The anti-Putin paranoia here is astonishing. That he is a killer, a KGB thug, a murderer, is part of the daily rant of John McCain. At the Munich Security Conference this last weekend, Sen. Lindsey Graham promised, “2017 is going to be a year of kicking Russia in the ass in Congress.” How’s that for statesmanship.
Analysis
Book Review: Paul Robinson Reviews ‘Should We Fear Russia?’By Dmitri Trenin
The Russian empire is definitely not making a comeback.’ Russia has little soft power, according to Trenin, ‘no resources, and no real will to re-create its Eurasian empire’. The West should worry more about Russia collapsing than about Russia strength and ‘aggression’. All this is a welcome rejoinder to a lot of the current scaremongering.
Battling for Hearts and Minds in Eastern Ukraine (Christian Neef)
The old men sitting in front of their houses in Slovyansk resent the incomplete information…They also haven’t forgotten that once the separatists were driven out, the first thing the Ukrainians did was to rename the streets rather than provide jobs for the locals.
NATO’s Free Rider Problem in One Chart (Heritage Foundation)
NATO member states like Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, which are among the loudest voices calling for confrontation with Russia, also happen to be among those which spend the least on Defense…
The “Russia Scare” Coalition: ISIL’s “Useful Idiots”? (National Interest – Editorial)
Victory by the “Russia scare” coalition will limit America’s ability to fight ISIL, complicate efforts to win UNSC support for tough enforcement of the Iran nuclear deal and give China more leverage over both Moscow and Washington.
Give Trump a chance with Putin to make a case for cooperation (NJ.com)
A poisonous fog of paranoia and hysteria clouds Russian-American relations even as presidents Trump and Putin have expressed interest in cooperation, especially against radical Islamic terrorism. It’s time to clear the air so the United States and Russia can focus on the clear-eyed pursuit of their mutual interests.
German Intel Clears Russia on Interference (Ray McGovern)
Mainstream U.S. media only wants stories of Russian perfidy, so when German intelligence cleared Moscow of suspected subversion of German democracy, the silence was deafening, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
PODCAST: Kremlin-Baiting President Trump (Without Facts) Must Stop (Stephen F. Cohen)
Bipartisan allegations that Trump is a “puppet” of or “compromised” by the Kremlin have grown into latter-day McCarthyism with grave threats to America and the world.
Why Trump Is Right on Russia (Anatol Lieven)
A child with a map can look at where the strategic frontier between the West and Russia was in 1988 and where it is today, and work out which side has advanced in which direction.
Donald Trump loves Russia and Russia loves Donald Trump. Right? (Danielle Ryan)
The reporting on Russia’s reaction to (and alleged role in) Trump’s victory has been simplified and one-dimensional. It has sent otherwise intelligent people into a tailspin of conspiracy theories and, worse, a kind of new McCarthyism.
Trump, New START, and U.S.-Russian Relations (Daniel Larison)
In the case of New START, it was conventional hawkish boilerplate back in 2009-2010 that Russia benefited more from the treaty, but this wasn’t true. It represented the continuation of a mutually beneficial arms reduction process, and it ensured that reductions by both sides would be verified by inspections.
Trump Takes a Running Whack at the Liberal Interventionists (Patrick Lawrence)
It is excellent, excellent, that a president at last puts the question of American innocence—the answer to which must be self-evident—very publicly before us. We as a nation have flinched from this for decades and so landed ourselves in all kinds of disgrace before others. As to “moral superiority,” this is for the record: Americans have no claim whatsoever. Who can take the ensuing outrage seriously?
Book Review: Transcaucasia and the Tribes of the Caucasus (Paul Robinson)
Although I write a lot about current events, I am by training a historian, so it’s nice sometimes to take a break on this blog from contemporary problems and look instead at times past.
PODCAST: Ukraine Revisited (Stephen F. Cohen)
Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. With fighting having escalated between the US-backed Kiev government and Russian-backed rebels in Donbass, this week’s discussion focuses again on Ukraine’s role in the new Cold War since 2013–2014.
Another take on Putin, Trump and Ukraine (Richard Sakwa’s Letter to The Guardian)
In recent weeks, we have watched with increasing alarm as Ukrainian forces have pushed forward into the demilitarised demarcation line in a “bite and hold” strategy. This was admitted by the Ukrainian deputy defence minister, Igor Pavlovsky, when he stated that “step by step … our boys have been advancing”.
Kiev Is Fueling the War in Eastern Ukraine, Too (Foreign Policy)
Making Minsk work has always been easier said than done. Despite Trump’s election — and with it, the potential of reduced support from Washington — the Ukrainian public and political elite remain reluctant to make any kind of deal in eastern Ukraine.
Pushing Russia to Break with Iran Is Unlikely to Succeed (Daniel Larison)
The administration’s Iran obsession blinds them to the reality that Russia doesn’t see Iran as they do, which seems likely to set them up to fail if they make splitting Russia and Iran a condition for improved relations with Russia.
Today’s Fear Mongering (Paul Robinson)
The claim that it was ‘Russian forces’ who ‘began’ the recent combat doesn’t fit the facts. As I pointed out in a recent post, even some very pro-Ukrainian sources admit that the Ukrainian army has been consistently breaking the ceasefire in order to conduct a ‘creeping offensive’ against the rebels in Donbass.
For China and Russia, U.S. Unorthodoxy Is No Substitute For Trust (Robert Shines)
Similar to the two prior U.S. Presidential administrations, the current administration is making overtures towards Russia in the hope of improving U.S.-Russian relations. However, any penchant for deal-making must be buttressed by the clear understanding of other great powers’ legitimate security interests.
How to help an immigrant: Ignore the attacker and stand with the newcomer — literally (Lev Golinkin)
I was 9 when my family fled Soviet Ukraine. We lived as refugees in Austria before finally coming to the U.S. I was young enough to assimilate quickly but old enough to understand that even in the land of immigrants, immigrants are not always welcome.