“If you ask an intelligence officer, did the Russians break the rules or do something bizarre, the answer is no, not at all,” said Steven L. Hall, who retired in 2015 after 30 years at the C.I.A.
Analysis
Is it Time for America to Quit NATO? (Ted Galen Carpenter)
NATO will celebrate its sixty-seventh anniversary in April…it should become an opportunity for a long overdue assessment of whether the NATO commitment truly serves America’s best interests in the twenty-first century. There is mounting evidence that it does not.
Paul Robinson: Asymmetrical Rules
It is sometimes said that current East-West tensions do not constitute a ‘new Cold War’ because East and West are not ideologically divided in the way they were previously. Yet it is clear that beneath present disputes lies a fundamental philosophical disagreement about the nature of a ‘rules-based order.’ Resolving it is perhaps one of the key philosophical tasks of our time.
Alexander Cockburn: The Fable of the Weasel
The man of conscience turns out to be a whiner, and of course a snitch, an informer to the secret police, Animal Farm’s resident weasel. When Orwell’s secret denunciations surfaced a few years ago, there was a medium-level commotion…
Stephen F. Cohen: If America ‘Won the Cold War,’ Why Is There Now a ‘Second Cold War with Russia’?
Stephen F. Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies and Politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. Any attentive observer of relations between Washington and Moscow at least since the early 2000s could have seen the unfolding reality, but only recently have authoritative representatives of the bipartisan American establishment acknowledged the new Cold War or “second Cold War with Russia.”
Katrina vanden Heuvel: The Nuclear Posture Review Signals a New Arms Race
On Friday, the Pentagon released its 2018 Nuclear Posture Review. Its debut demands more attention, because it announced a renewed round in the nuclear-arms race, one inevitably bringing us ever closer to the unthinkable – a nuclear war of catastrophic consequences.
Lev Golinkin: In Eastern Europe, Revisionist Holocaust Bills And Anti-Semitism
Poland’s brazen decision to pass a law protecting Holocaust denial should come as no surprise. Three years ago, the international community was largely silent when the government of Ukraine passed similar legislation. Today, we’re witnessing the fruits of that silence.
Matt Taibbi: Donald Trump’s Thinking on Nukes Is Insane and Ignorant
If one could adjectivize the president, there has never been anything Trumpier than Donald Trump’s posture on nuclear weapons.
CIVIL RIGHTS IN THE DONBAS AND “PROGRESSIVE EUROPEAN PRECEDENT” (Ukraine Comment)
… it is long overdue for friends of Ukraine, particularly those in the west to whom parliamentarians are purportedly looking for advice, to speak out against the crude, hard-hearted, tone-deaf dehumanization of Donbas civilians. No matter what the ideological preferences of those civilians may be.
Glenn Greenwald: Dutch Official Admits Lying About Meeting With Putin: Is Fake News Used by Russia or About Russia?
Over the past year, there have been numerous claims made by Western intelligence agencies, mindlessly accepted as true in the Western press, that have turned out to be baseless, if not deliberate scams.
Introduction to Ukraine in crisis (Nicolai N. Petro)
In a special issue of European Politics and Society a distinguished group of Canadian, Ukrainian, and American scholars examine various aspects of the Ukrainian crisis, and consider its impact on Europe. Topics include Russian narratives about Ukraine; the conflicting assumptions underlying their divergent nation-building agendas; new findings about the far right’s involvement in the Maidan protests; the Ukrainian crisis from the perspective of Western grand strategy; the security implications of Russia’s geopolitical agenda in Ukraine; the factors that contributed to the rise of separatism in Donbass; and the economic costs for Ukraine of choosing economic integration with Europe rather than Eurasia.
Amos Harel: Putin’s Phone Call With Netanyahu Put End to Israeli Strikes in Syria
Prior to Saturday call, senior Israeli officials were still taking a militant line and it seemed Jerusalem was considering further military action.
