President Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin Tuesday afternoon, expressing U.S. objections to a variety of Kremlin actions, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday.
Paul Pillar: In seeking New START extension, Biden avoided a diplomatic meltdown
The Biden administration is seeking a five-year extension of the New START treaty, which limits Russian and U.S. strategic nuclear arsenals.
Mark Episkopos: The Truth Behind Russia’s Navalny Protests
There is no singular “opposition” for Washington to support – no unified alternative ideology, least of all one palatable to the West, to replace the current Russian state and institutions.
Daniel Larison: New START Survives
The Biden administration is pressing ahead with extending New START for the full five years allowed in the treaty.
Paul Robinson: Michael McFaul’s Counterproductive Policy Proposals
Former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul accuses Russian president Vladimir Putin of leading an “assault on democracy, liberalism, and multilateral institutions,” with the objective of “the destruction” of the international order. From this McFaul concludes that the United States “must deter and contain Putin’s Russia for the long haul.” He then makes several suggestions as to what this policy should involve.
DW: Russian ship resumes work on Nord Stream 2, despite US sanctions
The Russian pipe-laying ship “Fortuna” has defied US sanctions on Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and resumed its work on the project in waters off Denmark…
Mark Episkopos: What the Navalny Arrest Means for Russia and the West
Overt Western threats in the Navalny affair risk having a paradoxical effect on Russian civil society: with every subsequent demand from Brussels or Washington, leniency on Navalny is further tarred with the politically toxic brush of Western appeasement.
Benjamin, Davies and Winograd: Will the Senate Confirm Coup Plotter Nuland?
Who is Victoria Nuland? Most Americans have never heard of her because the U.S. corporate media’s foreign policy coverage is a wasteland.
Gorbachev: US-Russia relations of ‘great concern’ but salvageable
Former Soviet leader calls on Joe Biden to reach out to the Kremlin.
DW: Nord Stream 2: US hits Russia ship with sanctions
The US is set to impose sanctions on the Russian pipe-laying vessel “Fortuna” for its involvement in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project. Work resumed on the project late last year despite threats from the US.
Ted Galen Carpenter: Joe Biden’s Foreign Policy Dream Team Is Disappointing
Surveying the views of the Biden foreign policy team, one is struck by the extent of utterly conventional thinking.
Connor Echols: Biden’s hidden hawks
Biden has continued to staff his team with Obama administration alumni—in effect, charging them with solving the problems they created in a past life.
Andrew Bacevich: On Inauguration Day, a good time to curb our presidentialism
Presidentialism is American Exceptionalism transferred to the arena of politics. It is a vast and dangerous delusion. The sooner we wake up to that fact the better for our democracy.
Jerusalem Post: Russia’s Lavrov: Syria must not be an Israel-Iran battlefield
Russian foreign minister argued that Israel should notify Russia about security threats in Syria rather than going after them. Israel’s policy is to notify Russia before attacking such threats.
Jerry Brown, William Perry and David Holloway: Our advice to President Biden: Break the dangerous pattern of nuclear competition with Russia
In this current state of dismal relations, dialogue is not a reward or an exercise of naivete; it is an imperative for survival.
Jackson Lears: Orthodoxy of the Elites: A Review of Anne Applebaum’s Twilight of Democracy
Few sights in Washington are more familiar than an intellectual urging “total war” from the safety of the keyboard…
Mark Episkopos: Joe Biden’s Pick of Victoria Nuland Means Relations with Russia Could Get Worse
Reports of Nuland’s future appointment are sure to come as a source of elation to the government in Kiev. By the same token, they send perhaps the clearest message yet to Moscow that the prospects for meaningful U.S.-Russian rapprochement under a Biden administration appear exceedingly slim.
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos: 10 questions Congress must ask secretary of defense candidate Lloyd Austin
Many of Austin’s positions on a wide variety of national security and foreign policy issues have yet to be known.
AP: Russia withdraws from Open Skies Treaty after U.S. departure
Russia said Friday it will withdraw from an international treaty allowing observation flights over military facilities following the U.S. exit from the pact.
Natylie Baldwin: On the new amendments to the Russian constitution
It is important to note the contextual background of law in Russia and the differences as well as similarities compared to what many westerners are used to…