American Committee for US-Russia Accord

Stephen Cohen was an active participant in the democratic changes in Russia, and he will always be remembered as such.

Though the political forces shaping Vladimir Putin’s handling of this war would seem to be one of the most important subjects in the world, it’s a subject our finest journalistic outlets have spent the war almost completely ignoring.

Some six months since the start of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the emergence of three realities in the war is forcing Washington to wrestle with some hard choices.

The lessons of every significant Cold War crisis suggest that a more circumspect policy is necessary at such a perilous moment.

The New York Times has disclosed that the US shared vital intelligence with the Ukrainian military and took part in the preparation of the latter’s current “counteroffensive” near Kharkov. No matter the Biden Administration’s motivations in publicising its role in what western media is celebrating as a success story — presumably, with an eye on domestic politics in America — it  could be factually correct. The media leak puts the dramatic happenings in the past 3-4 days in proper perspective.

By directly involving itself not only in the planning but also in the execution of Ukrainian offensive action, the US has crossed what certainly may be seen by the Russian leadership as a red line announced at the very outset of the Russian action in Ukraine.

This does not mean going nuclear. But it likely means escalating from local conventional military action to economic and financial targeting of civilian infrastructure, industrial capacity and energy sources.

Former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry looks back at our relationship with Russia and charts a way forward for peace.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has accelerated pre-existing momentum toward a multipolar global order. In response, the Biden administration effectively rallied NATO and ensured that Russian forces cannot resubjugate Ukraine. But it has not anchored its tactical moves in a broader strategy to safeguard America’s most critical interests. As a result, we are fast headed toward a two-front geopolitical faceoff in which a belligerent Russia and a rising China are cooperating closely with each other against the United States.

 

The White House dropped this little nugget on the Friday before the Labor Day weekend: it wants a new aid package totaling $13.7 billion, on top of the already approved $40 billion for Ukraine from May. We are just now getting some idea of what and why it wants the money now, but there are number of questions remaining.

In the wake of his death, the former Soviet leader has been given warm tributes in the U.S. But there’s precious little discussion of Gorbachev’s strong criticisms of U.S. foreign policy or his warnings about the danger of U.S. arrogance.

The horrific war in Ukraine is, tragically, far from over with no end in sight. Whether the world that emerges will be unipolar or multipolar, one thing is certain: the world is now more polarized. [Read more…] about Ted Snider: How the War is Choreographing Russia’s New Stance


In a remarkably unhinged analysis, NPR host Terry Gross and New York Times Magazine writer Robert Draper claimed that Russia is a communist country — as they went on about how detached from reality rightwing Republicans are.

A guarantor of economic order, the United States has come to mistake itself for a promulgator of international law, able to consign any country, at any time, to the status of an international pariah. Rival great powers see the United States actively engaged in undermining them, and sometimes they are right to

Amy Goodman talks Western hegemony and U.S. policy in Russia, Ukraine and China with Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs, whose new article is headlined “The West’s False Narrative About Russia and China.” Sachs says the bipartisan U.S. approach to foreign policy is “unaccountably dangerous and wrongheaded,” and warns the U.S. is creating “a recipe for yet another war” in East Asia.

The roots of the current Ukrainian crisis, one that has a good chance to spill over its borders into the rest of Europe and even to the US, can be traced to the late 1980s. That’s when Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who recently passed away, extended his hand to America offering everlasting peace and friendship only to be unceremoniously rebuffed.

I am familiar with some details of this offer because in October 1988 I received a totally unexpected invitation from Mr. Gorbachev’s top advisor to play a role in a back channel between the Kremlin and the White House.

To understand both Gorbachev’s idealism and his naivete about the Soviet system, it is vital to understand the real successes achieved by the USSR. Indeed, Gorbachev himself was one of them.

Regarding Russia’s conventional capabilities, the war has shown that while these are considerable in the limited context of fighting Ukraine, Putin is in no position to threaten the United States or its NATO allies even if he wanted to.

Only history will eventually decide Gorbachev’s ultimate reputation. In his own country, a younger generation has come to be interested in his era and its markers. Yet many Russians still revile him; they blame him (along with Yeltsin) for destroying the Soviet Union and for the economic and social misery that followed. Other Russians, however, view him, as I do, as a leader of vision and courage.

The seven-month war in Ukraine, and the role of NATO, especially the Atlanticist powers, are fueled by an official western narrative that depicts the conflict as one between the plucky little Ukrainian David and the brutish Goliath that is Russia. The invasion is as unwarranted as it is vicious and provides justification for a current tally of $57 billion in lethal and non-lethal aid from the United States alone, with the United Kingdom at its side. [Read more…] about ACURA Viewpoint: David C. Speedie: Book Review: ‘How the West Brought War to Ukraine’

On September 23, 2009 Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel and her husband, Stephen F. Cohen interviewed former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev at his foundation in Moscow.