The U.S. mainstream media is touting a big break in Russia-gate, emails showing an effort by Donald Trump’s associates to construct a building in Moscow. But the evidence actually undercuts the “scandal,” reports Robert Parry.
Analysis
RUSSIA’S MISSING LIBERALS
Prof. Paul Robinson explores some reasons why liberal Russian political parties such as PARNAS remain unpopular at the polls. According to Robinson, while the oft-stated liberal complaint that “they suffer from a combination of state repression and constant propaganda from state-controlled media” may have some validity, Robinson speculates that, among other reasons, “it is possible that Russian liberalism is tainted because it has never been able to develop a healthy relationship with the state and with concepts of legality, constitutional process, and the like. This comes out in the obsession with street protest, the hopes for ‘regime change’, a ‘colour revolution’, and so on.”
Washington and Moscow Must Embrace Détente – Despite Trump (Katrina vanden Heuvel)
When Bill Clinton trampled upon repeated promises and began expanding NATO towards the Russian border, George F. Kennan, the architect of containment, warned of a “tragic mistake.” NATO expansion helped convince Russians that the West regards it as a permanent enemy. The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency recently reported that the Kremlin apparently believes the United States seeks regime change in Russia.
Nuclear War, Nuclear Winter, and Human Extinction
Steven Starr, the director of the University of Missouri’s Clinical Laboratory Science Program, as well as a senior scientist at the Physicians for Social Responsibility, writes in a timely piece for the Federation of American Scientists that “While it is impossible to precisely predict all the human impacts that would result from a nuclear winter, it is relatively simple to predict those which would be most profound…
Following the detonation (in conflict) of US and/or Russian launch-ready strategic nuclear weapons, nuclear firestorms would burn simultaneously over a total land surface area of many thousands or tens of thousands of square miles.”
PODCAST: Reconsidering Russia #14: Alexander Rabinowitch Talks With Pietro Shakarian
Dr. Alexander Rabinowitch, Professor Emeritus of Russian History at Indiana University in Bloomington, discusses his life and times and the Russian Revolution.
Fallout from Obama’s Failed Syria Policy: US Military Support for Russia’s Syria Intervention
A small but vocal group of retired American military officers, including President Obama’s former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, have become so disgusted with the Obama Administration’s lack of a coherent strategy for defeating the Islamic State (ISIL) in Syria and Iraq, that they have publicly come out, supporting the Russian intervention, and calling for a US-Russian partnership to defeat ISIL, even if it means postponing the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Some of these retired flag officers retain deep ties to active duty officers, up to the level of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
For the U.S., Arming Ukraine Could Be a Deadly Mistake (Michael Kofman)
On his visit to Ukraine this week, the American defense secretary, Jim Mattis, confirmed that he favors providing “defensive weapons” to the former Soviet republic.
We Still Don’t Know How Trump’s Administration Will Handle Ukraine (Nikolas Gvosdev)
In Kiev, Mattis could provide no definitive answers to questions about what is likely to change.
PODCAST: The Lost Alternatives of Mikhail Gorbachev (Stephen F. Cohen)
Thirty years ago, the last Soviet leader gave the world the possibilities of a democratic Russia and (with Ronald Reagan) an end to Cold War and nuclear arms races. Today, it is as though those historical alternatives never existed.
Timothy Snyder and the distinction between writing history and manufacturing propaganda
The following is an open letter Oxford University’s Tina Jennings to the editor of TIME magazine. According to Jennings, “We would do well to take Putin at his word now and again. He chooses his words exceedingly carefully and doesn’t do sound bites. The result of this approach is that Putin not only means what he says, he also says what he means. This is so refreshing by the standards of ordinary politicians we’re accustomed to in the West that it may feel perplexing, even disorientating, for some.”
The ‘New Cold War’ Was Never Inevitable (Michael Lind)
Russian-American relations today can be described by Kennan’s phrase: “a new cold war.”
Prof. Stephen F. Cohen Continues Weekly Discussion With John Batchelor
In this week’s installment, ACEWA Founding Board Member and the author of Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, Prof. Stephen F. Cohen talks to John Batchelor about, among other topics, Henry Kissinger’s recent Wall Street Journal op-ed.
Kissinger writes that Russia’s recent move into Syria “is a classic balance-of-power maneuver to divert the Sunni Muslim terrorist threat from Russia’s southern border region. It is a geopolitical, not an ideological, challenge…” During their discussion Cohen notes that America’s policy of “regime change in pursuit of virtue” is no way to run a responsible foreign policy, while Batchelor comments that “stability requires that sovereignty be defended.” For the full discussion click below.
What the Cuban Missile Crisis Can Teach Us About the North Korean Missile Crisis (Martin J. Sherwin)
To avoid catastrophe, Kennedy turned to diplomacy. Trump would be wise to do the same.
Russia-gate’s Evidentiary Void (Robert Parry)
A cyber-warfare expert sees no technical evidence linking Russia to the Democratic email releases, but The New York Times presses ahead with a new hope that Ukraine can fill the void, reports Robert Parry.
Domestic Politics Distort Relations with Russia (Amb. Robert Hunter)
Maybe sober leaders in Europe can have an impact on Washington’s attitudes and approaches. That is currently doubtful, but it may be the only chance left to avoid a new, dangerous, and quite useless Cold War II.
Presidents have too much power over U.S. nukes (Bruce Blair)
Bruce Blair, a research scholar in Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security and a founder of Global Zero, the international movement for the elimination of nuclear weapons writes “The crisis with North Korea shows just how urgent it is that we change the way the United States handles its nuclear arsenal.”
RUSSIA AND THE EAST
…when one reviews the history of Russia’s relationship with the East in general, and with Islam in particular, it isn’t as negative as that of the West. There has been a little less hostility and fearfulness, a little less of a sense of superiority, and also a little more tolerance. This fits with the Slavophile view that I have described elsewhere, which contends that cultural diversity is desirable.
Three Days in August (Nadezda Azhgikhina)
They remain in history as a heroic and inspired experience of civic awakening, the unexpected and joyous understanding that everyone’s personal choice has meaning and the future of the country depends on that choice.
Syria and the ‘Vacuum’ Metaphor
Official Washington’s new “group think” is that President Obama’s hesitancy to fully invade Syria has created a “vacuum” that Russia is now filling, but the use of such metaphors can cloud serious analytical thinking and lead to catastrophic misjudgments, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar explains.
Stop Poking the Russian Bear (Robert W. Merry)
Western intrusion into traditional Russian spheres of influence, areas under the sway of Moscow for three centuries or more, represents a highly provocative and destabilizing policy.