Finally, they are talking. I mean if the Chairman of the Duma's Foreign Relations Committee Konstantin Kosachev is saying things like that, it means something. Whether he consulted with the Kremlin before making such a bold and courageous statement or not is an open question, but when a man of his statue says that "our society is to no lesser extent the victim of the erstwhile regime, was no less articulate in condemning the crimes of Stalin's totalitarianism, and acted on its own, without external intervention and democratically, to remove the communist ideology from power," it tells you a lot.
Let us be fair. It is not easy for the country's leaders while the Communist Party (CPRF) still gets around 15 percent of the votes to say publicly that the Soviet system were a criminal one. And most likely the main reason why Lenin's tomb is still sitting on the Red Square is that no one wants CPRF to increase its ratings by getting their people on the streets to defend their beloved corpse.
An American friend wrote to me about the current Russian spy scandal in America: "Not good PR for you and [your friend] if he decides to go to Harvard... this is all hilarious... I'm loving all the coverage of a bunch of Russians getting paid to befriend Americans. I wish the U.S. had a program like this, I'd totally do this! Can you imagine?! I'd get my rent and tuition paid just to blurt out stuff that you can automatically look up (in even more depth) on the internet."
This ordinary American summed it all up in the brief four lines: this is funny, embarrassing, wasteful, and - most importantly - hurtful to many Russians like me--to those who honestly fight through American immigration hurdles, challenge the financial crisis to earn income, pass application tests and study hard to get American college and graduate degrees, make new life-long friends, fall in love with America's culture and natural beauty, and by default share their knowledge (and income) with Russian and American friends, families, businesses, and government agencies.
TIME: the Road from Western Capitals These Days Leads to Moscow
Yuri Mamchur
Presidents Obama and Medvedev enjoying burgers at Ray's Hell Burger in Virginia
Following the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum that hosted world's leading CEOs and once again brought together Medvedev and Sarkozy, and the casual lunch in Virginia where Medvedev and Obama ate burgers and split the fries, TIME wrote a refreshing article about Russia. Coincidentally, a week ago, I hosted in Moscow a friend, an American business owner. His conclusion was the following: given a) the demographics of Russia, b) Russia's wealth with natural resources, and c) Russia's central location to the world's fastest growing economies, Russia has no choice, but to grow. The West has no choice, but to participate in that growth.
Steve Jobs gave Dmitry Medvedev the new iPhone 4G. Luckily for Medvedev, his device came unlocked and he has already used it in Russia without any "help" from AT&T.
The children of Russia's baby-boomers grew up and are buying cars, refrigerators, and groceries. They also travel, and learn from their Western counterparts to love stuff. They spend money and learn and earn to spend even more. Russia is gifted with the natural resources. The climate change and advances in technology guarantee that Russia is not going to run out of oil, gas, gold, and timber any time soon. China, India, and Central Asia need Russia. Whether Europe and America like it or not, they need Russia too--in dealing with the Muslim world and expanding personal economies. Furthermore, Americans who tend to be idealistic and sum up things to all-or-nothing (let's say, perceived human rights vs. possible economic gains), in large missed the boat of Russian opportunities: French Ashan took the place of America's Wal-Mart, German Metro Cash and Carry eliminated opportunities for Costco, and Starbucks is shy in stealing customers from Russia's Coffee House and Shokoladnitsa.
June 12: Russia Day or Remember Tsar Mikhail II Day?
W George Krasnow
On June 12, 1918, Grand Duke Mikhail Aleksandrovich (henceforth Michael) and his secretary Brian Johnson, a Brit, were randomly executed in the outskirts of the far away city of Perm in the Ural Mountains. A year ago, Russia "rehabilitated" both, along with other Romanov-related victims of Soviet repression. The decision followed a similar act about Tsar Nicholas II and his family on October 1, 2008.
However, the Russian media at large failed to single Michael out from among the other Romanovs. Didn't Tsar Nicholas abdicate in favor of Michael, his younger brother? If so, shouldn't he be treated as Michael II, the last of the Romanov tsars?
Yes, he should. So thinks Donald Crawford, the co-author of a 1997 book Michael and Natasha: The Life and Love of Michael II, the Last of the Romanov Tsars. Crawford is a lawyer and the publisher of "Parliamentary Briefs" in London. He is fully aware of deviations from the law in both Nicholas's abdication and Michael's deferring his assumption of power contingent upon the decision of the popularly elected Constituent Assembly. However, Crawford insists that those deviations were necessary in order to save the spirit of the law and Russia herself. He is right in calling Michael "the last of the Romanov tsars." Not for the sake of anybody's vanity, of which Michael had none. But for the sake of extraordinary legacy that Michael bequeathed to Russia. That legacy is worthy of any tsar.
What Does Russia's New Foreign Policy Doctrine Mean?
Edward Lozansky
I'd disagree with the widespread notion that Russia's new foreign policy doctrine (or rather proposals for changes in the current foreign policy in the document under discussion) is oriented toward the West. After reading carefully that Foreign Ministry document, I'd say that it is oriented toward West, East, South, North, and any other direction that has a potential for promoting Russia's interests.
The prefix "pro-" in the above interpretation of the proposals is clearly out of place. In realpolitik, any "pro-" subsumes that there is a balancing "anti-" somewhere, overtly or covertly. Not in this document. If anything, it is simply pro-Russian and definitely not anti-- any nation or group of nations.
The only rational interpretation of the thinking underlying this document is that Russia should strive to develop closer political, economic, social and even perhaps military ties with the Euro-Atlantic community or, to put it a bit bolder, civilization - but not at the expense of the other parts of the world.
Color Revolutions Flopped. Where Do We Go from Here?
Edward Lozansky
In Kyrgyzstan, 78 peaceful protestors were killed by police and security of President Bakiyev who took power in 2005 by overthrowing the previous corrupt regime. It took Baikev only five years to become just as corrupt as his predecessor.
The turn of the century was a time of great promise for the USA. It witnessed the collapse of communism and of the USSR; the disappearance from the world scene of America's main geopolitical adversary; and an unconditional victory of the ideas of freedom, democracy, and free market over totalitarian regimes and planned economy dominated by ideological shibboleths. The West was euphoric; the pervading idea was that an era of universal well-being was at hand. The philosopher Francis Fukuyama encapsulated the sentiment in his famous phrase, "end of history": humanity had reached the acme of its progress, and there were no more horizons to conquer.
Actually another, no less famous philosopher, name of Karl Marx, had made similar predictions over a century earlier. He wrote that the evolution of human societies was not endless; it would reach its apogee when humankind had achieved a socioeconomic formation in which man's most profound and fundamental aspirations were satisfied. Marx referred to that form of social organization as communism. Unfortunately for Marxist philosophy and fortunately for mankind, at the end of the 20th century communism, contrary to its founder's forecast, went down the ashes of world history.
Back in 1974 Senator Henry (Scoop) Jackson and Representative Charles Vanik introduced an amendment to a trade law with the purpose of punishing the Soviet Union and other communist countries for the denial of emigration rights to their citizens. At the time it was a justified decision, but in case someone forgot the evil empire has been gone since 1991. Unfortunately, for one of its former parts which never had any emigration restrictions, the Russian Federation, the Jackson-Vanik amendment remains in force. Strictly speaking, the amendment has been a dead letter since 1994 due to a ritual of annual Presidential waivers based on humiliating compliance reviews. Yet it continues to be a constant irritant in U.S.-Russia relations, and therefore should be repealed for good without further delay. It is easier said than done as both the Clinton and Bush administrations tried to get rid of this amendment but failed miserably since the U.S. Congress has the authority to act and refuses to go along.
It is pretty ironic, if not pathetic, that one of the most important stumbling blocks on the way to the repeal of the Jackson-Vanik amendment are innocent American chickens or "Bush legs," as they call them in Russia. I am not talking, of course, about these pretty little birds but about one of the most powerful U.S. lobbies called the "Chicken Lobby" or "Big Chicken." This lobby helps producers sell as much poultry as possible, but as in any trade there are some periodical disputes between the exporters and importers. In normal circumstances, such disputes should be handled through standard commercial negotiation processes. However, "Big Chicken" uses its enormous influence and puts pressure on Congress and the administration to highly politicize this trade and block Russia's graduation from Jackson-Vanik unless it buys huge poultry volumes.
There has been much strident rhetoric in recent years regarding a Bering Strait Crossing and Intercontinental Railway System. I first proposed such a system in 1995 for several reasons. At the time, I was unaware that this idea had first been explored over a century before. Since 1995, I have refined my proposal into a project that is more realistic and within the realm of possibility.
Crossing the Bering Strait and building an Intercontinental Railway System is by no means a simple or easy task. Nothing good in life is! The pros and cons of any large project are usually "six of one and a half a dozen of the other", as the saying goes. There is the indisputable fact that climate in the Arctic and Bering Strait area is inhospitable most of the time and construction of a project of this magnitude would be difficult. Furthermore, the fact that Russia and Alaska are moving toward each other at about 16.5 mm per year, and that we are dealing with a seismically active region, presents a unique set of problems. In addition there are the complicated geopolitical problems and the very serious environmental concerns. And then the final question we must address: What useful purpose does such a project serve?
Improving Russia's Image and Russo-Ukrainian Relations
Michael Averko
Russia's dynamic duo performing this past January 1, on Russian TV station Channel One
Options and Opposing Views
Russia's expatriate population is the subject of Alexei Bayer's recent article in The Moscow Times. He ends the article with a general note on how Russia can gain with a return of some of its expatriates. To an extent, this has happened. Some Russians have decided to return to Russia, without the Russian government actively egging them on. In addition, the Russian government has undergone a program to encourage people of Russian origin to live in Russia.
It is also advantageous for Russia to have an expatriate community. Abroad, these Russians are in a position to provide a better understanding of their native land to others at a grass roots level. In addition, the utilization of Western savvy, patriotically inclined Russians within the more high profile of Western based media and public relations organizations benefits Russia. The ideal individuals for this undertaking are those offering constructive criticisms of Russia, while being aware of the biases against that country and the valid/underrepresented counterpoints to them. Not to be overlooked are people of a more distant Russian origin and non-Russians, exhibiting the same understanding. How to successfully level the playing field is something that continues to be problematical.
