WASHINGTON, DC — This morning, a bipartisan coalition of organizations sent a letter to the Biden administration in support of their efforts to engage diplomatically with Russia. On Monday, Russian and U.S. officials will meet in Geneva for the first of three rounds of security talks set to take place next week.
PODCAST: Joe Weisberg: Do We Have Russia Upside Down?
Joe WeisbergJanuary 7, 2022
Joe Weisberg, creator of FX’s The Americans and a former CIA analyst, makes the case in his new book, Russia Upside Down, that America’s foreign policy toward Russia is failing, and we’ll never fix it unless we rethink our entire relationship.
Barry R. Posen: A new transatlantic division of labor could save billions every year!
BOASJanuary 6, 2022
The US defense effort consumes roughly three-quarters of a trillion dollars per year and makes up a quarter of all Federal spending and half of all federal discretionary spending.
ACURA’s Katrina vanden Heuvel: What a Sensible Ukraine Policy Would Look Like
nation/wapoJanuary 4, 2022
Despite all the bellicose blather, the real security interests of Americans are clear. Ukraine is not among them.
PODCAST: Munk Debates: ACURA’s Anatol Lieven vs. Dov S. Zakheim
munk debateJanuary 4, 2022
ACURA’s Anatol Lieven, Sr. Research Fellow at the Quincy Institute debates Dov S. Zakheim, a neocon former Pentagon official under George W. Bush who now serves as Sr. Advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on the question of whether the West should intervene militarily to defend Ukraine from Russia.
ACURA’s Anatol Lieven: Ukrainian neutrality: a ‘golden bridge’ out of the current geopolitical trap
RSJanuary 4, 2022
The truth is that the West has no intention whatsoever of fighting against Russia to defend Ukraine.
President Biden and other leaders have made it clear that they will not do so, any more than the Obama administration fought for Ukraine in 2014 or the Bush administration for Georgia in 2008 – despite all the previous talk of partnership.
The idea that Germany, France or Italy would do so is simply ludicrous. In these circumstances, to insist on holding the door open to future NATO membership for Ukraine is absurd, deeply unethical, and extremely dangerous both for Ukraine and NATO’s existing members.
ACURA ViewPoint: Mary Dejevsky: Memorial Is Down But Not Out
ACURA ViewpointJanuary 3, 2022
Among the most positive developments in the last years of the Soviet Union was the mushrooming of so-called informal groups, which demonstrated that Russia, too, had the makings of a civil society.
Lyle Goldstein: Eerie similarities link the Ukraine and Taiwan situations
the hillJanuary 3, 2022
More than a few commentators recently have drawn connections between the tense situations involving Ukraine and Taiwan, even though these countries are separated by about 5,000 miles.
Mikhail Gorbachev: My Appeal to Our Leaders and to All of Us: Let Us Think, Propose and Act Together
Acura ViewpointJanuary 1, 2022
The following speech by Mikhail Gorbachev, former President of the Soviet Union and Nobel Laureate, was delivered on November 8, 2014 at the New Policy Forum symposium in Berlin.
From the Archives: Stephen F. Cohen Interview with Princeton Alumni Weekly (April 2008)
Princeton UniversityDecember 31, 2021
Q: Is NATO expansion needlessly provocative?
SFC: I think it’s disastrous for American-Russian relations. If it weren’t for the war in Iraq, we would understand that Russia is still our No. 1 national-security concern. Only Russia has the weapons that could destroy us. It has a vast share of the world’s energy. Russia sits at the crossroads between Judeo-Christian and Islamic civilizations. It’s also the world’s first- or second-largest exporter of weapons, and its capacity for good or mischief is enormous. Remember, too, that George H.W. Bush promised Gorbachev in 1991 that if Soviet Russia agreed to allow a united Germany in NATO, NATO would not move one inch to the east. Beginning with President Clinton, we have repeatedly violated that promise.