American Committee for US-Russia Accord

Ambassador Freeman talks with the Brazil-based Dialogue Works  podcast. Freeman served as U. S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm) and was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs as well as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs from 1993-94, earning the highest public service awards of the Department of Defense.

This is a detailed reconstruction of the Ukrainian-Russian peace negotiations in March 2022 and the associated mediation attempts by the then Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, supported by President Erdogan and former German Chancellor Schröder. It was drawn up by retired General H. Kujat and Professor Emeritus H. Funke, two of the initiators of the recently presented peace plan for Ukraine. And it is also in connection with their peace plan that this reconstruction is so extremely important. It reminds us that we cannot afford to delay ceasefire and peace negotiations again. The human and military situation in Ukraine deteriorates dramatically, with the added danger that it could lead to a further escalation of the war. We need a diplomatic solution to this cruel war for Europe and the Ukraine – and we need it now!

Even before the start of Russia-Ukraine war in February 2022 former Energy Secretary Ernest J. Moniz and Senator Sam Nunn have co-authored an article in the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs explaining that the risk of nuclear use has become disturbingly plausible—and proposing concrete steps to reduce the risk. “In the U.S.-Russia relationship, clashing national interests, insufficient dialogue, eroding arms control structures, advancing military technologies and new threats from cyber-space have destabilized the old equilibrium, creating a state of strategic instability where an accident or mishap could trigger a catastrophic chain of events,” – warned two distinguished politicians.

Just as pro-peace voices had warned, Ukraine is now looking at the worst of both worlds: accepting a far inferior peace deal, while having weathered the tremendous human and economic costs of a prolonged conflict. Most perversely, Kiev has been put into this position by those who postured as its most ardent supporters, the hawks who thought of the war as a way of humiliating Russia on the cheap.

After the end of the Cold War, hopes were high for an era of U.S.-Russian cooperation and peace and harmony in Europe. In a vitally important new book, The Lost Peace: How the West Failed to Prevent a Second Cold War (Yale University Press November 2023), Dr. Richard Sakwa explores the reasons for the collapse of those hopes in the thirty years that followed. Understanding this history is vital not only to understanding the roots of the present disastrous war in Ukraine, but to formulating ways out of that conflict; and as the war sinks into a bloody stalemate and U.S. challenges elsewhere mount, finding such paths is among the greatest tasks facing U.S. diplomacy. Anatol Lieven, director of the Eurasia program at the Quincy Institute, discussed the book with the author.

Judge Napolitano and Col. Wilkerson confront the daunting neocon influence in Ukraine, its impact on US strategic interests, and the roles of contractors like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.

This weekend, ACURA’s founder, the legendary Professor of Russian Studies and Politics at Princeton and NYU, Stephen F. Cohen, would have turned 85. To mark the occasion, we are publishing the foreward to the forthcoming book, Russian Fate: Memoirs That I’ll Never Write, From the archives of Stephen F. Cohen.

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 This book is a collection of unique documents from the personal archive of American historian and Russianist Stephen Cohen: His letters to friends and colleagues in the Soviet Union and Russia, notes on and sketches of future writings, accounts of him and his work by those in the US and Russia. Documents are published in chronological order, the earliest from the period of perestroika when Cohen’s biography of Nikolai Bukharin was published in the Soviet Union, and the most recent material from after his death. 

This collection traces the trajectory of Cohen’s scholarly career which began – at least in Russia – with the 1988 publication of the Russian-language edition of his biography of Bukharin. It is therefore quite logical that this collection opens with Steve’s extensive correspondence with his Russian friends and colleagues regarding preparation of that edition. Their correspondence shows the book was considered by the Soviet side as not only a scholarly project dealing with the restoration of historical truth and the revision of dogmatic views – but rather as an important political project.  [Read more…] about Katrina vanden Heuvel and Gennady Bordiugov: Stephen Cohen’s Never Written Memoirs: A Foreword 

We will return on Monday, Nov. 27.

ACURA marks today’s anniversary by publishing two of President John F. Kennedy’s most significant speeches, the first, his landmark Cold War speech of June 10, 1963 at American University and then his October 26, 1963 speech at Amherst College on society and the arts.

On the morning of June 10, 1963, President John F. Kennedy arrived on the campus of American University set to deliver a commencement speech that would change the course of history. From the podium emblazoned with the presidential seal, Kennedy put forth “A Strategy of Peace,” a rallying cry for an end to the nuclear arms race with the Soviets and a beginning of a new era of peace with all nations.

“Our national strength matters, but the spirit which informs and controls our strength matters just as much…”

As Ukraine’s counteroffensive begins to unravel, it is not clear that the hundreds of thousands of deaths already suffered have purchased any of its goals.

“The world’s patience with us . . . is coming to an end,” says Ambassador Freeman.

Having successfully accomplished the destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States is estimating that in Ukraine too, destruction is nearly complete.

Last week in Yerevan, I sat down for a wide ranging discussion with Dr. Benyamin Poghosyan, Chairman of the Center for Political and Economic Strategic Studies in Yerevan and Senior Research Fellow on Foreign Policy at the Applied Policy Research Institute (APRI) of Armenia.

We begin our talk by looking at the complex history of the region, the legacy of the Soviet era and the role energy policy played in Armenia’s deteriorating security situation. We also focus on several recent developments, including Azerbaijan’s revanchist foreign policy, its recent ethnic cleansing of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), the role of Israel and Turkey, and the possibility of a new war in the South Caucasus. 

The interview has been edited for length and clarity. – James W. Carden [Read more…] about ACURA Q&A: Armenia and the Tragedy of Great Power Politics: An Interview with Dr. Benyamin Poghosyan 

Glenn Greenwald in an interview with Tucker Carlon said war hawks are willing to continue to push for war in Ukraine because they see Ukrainian soldiers as pawns in an attempt to get back at Russia for what they perceive to be intervention in the 2016 presidential election.

The podcast Dialogue Works hosted legendary US diplomat Chas Freeman this week for a wide ranging discussion on recent events.

At first sight, it looks almost inevitable that the war in Gaza will spread. Quite apart from the anger it has caused in the Muslim world, China and still more Russia would seem to have every incentive to cause trouble for the United States – and, as has been demonstrated again and again over the years, the Middle East is the greatest area of US vulnerability.

The talks about negotiations with Russia started due to Western concerns about the situation on the battlefield and the fact that it’s becoming more difficult to keep funding the war.