The 2004 poster reads "Yushchenko - the People's President." In Jan 18, 2010 Ukrainian presidential elections Mr. Yushchenko received only 6 percent of the vote.
On the one hand the stunning defeat of Viktor Yushchenko, and by extension of the whole Orange carnival, is a welcome event for Russia and for Ukraine as well. However, one shouldn't get too ecstatic because there is also a substantial potential danger ahead. The outgoing president leaves to his successor an economy in shambles, a devalued currency, a huge budget deficit and a national debt of over $33 billion. In addition, Yushchenko did all he could to divide the country's population along ethnic lines by suppressing the Russian language, building memorials and presenting national awards to Nazi collaborators and mass executioners.
In any event, whoever wins the elections on February 7 will deliver to Moscow both good and some bad news. The good news is that the new president will be more Russia-friendly, will stop talking about NATO membership, will consider extension of the lease of the Russian Black Sea Naval base at Sevastopol and will probably make a few other friendly gestures. The bad news is that none of the above is born out of deep and unselfish love for mother Russia; on the contrary, they come with an impressive price tag.
How Many Polish "Patriots" Does It Take to Screw Up US -- Russia Relations?
Edward Lozansky
Patriot missiles
Americans are great fans of Polish jokes; there is a whole website boasting hundreds of them: www.polishjoke.com. Arguably the best known is the one about changing a bulb procedure (it takes at least four Poles to do that). This and other jokes on this site are pretty harmless and can be said to apply to almost any ethnic group. However, the much hyped deployment of US Patriot missiles on Polish territory next to the city of Kaliningrad to repulse potential Russian aggression could well make a worthy addition to this particular site, except that this is no laughing matter at all. Obviously, Washington needed a symbolic gesture of sorts to gild the pill of scrapping its missile-defense-shield-in-Poland plan. However, if this gesture is strictly symbolic, a more unsuitable place and time for it would be hard to find. Because whereas previously Russia was told that it had nothing to worry about BMD-wise, as the sole purpose of the system was destruction of Iranian or North Korean missiles, the Patriots are certainly intended to repulse a potential missile attack by Russia.
Wouldn't be wiser for Washington to resort to some other, more appropriate symbolism to reassure Poland, or rather its "Patriotic" leaders, and allay their fears of Russian invasion. The easiest and most obvious gesture to make would be faxing or e-mailing to all and sundry the text of Article 5 from the NATO Charter, which organization Poland has been a member of since 1999. Under this Article the entire military might of almost 30 member states, including the US and most EU countries shall be employed to come to Poland's rescue and rebuff such an aggression if it would ever take place. Isn't this enough, and why bother with Patriots then?
This publication tries to debunk some popular, but misguided, views on demographic trends in today's Russia. These consist of the perception that Russia is in a demographic "death spiral" that dooms it to national decline (Biden, Eberstadt, NIC, CIA, Stratfor, etc). Some extreme pessimists even predict that ethnic Russians - ravaged by AIDS, infertility and alcoholism - will die out as an ethnicity, displaced by Islamist hordes and Chinese settlers (Steyn, Collard).
The Myth of Russia's Demographic Apocalypse
Think again. While it is true that Russia's current demographic situation is nothing to write home about, most of the demographic trends that matter are highly positive - and there is compelling evidence that Russia can still return to a healthy, longterm pattern of sustainable population replacement.
1. MYTH: Russia is losing 750,000 of its population per year and will become depopulated within decades.
REALITY: In 1992, for the first time since the Great Patriotic War, deaths exceeded births in Russia, forming the so-called "Russian Cross". Since then the population fell from 149mn to 142mn souls. However, the rate of depopulation has slowed massively in recent years.
From left to right: Yushchenko, Timoshenko, and Yanukovych
Five years have gone by as one day. Only yesterday, it seems, we saw jubilant crowds in Kiev celebrating the victory of democracy in Ukraine. Small wonder, too -- the pro-Western Victor Yushchenko had contrived to wrest victory from his hateful namesake, pro-Russia Yanukovich. The former, cruelly poisoned (allegedly by none other than Putin), had miraculously risen from the dead, won the election and was about to guide Ukraine to a life of plenty in the European Union and NATO. The unimpeachable teaching of George Bush about the inevitable spread of democracy across the world had yet again been proved right. Besides, no less importantly, the Orange Revolution turned out to be relatively inexpensive to fund. Especially compared to the business of promoting democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, where thousands of young Americans and Europeans from NATO countries continue to die and hundreds of billions of dollars continue to be spent.
According to Republican Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, in Ukraine the price barely came to several dozen million dollars. However, as he lacked precise statistics, the actual sum could have been considerably larger. The congressman called on the White House Administration and the US General Accounting Office to look into the Ukrainian election's cost to the American taxpayer, and what exactly that money had paid for, yet his appeals fell on deaf ears. That so greatly incensed Ron Paul that he accused the US Government of hypocrisy. On the one hand, said the congressman, we are against external interference in another state's election, but on the other we send money to Ukraine to sway the vote there.
In Russia, presidential New Year's address to the nation is traditionally aired each December 31, five minutes before midnight. Watch Dmitry Medvedev's address from December 31, 2009.
For Russia, 2009 was a pretty difficult year on the domestic front. It was saturated with severe economic and financial crises as well as horrible terrorist attacks and several man-made catastrophes. Nevertheless, the Russians not only proved once again that they can withstand disaster with dignity, but even in these most difficult times they achieved some impressive results in economic and social areas. The economy started to grow and the performance of the stock market was one of the world's best. The shops are full of goods and customers, travel abroad is on the rise, and cultural life is bustling at least in the large cities.
However, three huge and potentially devastating problems remain unresolved and actually are getting worse: poor demography, monstrous corruption, and severe alcoholism. If one compares the number of people per square kilometer in of Russia (8), the United States (50) and China (220), the picture is gloomy. Moreover, this ratio keeps changing, and unfortunately not in Russia's favor. Will the country in the years ahead have enough manpower to implement Medvedev's dreams of innovations and modernization, to serve in its army, or at least to hold on to its huge landmass?
The Captive Nations Resolution and Other US Relics of the Cold War
W George Krasnow
Remarks by Dr. W. George Krasnow at a panel discussion of the 92nd anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution and the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. [1]
President Reagan holds up a proclamation designating Captive Nations Week after signing it in a Rose Garden ceremony.
First, I salute the sponsor of our panel, the Conflict Solutions International. It is a team of independent pro bono lawyers whose mission is to prevent new threats to peace and security in the world. Strategically located in Washington DC, the CSI relies on volunteers throughout the world. Striving to ameliorate current conflicts, they serve as fact-finders, monitors and mediators.
As president of the Russia & America Goodwill Associates (RAGA), an informal organization of Americans favoring better relations with Russia, I cannot think of a better forum. The goals of RAGA are the same as those of the CSI. Luckily, since the Fall of the Wall, Russia and the United States do not have unsolvable conflicts. Whatever conflicts they now have are not of the kind that existed during the Cold War, when the world's very survival was at stake.
Who Should Apologize for the Wrongs of the Soviet Union?
Edward Lozansky
A column of refugees in the Soviet Union, following the German invasion of Soviet territory on June 22, 1941.
In his recent article in the Daily Telegraph (December 3, 2009) George Feifer suggests that "instead of trying to justify Soviet wrongs all these years later, why doesn't it [Russia] apologize, as Germany has for its 20th-century atrocities?" According to this author, apologies are due above all to the Baltic and East European countries.
As someone who for decades participated in many activities to resist the Soviet regime, standing shoulder to shoulder with people from the "Captive Nations" during their fight for freedom and independence, I believe that Feifer's demands are misdirected, ill-timed and generally worthless, if not harmful.
A spoof on the 19th century Anglo-Russo "Great Game" rivalry in Central Asia
An October 13 RT (no longer officially known as Russia Today) segment discussed some international issues regarding Afghanistan and Russia. The following viewpoint is expressed in that segment: "When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan they were viewed as being hostile by everyone, while the US is really not viewed as an occupier. The Soviets were always viewed as an occupier."
Afghans at large deserved better than the Soviet supported regimes in their country. There were Afghans who collaborated with these regimes. The last Afghan Communist regime lasted three years after the Soviet military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989. (This length of time is not so different from how long the South Vietnamese government lasted after American forces left Vietnam.) Besides the foreign meddling, Afghanistan has had other problems, which were to become more evident after the Soviet forces withdrew from there in 1989. At the height of the Soviet military intervention in that nation, I recall a buried in the back of The New York Times piece on how a good number of the armed anti-Soviet Afghans opposed Western values, Israel and women's rights.
In the past two decades, the world has witnessed yet another historical opportunity missed: the fall of the Berlin Wall has not led to a logical conclusion -- Russia's full economic, political and even military integration with Europe and the West in general. In the recent past, Russia's Westernizers' centuries-old dream of joining Europe was nearly within reach, but then it faded again, to wait for another miracle.
In the 19th century that goal was closer than ever, as Europe and Russia were strongly linked within a unified cultural and economic space despite their religious differences and many political upheavals. Even Fedor Dostoyevsky, generally highly critical of the West, noted that Russia needed Europe, and that Europe was Russia's second Fatherland.
The Bolshevik coup of October 1917 destroyed the natural process of Russia drifting toward Europe, but the end of the bloody communist experiment should have removed the remaining barriers for that process. However, this has not happened so far. Now, will it take place, at long last? Will Russia even try to overcome the West's rejection as the balance of world power is shifting to Asia?
Iran's nuclear ambitions, the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, and the rising threat of Islamic fundamentalism, not only present a clear and extreme danger, but also provide the perfect logical base for closer U.S.-Russian cooperation. Of course, it is always easier to say what should have been done afterward, but shouldn't we at least learn some lessons from the not-so-distant past? No matter how much we despised and hated communism and the Soviet rulers, politicians with vision could have predicted the disastrous consequence of supplying the Afghan Mujahedeen, including Terrorist Number One Osama bin Laden himself, with tons of cash and the most sophisticated weaponry, like Stinger rockets.
