigation Operations
Before a mistake or miscalculation results in an armed clash involving a U.S. naval vessel – which could draw the United States into a serious conflict – we need to examine the utility of aggressive FONOPs.
Paul Robinson: 20 Years of Anti-War Failures
Almost as great as our arrogance is our ignorance of the realities of the countries in which we become military involved. The arrogance and the ignorance are connected – it is the former which prevents us from realizing the prevalence of the latter.
Gordon Hahn: Russia, the Eurasian Triangle, and the Soleiman Assassination
The apparent overreaction by the U.S. to Iranian provocations represented by the assassination of Revolutionary Guards Corps Commander Qassem Soleiman is one of the stronger blows to hit one of the most important nails in the coffin of U.S.-Russian relations: the revival of Russian-Western geopolitical competition outside Russia’s immediate central Eurasian sphere of influence.
Lawrence Wilkerson on Trump’s Iran aggression: same neocon lies, new target
As millions of Iranians mourn the US murder of Qassem Soleimani, ex-Bush administration official Col. Lawrence Wilkerson discuses the parallels between Bush’s war on Iraq and Trump’s campaign against Iran; the history of US shunning diplomacy with Tehran; and how an addiction to war drives US foreign policy.
Barbara Slavin: Donald Trump: The New Anti-Shiite Tyrant
In the Middle East, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping will be seen as more honest and useful brokers than the United States, having wisely not chosen sides between the Sunnis and Shias and even more wisely not sought to antagonize both.
Daniel Larison: The ‘Liberal Order’ That Never Was
There is a story that members of the foreign policy establishment tell us and themselves when they need to ward off criticisms of the current U.S. role in the world…
Geoff Manaugh: When Russia and America Cooperated to Avert a Y2K Apocalypse
Instead of being heralded as an example of how government agencies, working together both domestically and internationally, might solve a global problem, Y2K is generally perceived as an overreaction among officials who didn’t know very much about computers.
Branko Marcetic: The “Putin Puppet” Just Dramatically Escalated the Undeclared War Against Russia
The national security state has claimed a dangerous new victory: receiving authorization from Trump to conduct cyberattacks against enemies around the world with greater leeway – especially Russia. It’s the latest success for a years-long pressure campaign by the national security bureaucracy centered on Orwellian claims that Trump’s foreign policy is somehow pro-Russian.
TJ Coles: UK-Russia Report: the Integrity Initiative Strikes Again!
Anything called “the Integrity Initiative” should immediately make readers cringe and prepare for the imminent deception.
Kelly Beaucar Vlahos: ‘Jesus, Do We Have To Explain Why We Do These Things?’
If anyone out there has any doubt of Washington’s arrogance – and the particular mendacity of the Trump administration in the wake of the drone attacks in Iraq that killed Iranian Quds force commander Qassem Soleimani – take a minute to read through Friday’s State Department briefing to reporters.
SKY News Australia Report Featuring Matt Taibbi and James Carden
Russia is once again being called out for undermining democracy and flouting international laws, according to Sky News host Brent O’Halloran.
Samuel Charap and Jeremy Shapiro: Why we must talk to Russia
The neoconservative Atlantic Council recently published an article by Anders Aslund critical of the October 2019 RAND report “A Consensus Proposal for a Revised Regional Order in Post-Soviet Europe and Eurasia”. This is a response from two of the report’s authors.
Nicolai N. Petro: A Response to Mark Galeotti
“Our beef is with Putin, his thugs, spies and oligarchs, not Russia – and we need to make sure that while we win today’s struggle, we don’t waste the chance for better relations with a post-Putin nation tomorrow.” This concluding remark by professor Mark Galeotti from his latest article in The Spectator is, I think, based on some questionable assumptions. [Read more…] about Nicolai N. Petro: A Response to Mark Galeotti
Ambassador Chas Freeman: The US Appears to Validate Foreign Policy by Assassination
Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani’s assassination demonstrates to the world the United States’ overt amorality and indifference to international law.