Busted Fantasies In Kiev: America And Europe Won’t Save Ukrainian Maiden In Distress (Doug Bandow)
Many Ukrainians expect America and Europe to save them. Suggest that they are living a fantasy gets you tarred as a blatant fool and Russian stooge. Yet Ukraine shouldn’t waste time posing as a fairy tale maiden in distress waiting for rescue by the Western knight in shining armor. Kiev risks ending up as a failed state.
Restraint in Short Supply in the Pentagon Budget (Caroline Dorminey)
The DoD’s plan to counter Russian aggression involves an investment of $3.4 billion in FY2017 alone under the European Reassurance Initiative. This request more than quadruples last year’s request for $789 million.
Brian Milakovsky: Ukrainians Abroad: The Economics and Politics of Labor Migration
In December, Ukraine’s Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan made a statement that raised many eyebrows in his country. “We have no reason to travel to Russia,” he told reporters.
For Ukraine, EU Sanctions on Russia Hang in the Balance (Stratfor)
Ukraine still needs the West more than the West needs Ukraine, and the government is in no position to pressure the European Union. For this reason, Kiev will continue to employ a range of tactics, including diplomatic measures and threats to intensify the conflict if sanctions on Russia are eased.
Aaron J. Mate: What We’ve Learned in Year 1 of Russiagate
The relentless pursuit of this narrative above all else has had dangerous consequences.
PODCAST: Trump v. Disastrous US Triumphalism in Foreign Policy (Stephen F. Cohen)
Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US–American Cold War. (Previous installments are at TheNation.com.) Whatever else one may think about Donald Trump as a presidential candidate, Cohen argues, his foreign policy views expressed, however elliptically, in a Washington Post interview this week should be welcomed, especially in light of terrorist attacks on Brussels, for their challenge to the bipartisan neocon/liberal principles and practices that have guided Washington policymaking since the 1990s—with disastrous results.
That policymaking has included the premise that the United States is the sole, indispensable superpower with a right to intervene wherever it so decides by military means and regime changes, and by using NATO (“coalitions of the wiling”) as its own United Nations and rule-maker. In recent years, from Iraq and Libya to Ukraine and Syria, the results have been international instability, wars (both proxy and civil), growing terrorism, failed “nation building,” mounting refugee crises, and a new Cold War with Russia.
Trump proposes instead diplomacy (“deals”) toward forming partnerships, including with Russia; rethinking the rightful mission of NATO; Europe taking political and financial responsibility for its own crises, as in Ukraine; and a smaller American military footprint in the world. In effect, a less missionary and militarized American national security policy. Cohen suggests that Trump may be calling on an older Republican foreign policy tradition. And that he is emerging as a realist in two respects: in reality, the world is no longer unipolar, pivoting around Washington; and the United States must share and balance power with other great powers, from Europe to Russia and China.
The orthodox bipartisan establishment, Republicans and Democrats alike, have reacted to Trump’s proposals, Cohen says, as though he is the foreign policy anti-Christ, readying all-out assaults on his remarks. It is possible that this existential confrontation might lead, if the mainstream media does its job, to the public debate over US foreign policy that has been missing for twenty years, and certainly during the 2016 presidential campaigns
VIDEO: When Are Journalists Foreign Agents? Hosted by Columbia Journalism School.
Columbia Journalism School and the Harriman Institute hosted a panel discussion with journalism experts on the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which featured Chris Hedges, host of RT America’s ‘On Contact’; Maria Snegovaya, Columbia University; Trevor Timm, Freedom of the Press Foundation; Jeffrey Trimble, U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors. Moderated by Steve Coll, Dean, Columbia Journalism School.
VIDEO: Nukes and the New Cold War (Stephen F. Cohen)
Radio and television host Thom Hartmann talks with ACEWA Founding Board Member Professor Stephen F. Cohen about the heightened nuclear risk in light of the crisis in relations between the US and Russia, and how Secretary of State John Kerry is trying to work with Russia in trying to resolve the crises in both Syria and Ukraine.