After Jimmy Carter, along with his National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, yielded Iran to the Ayatollahs, it became pretty obvious that Islamic militancy was becoming a major threat to the West, a threat which overshadowed even the Soviet one. Anyone with basic understanding of the internal situation in Soviet Union knew that by the late 1970s - early 1980s, communism has exhausted its zeal. Not only did the Soviet intelligentsia reject its appeal, but even the highest Kremlin rulers, including members of Politburo, were privately laughing at their own speeches and slogans. Telling anecdotes and humiliating jokes about communism became major social entertainment. This, together with the sad state of the Soviet economy, should have led the White House to let communism pass into the ashes of history by way of a natural death, instead of creating a supposedly anti-Soviet Frankenstein's monster, who has turned out to be the worst U.S. and European nightmare.
Missile Defense Shield in Eastern Europe Kaput. Now What?
Edward Lozansky
Last week was marked by two intimately connected major events: Obama announced the scrapping of the plan to deploy Missile Defense Shield elements in Eastern Europe, and NATO Secretary General Anders Rasmussen made an arguably even more impressive speech listing three global security initiatives aimed at rapprochement with Russia. It would hardly be an overstatement to call the two events historic, for never before have a US president and a NATO secretary general made such promising and friendly moves toward Russia, and not just by word but actually by deed. NATO's readiness for a joint US-Russian missile defense system and a serious consideration of Medvedev's idea for a new Euro-Atlantic security architecture amounts to acknowledging Russia's role as a major player on the European continent. This can also be regarded as an invitation to Russia to complete a military and eventually also a political and economic integration with the West.
The content of Obama's speech came as no surprise due to leaks to the press long before the official announcement. As was to be expected, both in America and in other countries, particularly in Poland and the Czech Republic, a massive campaign to condemn this decision was launched even before the speech. Vitriolic outbursts accusing Obama, at best, of weakness, incompetence and enormous concessions to Russia, and at worst, of something amounting to the betrayal of the country's interests, inundated the US media. It has to be said, though, that there were also numerous supporters of Obama's decision, even among prominent republicans, such as Brent Scowcroft, former national security adviser under George Bush Sr., and many others.
Was There a Deal Behind the Missile Shield Decision?
Bruce Chapman
Russia's Dmitry Medvedev, Poland's Lech Kaczynski, and America's Barack Obama
Russian authorities are happy, Czech and Polish officials feel as if they have been used and abused by the United States, and Republicans are outraged that President Obama has decided to scrap plans to build a missile defense in Eastern Europe. The stated purpose was to guard Europe against intimidation by a nuclear Iran, but Russia professed to feel threatened and encircled. Now, presumably, Russians don't feel threatened and Iranians feel liberated to move ahead with nuclear development.
But here is the real test of this decision: did the U.S. gain anything by it in terms of protection of Europe (and Israel) against Iranian nukes? The next few months will tell.
The USSR and the USA were strangely but truly united in working against nuclear proliferation for a couple of decades--the 70s and 80s. In my time as US ambassador to the UN Organizations in Vienna in the 1980s this was the one field of relations in which mutual cooperation was sincere and real. Indeed, the way in which the United States came closer to the USSR at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in the Ukraine in 1986 may be cited as a key turning point in the relationship that hastened "perestroika" and the thawing of the Cold War. The Soviets realized that we really didn't want to humiliate them, but only to help them deal with a real crisis. It led to a breakthrough that extended beyond the nuclear realm.
The Misconception of Russian Authoritarianism: Part 9 - The Pendulum: A Model for Understanding Political Transitions in Russia
Kevin Cyron
A few of the most famous Russians who ever lived
Editor's note: In this ninth part of his masters thesis, "The Misconception of Russian Authoritarianism", St. Petersburg University graduate Kevin Cyron argues that Russia has become so thoroughly integrated into the global economy that it can never return to a truly authoritarian system of government.
Click on the links to read previous installments in this series: I II III IV V VI VII VIII
Click on the extended post to read part nine of the extended essay.
Moscow River embankment on a summer night (Photo by Yuri Mamchur)
MOSCOW -- German Sterligov is well known here, but unlike Roman Abramovich, Oleg Deripaska, and other publicly flamboyant Russian billionaires, he is little known abroad. Sterligov neither sails the Caribbean nor drinks in London's Mayfair district; most of the time he lives a traditional peasant lifestyle deep in the Russian countryside with his wife and five children. In winter, their farm is accessible only by horse-drawn cart, and the nearest house is seven miles away. Sterligov's way of life makes a strong Russian Orthodox statement and amuses Moscow's public.
Sterligov made his fortune in the 1990s running a large barter business. He founded a mercantile exchange where Russians traded products they were unable to buy or sell for cash. He lived the luxurious life of a billionaire and owned properties in Moscow, London, and Manhattan. In 2004, after an ill-fated bid for Russia's presidency, Sterligov sold everything and moved to the countryside.
The recent signing of the Nabucco pipeline project is definitely a political rather than economic deal. Its feasibility, the probability of its actual construction and its profitability aside, the deal shows clearly that, at least for the present, those who want to see a weaker Russia prevail over those who would rather see it strong and an integral part of the West. It is also obvious that without heavy Washington lobbying the Nabucco pipeline would never take off. Since there is practically no economic interest for the U.S. in it, Washington politics make the direction of the much advertised "reset" quite uncertain.
In the last 20 years since the collapse of communism every U.S. president has kept repeating that it is in American interests to see Russia as a strong, democratic, and prosperous nation. But actions rarely suit the words. Washington needs, and often gets, Moscow's cooperation on major security issues, but then it turns around and does its damnedest not only to prevent "non-democratic" and "authoritarian" Moscow from becoming an energy superpower, but to make sure that it gets as little cash as possible -- by diverting this cash to former Soviet republics where democracy is so rudimentary as to be barely discernible, while Oriental despotism, sometimes hereditary, is very much in evidence. So much for the hugely advertised U.S. democracy promotion mission.
Chapter 1 of Dr. Ablayev's book "Regional Gold Markets in Russia's Economy", from which this piece is excerpted, deals with how Russia emerged from a command, non-market economy to its current status where the integration of the market into the authoritarian model of Russian governance is causing what he calls a "vertical layering" of the market. As a result, a unique Russian multi-level market system has been created.
The Misconception of Russian Authoritarianism: Part 10 - Russia's Future: Reasons for Optimism
Kevin Cyron
Russian children at Tsarskoe Tselo outside St. Petersburg, October 2007 Photo by: Charles Ganske
Editor's note: In this tenth and final part of his masters thesis, "The Misconception of Russian Authoritarianism", St. Petersburg University graduate Kevin Cyron presents the Soviet dissident writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn's response to the charge that his country has reverted to authoritarianism under the Putin Administration. Mr. Cyron also reminds us that democracy is a process and not a destination for any nation. Mr. Cyron concludes with optimism for the future of Russia and the Russian people.
Click on the links to read previous installments in this series: I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX
Click on the extended post to read the tenth and final installment in this series
Forget Me Not. Obama's Russian "Reset" Risks Alienating Eastern European Allies
Mike Wussow
Fresh from a widely anticipated foreign visit designed to "reset" relations with Moscow, U.S. President Barack Obama was welcomed on Thursday morning with a letter from former Eastern European leaders saying there is "nervousness in our capitals" with regard to a potentially redefined U.S.-Russia relationship.
We want to ensure that too narrow an understanding of Western interests does not lead to the wrong concessions to Russia. ... The danger is that Russia's creeping intimidation and influence-peddling in the region could over time lead to a de facto neutralization of the region.
The letter, signed by former Eastern European leaders and published in Poland's Gazeta Wyborcza urges President Obama to strengthen the U.S. relationship with the countries of Eastern and Central Europe. Explicit concerns about Russia stand out in the letter, although the signatories (which include Poland's Lech Walesa and the Czech Republic's Vaclav Havel) also write of other areas of concern such as weakened European Union-U.S. relations.
The Misconception of Russian Authoritarianism: Part 5 - Boris Yeltsin and the Struggle for Russian Democracy in the 1990s
Kevin Cyron
Boris Yeltsin remains a controversial figure in Russian history
Editor's note: In this fifth part of his masters thesis, "The Misconception of Russian Authoritarianism", St. Petersburg University graduate Kevin Cyron examines the chaotic conditions in Russia during the administration of Russian President Boris Yeltsin, comparing it to similar episodes in U.S. history. The Yeltsin era, with its expansion of NATO up to Russia's doorstep, and ethnic violence in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, paved the way for the current backlash from a resurgent Russia.
Click on the links to read previous installments in this series: I, II, III, and IV
Click on the extended post to read part five in the extended essay.
Have you ever considered the possibility that the Russians might secretly be conspiring with the United States against your government? I know it sounds far-fetched, but, after all, far-fetched is practically your middle name. (As, for example, your denial of the Holocaust. That is about as far-fetched as anyone can get.)
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's recent announcement of a government-sanctioned Historic Truth Commission to debunk myths about Russia's role in the Second World War has come under fire from critics in the West. Even many patriotic Russians annoyed with Western ignorance of the decisive role played by Russia in defeating Nazi Germany have argued that a state-sanctioned commission may do more harm than good. Irrespective of the ongoing arguments between Russia and its neighbors over who is distorting 20th century history for present political ends, there are some lingering myths about the Second World War that deserve to be debunked. Anatoly Karlin lists a few in the article below.
- The Editors
За Ð½Ð°Ñ Ð·Ð° Ð²Ð°Ñ Ð¸ за деÑант и за Ñпецназ! The Red Army was the single greatest contributor to the defeat of Nazi Germany sixty-four years ago, a truly evil empire based on slavery and oppression, and responsible for the genocide of millions of Slav civilians, Jews, Soviet POWs and Roma by poison gas, bullets and starvation. Yet ever since the first days of the Cold War, there has been a concerted campaign to whitewash the Wehrmacht of participation in war crimes and to rehabilitate the generals who participated in it as enthusiastically as Hitler and the upper echelons of the Nazi Party. This resulted in the promulgation of many poisonous myths about the Eastern Front that are only now being laid to rest.
