American Committee for US-Russia Accord

David Barsamian interviews Katrina vanden Heuvel about current issues in the world and history.

As the US moves toward a proxy war against Russia, reporters aren’t asking tough questions about what that actually means.

 

During the past few months the Biden administration’s rhetoric about its ultimate goals for Ukraine appears to have shifted, with more talk about winning the war against Russia. Evelyn Farkas, executive director of the McCain Institute at Arizona State University, and John Mearsheimer, political science professor at the University of Chicago, join Judy Woodruff to discuss.

The economic war is most unlikely to affect the outcome of the Ukraine War, but it does seem likely to produce outcomes that will prejudice energy security and the climate agenda, while falling hardest on the world’s poor.

Declaring someone irrational leads to a place in which no one wants to negotiate, because, no one wants to talk to crazy people.

There are serious discussions about the use of “tactical” nuclear weapons. Is a limited nuclear war possible? How can we avoid it? Col. Lawrence Wilkerson on theAnalysis.news with Paul Jay.

The only good that can possibly come out of the War Party’s current third unnecessary and unwinnable war in the post-Cold War era would be for the American electorate to vote out of office the political leadership in Washington responsible for our forever wars that are unrelated to our country’s national security and are leading our county into financial insolvency.

Congressman Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) challenges the constitutional authority of President Joe Biden to involve the United States militarily as a co-belligerent or belligerent with Ukraine in its war with Russia and to defend every inch of NATO territory without a declaration of war by Congress.

As calls grow for a ‘victory’ over Russia, we should examine whether such a win-lose outcome is even possible.

Journalist and author Robert Wright talks with historian Marlene Laruelle by what Putin means by “de-Nazifying” Ukraine and whether most Russians support the war. They conclude with a discussion of whether the war was avoidable.

As effective as Zelenskyy has been in drumming up Western support, Ukraine’s message has been far less compelling to audiences in the Global South, where many countries have declined to join Western campaigns to sanction Russia’s economy and isolate it diplomatically.

How did Putin become Putin? Amb. John Evans talks with the John Quincy Adams Society about the future Russian leader when he was just a deputy mayor of St. Petersburg. Evans, then serving as consul general, shares his recollections of the young Putin, situates this in the broader Russian political situation in the 1990s and the evolution of U.S.-Russian relations from the optimism of the period to today’s bitterness.

Ukraine is not Vietnam or Afghanistan — Russia is not going to leave what it believes to be a key national interest without a fight.

Ukraine won the battle for Kyiv and pushed the Russians back from Kharkiv. But that doesn’t mean the war is over – indeed, it seems likely to continue for the long haul, while there may be dangers of Russian escalation in spite of Russia’s weak position. We spoke with George Beebe, former head of Russia analysis at the Central Intelligence Agency and current Director of Grand Strategy at the Quincy Institute, about what lies ahead. His 2019 book is The Russia Trap: How Our Shadow War with Russia Could Spiral into Nuclear Catastrophe.

Ukraine invasion is not the first conflict Western governments have used to showcase weapons to potential buyers.

 

 

The incoming Ukrainian president will have to turn some attention to history, because the outgoing one has just made a hero of a long-dead Ukrainian fascist. By conferring the highest state honor of “Hero of Ukraine” upon Stepan Bandera (1909-1959) on January 22, Viktor Yushchenko provoked protests from the chief rabbi of Ukraine, the president of Poland, and many of his own citizens. It is no wonder. Bandera aimed to make of Ukraine a one-party fascist dictatorship without national minorities. During World War II, his followers killed many Poles and Jews. Why would President Yushchenko, the leader of the democratic Orange Revolution, wish to rehabilitate such a figure?

Neither Foer nor The Atlantic, where he works, responded to repeated requests for comment. A spokesperson at Slate, for which—disclosure—I’ve written, said, “The very basic journalistic best practice and principle of not sharing drafts of stories with the people and institutions we cover is a standard we ascribe to.”

As Americans ingest the constant feed of dire reports and heartbreaking photographs from the war in Ukraine, it behooves us to look at Europe’s views of a European conflict.  [Read more…] about ACURA ViewPoint: David C. Speedie: The Folly of Isolating Russia

If there is indeed a shift in strategy to another level of confrontation with Russia, we need to know what we’re getting into.