Analysis

Painting neo-Nazi paramilitaries with an extensive record of war crimes as patriots helping refugees, all while working with a “disinformation” group that turned out to run interference for violent neo-Nazi formations—that’s the experience Biden’s new disinformation czar brings to the table.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has defended his invasion of Ukraine, saying it was a necessary blow against NATO. His remarks came during Russia’s annual Victory Day celebrations on May 9 marking the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. U.S. lawmakers, meanwhile, are increasingly describing the fighting in Ukraine as a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia. ACURA and the Quincy Institute’s Anatol Lieven, says the war can only end through negotiations, and aggressive U.S. rhetoric risks prolonging the fighting. “That is a recipe for this war going on essentially forever, with colossal suffering for Ukraine,” says Lieven.

The discourse of peace – in media, politics and research – has been disappeared.

The Russian war on Ukraine has seen ‘the Blob’ reassert itself with a vengeance in the 11 weeks since Russia announced the commencement of hostilities on February 24.

Like the public boasting of U.S. intel agents over our role in the sinking of the Moskva and killing of the Russian generals, the effect is to disqualify the U.S. president from any role in negotiating a truce or an end to this war.

But if we have any chance at staying out of the conflict for much longer, diplomacy will at some point have to figure into the mix of policy options available to the President.

The Biden administration has shown little interest in knocking heads together to bring an end to the war.

Neocons more or less invented Cancel Culture in America, so it was amusing to see them briefly whinge about censorship and pose as friends to the free exchange of ideas when they worried about being caught in their own mousetrap. Then came the thuggish Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, whereupon they reverted to form, casting aspersions on the patriotism of those who resisted the call for U.S. military intervention…

David Barsamian interviews Katrina vanden Heuvel about current issues in the world and history.

As the US moves toward a proxy war against Russia, reporters aren’t asking tough questions about what that actually means.

 

During the past few months the Biden administration’s rhetoric about its ultimate goals for Ukraine appears to have shifted, with more talk about winning the war against Russia. Evelyn Farkas, executive director of the McCain Institute at Arizona State University, and John Mearsheimer, political science professor at the University of Chicago, join Judy Woodruff to discuss.

The economic war is most unlikely to affect the outcome of the Ukraine War, but it does seem likely to produce outcomes that will prejudice energy security and the climate agenda, while falling hardest on the world’s poor.

Declaring someone irrational leads to a place in which no one wants to negotiate, because, no one wants to talk to crazy people.

There are serious discussions about the use of “tactical” nuclear weapons. Is a limited nuclear war possible? How can we avoid it? Col. Lawrence Wilkerson on theAnalysis.news with Paul Jay.

The only good that can possibly come out of the War Party’s current third unnecessary and unwinnable war in the post-Cold War era would be for the American electorate to vote out of office the political leadership in Washington responsible for our forever wars that are unrelated to our country’s national security and are leading our county into financial insolvency.

Congressman Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) challenges the constitutional authority of President Joe Biden to involve the United States militarily as a co-belligerent or belligerent with Ukraine in its war with Russia and to defend every inch of NATO territory without a declaration of war by Congress.

As calls grow for a ‘victory’ over Russia, we should examine whether such a win-lose outcome is even possible.

Journalist and author Robert Wright talks with historian Marlene Laruelle by what Putin means by “de-Nazifying” Ukraine and whether most Russians support the war. They conclude with a discussion of whether the war was avoidable.

As effective as Zelenskyy has been in drumming up Western support, Ukraine’s message has been far less compelling to audiences in the Global South, where many countries have declined to join Western campaigns to sanction Russia’s economy and isolate it diplomatically.

How did Putin become Putin? Amb. John Evans talks with the John Quincy Adams Society about the future Russian leader when he was just a deputy mayor of St. Petersburg. Evans, then serving as consul general, shares his recollections of the young Putin, situates this in the broader Russian political situation in the 1990s and the evolution of U.S.-Russian relations from the optimism of the period to today’s bitterness.