In the course of arguing that Comey’s disclosure that the FBI is looking into new Hillary Clinton investigation emails may have violated the Hatch Act, Reid slips in an extremely bold claim about the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
The Abnormal Normal of Nuclear Terror (Consortium News)
Almost goofily, behind Official Washington’s latest warmongering “group think,” the U.S. has plunged into a New Cold War against Russia with no debate about the enormous costs and the extraordinary risks of nuclear annihilation, Gray Brechin observes.
Russia Welcomes Growing Wave of ‘Red Tourists’ From China (WSJ)
To see how good relations are between Russia and China these days, check out Novodevichy Cemetery here. Chinese tourists arrive by the busload each week to pay their respects to Wang Ming, a Chinese Communist leader buried here alongside some of Russia’s most prominent writers, composers and politicians.
What Can Russia’s Admiral Kuznetsov Aircraft Carrier Do in the Mediterranean? (Haaretz)
According to Haaretz, “If tested in a showdown, Putin’s sole old smoky carrier is unlikely to prove as capable – it’s inferior, inexperienced and carries a history of mishaps. For now though, the Kremlin has one clear advantage.”
Does the U.S. government really know who hacked Democrats’ emails? (PBS)
Beyond the government’s headline assertion that Russia is to blame, “it’s important to parse the public statement pretty closely,” said Susan Hennessey, a national security fellow at the Brookings Institution. “They’re being really careful in their word choice.”
Britain to send hundreds more troops to Russia border as Cold War tension escalates across Europe (Telegraph)
Britain will send hundreds more troops close to Russia’s border, the Government has said, as the Prime Minister also called for “pressure” on Moscow over the Syria crisis.
Why Hillary Clinton’s plans for no-fly zones in Syria could provoke US-Russia conflict (Spencer Ackerman)
Retired senior US military pilots are increasingly alarmed that Hillary Clinton’s proposal for “no-fly zones” in Syria could lead to a military confrontation with Russia that could escalate to levels that were previously unthinkable in the post-cold war world.
The EU’s Amateur dialogue with Russia (Peter S. Rieth)
The European Union parliament often prides itself on being a model for international intergration on a global scale. Yet, the upcomong Boris Nemstov forum, billed as exemplifying EU-Russian dialogue, does not live up to the European parliament’s lofty reputation. Rather than EU-Russia dialogue, the forum is an example of Europeans talking to themselves and failing to engage in real politics. [Read more…] about The EU’s Amateur dialogue with Russia (Peter S. Rieth)
The U.S. Can Learn From Japan’s Efforts To Improve Russian Relations (Robert Shines)
U.S.-Russian hostilities have the potential to impact the U.S.’ re-balance to the region to counter China. Despite (or perhaps because of) this, Japan has renewed its own outreach efforts to Russia. These efforts have lessons for the U.S. with respect to overcoming unproductive rhetoric and soberly recognizing shared security interests in arguably the most important geopolitical region of the future.
Totalitarian tendencies in post-Maidan Ukraine (OpenDemocracy)
In post-Maidan Ukraine, temnyky, arrests and censorship have become commonplace. What’s more, repression against dissidents and even murder have become socially acceptable…To be fair, it should be noted that justifications of violence and murder of “enemies” have not been accepted by society as a whole – only by one segment of social media, the mass media and those who call themselves “Maidan activists”
On GPS: Understanding the new Cold War (feat. Stephen F. Cohen)
Fareed Zakaria digs into heightened tensions between U.S. and Russia with ACEWA Board Member and NYU professor emeritus Stephen Cohen and Washington Post columnist David Ignatius
Russia: Halt of Airstrikes on Aleppo to Continue (ABC News)
The Russian military said Tuesday the halt of Russian and Syrian air strikes, now in its seventh day, on besieged eastern parts of the city of Aleppo will continue and humanitarian corridors will remain open even as the Syrian army has unleashed a new offensive on the rebel-held neighborhoods.
Germany Warns of the Danger of War (George Friedman)
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Oct. 8 that the situation between the U.S. and Russia today is more dangerous than it was during the Cold War. As he put it, “It’s a fallacy to think that this is like the Cold War. The current times are different and more dangerous.”
Turning a Blind Eye towards Armageddon: US leaders reject the nuclear winter studies (Dr. Steven Starr)
Scientists warn of the existential danger of nuclear war. Ten years ago, the world’s leading climatologists chose to reinvestigate the long-term environmental impacts of nuclear war. The peer-reviewed studies they produced are considered to be the most authoritative type of scientific research, which is subjected to criticism by the international scientific community before its final publication in scholarly journals. No serious errors were found in their studies. [Read more…] about Turning a Blind Eye towards Armageddon: US leaders reject the nuclear winter studies (Dr. Steven Starr)
Russians Conduct Nuclear-Bomb Survival Drills as Cold War Heats Up (WSJ)
Russian authorities have stepped up nuclear-war survival measures amid a showdown with Washington, dusting off Soviet-era civil-defense plans and upgrading bomb shelters in the biggest cities.
Hacker Claims Breach of Russian Ministry Website (US News and World Report)
A lone wolf hacker known as Jester claims to have hacked a Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Jester claims to have been a former U.S. soldier in Afghanistan who now works in cybersecurity and intelligence, and to have launched cyberattacks against hundreds of websites, particularly those that support jihadists.
A normal week in the British press (Paul Robinson)
Probably the most influential weekly political magazines in the United Kingdom are The Economist, The Spectator, and The New Statesman. All have published their latest editions in the last couple of days. Here are the results.
VIDEO: The State of U.S.-Russia Relations (Council on Foreign Relations, feat. Stephen F. Cohen)
ACEWA Board Member and Princeton and NYU Professor Emeritus Stephen F. Cohen, The Brookings Institution’s Fiona Hill and Columbia University Professor Emeritus Robert Legvold discuss the current state of relations between the United States and Russia, including cooperation on strategic initiatives in Syria, tensions surrounding the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and the post–Cold War expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and recent allegations of Russian-sponsored cyberattacks.
Washington’s New Lock-Step March of Folly (Robert Parry)
Confident in a Hillary Clinton victory, Washington’s foreign policy elite is readying plans for more warfare in Syria and more confrontations with nuclear-armed Russia, an across-the-spectrum “group think” that risks life on the planet, says Robert Parry.
Compare the coverage of Mosul and East Aleppo and it tells you a lot about the propaganda we consume (Patrick Cockburn)
Destruction in Aleppo by Russian air strikes is compared to the destruction of Grozny in Chechnya sixteen years ago, but, curiously, no analogy is made with Ramadi, a city of 350,000 on the Euphrates in Iraq, that was 80 per cent destroyed by US-led air strikes in 2015.