I already wrote about several of these myths in my article Top 10 Russophobe Myths. In the service of historic truth, here are a few points to consider about how the history of the Second World War has been distorted by myths, particularly as they apply to the most brutal campaign in human history, the war waged between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1945.
Presidents Barack Obama and Dimitry Medvedev at their first meeting on April 1, 2009 in London, UK
There is no shortage of solicited and unsolicited advisors and pieces of advice for the upcoming Obama-Medvedev summit this week in Moscow. Some of the advice is pretty reasonable; for the most part it is best ignored. One's first instinct is to stay away from this cacophony and try to moderate one's expectations so as not to be hugely disappointed later.
However, the temptation to weigh in with one's particular advice is very high. Since both Obama and Medvedev are Internet users one does not have to send a letter to the White House or the Kremlin and wait for the routine answer from some clerk. Chances are that both or at least one of them will surf the Net on the eve of the summit and pay attention to some of the items.
The Misconception of Russian Authoritarianism Part 7 - The Reforms of Vladimir Putin Economics, Demographics and Rule of Law
Kevin Cyron
Christmas 2007 in Moscow
Editor's note: In this seventh part of his masters thesis, "The Misconception of Russian Authoritarianism", St. Petersburg University graduate Kevin Cyron examines the major changes during the last eight years in Russia's economy, demographics, news media, courts, and civil society.
Click on the links to read previous installments in this series: I II III IV V VI
Click on the extended post to read part seven in the extended essay.
Boris Yeltsin, on top of a tank in Moscow, declaring an end to the Soviet regime in 1991
When the featured article was being written, the author and the Iranian people still had hopes to find leadership to their quest for freedom. Unfortunately, Mir Hossein Mousavi has not appeared in front of the protestors since the elections of June 12, and yesterday rejected another vote recount. The recent activities in Iran are, undoubtedly, a huge step forward in fostering democracy in this majority Muslim nation. However, they will result in nothing without proper leadership. Russia and China did not have to recognize, much less defend, Ahmadinejad's victory as soon as they did, but perhaps they knew the painful truth ahead of time: the Iranian opposition has no leader, and a leader is what is so desperately needed at this historic moment.
Charles Krauthammer's article published over at Townhall.com on June 26 does a great job of describing the difference between Russia's 1991 and Iran's 2009: "They need a leader like Boris Yeltsin: a former establishment figure with newly revolutionary credentials and legitimacy, who stands on a tank and gives the opposition direction by calling for the unthinkable -- the abolition of the old political order." Most Russians remember Yeltsin as a despot, a drunk, and a sometimes embarrassing grandpa. World history will remember him as the man who ended 70 years of an Evil Empire, permanently curing Russia's infection of Communism. Hopefully, four years from now, an Iranian Yeltsin will stand up on a tank and prove that innocent protestors did not die in vain.
Visit the extended post to read the full version of the discussed article.
The Misconception of Russian Authoritarianism: Part 8 - The Return to Security Orthodoxy, Leadership, and Russian Identity
Kevin Cyron
Then President and now Prime Minister Putin at a Russian Orthodox religious service
Editor's note: In this eighth part of his masters thesis, "The Misconception of Russian Authoritarianism", St. Petersburg University graduate Kevin Cyron examines the historically close ties between Russia's national leadership and the Russian Orthodox Church.
Click on the links to read previous installments in this series: I II III IV V VI VII
Click on the extended post to read part seven in the extended essay.
Iranian protesters confronted by basij militias on the streets of Tehran
Over at Discovery Blog, Ambassador Bruce Chapman is writing about the current upheaval of popular discontent against the Islamic Republic regime in Iran. Nearly three years ago, Discovery Institute hosted Amir Abbas Fakhravar at its Seattle offices. Mr. Fakhravar is a former head of the Iran Student Confederation who was previously jailed and tortured for his opposition to the Islamic Republic regime. You can read Mr. Fakhravar's blog here.
So far, Russian diplomats have maintained a firm "no comment" policy concerning the ongoing power struggle inside Iran. [UPDATE: The Russian Foreign Ministry released a statement concerning the post-election revolt today, not over the weekend when this story was written]. But since Russia has already been mentioned in passing in some analysis of the crisis inside Iran, it's worth looking at the facts surrounding the complicated relationship between Tehran and Moscow.
In the Eighties, lots of folks who regarded themselves as true Reaganites often said that The Washington Post should more properly bear the title of "Pravda on the Potomac". Indeed, the paper's vicious anti-Ronny rhetoric, as well as its views on some other policy issues, were stylistically pretty close to Pravda in its heyday.
Ironically, with the collapse of Communism "Pravda on the Potomac" became a common epithet for The Washington Post not only among the people on the right but on the left and center as well. A recent Google search on this entry provided 13,100 links including articles and sites representing practically the whole spectrum of American politics.
Anatol Lieven is a Senior Research Fellow at the New America Foundation.
Over the last several days, two pieces attacking the realist approach to Russia were published in prominent media outlets in the United States and Russia. One, co-authored by Lev Gudkov of the Levada Center, Igor Klyamkin, vice president of the Liberal Mission Foundation, Georgy Satarov, president of the Russian NGO the Indem Foundation and Lilia Shevtsova, a senior associate at the Carnegie Moscow Center was featured on the editorial page of The Washington Post.
[Editor's Note: This article is titled "False Choices for Russia", an excerpt of which was republished on Russia Blog earlier this month in the post "What Can Save Russia's Liberals" by Ambassador Bruce Chapman]. The other, by Andrei Piontkovsky, a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute, was released in the Moscow Times.
I read these pieces concerning the moves to improve relations between America and Russia with a profound feeling of depression.
Editor's Note: This is a succinct summary of the article "Rite of Spring: Russia's Fertility Trends" previously published by Russia Blog on April 29, 2009. To find more articles on Russian demographics, click here.
In 1992, for the first time since the Great Patriotic War, deaths exceeded births, forming the so-called "Russian Cross". Since then the population fell from 149mn to 142mn souls. Ravaged by AIDS, infertility and alcoholism, Russians are doomed to die out and be replaced by hordes of Islamist fanatics in the West and Chinese settlers in the Far East...or so one could conclude from reading many of the popular stories about Russian demography today.
"Don't bother pushing the ambiguous Reset Button; just replace the whole operating system." That's the advice offered President Obama and President Medvedev at the 28th Annual World Russia Forum that took place 27-28 April in Washington. Since 1981 the Forum has been organized by Edward Lozansky's American University in Moscow (AUM). Of late, Discovery Institute of Seattle, Eurasia Center of Washington, the Congress of Russian Americans, and Aeroflot airlines joined this effort at people's diplomacy to improve US -Russia relations.
The Forum attracted a powerful array of speakers, such as former US Ambassadors to Russia, Thomas Pickering and William Burns; former National Security Adviser (under President Reagan) Robert McFarlane; and Russia experts professors Marshall Goldman of Harvard and Robert Legvold of Columbia University. The Russian side was represented by Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, Dr. Igor Panarin of the Russian Diplomatic Academy, and Dr. Sergey Rogov, head of the Institute of USA and Canada, among others. (View the photo report).
An afternoon at the Moscow's Victory Park (photo by Yuri Mamchur)
Yesterday, The Washington Postpublished Mr. Lev Gudkov's article "False Choices For Russia" (see below). This article is more an attitude than a program. It doesn't really say what Russians or Americans should do to promote "democracy" in Russia. But I have an idea for the Russians: the liberal parties and politicians should stop fracturing and running assorted parties and come together in one party with one agenda that has a chance of actually getting people elected to office. Sitting on the outside with a tiny percentage of the vote split several ways--and then whining about it--is not the pathway to success.
Even in the United States no one listens to the little parties. A liberal national party with a chance of success would have to have a combination of groups and interests, some willingness to compose differences among them and then a clear reform agenda that had appeal to the common man and woman. Then they would have a chance of success.
Last week President Dmitry Medvedev formed a government commission on analyzing and suppressing falsifications of history to the detriment of Russia. Some have rushed to portray this move as an "Orwellian Truth Commission" dedicated to official propaganda of the historical facts that fit the government's interpretation of history. Indeed, one may be tempted to form such a conclusion simply by looking at the commission's appointees. What is Medvedev likely to accomplish by forming this commission? Is this the right way to approach this issue, or are there more subtle ways to deal with the problem? -- Dr. Vladimir Frolov
One should wait, of course, for the commission to undertake some specific actions before criticizing it, but knowing how bureaucracy works, one could safely assume with high probability that whoever came up with the idea to create a "Commission on Analyzing and Suppressing Falsifications of History Detrimental to Russia" did not do a good service to his country or to president Medvedev, for that matter. Leaving aside its dubious name, this commission will do more in creating controversy than in helping Russia to withstand the information warfare conducted by its foes. Instead of taking a high road and leaving the word battles to historians and experts, the Kremlin set itself on a par with those ill-wishers who try to use history for political purposes at the pundit or state level.
The Misconception of Russian Authoritarianism: Part 6 - The Reforms of Vladimir Putin Strengthening Security and Governance
Kevin Cyron
Editor's note: In this sixth part of his masters thesis, "The Misconception of Russian Authoritarianism", St. Petersburg University graduate Kevin Cyron examines the changes ushered in by the Putin Adminstration, and Russia's progress in the past eight years.
Click on the links to read previous installments in this series: I, II, III, IV, V
Click on the extended post to read part six in the extended essay.
Michael Averko addressing the guests of the World Russia Forum in Washington D.C.
Last month's parliamentary election and political demonstration in Moldova led to greater attention focused on that country. A few relatively high placed articles on the subject have been followed up on.
Appearing shortly before the vote and protest, Vlad Spanu's March 20 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) commentary "Backroom Deals Can't Solve Transdniester Dispute" acknowledges the popularity of Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev in Moldova, where they have respectively run 1-2 in popularity among politicians worldwide. This point relates to the simultaneous desires of wanting good relations with the West, without being so against Russia and its leadership.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times. E. Wayne Merry was a speaker at the World Russia Forum which was recently held in Washington, D.C. by Discovery Institute and the American University in Moscow.
