Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Saturday that he would meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron on March 5 to discuss the deepening crisis in Syria’s Idlib.
Paul Robinson: Proof of Collusion at Last!
The idea that Paul Manafort was an agent of influence for the Russian government flies against everything we know about what he actually did.
Daniel Larison: Foreign Policy? What’s That?
There was no real discussion of foreign policy in the debate.
Luke Nicastro: Alliances Are Means, Not Ends
The U.S. has, by one count, 51 allies covered under various defense treaties, along with several other countries to which it is committed in practice even without formal pacts. Most of these relationships date from the Cold War, and successive generations of policymakers have enshrined them as sacrosanct.
Paul Robinson: The Donbas Fundamentals
One of the primary causes of the war in Ukraine is the contempt with which the post-Maidan government and its activist supporters regard a significant portion of their fellow citizens.
Mary Dejevsky: Russia has a lot to lose over the poisoning of Alexei Navalny
It is not known who in Russia cleared the German air ambulance carrying Alexei Navalny for take-off from the Siberian city of Omsk. Navalny’s wife had appealed directly to president Vladimir Putin, and there are reports that German diplomats interceded at the highest level. But, whoever signed off on the final decision, it was always going to be fraught with risk for the Kremlin.
Hunter DeRensis: Tulsi’s Populist ‘Country-First’ Anti-War Crusade
…whether in the White House or retired from politics, Tulsi Gabbard plans to continue putting Country First.
The Grayzone: Veteran Russia correspondent Fred Weir on the Navalny poisoning
Weir also discusses the flaws of Russia coverage in Western media, including the recent case where Russians were accused of staging a fake left-wing website to deceive U.S. audiences.
Consortium News: GMF’s Alliance for Securing Democracy Smears Independent Journalists
The Alliance for Securing Democracy, an online censorship initiative of the Western government-funded German Marshall Project, falsely and hypocritically characterized The Grayzone and independent journalist Jordan Chariton as “state-backed media,” smearing them for their factual reporting on the shadowy network behind the controversial app that undermined the integrity of the Iowa caucuses.
Philip Johnston: Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum: A querulous and flawed analysis of Europe
This is a personal, somewhat querulous book, whose jaundiced assessment of current politics will be lapped up by those who despise Boris, loathe Brexit, decry Trump, fear populism and find it impossible to come to terms with what is happening in the world
NY Times: Trump Budget Calls for New Nuclear Warheads and 2 Types of Missiles
The president’s spending proposal requests money for a new arms race with Russia and China, and restores nuclear weapons as central to military policy.
Andranik Migranyan: Four Reasons Why Regime Change Won’t Occur In Belarus
There is no reason to believe that the Belarusian opposition will come to power any time soon. Instead, there are numerous differences between what is occurring in Belarus and what occurred in Ukraine in 2014 and in Armenia in 2018. Here are four reasons why.
Gregor Baszak: Away in a Manager: On Michael Lind’s “The New Class War”
Many on the left have been incapable of coming to terms with Hillary Clinton’s defeat. The result has been the stifling climate of a neo-McCarthyism…
Amb. Tony Brenton: We Should Talk to Moscow Over Belarus (Letter to the FT)
You call (“EU needs a tougher response to Belarus”, FT View, September 1) for the EU to be ready to intervene more vigorously on behalf of the Belarus democracy movement, including imposing sanctions if necessary on Belarus and Russia. [Read more…] about Amb. Tony Brenton: We Should Talk to Moscow Over Belarus (Letter to the FT)
Paul Robinson: Religion, Culture and the Russian Constitution
Discussions about amending the Russian constitution continue.
Steven Simon: Ending sanctions on Syria is meant to help the Syrian people, not Assad
State collapse, apart from signifying an awful humanitarian catastrophe, would open space in Syria for ISIL and encourage further encroachment of third countries who perceive an interest in bedding down in Syria.
David Rieff Reviews Samantha Power’s Memoir, The Education of an Idealist
From the beginning to the end of this self-aggrandizing book, what is most striking is how little Power’s views have changed from her early days as a freelance journalist in besieged Sarajevo in the early 1990s to her tenure as the United States’ permanent representative to the United Nations during most of President Barack Obama’s second term.
Aaron Bastani: A Review of Anne Applebaum’s ‘Twilight of Democracy’
The scale of neoliberalism’s breakdown is lost on an esteemed historian and journalist insulated from its worst impacts. This would certainly explain why Applebaum can only comprehend the present conjuncture as the result of mass irrationality and moral failure.
The Hill: DOJ attorney looking into whether CIA withheld info during start of Russia probe: NYT
Justice Department officials are investigating whether the CIA during the Obama administration withheld information in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to The New York Times. John H. Durham is reportedly pursuing a lead that former CIA director John Brennan was trying to steer the Russia investigation in a particular direction and withheld information from other agencies to achieve that goal.
Politico: Journalist Spreads Disinformation Regarding Michigan Election Hack
The source of the confusion: Journalist Julia Ioffe tweeted that Russian news media had discovered the data about 7.6 million Michigan voters on the hacker platform, along with voter information from swing states like Florida and North Carolina. The tweet generated 11,000 retweets and 11,000 likes as of Tuesday afternoon.