American Committee for US-Russia Accord

In part two, Cohen completes his analysis of Vladimir Putin’s inheritance and explains how he came to focus his thinking on “lost alternatives”- outcomes that could have been but were not. Most surprising to me was the real but foregone prospect of reforming the Soviet system such that the suffering that ensued since its demise could have been averted.

Ever since the first indications that there were Russians encamped at the airfield in Latakia, theories have proliferated around Russia’s strategy in Syria, its intentions, and questions on how far they — and others — will go.

There are lots of things that these theories get wrong.

There’s an alternative story of Russian relations we’re not hearing. Historian Stephen Cohen tells it here…

The Cold War: A World History is told chronologically, but unlike most books on the subject, it begins with the right period.

I know many proponents of sending arms to Ukraine sincerely believe it will check Russian aggression and save lives. If the sales go forward and it indeed helps reduce violence in the frontline zone, I will be delighted to have been wrong. But if this move instead triggers escalation and subjects Donbass civilians to a new round of death and misery, will proponents still be paying attention?

The U.S. mainstream media is touting a big break in Russia-gate, emails showing an effort by Donald Trump’s associates to construct a building in Moscow. But the evidence actually undercuts the “scandal,” reports Robert Parry.

Prof. Paul Robinson explores some reasons why liberal Russian political parties such as PARNAS remain unpopular at the polls. According to Robinson, while the oft-stated liberal complaint that “they suffer from a combination of state repression and constant propaganda from state-controlled media” may have some validity, Robinson speculates that, among other reasons, “it is possible that Russian liberalism is tainted because it has never been able to develop a healthy relationship with the state and with concepts of legality, constitutional process, and the like. This comes out in the obsession with street protest, the hopes for ‘regime change’, a ‘colour revolution’, and so on.”

When Bill Clinton trampled upon repeated promises and began expanding NATO towards the Russian border, George F. Kennan, the architect of containment, warned of a “tragic mistake.” NATO expansion helped convince Russians that the West regards it as a permanent enemy. The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency recently reported that the Kremlin apparently believes the United States seeks regime change in Russia.

Steven Starr, the director of the University of Missouri’s Clinical Laboratory Science Program, as well as a senior scientist at the Physicians for Social Responsibility, writes in a timely piece for the Federation of American Scientists that “While it is impossible to precisely predict all the human impacts that would result from a nuclear winter, it is relatively simple to predict those which would be most profound…

Following the detonation (in conflict) of US and/or Russian launch-ready strategic nuclear weapons, nuclear firestorms would burn simultaneously over a total land surface area of many thousands or tens of thousands of square miles.”

Dr. Alexander Rabinowitch, Professor Emeritus of Russian History at Indiana University in Bloomington, discusses his life and times and the Russian Revolution.

A small but vocal group of retired American military officers, including President Obama’s former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, have become so disgusted with the Obama Administration’s lack of a coherent strategy for defeating the Islamic State (ISIL) in Syria and Iraq, that they have publicly come out, supporting the Russian intervention, and calling for a US-Russian partnership to defeat ISIL, even if it means postponing the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Some of these retired flag officers retain deep ties to active duty officers, up to the level of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

On his visit to Ukraine this week, the American defense secretary, Jim Mattis, confirmed that he favors providing “defensive weapons” to the former Soviet republic.

In Kiev, Mattis could provide no definitive answers to questions about what is likely to change.

Thirty years ago, the last Soviet leader gave the world the possibilities of a democratic Russia and (with Ronald Reagan) an end to Cold War and nuclear arms races. Today, it is as though those historical alternatives never existed.

The following is an open letter Oxford University’s Tina Jennings to the editor of TIME magazine. According to Jennings, “We would do well to take Putin at his word now and again. He chooses his words exceedingly carefully and doesn’t do sound bites. The result of this approach is that Putin not only means what he says, he also says what he means. This is so refreshing by the standards of ordinary politicians we’re accustomed to in the West that it may feel perplexing, even disorientating, for some.”