The Obama administration has offered to "reset" relations with Russia. But what is really needed is a change of operating system.
A reset seeks to restore a previous relationship, which for former officials of the Clinton administration now back in office means the Yeltsin years. This will fail because Moscow views that period as emblematic of Russian weakness and exploitation by the West, and especially by the United States.
Relations with Moscow deteriorated under both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. The U.S. neo-liberal project of the '90s not only failed but deeply alienated Russians. The bilateral nadir was the Kosovo war, a worse episode than last year's Georgia conflict. A new opportunity after 9/11 was frankly squandered. Washington regarded Russia as a loser and treated it as such. It forgot that Russia would not be weak forever, and would remember.
Only a couple of short months after the United States and Russia exchanged encouraging remarks about resetting troubled relations, the two countries find themselves again at odds over Georgia. Last week, NATO began monthlong military exercises in Georgia that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has called an "open provocation."
It's unfortunate that these current NATO exercises have the capacity to disrupt much broader strategic interests that the United States and Russia have in common, most notably the mutual fight against al Qaeda. At stake are strong U.S.-Russian cooperative efforts in defeating al Qaeda and stopping its encroachment into the Central Asian and Caucasus regions.
Russian troops entering South Ossetia last year after a Georgian offensive to retake the secessionist territory was repulsed by Russia.
The Russia-Georgia War in August 2008 has seriously exacerbated Russia's already damaged relationships with the West. If the Republican presidential nominee, Senator John McCain, had won last November's election in the United States, the two countries might have moved to the next level of confrontation -- possibly of a military nature.
Few people in the U.S. political class have been more ardent in advocating U.S. ties with the small Georgia at the expense of relations with Russia. Some of McCain's advisers are also known to have worked as paid lobbyists for Georgia's membership in NATO. Clearly they are not concerned that, had Georgia been a member of the alliance when the violence erupted in South Ossetia, the United States would have been in a state of war with Russia.
The Atlantic Monthly Asks: "Is the U.S. Becoming Russia?"
Charles Ganske
The new U.S.-Russia arms race...bailouts and printing money?
In its May 2009 issue The Atlantic Monthly published an article featuring the provocative title, "Is the U.S. Becoming Russia?". The author, Simon Johnson, is an academic economist at MIT's Sloan School of Management and former director of the International Monetary Fund from 2007 to 2008. Prof. Johnson is intimately familiar with inner the workings of the IMF, the same Washington-based multinational agency that once extended billions in loans to Russia when Russians experienced hyperinflation and a banking system collapse in the 1990s. Regardless of whether one agrees with Johnson's thesis -- that the U.S. is rapidly starting to resemble the emerging market economies, such as Russia, that it once advised -- his article is well worth a good read.
The American Enterprise Institute's Nicholas Eberstadt has become one of the leading proponents of the notion that Russia is in a terminal state of demographic decline
Last month Ross Douthat, a regular columnist for The Atlantic Monthly magazine now with The New York Times, commented on a new essay by Nicholas Eberstadt on the declining population of Russia. Dr. Eberstadt, a political economist, is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington D.C. Eberstadt's most recent essay (with the perhaps insulting title), "Drunken Nation: Russia's Depopulation Bomb", which prompted Douthat's comments, is largely a rehash of his earlier report "Russia: The Sick Man of Europe" published in The Public Interest quarterly magazine back in the winter of 2004/2005.
Eberstadt's article provoked a larger discussion about global demographic trends between American "conservatives" like Douthat and "liberals" such as The American Prospect's authors Matthew Yglesias and Michelle Goldberg. However, these American pundits quickly changed their topic from Russian demographics to the reasons behind declining birth rates in Europe, Japan and other modern societies all over the world.
In recent weeks, Russia's birth rates and demographics have become a hot topic for discussion in Washington, D.C. and among American pundits. Perhaps it's been a slow news period since the initial warm rhetoric between Washington and Moscow following the election of the new President Barack Obama and the "reset" button his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have promised for U.S.-Russia relations. Russia Blog has been covering the debate over Russia's population and the future of Russian society since June 2005 -- at times, drawing praise from popular scholars such as The New York Times bestselling author and former Sovietologist Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett.
Now we present the San Francisco-based blogger Anatoly Karlin's extensive essay below, which cites Rosstat statistics to claim that the sky is not falling when it comes to the population of Russia, and also puts Russian demographics in the overall context of Europe. Karlin notes that Russian birth rates have actually been slowly increasing since reaching a post-Soviet nadir during the late 1990s. While Russia's mortality rates remain far too high, there are some reasons for cautious optimism about the country's future.
This country is vast and the opportunities here are extraordinary. And if you grew up or lived abroad in the US, the UK, Europe or parts of Asia, where the rules of the game are more or less understandable after centuries of capitalistic trial and error, it's easy to spot new market niches or opportunities here which are still open to rapid development.
This has led me on countless occasions over the years to new investment ideas and exhilarating discussions with business partners - only later to be met with countless frustrations when I've been told, "Great idea, but we can't do that here" or "this would be wonderful, but the laws here forbid us from fixing this problem in this way".
Why? If it can be done elsewhere, why can't it be done here?
What Will I Tell My Children About My Experiences in Russia?
Kendrick White
Kendrick White is an American entrepreneur living and working in Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Federation. Kendrick's firm, Marchmont Capital Partners, is one of the very few companies publishing business content in English from Russia's regions (that is, the rest of Russia outside Moscow and St. Petersburg). Russia Blog first covered the Marchmont Investment Guide to Russia's regional businesses back in March 2007, when then FINAM investment banker Vladimir F. Kuznetsov posted an article about Kendrick White.
We are proud to announce that blog posts and articles by Kendrick White and other Marchmont Capital authors discussing Russian business issues will now be a regular feature on Russia Blog.
- The Editors
What should I tell my children about my experiences in Russia? That this is a "boom and bust" country of extreme experiences...and emotions?
It's hard to say. So many of my friends--Russians, Americans, Scandinavians, Asians--are having the same experiences in their countries.
"Here we are again, another crisis to deal with!" Most of these friends are pure entrepreneurs, men and women who took the leap of faith in 1991 and 1992...when things were even bleaker than today.
Twitter Madness in Chisinau What Happened in Moldova?
Charles Ganske
Angry youths pelting riot police with stones in the Moldovan capital of Chisinau last week
The former Soviet republic of Moldova is not the kind of place that typically grabs headlines. As many media reports have reminded us in the last two weeks, Moldova is one of the poorest countries in Europe. While plenty of Moldovans have cellular phones, among post-Soviet republics, Moldova is not exactly as wired as say, Estonia.
Given these facts, one would think that the Moldovan capital of Chisinau would be an unlikely place for a revolution fueled by social networking technologies, such as Twitter and Facebook. Yet according to early reports from The New York Times and other Western media outlets, that is supposedly what happened this month, after Moldova's Communist Party won an election that the opposition insists was rigged.
An Open Letter to U.S. Senator John Cornyn on Missile Defense in Europe
Charles Ganske
Dear Senator Cornyn,
I received your email newsletter regarding your position on the issue of missile defense. I agree with my fellow conservatives that protecting our country and allies from missile attacks should be a very high priority. I strongly support continued funding for sea-based and airborne laser systems that can rapidly be deployed to a crisis zone and ground-based lasers to counter the threat posed by terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. I also support continued U.S. bilateral technical cooperation with all nations threatened by rogue missile strikes.
However, I must respectfully disagree with the notion that placing a handful of interceptors in Poland and a tracking radar in the Czech Republic is going to make Europe or America safer. On the contrary, I view this token system as serving more of a political rather than military purpose. The proposed system may very well serve to cement our ties with "New Europe" members that joined NATO during the 1990s. But I also believe that some in Washington would not mind if the system provokes a foolish Russian response that would involve putting offensive missiles in the enclave of Kaliningrad.
The Russian Constitution at Fifteen Discussed in Washington: A Summary, Impressions, and Commentary
W George Krasnow
Boris Yeltsin handing the Russian Constitution to Vladimir Putin on December 31, 1999
The Kennan Institute hosted on March 19, 2009 a day-long international conference, "The Russian Constitution at Fifteen: Assessments and Current Challenges to Russia's Legal Development." The actual anniversary was observed in Russia on December 12, 2008. But there were good reasons to mark it in the U.S. as well. Oleg Rumyantsev, who was the head of the Constitutional Commission's drafting team, had spent a summer of 1990 at the Library of Congress studying the American experience in writing a country's Fundamental Law.
Now, almost two decades later, Mr. Rumyantsev, whom The Washington Post then called "the James Madison of Russia," came back to Washington as president of the Foundation for Constitutional Reform and co-sponsor of this event. Two other sponsors were the International Institute of Global Development (founded by Alexander Lebedev, a wealthy Russian businessman), and the Kennan Institute.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev shaking hands with U.S. President Barack Obama at the G-20 summit in London, United Kingdom on April 1, 2009
The expectations regarding the first face-to-face meeting between Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama are running high. Herein lurks a danger, for few things are worse that broken hopes and disappointments. The issues facing both countries are so daunting, and the accumulated mutual mistrust is so overwhelming, that the chances for dramatic breakthroughs are minimal. However, if common sense prevails, both leaders should be able to reach agreement at least in some critical areas. And nowhere is the situation more critical than in Afghanistan.
Edward and Tatiana Lozansky outside their Russia House restaurant and lounge on Dupont Circle in Washington D.C.
When 18-year-old high school graduate Tatiana Yershova decided to marry the much older Edward Lozansky in 1971, her friends and relatives believed she was making a terrible mistake. The slim, dark-haired and striking Tatiana was the daughter of one of the Soviet Union's highest-ranking generals, who, in 1968, played a key role in crushing the Prague Spring. So her decision to marry a poor Jewish physicist twelve years her senior, with dissident connections and a bad KGB record who had protested that Soviet invasion, was a mystery to those who knew her.
