We have developed a national obsession with Russia. Hardly a day goes by without many column inches and much airtime being devoted to yet another Russian transgression.
Analysis
Paul Robinson: Backtracking on Information Warfare
It’s interesting to witness somebody backtracking from a long-held opinion without actually admitting it. This thought came to mind when reading an article by Peter Pomerantsev…
Gordon Hahn: Russian Propaganda: Much Ado About Little Compared with Western Stratcomm
Much is being made about the ostensibly omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent Russian propaganda machine.
PODCAST: The Syrian Cease-Fire Is Under Attack From Within the Obama Administration (Stephen F. Cohen)
Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US–Russian Cold War. (Previous installments are at TheNation.com). While in Ukraine, the political epicenter of the new Cold War, the US-backed Kiev’s government’s crisis grows worse, Cohen emphasizes that the US–Russian brokered ceasefire in Syria presents an opportunity to deal a major blow to the Islamic State, greatly diminish the Syrian civil war and generate cooperation between the two proxy powers in Ukraine.
The agreement is, however, under fierce attack on many fronts. US “allies” Turkey and Saudi Arabia are threatening to disregard the ceasefire provisions by launching their own war in Syria. In Washington, Secretary of Defense Carter and his top generals informed the White House and Congress that Kerry’s agreement with Moscow is a “ruse” and that Putin’s Russia remains the “No. 1 existential threat” to the United States—charges amply echoed in the American mainstream press.
In this context, Cohen makes three additional points. The “Plan B” proposed by Carter apparently means a larger US military intervention in Syria to create an anti-Russian, anti-Assad “safe zone” that would in effect partition the country. This, Cohen adds, would continue the partitioning of political territories that began with the end of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in the 1990s and now looms over Syria, Ukraine and even the European Union. Second, though today’s severe international crises get scant attention in the ongoing US presidential campaigns, Mrs. Clinton has a potentially large and highly vulnerable stake in the Syrian crisis. As documented by a two-part New York Times investigation, then Secretary of State Clinton played the leading role in the White House’s decision to topple Libyan leader Gaddafi in 2011, which led to a terrorist-ridden failed state and a growing bastion of the Islamic State today. Clinton’s campaign statements suggest that she does not support Kerry’s initiatives but instead a replication of the Libyan operation in order to remove Syrian President Assad—a version, it seems, of Carter’s “Plan B.” Third, Cohen, pointing to the familiar (and meaningless) accusation that Putin has “weaponized information,” wonders whether the coverage of these events by US mainstream media is more misleading than Russian media coverage or about the same. Or, as Russian political intellectuals like to say when presented with two bad alternatives, “Both are worst.”
Leonid Bershidsky: A New Peace Effort Is Needed in East Ukraine
A new Ukrainian law recognizes the demise of the Minsk agreements. This shouldn’t be the end of the road.
Ray Acheson: We Need a Complete Nuclear-Weapons Ban
The terrifying incident in Hawaii proves that nuclear disarmament is as important as ever.
Washington Post: After a year of Trump, Russians are still waiting for the thaw
A year into Trump’s term, that improvement is nowhere in sight…Trump has given his go-ahead for the delivery of lethal weapons to Ukraine for use against Russian-backed separatists, a step Obama avoided. And the new U.S. National Security Strategy, which the White House released last month, names Russia alongside China as challenging “American power, influence, and interests.”
Max Blumenthal: The US is Arming and Assisting Neo-Nazis in Ukraine, While Congress Debates Prohibition
Known as a bastion of neo-Nazism, the Azov Battalion has received teams of American military advisors and high powered US-made weapons
NY Magazine: Glenn Greenwald’s war on the Russia investigation
When it comes to what the investigation was designed to focus on, Greenwald says he’s still waiting for hard evidence that the Trump campaign aided Russian operatives in hacking the Clinton-campaign emails – or struck some other corrupt bargain.
Editorial – The Guardian’s view on the US and Russia in Syria: rivals who need each other
The Syrian war has lasted so long and diplomacy has proved so ineffective that the hope that it could end or at least be brought under some kind of control is hard to sustain. Yet the cessation of hostilities agreed by nearly all of the warring parties seemed to be holding this weekend.
Robert E. Hunter: Dealing With Hawaii’s False Alarm
Treating this event as a routine malfunction misses the broader implications, big time.
VIDEO: Paul Robinson: Do We Still Need NATO?
Paul Robinson, professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa and former officer in both the British and Canadian armies, examines the arguments for and against NATO’s continued existence, and challenges whether the organization continues to serve a useful purpose.
Update on Ukraine (David Speedie and Nicolai Petro)
ACEWA Board Member and Carnegie Council Senior Fellow David Speedie discusses the situation in Ukraine with Nicolai Petro, including the political crisis for the governing party in Kiev, the situation in Eastern Ukraine, and the state of the Minsk accords.
Richard Burt and Jon Wolfsthal: America and Russia May Find Themselves in a Nuclear Arms Race Once Again
Despite the Trump administration’s decision to treat it as an afterthought, arms control is not dead.
End Times for the Caliphate? (Patrick Cockburn)
A new loose alliance between the US and Russia, though interrupted by bouts of Cold War-style rivalry, produced an agreement in Munich on 12 February for aid to be delivered to besieged Syrian towns and cities and a ‘cessation of hostilities’ to be followed by a more formal ceasefire. A de-escalation of the crisis will be difficult to orchestrate, but the fact that the US and Russia are co-chairing a taskforce overseeing it shows the extent to which they are displacing local and regional powers as the decision-makers in Syria.
William Perry: The Terrifying Lessons of Hawaii’s Botched Missile Alert
We survived multiple Cold War close calls through a combination of good management and, to a troubling degree, plain good luck. We can’t always count on that good luck.
Syrian Army Recaptures Town in Aleppo Province From IS Group (ABC News)
Syrian government troops backed by Russian airstrikes recaptured a town in Aleppo province from Islamic State militants on Thursday in a key advance just two days ahead of a U.S. and Russia-engineered cease-fire that is set to take effect in Syria.
The New Cold War in 2018: A Discussion With Professor Stephen F. Cohen
In a podcast with the TF Metals Report, Professor Cohen notes that “I’ve been working in print and broadcast about the onset of a new Cold War since late 1990s because I saw the Clinton administration’s intrusive policies and then Yeltsin’s Russia as generating a backlash that would lead the two countries to a replication or continuation of the 45-year cold war…”
What the New York Times won’t tell you about the American adventure in Ukraine (Patrick L. Smith)
All of a sudden, straight out of nowhere, Ukraine creeps back into the news. There is renewed fighting in the rebellious eastern regions. There is political warfare in Kiev. There is paralysis in the upper reaches. There is some new formation called the Revolutionary Right Forces occupying the Maidan—the very same Independence Square where, two years ago this past Sunday, months of protests tipped into violence and an elected president was ousted.
Coilin O’Connor and Andy Heil: Astonishment At Ukraine Ban On Best-Selling ‘Stalingrad’
British historian and best-selling author Antony Beevor says he is dumbfounded at a decision by Ukrainian authorities to ban the import of a Russian translation of his award-winning account of a major tipping point in World War II and that he expects an apology.