American Committee for US-Russia Accord

Bipartisan allegations that Trump is a “puppet” of or “compromised” by the Kremlin have grown into latter-day McCarthyism with grave threats to America and the world.

A child with a map can look at where the strategic frontier between the West and Russia was in 1988 and where it is today, and work out which side has advanced in which direction.

The reporting on Russia’s reaction to (and alleged role in) Trump’s victory has been simplified and one-dimensional. It has sent otherwise intelligent people into a tailspin of conspiracy theories and, worse, a kind of new McCarthyism.

In the case of New START, it was conventional hawkish boilerplate back in 2009-2010 that Russia benefited more from the treaty, but this wasn’t true. It represented the continuation of a mutually beneficial arms reduction process, and it ensured that reductions by both sides would be verified by inspections.

It is excellent, excellent, that a president at last puts the question of American innocence—the answer to which must be self-evident—very publicly before us. We as a nation have flinched from this for decades and so landed ourselves in all kinds of disgrace before others. As to “moral superiority,” this is for the record: Americans have no claim whatsoever. Who can take the ensuing outrage seriously?

Although I write a lot about current events, I am by training a historian, so it’s nice sometimes to take a break on this blog from contemporary problems and look instead at times past.

Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. With fighting having escalated between the US-backed Kiev government and Russian-backed rebels in Donbass, this week’s discussion focuses again on Ukraine’s role in the new Cold War since 2013–2014.

In recent weeks, we have watched with increasing alarm as Ukrainian forces have pushed forward into the demilitarised demarcation line in a “bite and hold” strategy. This was admitted by the Ukrainian deputy defence minister, Igor Pavlovsky, when he stated that “step by step … our boys have been advancing”.

Making Minsk work has always been easier said than done. Despite Trump’s election — and with it, the potential of reduced support from Washington — the Ukrainian public and political elite remain reluctant to make any kind of deal in eastern Ukraine.

The administration’s Iran obsession blinds them to the reality that Russia doesn’t see Iran as they do, which seems likely to set them up to fail if they make splitting Russia and Iran a condition for improved relations with Russia.

The claim that it was ‘Russian forces’ who ‘began’ the recent combat doesn’t fit the facts. As I pointed out in a recent post, even some very pro-Ukrainian sources admit that the Ukrainian army has been consistently breaking the ceasefire in order to conduct a ‘creeping offensive’ against the rebels in Donbass.

Similar to the two prior U.S. Presidential administrations, the current administration is making overtures towards Russia in the hope of improving U.S.-Russian relations. However, any penchant for deal-making must be buttressed by the clear understanding of other great powers’ legitimate security interests.