At the Crossroads of Strategic Pipeline Corridors: Settling the Dispute Over Nagorno-Karabakh
Michael Averko
This is the author's updated version of the article that appeared in Global Research on March 31 and Eurasian Home on April 1.
When compared to the other disputed former Soviet territories of Pridnestrovie (also referred to as Transnistria, Transdniestria, Transdnestr and Trans-Dniester), South Ossetia and Abkhazia - Nagorno Karabakh (which Armenians also refer to as Artsakh) often seems to get the least attention. This despite the latter being the bloodiest of these conflicts. Geographically, Nagorno-Karabakh is further away from the European Union nations and the United States than the other mentioned lands. As is true with a number of other conflicts, some find this contested former Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic territory to have murky conditions, in terms of determining which side (Armenian or Azeri) to fully support. Materialistically, fossil fuel rich Azerbaijan is the greater prize. There is also a degree of understandable sympathy for the tragic past of the Armenian people and some expressed apprehension with the human rights situations in Azerbaijan and (to an overall lesser extent) Armenia.
Since last August's war involving the Georgian government's armed attack on South Ossetia, there has been an increase in diplomatic activity among countries considered as key diplomatic parties in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute. In September, the president of Turkey (a country seen as sympathetic to Azerbaijan and historically at odds with Armenia) and his Armenian counterpart met in Yerevan. An optimistic overview was given of that occurrence. The presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia held a November meeting in Moscow, in what was described as upbeat. In February, the Turkish president met his Russian counterpart in Russia. During his stay there, Turkey's president visited the predominately Muslim republic of Tatarstan. The Russo-Turkish meeting further encouraged the growing commercial ties between the two countries.
The Myth of the Yellow Peril: Overhyping Chinese Migration into Russia
Charles Ganske
by Anatoly Karlin
One of the staples of alarmist, pessimistic and/or Russophobic (not to mention Sinophobic) commentary on Russian demography is a reworking of the yellow peril thesis. In these fevered imaginations, Chinese supposedly swim across the Amur River in their millions, establishing village communes in the taiga, and breeding prolifically so as to displace ethnic Russians and revert Khabarovsk and Vladivostok back to their rightful Qing Dynasty-era names, Boli and Haisanwei.
To a limited extent they have a point. Since 1989 the population of the Russian Far East declined by 14% to 6.7 million in 2002; shorn of subsidies from the center, it is now dependent on the rest of East Asia for food and consumer imports. It sits next to Chinese Manchuria (the provinces of Heilongjiang, Liaoning and Jilin), an environmentally-strained rust belt of 108 million souls. Thus it is not surprising to see American geopolitical jockeys, Russian xenophobes and anti-Putin "liberals" alike (i.e. Radio Free Europe's Aleksandr Golts and Echo Moskvi Radio's Yulia Latynina, etc) claiming that a stealth demographic invasion of Russia is well underway which will in a few years result in a Chinese Far East.
A photo allegedly showing then KGB agent Vladimir Putin posing as a tourist in Red Square during President Ronald Reagan's visit to the Soviet Union in 1988. In fact, most Russian analysts believe the man on the left is not Putin, who was living and working in East Germany at the time.
The Parallax Brief blog, maintained by an Englishman working at an investment bank in Moscow, is an interesting read. Judging by the author's blogroll and published comments, his views a mixture of British pro-free market ideas and American liberalism (the Parallax Brief seems sympathetic towards Democrat Barack Obama, or at least willing to give the new U.S. President some slack). However, the PB definitely provides an outsider's perspective on Russia different from what is typically published in the U.S.-UK media.
In particular, this blogger asks a question that would be regarded as anathema among some in Washington D.C. conservative Republican establishment, many of whom still view Moscow as the perpetual seat of the Evil Empire, regardless of how much Russia has actually changed since the collapse of the USSR. Namely, can Russia be described as a conservative country?
Over the past few weeks Washington has witnessed an unusual degree of activity at the official and pundit level aimed at a radical revision of US-Russia relations. Numerous think tanks and NGOs try to outdo one another in holding the most conferences and workshops on "resetting" and in churning out advice for Barack Obama. Not all of this advice is exactly radiating good will and optimism, though most of it is. Still, the anti-Russia lobby does not lose heart, but continues its enthusiastic criticism of the White House, urging Obama not to merely carry on the Bush Administration policies toward Russia, but actually to further toughen it.
After the collapse of Communism and disintegration of the Soviet Union two distinct schools emerged in America in terms of shaping Russia policy. One, which may conveniently be dubbed "Pro", advocated furthering Russia's integration into the West by granting it hefty economic aid to help it switch to market economy and speed up its entry into NATO. The second, by the same token to be named "Contra", continued to look on new Russia as a country that was, at best, no longer capable of swaying geopolitical developments and therefore whose interests could be largely ignored, and at worst, a prospective enemy to be kept in a weakened state and every way "contained."
Russian Movies on Georgia War: Olympus Inferno and War 08/08/08
Charles Ganske
The brief August 2008 war between Georgia and Russia continues to spawn films
Channel One, the same Russian TV network that produced the blockbusters Night Watch and Day Watch has made an action movie about the Georgia War, titled Olympus Inferno. The movie features two main characters, an American entomologist studying butterflies in South Ossetia (you can hear him yelling "What the hell is going on?" a lot in the trailer) and a Russian female journalist. The two characters must work together to get back to Russian lines after getting swept up in the August 8, 2008 Georgian offensive against the separatist enclave of South Ossetia.
In U.S.-Russia Energy Rivalry China is the Big Winner
Charles Ganske
In spite of the recent decline in crude oil prices, Russians are still paying $3 at the pump, nearly twice as much as the average in America. Why?
It's no secret that Russia's oil and gas industry, which accounts for more than half of Russian export revenues and more than a third of Russian GDP, has fallen on hard times lately. In the final quarter of 2008, at the same time that oil prices plunged worldwide, Rosneft, Lukoil and Gazpromneft also lost access to easy credit from Western capital markets. After briefly surpassing Saudi Arabia as the world's no. 1 oil producer in 2006, Russia's oil output has stagnated and declined somewhat in the last two and a half years.
The Russian federal budget, which had previously anticipated prices at $95 a barrel for 2009, now faces a huge shortfall, with current prices hovering around $45 a barrel. The Kremlin had announced plans to cut oil export taxes to spur new exploration and production in an industry that for decades has provided one of its primary sources of revenue, but these badly needed reforms may end up being postponed. Adding insult to injury for ordinary Russians, drivers across Russia are still paying over $3 a gallon at the gas pump, in spite of the collapse in crude oil prices.
My last American Chronicle article ("Update on the Former Moldavian SSR Dispute," Dec. 31) on the meeting between the leaders of Moldova and Pridnestrovie (also referred to as Transnistria, Transdniestria, Transdnestr and Trans-Dniester) relates to the issue of how to successfully resolve the dispute between the two parties. A major stumbling block is Pridnestrovie's government refusing to accept the Moldovan government's position that Moldova's territory includes all land which comprised the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR).
Theoretically, there is a way to honor Pridnestrovie's stance, in a settlement that would unite the two parties. Rather than advocate Pridnestrovie acknowledging itself as part of Moldova, a constitutionally loose union state of two republics can be proposed. Its name could be along the lines of the Union of Moldova and Pridnestrovie.
There Are More Ways than One to Hit the Reset Button
Edward Lozansky
"We worked hard to get the right Russian word," Clinton told Lavrov, "do you think we got it?"
"You got it wrong," answered Lavrov. "This says 'peregruzka,' which means overcharged."
It must have come as a pleasant surprise to Vice President Joe Biden's speechwriter that his phrase about the need to "hit the reset button" in Moscow-Washington relations suddenly became popular and endlessly quoted by both pro- and anti-revisionists of U.S.-Russia relations. In any case Russia should obviously thank its lucky stars for Obama's electoral victory, for had he lost, the chances of improving these relations would have been very slim indeed -- things would most likely go from bad to worse.
Obama is clearly sending out positive signals, yet Moscow, regrettably, has so far refrained from offering to meet him halfway, producing little except rhetoric about its readiness to try new foreign policy approaches. Moreover, according to numerous political analysts, the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has already made two mistakes that baffle everyone favoring the two countries' rapprochement.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with the famous "reset" button. In light of the Cold War MAD connotations of "The Button", should it have been red? Or even a button at all?
Did you know that if you translate "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" into Russian, it becomes "the vodka is agreeable but the meat has gone bad"? Literal translations can be tricky that way.
It seems that no translators were harmed in the manufacturing of Hillary Clinton's "reset" button, which she presented to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva on Friday.
"We worked hard to get the right Russian word," Clinton addressed Lavrov in a deliberately slow voice, as if talking to a special-needs child. "Do you think we got it?"
"You got it wrong," Lavrov answered in fluent English. "This says 'peregruzka,' which means overcharged."
Well, it looks like somebody used a cheap electronic translation program. But it could be worse. I once came across a website that advertised its automated translation service with an example of a label from a jar of pickles, informing Russian consumers that it contained condoms.
Talk about food safety! That's what you get when you translate "preservatives" without as much as a human touch.
A Russian soldier making the sign of the cross before an icon. Russia's largely conscript army is being slashed to make way for a cheaper and smaller military.
Continuing Russia Blog's recent run of posts about Austin-based commentators and personalities, U.S. Army Reserve Colonel Austin Bay (an ocassional guest professor at my alma mater of the University of Texas at Austin) has an excellent post over at his Strategy Page website about the recently announced cutbacks in Russia's military budget. The notion that Russia is engaged in a military buildup to challenge the West, which was popularized last year during the brief war between Russia and Georgia, has taken a hard hit from the realities of the global economic meltdown. The Kremlin is trying to patch huge holes in the Russian federal budget left by the collapse of world crude oil prices from $95 per barrel to less than $40 a barrel.
Russia and China's Financial Warning to the West Is Anyone in Washington Listening?
