American Committee for US-Russia Accord

How Washington’s chronic deceit-especially towards Russia-has sabotaged U.S. foreign policy.

Here’s a puzzle for all you students of U.S. foreign policy: Why is a distinguished and well-known approach to foreign policy confined to the margins of public discourse, especially in the pages of our leading newspapers, when its recent track record is arguably superior to the main alternatives?

I refer, of course, to realism. 

With corruption rampant and living standards falling, Ukraine may become the next failed state that “benefited” from a neoconservative-driven “regime change,” though the blame will always be placed elsewhere – in this case, on the demonized Russian President Putin, writes Robert Parry.

By declaring Putin’s Russia to be the greatest danger to America, the political-media establishment itself is endangering US national security.

Of course, the “Russian threat” is not so great as the Poles would have others believe. For all of Warsaw’s concern for “central and eastern Europe,” there have been no real Russian threats against those states. Nor has Vladimir Putin done anything to suggest his interest in an aggressive war to conquer the region. No one imagines a revived Red Army heading toward Montenegro, recently invited to join NATO.

By treating Russian President Vladimir Putin and his cronies as an existential threat, Western leaders are playing directly into the Kremlin’s hands, and validating its false narrative about Russia’s place in the world.

American liberals are so upset about Trump that they cannot believe he is a real product of American life,” Mr. Kurilla said. “They try to portray him as something created by Russia. This whole thing is about America, not Russia.”

When it comes to tackling Islamic State, Russia and the US have much to offer each other. Many in the IS leadership and rank and file fought for more than a decade against Russia in the two Chechen wars that began in 1994, and the Putin government is heavily invested in combating Islamist terrorism.

After a massive neo-fascist march in Poland and new reports of neo-Nazi influence in Ukraine, Lev Golinkin, an author who fled then-Soviet Ukraine as a child, says both the US and Russia have troubling ties to Europe’s far-right

In an ironic twist of fate, those shouting loudest about Russian ‘fake news’ and demanding that the West take action against RT and other Russian media outlets, are now finding themselves accused of being Russian agents… I can’t help thinking that what goes around comes around, and that Legatum and co. have only themselves to blame for their predicament.

Nation contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussion of the new US-Russian Cold War. Cohen points out that the Cold War that erupted two years ago has now spread from Ukraine and Europe to Syria and Turkey. The old order is dying, but a new one is not yet clear.

Trump’s advisers think that the president will agree to arming Ukraine if they can persuade him that it will lead to “peace” and the Ukrainian government will pay for the weapons. It’s possible that they might sucker Trump into believing this, but he would be a fool to listen to them.

Russia’s efforts may yet fail, the naysayers in the United States are not wrong to point out the many challenges, but Russia still gains from having tried. More importantly, the Sochi summit is confirmation that a new alignment is shaping up in the region.