According to plans released in early 2018, the Trump administration wants to dramatically expand nuclear weapons programs and loosen restrictions on their possible use. This overkill capacity is financially and morally bankrupt, and puts Americans — and the world — at greater risk of nuclear catastrophe.
Ben Norton: Congress calls on Trump to boost intervention in Syria, to ‘pressure’ Iran and Russia
400 members of Congress, including leaders from both parties, want to intensify the eight-year war on Syria, to weaken Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah.
Byron York: As Barr mulls declassification, a familiar tune from critics
“Democracy dies in darkness.”
Fred Weir: Arms control limbo
It’s become something of a signature play by the Trump administration to reject or tear down an existing framework of agreements, then pledge to replace it with something much, much better.
Brianna Philpot: How NATO Destabilizes Europe
While terrorism has become a major focus for NATO in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, European based NATO forces still appear directed at Moscow.
Trump: Declassification Of Russia Probe Intel Is About Transparency
For over a year, people have asked me to declassify. What I’ve done is declassified everything. [Attorney General William Barr] can look. I hope he looks at the UK and I hope he looks at Australia, and I hope he looks at Ukraine. I hope he looks at everything,” Trump said.
RIP John Lukacs: The Gadfly
Lukacs never subscribed to the standard anti-Communist view of the Cold War, shared by both liberals and conservatives. He regarded Senator Joseph McCarthy as an opportunistic thug. Dwight Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles were stupid nationalists who missed an opportunity to end the Cold War after Stalin died.
Even worse were Lyndon B. Johnson and the Establishment liberals who launched the Vietnam War. But Lukacs also despised the New Left and the counterculture of the 1960s, with its decadent contempt for tradition and proud ignorance of history. (He was proudly, defiantly bourgeois.)
Reuters: Risk of nuclear war now highest since WW2, UN arms research chief says
Renata Dwan, director of the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), said all states with nuclear weapons have nuclear modernization programs underway and the arms control landscape is changing, partly due to strategic competition between China and the United States.
Paul R. Grenier: On Natasha Bertrand’s McCarthyite Hit Piece
Politico’s “Mueller report reveals Kushner’s contacts with a ‘pro-Kremlin’ campaign adviser” (Politico, April 29, 2019), is dishonest, destructive, and should never have appeared in print.
The author of the piece, Natasha Bertrand, initially refers to Dimitri Simes, CEO of the Center for the National Interest, not as an American citizen, although of course he is and has been for many years, nor as a leading representative of realist foreign policy thinking in the United States, which would have also been true.
Instead, she initially frames him (in every sense of the word ‘frame’) as “a Russian willing to assist” the Trump campaign. This word choice rings, and is intended to ring, the Pavlovian bells of the Russia-gate narrative. Aside from being dishonest, her word choice smacks of racism — a habit, to be sure, which is now widespread, as long as the object of that racism is Russia.
If Ms. Bertrand has regularly watched the program The Great Game (Bol’shaia igra), and understands it, and if she is familiar with Simes’ writings and conferences and the publications that appear in The National Interest, then she has no excuse for writing this piece in the first place. The genre to which this piece belongs is clear.
It is called a hit piece.
Bertrand deploys, of course, a few fig leaves of pretend objectivity, which may have helped assuage her conscience, but that is all that these fig leaves can do. What we have here is a list of scurrilous attacks (“he [Simes] is completely pro-Kremlin and always has been”). These attacks are then countered by opinions to the contrary, but without any suggestion as to where the preponderance of evidence lies. There is insufficient detail.
And that is the whole point, isn’t it? ‘Maybe Simes is a traitor — although there are those who think he may not be.’ If you accuse some Mr. X of being a rapist, and then add another opinion saying, ‘Gosh, I don’t think he is a rapist,’ what is the impact on the reader? In the present context, the impact is this: if you take into consideration a Russian perspective in any way, shape, or form, even for the purposes of avoiding war — and this is precisely what Simes is constantly doing, and with considerable intelligence and courage — then you are going to get a nasty hit piece written about you by the likes of Politico and Ms. Bertrand.
I regularly watch The Great Game, which Mr. Simes co-hosts on Channel 1 with Vyacheslav Nikonov, and I have seen how he not just once, but in virtually every single program defends US interests, and disagrees when Russian colleagues try to make a one-sided case against the U.S. Simes regularly invites Atlantic Council spokespersons, or their policy equivalent, to the program, and there they have the freedom to make their case in great detail and without interruption, and inevitably they make statements that are sharply critical of the Russian government and its policies. It is Mr. Simes who sees to it that these voices from the Atlantic Council are heard by the Russian side.
As a result, Simes is carrying out vitally important work of diplomacy that allows for a two-way communication between policy elites on both sides, and he very adeptly is doing so in a way that allows both sides to actually listen and hear what is being said. If he simply screamed politically correct slogans, it would either shut this channel of communications down or turn it into another pointless circus where no one really listens.
I find it baffling that Politico wants to undermine this virtually unique remaining channel of diplomacy. For the sake of what? Would Politico prefer that there be no conversation whatsoever between the US and Russia? Why? Isn’t it obviously preferable that we make an effort to understand a potential adversary’s perspective, particularly when that potential adversary is the other nuclear superpower? It is astonishing — and foolish — that no program anything like The Great Game can be found anywhere in US media. In the US, we hear only variations on our own perspective on our big news programs. Where do we allow voices from the other side to make their case?