Charles Ganske
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin meeting Chinese Premier Wen Jinbao in October 2008 (Photo by: Xinhua). Both governments are worried about the value of their dollar-denominated assets holding up during Washington's upcoming spending binge
The Western media have said plenty about Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's remarks at Davos, Switzerland last January 28. Some observers claimed that Putin chose to blame capitalism for today's economic woes. Others, such as former U.S. President Bill Clinton, believe Putin offered an "endorsement of private enterprise" instead of more government intervention to bail out the sagging global economy.
Putin, however, was not attacking capitalism, but the haphazard series of Western government bailouts and interventions that have made it very hard to predict when global financial markets will stabilize. It is not clear to foreigners which American financial companies like Bank of America and Citigroup will be nationalized as "too big to fail" and which ones will be allowed to slide into bankruptcy, as did Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers.
Working Together in the Land of the Unruly U.S.-Russian Quid Pro Quo on Afghanistan
Charles Ganske
Kyrgyzstan is officially expelling U.S. forces from the Manas Air Base -- so now what?
Nikolas K. Gvosdev is a professor at the U.S. Naval War College and the editor of The Washington Realist foreign policy blog. Gvosdev is also, when it comes to Russia, probably not the most popular guy in Washington, particularly when he reminds his fellow Washingtonians about the limits of American power worldwide and the checks on the extent of U.S. influence in the former Soviet Union. Gvosdev has long been skeptical of efforts to create democracy overnight in former Soviet republics like Ukraine and Georgia through so-called "Color Revolutions" that took place earlier this decade with strong American government and NGO support.
Here at Russia Blog, we've frequently published Prof. Gvosdev's articles in the last two years. Gvosdev's latest article offers suggestions on how the Obama Administration can cooperate with Moscow to secure NATO's logistical lifeline through Central Asia into Afghanistan. While some observers may believe that Russia is taking unfair advantage of America's predicament in Afghanistan, demanding concessions from Washington in return for NATO access to Russian and former Soviet territory, the fact is nothing in international relations comes for free. And the phrase "trust but verify", so beloved by fans of the late President Ronald Reagan, actually came from Russia. The Kremlin is now testing U.S. intentions in Central Asia to see if fighting the Taliban and jihadism really are the highest American priorities in the region, or if other zero-sum agendas are still ongoing twenty years after the Cold War was officially declared over.
Why Kyrgyzstan is Kicking the U.S. Out Why the U.S. and Russia Need to Make a Deal
Charles Ganske
A U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane in the snow at Manas Air Base, 2006
The Swiss International Relations and Security Network (ISN) website, a project of the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland, has published an interesting take on why the U.S. is losing access to a strategic military base at Manas in Kyrgyzstan. While Switzerland has long enjoyed a reputation for a detached, if not always completely neutral view of international affairs, the author in this case is actually an American, Dr John C.K. Daly, a Washington D.C.-based consultant and an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute.
Dr. Daly writes that Washington hawks who want to blame the Kremlin for the U.S. getting booted out of the Kyrgyz base that has been critical to ongoing American military operations in Afghanistan since December 2001 have no one to blame but themselves. Dr. Daly adds that Washington should understand that the Kremlin no longer believes that the U.S. has the political will to stay in Afghanistan long-term and defeat the Taliban. Therefore Russia is making every effort to prop up its authoritarian friends in former Soviet Central Asia with economic aid, lest they too fall victim to the Taliban exporting heroin and jihad into their countries in the years to come.
How Did Russia Rebuild Itself? Sorry, But You're Wrong
Charles Ganske
Myth: Russia is only about oil and gas. Fact: Russia has begun to diversify its economy The present economic crisis and collapse of energy prices give Russia more opportunity for diversification
Princeton University history professor Stephen Kotkin recently released a paperback edition of his book, Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000 with an addendum covering the last eight years in Russia. Writing over at the Russia: Other Points of View forum, Prof. Kotkin notes that the Western media often fixates on Russian leaders like Vladimir Putin and Cold War-style Kremlinology, to the detriment of reporting on changing economic and social conditions for ordinary Russians. Only in the last two and a half years, for example, has the Western media widely reported that middle class Russians are buying many of the same things that middle class Westerners once commonly took for granted, such as new cars, apartments, and vacation packages abroad.
Click on the extended post to read Prof. Kotkin's article.
The latest Russo-Ukrainian gas spat may have finally taught the elites in those two countries a vital lesson. Namely, that they stand to gain far more from acting in concert, than either one of them gains from acting against the interest of the other.
The latest statement by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso that "Europeans" will not forget how Ukrainian and Russian leaders acted during this crisis, reveals more than just impotence. It serves as a reminder that many Western Europeans are still not ready to accept either Ukraine or Russia as part of Europe. It would be wise for both Russian and Ukrainians not to lose sight of this fact, for it both shapes and constrains the policies of European Union towards them.
At the outset of this latest spat, both Ukrainian and Russia political elites made the mistake of assuming that EU leaders cared about the issues. They therefore put all their efforts into making their case in the media, instead of undertaking direct negotiations. Ukrainian leaders hoped to mobilise western sympathy by portraying their country as a victim of Russian imperialism, while Russian leaders sought to portray the Ukrainians as thieves. Each then tried to involve their Western European partners more directly, urging the European Commission to send monitors to the pumping stations, inviting the parties to a gas summit, and floating schemes by which European intermediaries might step in to guarantee payments in the event of further payment arrears.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in front of a banner for Gazprom, Russia's state-owned natural gas export monopoly
As of yesterday, January 17, 2009, the gas crisis was not over yet, and contrary to some optimistic expectations, it may actually continue for a long time, perhaps in a less severe but still damaging way to all parties of the conflict -- Russia, Ukraine, and the European Union. This will add additional pain to the current global economic and financial crisis, so we should be ready for the worst. However, despite all negative consequences, each crisis provides an opportunity to soberly evaluate the situation, draw proper conclusions, learn new lessons, think of the new strategies and tactics, and apply a new course of actions.
Unfortunately, the September 11 crisis, despite some encouraging steps at the beginning, did not produce too much in the long term East--West cooperation agenda. Will the current crisis generate better results? No one knows for sure, but nothing will happen unless we try, and here is some of my humble advice to the powers that be.
Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin
Russia Blog contributor Professor Andrei P. Tsygankov sends along his latest article, published in the Asia Times newspaper. Prof. Tsygankov writes that although Russia is justified in seeking higher prices from countries like Ukraine that have based much of their recent economic growth on cheap subsidized Russian gas, the Kremlin has pinned far too much of its hopes for future development on the oil and gas industry.
While this type of criticism is quite commonplace in the West, Tsygankov, like his fellow Asia Times contributor "Spengler", realizes that the time is short. If Russia (and for that matter, Ukraine and Georgia, which are in even worse demographic shape) want to turn things around and avoid their societies being cut in half, they have to do it within a generation.
Click on the extended post to read this excellent Asia Times article.
In Aftermath of Georgia War, a More Stable Caucasus
Charles Ganske
A Russian soldier in Georgia in 2008 All quiet on the Caucases front: Emil Sanamyan writes that since the defeat of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's effort to reunify South Ossetia by force, other former Soviet republics have indicated a willingness to settle their secessionist conflicts through negotiations rather than violence
World Politics Review, an online magazine based in Washington, D.C., has a new format and several contributors offering perspectives outside of the typical U.S. editorial page fare when it comes to Russia and other parts of the world. Emil Sanamyan is the Washington editor and bureau chief of the Armenian Reporter and he writes that in the aftermath of the August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia, the violatile Caucases region has actually become more quiet.
In particular, Mr. Sanamyan writes about signs that the long simmering conflict between majority Muslim Azerbaijan and historically Christian Armenia over the territory of Ngorno-Karabkh may be moving towards a peaceful settlement. And with little acclaim from analysts in the West, Moscow is acting as a peace broker between the two sides. Russia has long had friendly relations with both Armenia and Azerbaijan and both countries have extensive ethnic and immigrant diasporas in the Russian Federation.
Pipeline Politics: How Georgia Influences Israel and Iran
Charles Ganske
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. In spite of the hype pushed by some conspiracy theorists, Israel only supplied Georgia with a tiny fraction of its military equipment and suspended all arms sales months before the August 2008 war
Since the August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia, many geopolitical analysts have tried to understand the origins of the conflict, and explain both U.S. support for the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and Russian support for his opponents, the separatist governments of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. In doing so, geopolitical thinkers around the world have sought explanations for the conflict that go beyond the personalities of the individual leaders involved, such as the Russian President Dimitry Medvedev, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.
Muscovites celebrating the New Year near the Kremlin on January 1, 2008
During this time of year, it's traditional, in Russia as in the West, to take stock of the previous year and to make resolutions for changes in the upcoming year. Yuri Mamchur, Russia Blog's creator and main editor, has published a retrospective in the Seattle Times this week (scroll down on the main page or click on this link to see Yuri's article) on how Russia could have been better prepared to face the current global economic crisis. Addressing the same topic, Professor Andrei Tsygankov from San Francisco State University in California has sent us a panel discussion he participated in with other experts for the magazine Russia Profile.
Eight years after President Boris Yeltsin gave up the presidential suite, Russian economic legislation had matured, but the economy hadn't. Russia doesn't have much to show for its meteoritic economic rise and fall. But it could have been avoided if Russia had not missed important opportunities, from infrastructure investment to small business loans.
THE Russian government and people, awash with money, were convinced their economy was invulnerable to the world financial crisis. By September, Russia's gold reserves stood at $581 billion. The federal budget seemed strong, salaries high, economic reforms successful and government investments wise. In hindsight, it was all too noticeably "Potemkin" and vulnerable. When foreign markets crashed and oil prices fell, Russia's financial standing changed overnight.
Paul Weyrich possessed the unrivaled ability to take public stands on behalf of his (and our) core principles, even when doing so created a breach with the conventional wisdom that reigned inside Washington at any given moment. Personal relationships with Washington's power brokers (and he knew them all, because they all quietly and respectfully sought his counsel) were irrelevant if the broker in question was contemplating a policy that violated one of his core tenets. He would patiently explain his point of view, counsel adherence to a timeless principle over a strategic feint that might (but usually didn't) yield some transitory political advantage, and then go public with his principled view if the quiet conversation proved fruitless.
