American Committee for US-Russia Accord

Dear Friends,

For the whole of 2016, we have been actively deliberating how best to use CCI’s 33-year experience in the US-Russia field––since Russia is increasingly being declared America’s enemy #1––which we totally reject.

We’ve concluded that our successful programs of the ’80s are precisely what is needed again in today’s baffling environment.

Talk about disappointments. The US government’s much-anticipated analysis of Russian-sponsored hacking operations provides almost none of the promised evidence linking them to breaches that the Obama administration claims were orchestrated in an attempt to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.

NYU and Princeton Russian history and politics professor Professor Stephen Cohen reacts to the Obama administration’s sanctions on Russia.

Not all writers on the left succumbed to Trump-Russia panic in 2017.

During my days in Aleppo I did not see the leading international humanitarian organisations working in the field. On the road between Damascus and Aleppo, the only humanitarian transports I saw were Russian and Syrian; I did not see any of the large international convoys that Western governments have insisted on bringing in as part of various earlier ceasefire attempts. I ask myself why.

On Ukraine, the contours of a compromise are obvious. The United States can easily concede an agreement on Ukrainian neutrality, because NATO has shown again and again that it will, under no circumstance, fight to defend Ukraine—so the idea of NATO membership is vacuous.

Anyone too young to remember HUAC and the destruction the Cold War wrought should study up. We are a few short steps away from both.

Twenty-five years ago this month, the Soviet Union collapsed. Scholars are still debating the precise cause of death, but surely unsustainable communal anxiety played a role. Today, I’m stunned to see signs of similar neuroses tainting the United States, the country to which my family fled.

On the campaign trail and in his appointments, Donald Trump has been suggesting a very different U.S. policy toward Russia than his White House predecessors have had. Instead of attempts to contain Russia’s territorial ambitions, Trump has been suggesting much more accommodation, admiration and even possibly cooperation.

U.S.-Russia relations are in disarray, with talk of a new Cold War pervasive. Fortunately, framing the conflict in terms of national interests points to a way forward.

Russia’s military has found a mass grave of Syrians, allegedly killed by rebel groups ahead of last week’s evacuation. An independent monitoring group could not confirm how they died.

Harsh political rhetoric, combined with the vulnerability of the nuclear command-and-control system, has made the risk of global catastrophe greater than ever.

The gravest crisis facing America and the West is also the most unnecessary: the ominous deterioration in relations with Russia.

Panel discussion held in Washington last week featuring:Kevin Ryan, Belfer Center’s Defense and Intelligence Project Director;
Fiona Hill, National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council; Simon Saradzhyan, Belfer Center’s Russia Matters Project Director; and Dimitri Simes, The Center for the National Interest President.

…to some in Washington, beating up on Russia is a conditioned reflex dating to the Cold War. For others in the media and the front groups called think tanks, Russophobia is in their DNA.

I’m willing to believe that Russia sought to hack the U.S. election, but I still find the evidence lacking. That skepticism applies to the latest sensation — a report that Russian proxies in Ukraine are employing the same malicious software used on the U.S. Democratic National Committee.

… as the Greeks knew very well, the eventual consequence of hybris is nemesis – downfall. Those who insist on practising the politics of condemnation should beware.