American Committee for US-Russia Accord

In his classic work Diplomat’s Dictionary, Ambassador Chas Freeman sets out a collection of definitions of the diplomatic craft and terminology; part Talleyrand, and part Ambrose Bierce. First published in 1994, this remains the most acute, the wittiest and the pithiest of all introductions to the practice of diplomacy. In an era when it sometimes seems that the US and Europe possess not diplomats but anti-diplomats, its lessons are more important than ever. To discuss the book and its lessons, Ambassador Freeman was joined by Anatol Lieven, director of the Eurasia program at the Quincy Institute.

In its Friday editorial, Global Times took the opportunity to examine NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s farewell speech of the day before, “What has NATO’s ‘expansion’ vaunted by secretary general brought?” One million Ukrainian deaths, many more millions displaced, and the nation ruined on behalf of NATO policy weren’t any of the facts Stoltenberg mentioned. Nor did he claim credit for the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline despite that clear fact it was a NATO operation to make war on itself. Global Times looked deeper and made a very sensible suggestion in its conclusion:

 

During his swearing-in ceremony as the new Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance, Mark Rutte declared his top priorities were strengthening the alliance and bringing Ukraine closer to the bloc.

Today, the Russians are in the process of surrounding and capturing the town of Vuhledar (Ugledar), which is the linchpin of the Ukrainian defence in the southern part of Donetsk province. What remains of the town’s garrison is faced with the grim choice of fighting its way out, staying and dying, or surrendering. The town’s capture now seems inevitable and will be a major victory for the Russian army.

The Cold War began on March 12, 1947, with the announcement of the Truman Doctrine, which pledged American “support for democracies against authoritarian threats.”

This episode of Pascal Lottaz’s ‘Neutrality Studies’  features former US Ambassador to the USSR, Jack Matlock who talks frankly about the politics of the post-Soviet region. It is absolutely clear that for all powers in the neighborhood, a workable relationship with Russia is essential. Ambassador Matlock discusses the reasons for the instability, the domestic and international factors, and gives invaluable advice on how to do conflict resolution instead of conflict escalation.

The recent passing of the American journalist Phil Donahue at the age of 88 marked the end of a unique era in television. Revered for pioneering the daytime talk show format, Donahue’s contribution to American media has been well documented. Yet his lesser-known role as an unofficial diplomat, fostering dialogue between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, bears greater relevance today as tensions between the U.S. and Russia once again rise to a boil.

Everything is at stake. Everything is at stake with nuclear weapons.

While working as a nuclear war planner for the Kennedy administration, Daniel Ellsberg was shown a document calculating that a U.S. nuclear attack on communist countries would result in 600 million dead. As he put it later: “A hundred Holocausts.” [Read more…] about ACURA Guest Post: Norman Solomon’s Remarks at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

President Vladimir Putin has drawn a “red line” for the United States and its allies by signalling that Moscow will consider responding with nuclear weapons if they allow Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia with long-range Western missiles.

Dr. Gabrielle Krone-Schmalz, a German intellectual and former journalist, recently gave a highly informative talk at the “37. Pleisweiler Gespräch”. Dr. Krone-Schmalz used to work as a Moscow-correspondent for Germany’s largest public broadcaster, ARD, and was also a Professor for Media Science and has emerged as one of the fiercest critics of Germany’s foolish policies vis-a-vis Russia.

Attitudes among Ukrainians toward territorial concessions have also started to shift – but only slightly. Most people have opposed giving up land since 2014, but KIIS’s own regular omnibus survey provides evidence of growing recognition, now shared by one-third of Ukrainians, that territorial concessions may be necessary.

Gorbachev, former General Secretary of the Soviet Union and President of the Russian Federation, took time to meet with a group of citizen diplomats travelling with The Center For Citizen Initiatives in 2018.

Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.

Men no longer debate whether armaments are a symptom or a cause of tension. The mere existence of modern weapons–ten million times more powerful than any that the world has ever seen, and only minutes away from any target on earth–is a source of horror, and discord and distrust. Men no longer maintain that disarmament must await the settlement of all disputes–for disarmament must be a part of any permanent settlement. And men may no longer pretend that the quest for disarmament is a sign of weakness–for in a spiraling arms race, a nation’s security may well be shrinking even as its arms increase.

For fifteen years this organization has sought the reduction and destruction of arms. Now that goal is no longer a dream–it is a practical matter of life or death. The risks inherent in disarmament pale in comparison to the risks inherent in an unlimited arms race.

Big Risks Outweigh Modest Benefits of Greenlighting Ukraine War’s Escalation 

As President Biden grapples with whether to give explicit permission for Ukraine to use long-range Western-supplied precision weapons to strike targets inside Russia, he should be asking whether the benefits would be worth the risks. 

If he were to ask me, I’d say Nyet, they’re not.  [Read more…] about ACURA Exclusive: Bernadine Joselyn: President Biden, No Is Still the Best Answer 

RESPONSIBLE STATECRAFT: When looking at this year’s NDAA, what was your particular motivation for introducing an amendment that “requires a report on the casualty and equipment losses for both sides involved in the conflict in Ukraine….”

REP. THOMAS MASSIE: Well, in a classified briefing, I stood up and asked what the casualties were on the Ukrainian side, and in that meeting I believe, you had representatives from the intelligence community, and they were briefing us, and they went out of their way to tell us how many Russian casualties there were, and they would not answer my question of how many Ukrainian casualties there were.

And this was a briefing to Congress in a classified setting.

In the not too distant past, the New York Times eviscerated a set of establishment think tanks in Washington, D.C. The paper revealed documents and emails showing nonprofit research institutes how defense industry interests routinely and covertly influence the media and policymakers. The target of its reporting focused on a prominent think tank called the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

This week Kelley Vlahos talks about diplomacy — or the lack of it — in the now 31-month war in Ukraine with Ian Proud who was a member of His Britannic Majesty’s Diplomatic Service from 1999 to 2023 and served as the Economic Counsellor at the British Embassy in Moscow from July 2014 to February 2019.

Proud recently published his memoir, A Misfit in Moscow: How British diplomacy in Russia failed, 2014-2019. Proud explains how the West mismanaged critical events, beginning with the Maidan revolution in Kyiv, the Russian takeover of Crimea, and the years leading up the current war in Ukraine.

If Ukraine is to be secure and stable, America’s polarized Left and Right will have to find some common ground on ending the war.