Whatever the risks of nuclear war, they are bound to grow further if the end of the INF Treaty is followed by the demise of New START and U.S. withdrawal from the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, according to Nunn and Moniz. I cannot agree more.
Analysis
WAPO: Six years and $20 billion in Russian investment later, Crimeans are happy with Russian annexation
After a hastily organized and deeply contentious referendum on March 16, 2014, following Russia’s military occupation of the peninsula, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a treaty of accession with Crimean leaders in Moscow two days later. An avalanche of international criticism followed.
Boris Mezhuev: Putin administration must change its perspective on regional self-governance
Today, as a fresh round of protests takes place over upcoming Moscow municipal elections Russia is experiencing a profound and protracted crisis. It is time for Russia to reinvent itself as a patriotic nation through local self-governance.
Russia Beyond: How has life in Moscow changed due to coronavirus?
Muscovites are stockpiling essential foods and trying not to leave home unless they have to. And this is far from everything that is happening in Moscow because of the coronavirus outbreak.
VIDEO: Bruce Blair: The Protocol for Nuclear First Use by the United States, Russia, and China
Remarks by Bruce Blair, a former missile launch officer, the co-founder of Global Zero, and a professor at Princeton.
Moscow Times: Coronavirus in Russia: The Latest News
As the new coronavirus that has killed more than 8,800 people continues to spread around the world, Russia has stepped up its measures to tackle the pandemic and prevent its spread within the country.
David Bromwich: Tulsi Gabbard has done the unpardonable
The NY Times full spread hit piece on Tulsi Gabbard is a new low, even for the Times. It is yellow journalism half disguised as human interest, with a few random points of political information.
Sarah Lindemann-Komarova: COVID- 19: The View from Siberia
This is a chronology of events in relation to the COVID 19 pandemic as they evolved in the normal course of life in Akademgorodok, Novosibirsk (the third largest city in Russia).
Mikhail S. Gorbachev: If war is the consequence of a policy, then get rid of the policy
It is only two months into 2020, and the world has already been on the brink of a clash between two great powers. These were real military actions-in Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Then the participants seemed to rethink and stepped back from the brink, What is this? It’s the old policy of “balancing on the edge of war.” A dangerous, adventurist policy.
Portside: How About Raising the Issue of How to Avert Nuclear War?
Will the United States and other nations survive these escalating preparations for nuclear war? In fact, the U.S. government and others are increasing the role that nuclear weapons play in their “national security” policies.
PODCAST: Moderate Rebels: Joe Biden, same old wars, same old interventionism
Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden has for decades supported wars and military interventions across the planet. Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton speak with former State Department Russia adviser James Carden about his experience in the Obama administration.
Dimitri Alexander Simes: Are Russia and America Headed Toward Nuclear War?
Dimitri A. Simes, a contributor to the National Interest, spoke to Viktor Murakhovsky, a retired Russian colonel, defense analyst, and editor-in-chief of the Arsenal of the Fatherland magazine, to better get the Russian perspective on the future of arms control.
Debate: ‘Spheres of Influence’—a Reality to Be Faced or an Atavism to Be Rejected?
As competition among great powers intensifies, so, too, could debates about spheres of influence. Some U.S. policymakers have implied or said outright that the United States has its own sphere of influence that should be respected. Political analyst Ted Galen Carpenter of the Cato Institute has gone as far as to argue that, in order to avoid “needless conflict,” Washington should seek “a sensible agreement” with Moscow…
Boston Review: Banking on the Cold War
The Cold War says more about how U.S. elites imagined their “freedom” than it does about enabling other people to be free.
Churchill, Stalin and the Legacy of the Grand Alliance: An Interview with Professor Geoffrey Roberts
Geoffrey Roberts, Martin Folly and Oleg Rzheshevsky have recently published Churchill and Stalin: Comrades-in-Arms During the Second World War. The book offers an overview —based on material, including never before released documents, from the Russian archives — of the relationship between the two leaders in the period surrounding the Grand Alliance of the US, UK and USSR, which defeated Nazi Germany. Aaron Leonard recently exchanged emails with Professor Roberts about his research.
National Security Archive: False Warnings of Soviet Missile Attacks Put U.S. Forces on Alert
During the Cold War, false alarms of missile attacks were closely held matters although news of them inevitably leaked. Today the National Security Archive revisits the false alerts of the Jimmy Carter administration when on four occasions warning screens showed hundreds and hundreds of Soviet ballistic missiles heading toward North America.
David Neese: The man who asks too many questions
Questions, questions, questions.
Stephen F. Cohen keeps raising them. And he seems dismayed that his fellow lefties decline to join him in doing so — indeed, that they instead attack him in the customary McCarthyite manner.
Fred Weir: Why coronavirus crisis may keep Putin in office until 2036
As the huge package of amendments that will completely overhaul Russia’s constitution worked its way through parliament this week, authorities unveiled a last-minute change that will allow Mr. Putin to run again for president.
Lyle J. Goldstein: Head-To-Head: Russia, Japan, South Korea, and China Face-Off in the Skies over the Pacific
The South China Sea cauldron has been at a full boil now for nearly a dozen years…
George Beebe: What Are Putin’s Real Presidential Plans?
Vladimir Putin openly acceded to the Duma’s “request” that it pass a law enabling him to remain president until 2036 if voters approve. Many observers believe that this had been his plan all along, that his earlier coyness was simply a clever means of testing how much support he might have for end-running constitutional restrictions on his time in office.