Trump’s case for America First must refute internationalism’s root strategic assumptions and transform the nation’s definition of foreign-policy success.
Analysis
Its Only Propaganda When They Do It (Paul Robinson)
So let me get this straight. Russkii Mir openly provides money to the University of Edinburgh for the study of Russian language and culture. That constitutes a ‘secret propaganda assault on Britain’. Ambassador McFaul proposes giving money to Russian universities through disguised channels and for decidedly political purposes, and that is ‘advancing democratic ideas’?
Steven Goff: What’s it really like in Russia? During World Cup, more vibrant than I expected.
Moscow is the vibrant heart of this soccer celebration…
The New McCarthys Attack Trump on Russia (Ted Galen Carpenter)
There are plenty of reasons to dislike Donald Trump…But we must not allow the new McCarthyism to chill debate about how to deal with Russia. Proponents of a hardline policy who smear Trump and other advocates of accommodation do their country a monumental disservice
Paul Robinson: Strategy or Improvisation?
If I had to recommend a single article for foreign policy decision makers to read, it would be Robert Jervis’s 1968 essay ‘Hypotheses on Misperception.’
Lurching Toward World War III (Consortium News)
Anti-Russian hysteria has reached extraordinary levels in Official Washington with heated allegations about Russia hacking Democratic Party emails, but this over-the-top “group think” threatens the world’s future, explains John Chuckman.
FAIR: Pundits Worry Threat of Nuclear War Is Being Reduced
On MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, the host was aghast (6/12/18) that the US says it will halt the annual war games…Maddow implied that Trump has taken this step out of fealty to Russia, and complained that pausing war games that threaten North Korea benefits Russia and China.
VIDEO: Scholar and ACEWA Board Member Stephen Cohen on CNN
On Saturday, Prof. Stephen F. Cohen appeared on CNN with Michael Smerconish to talk about Russia, Trump and the increasingly McCarthyite tactics of the Clinton campaign.
Aaron Mate Interviews Christine Ahn of Women Cross DMZ
AARON MATE: This liberal unease continued when President Trump announced a temporary freeze on U.S. war games in the Korean Peninsula. To MSNBC host Rachel Maddow this was an alarming development, and one that was likely the fault of Russia.
A Surprising Sort of Success: On the German Marshall Fund’s Latest Report On Ukraine (Paul Robinson)
A risible report on the ‘success’ of Western policy in Ukraine comes courtesy of The German Marshall Fund was reviewed by Paul Robinson of the University of Ottawa. Robinson concludes, “we shouldn’t kid ourselves that Ukraine is suddenly going to turn into Switzerland. Nor we should kid ourselves that Western policy in Ukraine has been anything other than a failure.”
Ted Galen Carpenter: Is NATO Pushing Russia Towards Retaliation?
The United States and its NATO allies continue to find ways to antagonize Russia.
A Second Cold War Is Now Official NATO Policy (Patrick Lawrence)
There have been 22 NATO summits since the first convened in Paris 59 years ago. If you study the chronology, they are more frequent during those times the alliance loses its declared purpose and has to find some new task – a new “threat” to justify the vast bureaucracy in Brussels, the comfortably seconded generals, the military exercises, the incessant production and reproduction of mass anxiety and, of course, the defense contracts that are NATO’s abiding raison d’être.
A Message From Sharon Tennison of the Center for Citizen Initiatives
Dear CCI Friends,
It is 4 am. I awakened this morning from jet lag in a gated community of private homes on the West Coast. Swirling around in my mind was, “The Making of the Enemy,” a phrase of past decades. It has never seemed more relevant to me than now. [Read more…] about A Message From Sharon Tennison of the Center for Citizen Initiatives
25 years of START (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)
Twenty-five years ago this Sunday, the world gave a heavy sigh of relief. On July 31st, 1991, Presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and George H.W. Bush signed the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or more commonly, START I. The treaty limited the nuclear arsenals on either side of the Iron Curtain to 6,000 warheads and 1,600 Strategic Nuclear Delivery Vehicles (SNDVs) by 1999.
Lyle J. Goldstein: On Putin’s Right Flank
A broadside is leveled against Russia’s president from the military sector.
Against Neo-McCarthyism (The Nation: Editorial)
In their eagerness to defeat Trump, liberal pundits are reviving a damaging discourse.
FLASHBACK: President Kennedy’s American University Address of June 1963
55 years ago this week, President John F. Kennedy gave a landmark address calling for peace between the world’s two nuclear superpowers. Said Kennedy, “No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue.” Were he alive today, would Kennedy be able to utter such a sentiment and not be condemned as a ‘useful idiot’ by CNN, MSNBC, Mother Jones, The Atlantic, The New Republic, National Review and The Washington Post?
Aaron Mate: The Mueller Indictments Still Don’t Add Up to Collusion
A year of investigations has led to several guilty pleas, but none of them go to the core of the special counsel’s mandate.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: The Trump spectacle is overshadowing the more urgent scandals of this administration
More than a year into the special counsel’s inquiry, the Trump-Russia story continues to receive a disproportionate amount of the media’s attention.
PODCAST: Neo-McCarthyism and Olympic Politics as More Evidence of a New Cold War (Stephen F. Cohen)
Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. Cohen notes that it seems Mrs. Clinton intends to run against Trump-Putin. If so, the new Cold War can only become more dangerous, especially if she wins and if this McCarthyite tactic reflects her hawkish views on Russia, and the wildly demonized Putin in particular.