Simes should be thanked for his work. Instead what he gets is this hit piece. It is not only disgusting and disheartening, it is frightening.
Paul R. Grenier is a co-founder of the Simone Weil Center for Political Philosophy. He worked for many years as a simultaneous interpreter for the U.S. Defense and State Departments, interpreting for Gen. Tommy Franks and serving as lead interpreter for US Central Command’s peacekeeping exercises with post-Soviet states.
Ann Garrison reviews Stephen F. Cohen’s “War with Russia?”
Cohen says that Russia-gate has deeply damaged at least four U.S. institutions: the electoral system; the presidency; the “intelligence community;” and the media, meaning most of all the influential “legacy” media; The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the major television and cable news networks. Whichever side of the partisan divide they’re on, Americans know they’ve been lied to by one or more of them.
Ed Lozansky: From Kennedy-Khrushchev to Trump-Putin
Washington Examiner: Joseph Mifsud has ties to State Department
Although Mueller’s team portrayed Mifsud as a Russian asset with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Nunes said the team decided to”cherry pick” information from news reports, leaving out that he was described as a Western intelligence asset.
Lev Golinkin: Joe Biden’s Conflict of Interest on Ukraine
If Biden wants to be president, he should pledge that his son will disentangle himself from investments that could impact foreign policy.
Scott Horton Podcast: Andrew Cockburn on the Military-Industrial ‘Virus’
Cockburn laments how President Trump ran against the wars and the military-industrial complex, but hasn’t turned any of his good instincts into policy.
Gene Healy: Boot and Rally
A skillful parodist would shrink from anything so unsubtle as “Samantha Power,” “Anne-Marie Slaughter,” or “Max Boot”—but in this town, a panel discussion with such luminaries could actually be arranged.
It’s not just Boot’s name that’s too on-the-nose. Over his twenty-five-year career of cheering on America’s foreign misadventures, he’s been a walking caricature of a giddy warmonger
Fred Weir: How one woman’s citizen diplomacy has strengthened US-Russia ties for decades
Sharon Tennison has been credited with helping to break the cold-war ice. And her mission isn’t over: She thinks the official rhetoric on both sides today is harsher than it was at the depths of the cold war.
Sharon Tennison: Russia: Travel with a Purpose
Never before has Russia and Russian leadership been more demonized. Never has up-to-date data about Russia been more crucial. Experts say never before has the world been closer to nuclear war. We need eyes and ears on the ground throughout Russia to assess whether the information we get is accurate.
Join a delegation of 100 Americans (Sept 1 – 17, 2019) who will question Russian VIPs in Moscow, travel in two or three-person mini-groups to 30 Russian cities across 11 time zones to get current data. They will operate as “citizen diplomats” listening, learning, collecting impressions to bring back to city/state officials and to the U.S. Congress.
The trip is organized by the Center for Citizen Initiatives (CCI) ( www.ccisf.org), an independent NGO, with a 35 year history working between the two nations. CCI ran citizen-based programs to assist the “new Russia” to move from communism to a market economy for 15 years.
CCI’s largest program trained over 6,000 young Russian entrepreneurs in U.S. companies in over 400 American cities in 45 states over 12 years. They came fro 71 Russian regions. Hence we can place Americans wherever we wish.
Become one of our “informal diplomats” who collects current information in outlying Russian cities. Examine the stereotypes we have about “Putin’s Russia.” Draw your own conclusions depending on what you learn. This first-ever trip has three segments:
Moscow: Meet with a dozen Russian experts for two-hour Q&As. Experts range from Mikhail Gorbachev to Vladimir Pozner, followed by a noted ballistic weapons expert, a highly-respected international financial advisor, journalists in Moscow (both American and Russian), specialists in public and private health care, public educators, exposure to Russia’s five faith traditions, a dissident film maker, political figures who agree and disagree with current state policies.
Second Cities: Minigroups of two-to-three persons fly to some 30 Russian cities across 11 time zones where they use their eyes and ears to assess far-away towns and countrysides, ask questions, get inputs, share ideas and carry out personal diplomacy. Their assessments will be pooled during a group data dump in the final city.
St.Petersburg: The group reconvenes for a day-long reportout session where travelers share their perspectives on the regional cities, the conditions and attitudes of persons they met. Stereotypes will be discussed, validated or discarded. Videographers will capture footage for Youtube videos. With primary work completed, travelers set out to enjoy Russia’s classical arts: museums, palaces, ballets, symphonies, galleries and canal rides in hydrofoil boats or Kayaks!
Trip costs: Three budgets are offered depending on amenities. Low budget, medium and elite accommodations. All three are underpriced compared with ordinary travel agencies. For CCI this trip is a mission, the organization takes no markup for organizing this effort.
We welcome your participation! If interested contact: sharon@ccisf.org
AP: The Latest: Kremlin open to any format for Trump meeting
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s foreign affairs adviser says the Kremlin is prepared to agree to any format for a meeting of Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump.
Lyle J. Goldstein: Trump Should Uphold Arms Control, Not Destroy It
A recent Russian flight over sensitive U.S. strategic sites demonstrates that Eisenhower’s legacy for arms control lives on. Such mechanisms are needed now more than ever.
Daniel Lazare: RussiaGate’s Offspring
Russia-gate has shed any premise of being about Russian interference, writes Daniel Lazare, but the idea that America may in anyway be responsible for its own fate is of course unthinkable.