Since the Ukraine crisis exploded into civil conflict and war in 2013, we have known that we live in troubled times. It has become increasingly clear that the peace order in Europe, established at the end of the Cold War in 1989, is unstable. The arrangements made at that time appear to have generated more conflicts than they were able to resolve.
Andrey Sushentsov: “BALL GAME”: STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION DURING RUSSIA-WEST CONFRONTATION
The information space is the main field of confrontation between Russia and the West today. The aim of this confrontation is to win over the public to one’s side. It is important not just to be right, but also to be convincing.
Happy Memorial Day Weekend From ACEWA
Tucker Carlson: Would war against Assad make US safer?
Syria is a complicated situation. With Assad gone, who would run it? (Hint: The jihadists who attacked the US on 9/11)
The Interview: Mikhail Gorbachev
“The Americans squandered the trust we’d built,” says Mr. Gorbachev in a fascinating interview to The Times of London.
Nadezhda Azhgikhina: ‘Novaya Gazeta’ Continues to Be the Watchdog of Russian Democracy
Twenty-five years ago, young Russian journalists created an independent newspaper to tell the truth about the past and present without censorship or fear. Since then, Novaya Gazeta has remained the chief outpost of freedom of speech, courageous investigations, and protection of human rights in Russia.
Recommended books on Russia…(Danielle Ryan)
The incisive Danielle Ryan has put together a ‘must read’ list of books about Russia. Well worth a look.
Dave Majumdar: Here Is How Russia and America Could Go to War in Syria
President Donald Trump said that the United States is currently examining the evidence and that military force remains an option. Trump promised a response even if his administration decides that Russia is responsible
OPEN LETTER: CPJ urges Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to condemn threats to journalists
Dear President Poroshenko: We at the Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent, press freedom advocacy group, write to express our support for Ukrainian prosecutors’ investigation into a Ukrainian website’s defamation of thousands of local and international journalists and human rights activists as “terrorist accomplices,” and to express our shock that instead of condemning the act that puts our colleagues’ lives at risk, senior Ukrainian government officials have praised this deliberate attempt to intimidate journalists and potentially to put them at risk.
Paul Robinson: The Idea of ‘Island Russia’
Russia’s elite aren’t looking for a conflict with the West, but are increasingly convinced that partnership is impossible and that Russia will have to learn to live on its own. People in the West should not find that threatening, but personally I do find it more than a little bit regrettable.
Leaders of 4 Countries Discuss Settling Ukraine Conflict (ABC News)
The Kremlin says that the leaders of Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine have spoken by telephone about ways to settle the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
Tom Switzer: Russiaphobia and the Perils of a New Cold War
From Washington and Canberra to London and Brussels, western leaders have indulged in the rhetoric of moral indignation, punished Moscow with economic sanctions and treated Vladimir Putin as a pariah in world affairs. [Read more…] about Tom Switzer: Russiaphobia and the Perils of a New Cold War
The Internal Logic of Eternal NATO Expansion (Gordon Hahn)
Once NATO expansion began in the mid-1990s, it became all but inevitable that it would continue to do so until it encompassed all the territory between the original NATO member-countries and Russia’s borders.
Edward Lozansky: The Urgent Need for a U.S. – Russia Summit
As the US Congress and mainstream media see it, in the looming confrontation Russia represents the forces of evil while the West, i.e. the U.S. and NATO countries, the forces of good.
PODCAST: The Radical Historian Rewriting Ukraine’s Past (WNYC)
During World War II and in the years following, certain Ukrainian nationalist groups are known to have carried out ethnic cleansing, both helping the Nazis as they exterminated Jews and committing mass murder of Polish citizens in Ukraine. These, historians agree, are the historical facts. But if the new head of Ukraine’s Institute of National Memory has his way, they may not be for long.
Thomas Walkom: Why did Canada expel four Russian diplomats? Because they told the truth
The Russians are being punished for saying that Freeland’s grandfather was a Nazi collaborator during the Second World War. He was.
Out of the Cold War? (Caroline Dorminey)
Is America stuck in the Cold War or headed into a new one? Over the last 25 years, American grand strategy has had to do some heavy lifting to address the rise of terrorism—but it may have lost sight of the more dangerous threat posed by great power wars.
Paul Robinson: Expelled for Tweeting
A week or so ago Canada announced that it was expelling four Russian diplomats as part of the general Western purge of Russians in the wake of the Skripal affair. I suspected something was amiss the moment that I read Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland’s explanation of why those four particular Russians had been chosen.
Russia Goes It Alone With First Eurobond Since Sanctions (Bloomberg)
Beyond raising cash, the deal could have important symbolic value for the Kremlin, which has sought to minimize the impact of sanctions since they were imposed in 2014 over the conflict in Ukraine.
Doug Bandow: The West Should Avoid Starting a New Cold War with Russia
A chilling political wind is blowing through the capitals of America, Europe and Russia.