American Committee for US-Russia Accord

On March 11, 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union, and within a few weeks the full-scale reformation he attempted to carry out both inside his country and in its cold war relations with the West, particularly the United States, began to unfold.

Mikhail Gorbachev, who ended the Cold War without bloodshed but failed to prevent the collapse of the Soviet Union, died on Tuesday at the age of 91, Russian news agencies cited hospital officials as saying.

Kiev’s war aims have won easy US support in part because maximalism has long been a feature of American foreign policy.

At this stage, most informed observers agree that the Ukraine war will either end at the negotiating table, or remain a bloody stalemate that drags on indefinitely. So what are the prospects for some kind of diplomatic solution to the fighting?

The repeated willful disregard for Russian views and Russian interests displayed by Western governments not only helped to produce a catastrophic backlash in Russian foreign policy but also contributed greatly to the growth of illiberalism at home…

Three ACURA Board members, Anatol Lieven, Nicolai Petro and James Carden have contributed to The Simone Weil Center Symposium on Realism and Legitimacy  which asked:  Why it is that realism in U.S. foreign policy practice has all but disappeared, and is this disappearance related to a more generalized American loss of contact with reality itself?

“We are not at the beginning of a new Cold War, we are well into it,” Cohen said, “which alerts us to the fact ‘hot war’ is imaginable now. It’s unlikely, but it’s conceivable — and if it’s conceivable, something has to be done about it.”

President Ronald Reagan allegedly “shifted away” from containment in the early 1980s and brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union through a policy of massive defense spending, economic warfare, support for proxies, and an ideological offensive.

The American strategic thinker and academic John Mearsheimer has written that the risk of a disastrous escalation is “substantially greater than the conventional wisdom holds. And given that the consequences of escalation could include a major war in Europe and possibly even nuclear annihilation, there is good reason for extra concern.”

Ask a well-meaning left-liberal about the riskiness of Ukraine joining NATO, and you’ll be told: “Come on. Why would Russia be afraid of NATO?” The answer is: Look at a map.

American military and civilian leaders routinely ignore the historical record and its lessons. Most importantly, they ignored the criticality of human capital in uniform that frequently constitutes the margin of victory in war.

Washington must come to terms with its role in provoking and now prolonging the war.

The murder of Daria Dugina, in a car bombing, has the full attention of the Russian media today. The target was almost certainly her father, right-wing “Eurasianist” philosopher Alexander Dugin, who was apparently supposed to be in the car but went in a different one at the last moment. [Read more…] about Fred Weir: The murder of Daria Dugina

Aleksandr Dugin, the ultra-nationalist Russian philosopher and erstwhile organiser of the National Bolshevik Party, has been referred to as ‘Putin’s brain’. In an interview in March, Professor Marlene Laruelle, the world’s leading expert on Dugin, says his influence is no longer direct.

The Underappreciated Risks of Catastrophic Escalation.

The Washington Post has launched a new history-shaping exercise, but it fails to ask the right questions and omits Biden’s most serious mistakes.

 

Excerpt from Stephen F. Cohen’s May 2010 appearance at the Carnegie Council for his book “Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War.”

This plaintive lyric from Pete Seeger’s unforgettable song—“Where Have All the Flowers Gone”– moves me deeply today for many reasons.

“When will we ever learn” that men, women and children all around the world–all of us–care and want the same things:  peace and security in our lives: knowing we are appreciated and that we matter with people whom we respect; having opportunities for personal progress and to enjoy a reasonable level of prosperity? [Read more…] about ACURA ViewPoint: John Pepper: When Will We Ever Learn?

A Russian soldier speaks to foreign journalists in front of the ruined Metallurgical Combine Azovstal plant, in Mariupol, Ukraine, on the territory held by Donetsk People’s Republic forces, June 13, 2022. The siege of the plant was heavily covered by Russian embedded reporters.

Guillaume Sauvé notes that while Russian liberals called themselves “democrats,” their definition of democracy wasn’t so much the rule of the people as a country governed by “democrats,” i.e. people like themselves. They were thus less democratic than they imagined themselves to be. Even before the collapse of the Soviet Union, would-be reformers were pointing out that dismantling communism would produce severe economic pain which would stimulate popular resistance. Overcoming this resistance would require authoritarian measures, they argued.