Biden’s picks for top administration slots are making clear that economic restrictions on countries like Iran, North Korea, China, Venezuela and Russia will remain an essential tool, even if they don’t like everything about the way Trump used them.
Hunter DeRensis: Walter Q. Gresham was a real restrainer’s secretary of state
Looking back to the nineteenth century, we find a secretary of state whom the writer Bill Kauffman labeled “quite possibly the most anti-imperialist diplomat in the history of the republic.” No, not the oft-quoted John Quincy Adams — but the unappreciated Walter Q. Gresham.
FNC: After entanglement with Chinese spy, Eric Swalwell warned of ‘influx of Russians’ under Trump
The former 2020 presidential candidate had become best known in recent years for his outspokenness of the Russia investigation. He repeatedly insisted that Russians colluded with the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, something Special Counsel Robert Mueller ultimately put to bed.
John Grady: Russian Ambassador to U.S. Sees Hope for Nuclear Arms Treaty Extension
The Russian ambassador to the United States said there is still time to extend the Strategic Arms Control Treaty, due to expire in early February, even despite the upcoming presidential transition.
The National Interest: A New Path Forward for NATO
The security situation in Europe has deteriorated to its lowest point in the past three decades.
Paul Pillar: Why Joe Biden Won’t Be Free from America’s Forever Wars
Those who strongly believe in a less militarist U.S. foreign policy should not make the mistake of focusing narrowly on the issue of ending the war in Afghanistan as if it were isolated from everything else a president does.
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos: Biden bypasses Flournoy, taps General Austin for defense secretary
Austin would have to get a waiver from Congress to qualify. The National Security Act of 1947 requires a prospective secretary to wait seven years after ending active duty as a commissioned officer. This would only be the third time a waiver was requested – the first being for Gen. George Marshall in 1950, the second for Gen. James Mattis when he was nominated to be President Trump’s first defense secretary in 2017, four years after leaving the military.
William J. Perry: How a US defense secretary came to support the abolition of nuclear weapons
Many people have asked me how a former secretary of defense could support the abolition of nuclear weapons. This paper is a partial answer to that question, in the form of a personal history of how my thinking on nuclear weapons has evolved from Hiroshima to the present time.
Gordon M. Hahn: Towards a Political Biography of Vladimir Putin: From Commissar to Accidental Revolutionary From Above
Western analyses and perceptions of Russian President Vladimir Putin if not caricatures are most often distortions that take the man outside the realm of the common mortal – with his/her nuances, changes over time, positives and, to be sure, negatives. He is portrayed as made in the KGB as nothing but a colorless, cynical, Soviet-style secret policeman and unwavering apparatchik so beginning from his entrance into the organs in 1975 inevitably ending so in the grave. In fact, Putin is a significantly complex person. One can question his moral and ethical qualities as a person and leader, but there is significant evidence that Putin is a decisive leader.
VIDEO: Simone Weil Center: Politics, Tragedy, Sovereignty: The Meaning of Today’s Russia
On December 2, the Simone Weil Center for Political Philosophy hosted a panel discussion on “Politics, Tragedy, Sovereignty: The Meaning of Today’s Russia.” The discussion was moderated by Anatol Lieven, the distinguished journalist and scholar. The panel was comprised of George Washington University’s Marlene Laurelle, the philosopher and editor Boris Mezhuev, the University of Kent’s Richard Sakwa, the University of Ottawa’s Paul Robinson and the journalist James W. Carden.
Lucy Komisar: Swiss Attorney General’s office to close investigation brought by William Browder
This has been a long time coming. Nine years since Browder brought the charges and the Swiss froze some $20 million of a handful of targets who had deposits in Swiss banks.
Reuters: Russia to Germany gas pipeline targeted in U.S. defense bill
The annual U.S. defense policy bill unveiled by lawmakers late on Thursday contains sanctions that backers say will halt one of Russia’s biggest projects in Europe: the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
VIDEO: Aaron Mate Joins Michael Tracey to Discuss RussiaGate
Mate and Tracey delve into the parallels between the Left’s RussiaGate conspiracy and the Right’s own conspiracies regarding election fraud.
Paul Robinson: Farewell Chubais
Between Russian liberalism and the Russian people there appears to be what one might call an ‘empathy gap’. The career of Anatoly Chubais, a man widely despised in his own country but once crowned ‘European Finance Minister of the Year’, is perhaps as clear an example as one could find.
Dan DePetris: A more humble foreign policy: can this Biden team deliver?
President-elect spent the last week announcing his foreign policy team. Among other nominees, Antony Blinken has been tapped for Secretary of State; Jake Sullivan as national security adviser; and career foreign service officer Linda Thomas-Greenfield has been asked to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
VIDEO: VOA: What Will Happen to US-Russia Relations Under Biden?
VOA speaks to Russian experts on the prospects for US-Russia relations under a Biden administration.
Doug Bandow: The Blob Is Back And It’s Ready For War
On foreign policy, Joe Biden promises that ‘America is back.’ What that means in practice is likely to be bad for Americans, and the world.
Robert Wright: Grading Biden’s Foreign Policy Team: Tony Blinken
Overall grade: C-
Paul Robinson: The ‘civilizational turn’ that wasn’t
‘What’s this civilizational turn?’, you ask. It’s the idea that since 2012, the Russian state and its leaders have increasingly turned towards a civilizational discourse in their foreign policy rhetoric, describing Russia as a distinct civilization, separate from the West, with its own unique values and institutions.
Patrick Deneen’s conversation with Russian political philosopher Boris Mezhuev
Political philosopher Patrick Deneen’s conversation with Russian political philosopher Boris Mezhuev offers valuable insights into post-liberalism, its meaning and future prospects.