American Committee for US-Russia Accord

Today NATO systematically confronts Russia with troop movements, arms buildups and maneuvers near Russian borders. At the same time, it supports American “out-of-area” wars in places like Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. Turkey has no interest in joining either of those projects. It feels no obligation to do so. That certifies its effective withdrawal from NATO.

Nation contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. Cohen argues that 2015 witnessed the crumbling of the US-led post-1991 international world order, many of the changes, for better or worse, pivoting around the New Cold War. While media attention is currently focused on the conflict over Syria and the Islamic State, Cohen points out that the political epicenter of the Cold War remains in Ukraine.

On Nov 23rd ACEWA Founding Board Members Stephen F. Cohen, Bill Bradley, Jack Matlock, John Pepper and William vanden Heuvel took part in a panel discussion at the Jordan Center at NYU on the topic: “US-Russia Conflict from Ukraine to Syria: Did US Policy Contribute To It?” And…Happy Holidays from The American Committee for East-West Accord.

Katrina vanden Heuvel reports on the dedication of Russia’s monument to victims of the Gulag on the Start Making Sense podcast.

Given in September 2015, a lecture by University of Chicago Professor John J.  Mearsheimer on the origins of the Ukraine Crisis.

One need not be a Putin apologist to note that the United States was itself engaged in a program of instigation, one that ultimately induced a hostile—but arguably defensive—Russian response.

The investigations may actually help Russian president Vladimir Putin to expand his influence and reach, even as they deny the United States the ability to pursue vital national security interests.

Some Western observers claim that there are no neo-Nazi elements in Ukraine, chalking the assertion up to propaganda from Moscow. Unfortunately, they are sadly mistaken.

A nightmare scenario of U.S. geopolitical strategists is coming true: foreign independence from U.S.-centered financial and diplomatic control. China and Russia are investing in neighboring economies on terms that cement Eurasian integration on the basis of financing in their own currencies and favoring their own exports. They also have created the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as an alternative military alliance to NATO. And the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) threatens to replace the IMF and World Bank tandem in which the United States holds unique veto power.

[Read more…] about The IMF Changes its Rules to Isolate China and Russia (Michael Hudson)

Twitter, Facebook, and Google were brought before Congress last week over claims about Russian use of their platforms to influence the 2016 election. We speak to Yasha Levine, author of the forthcoming “Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet.”

The revolutionaries like to imagine that all they have to do is topple the old order and all will be well. They will establish themselves firmly in authority. They don’t imagine that a significant portion of the population might object to their unconstitutional seizure of power and take up arms against them, and that the revolution, however well-intentioned it may be, will have terrible results. We can see this in Ukraine.

Perhaps the best description of Trotsky—his intensity, acumen, and self-awareness of his historical import—comes from Edmund Wilson, who, in “To the Finland Station,” his 1940 book on the intellectual path of Marxism, calls Trotsky the “aristocrat of revolution.”

A memorial monument to Stalin’s millions of victims—the subject of intense political struggle for more than 50 years—was commemorated in Moscow by Vladimir Putin, whose support at last made it a reality.