Besides taking strong positions on moral, human life, and family issues, Weyrich was not afraid to criticize what he saw as misguided foreign policies, particularly those advocated by his fellow conservatives and within the Republican Party. Whereas others simply accepted the expansion of NATO into the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine as a given, Weyrich pressed the hard question to his fellow conservatives of whether these steps would actually advance the cause of freedom worldwide, or if they would needlessly antagonize Russia without making America or Europe the slightest bit more secure.
For the sake of educating the public and press about what Weyrich believed and advocated, Russia Blog has republished two of his final op-eds about the future of U.S.-Russia relations.
Click on the extended post to read Weyrich's op-eds from December 2 and August 20, 2008
Russian Church and State: What is Patriarch Alexy's Legacy?
Charles Ganske
Patriarch Alexy II speaking to the Council of Europe in October 2007
Professor Andrei P. Tsygankov of San Francisco State University has sent us an article previously published by Russia Profile that included contributions from him and James George Jatras, a Washington D.C.-based international lawyer and the Director of the American Council for Kosovo, which opposed U.S. recognition of the former Serbian province. Jatras has been a frequent speaker at events hosted by the CATO Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and the Institute of World Politics.
In the Russia Profile panel, Tsygankov and Jatras discuss the controversial question of the relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian State, and how Patriarch Alexy changed these relationship, and with it the culture of post-Soviet Russia.
- The Editors
Click on the extended post to read the full article.
Sloppy Editorials on Russia at The Washington Post
Charles Ganske
Mark Ames, the former publisher of The Exile, a controversial English-language "alternative" newspaper in Moscow, has an excellent article appearing in the latest issue of the American left-wing journal The Nation. In his article, Ames does some old fashioned fact checking concerning The Washington Post's editorial line about Russia. Specifically, Ames points to an embarassing rush to judgement without the slightest evidence in the odd case of Karina Moskalenko, a Russian human rights lawyer based in Strasbourg, France.
In recent years, Moskalenko has pursued several cases against the Russian government at the European Court of Human Rights. When tiny traces of mercury were discovered in her car, the Washington Post quickly suggested that someone had tried to poison the attorney. Upon further examination, however, the mercury traces came from a thermometer that the previous owner of the car had broken in the vehicle. The Washington Post, however, didn't issue a correction about the case on the editorial page when the facts dispelled foul play, and buried news of the case in the news section.
The real issue here is not getting one story wrong or posting the correction in fine print -- this often happens at even the best newspapers -- but what the case says about the mentality of the Post's editors when it comes to Russia. Certainly, left-wing critics of American foreign policy like Ames are hardly the only ones to have asked this question. A few weeks before the Georgia War began on August 8, 2008, Paul J. Saunders, executive director of the Washington D.C.-based Nixon Center, published an article in The National Interest labelling the WaPost the "Tblisi Post" for its frequent championing the cause of the tiny Caucasian nation and its embattled President, Mikheil Saakashvili.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Russia: "With the Russians, you can be tough, but you should listen"
Charles Ganske
Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama for President in the 2008 election
Former Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. (ret) Colin Powell has made a lot of news this year. First, the longtime Republican Powell endorsed Illinois Democrat Senator Barack Obama for President of the United States. Second, on Sunday, December 14, in an interview with Fareed Zakaria, Powell gave a candid account of his time as Secretary of State for President George W. Bush(2001-2004), in which he discussed the day-to-day "business" of U.S.-Russia relations. In his discussion with Newsweek and CNN correspondent Zakaria, Powell declared that while missile defense systems may eventually be deployed to protect the U.S. and its allies, they must be proven to be workable, and their deployment weighed against other diplomatic and military priorities in U.S. grand strategy.
Suzanne Massie's Advice to President Obama: Adopt Reagan's Attitude toward Russia
W George Krasnow
Suzanne Massie is a Russia expert and former adviser to President Reagan
"Take bold steps, like Ronald Reagan, and chart a new foreign policy course toward Russia." This is the advice that Suzanne Massie, a Russia expert and former adviser to President Reagan, gave to President-elect Barack Obama during her presentation ,"Reagan's Evolving Views on Russians and their Relevance Today," at the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies (KIARS) in Washington D.C. on December 1, 2008.
Ms. Massie is a writer, lecturer and the author of best-selling books, Nicholas and Alexandra, and Land of the Firebird: The Beauty of Old Russia, as well as other books dealing with Russia's history and culture. Born in New York City in the family of a Swiss diplomat, she was educated at Vassar College and the Sorbonne. From 1985 to 1997 she was a fellow of the Harvard Russian Research Center. Trilingual (fluent in Russian, French, and English), she was invited by KIARS's director Dr. Blair Ruble to reminisce on the years of 1984-1988 when she was an adviser to President Reagan.
IHT: Russian Military Modernization May Be Hampered by Economic Crisis
Charles Ganske
A Russian soldier in Georgia
The International Herald Tribune has done some of the best reporting about Russia in recent months, including C.J. Chivers recently published analysis questioning many initial reports from the August 2008 war in Georgia. The Georgia War revealed that the Russian military still has sharp teeth - at least when fighting an inferior opponent on its own borders.
However, the war also revealed that even the Russian Army's elite formations were fielding 1980s vintage equipment, and did not have night vision goggles or Global Positioning System (GPS) devices like some of their Georgian opponents. The lack of unmanned aerial vehicles also led to a Russian Air Force Tupolev bomber getting shot down on a routine reconaissance mission over Georgia, with the loss of the entire crew. Russian army commanders, like the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, were reduced to issuing battlefield orders over easily intercepted cellphone lines due to a shortage of secure radios.
In late October the IHT reported on large Russian military exercises then taking place across all eleven time zones of Russia, complete with ICBM tests (hat tip: former Sovietologist and blogger Thomas P.M. Barnett). The IHT added that most American officials in the Pentagon and Bush Administration considered these changes in the Russian military's organization to be routine and not a cause for alarm in the West. If anything, President Medvedev's ambitious plans to modernize the armed forces may have to be scaled back due to a weak ruble, falling oil prices, and declining tax revenues into the Russian federal budget.
Click on the extended post to read an excerpt from the IHT article. Click on the Human Rights section of Russia Blog to read more about the problems of brutal hazing (dedovshina) and low morale in the Russian army.
Medvedev's statement regarding the deployment of Iskander missiles in the Kaliningrad Region in response to the US intention to station Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic was hardly among the Kremlin's most fortunate moves. Considering that Obama himself was not a great supporter of that project--with its dubious technological efficiency and exorbitant cost--it would probably have been more expedient to let the new US president freeze or even bury this idea of the Bush Administration.
The timing for making such a statement, with Obama only just emerging victorious from a grueling race, also was rather less than perfect. After Obama's election was secured, a phone call to congratulate the new White House resident and wish him success in his difficult mission might have been more fitting. Memorably, Putin's phone call to Bush on 11 September 2001 was instrumental in establishing a personal friendship between the two presidents that exerted some restraint on the zeal of the Cold War Warriors.
Russians Cautious on Obama; No Major Changes Expected
Yevgeny Bendersky
Shirtless Putin and Obama (Compilation by Publius Pundit)
Reality is catching up fast for the Russian Federation, which begun to slowly orient its expectations towards Barack Obama's win about two weeks prior to November 4. As the Russian government and its policy analysts expected, Obama's nascent presidency will have mixed results for US-Russia relations, though cautious optimism is starting to take hold. One issue that is already grabbing headlines in Russia is the American attitude towards anti-missile shield in Europe.
As reported by the Daily Vzglyad, Obama reiterated his commitment to the Patriot missile batteries in Poland, signed earlier in August by Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. The paper commented on Western Europe's desire for a "new beginning in relations between Russia and the US," but remained convinced that President-elect's desire not to deviate form the previous administration's plans signaled that major changes in US-Russia relations are not expected to take place anytime soon.
Democrat Vice Presidential nominee Joe Biden's remarks at a fundraiser in Seattle that an Obama Administration will be tested by an international crisis have drawn criticism from Republicans
Senator Joe Biden, Barack Obama's vice presidential nominee on the Democratic ticket for President, has never shied away from speaking his mind in public. At times this has led to ambiguous remarks, such as Biden's odd statement last year during the Democratic primaries that his future running mate Obama was "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy". More recently, it has led the Delaware Senator who prides himself on being an intellectual to commit an embarassing gaffe, declaring that President Franklin Roosevelt appeared on television to reassure the American people after the stock market crash of 1929. In reality, FDR wasn't elected until 1932 and television only came online a decade later, in 1939.
On October 19, Biden appeared before 10,000 supporters at a campaign rally in Tacoma, then spoke at a reception for Democratic donors in Seattle in the evening. At this fundraising dinner, Biden warned Democrats and the American people that an Obama Administration would be tested by an international crisis within the first six months of 2009.
"Mark my words: It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Watch, we're going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."
Der Spiegel: Russian Patriotism Unleashed by Georgia War
Charles Ganske
A Russian tank next to a Georgian military base, August 2008
Fred Weir, a longtime correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor in Moscow, writes in this week's edition of the German magazine Der Spiegel that many middle and upper middle class Russians (his own friends included) express frustration over the way Russia is portrayed in the West. Weir emphasizes that his circle of friends includes academics with liberal leanings and middle managers working for large Western corporations operating in Russia -- professionals who enjoy access to the Internet and direct contact with Westerners and yet nonetheless feel "betrayed" by the West.
Weir's friends and acquaintences seem to have experienced rising personal incomes and careers in the past several years, with some going from poverty to affluence in less than a decade. However, the fact that Russia's economic growth story (unlike, say, that of China) seemingly has not earned "respect" from America gnaws at these successful Russians. They resent what they perceive to be Washington's double standards and support for governments in Russia's "near abroad" that are hostile to the Kremlin.
We are not endorsing this view, just reporting it. One does notice that "respect" is an emotional term and that "Washington" jumps out as a surrogate for "the West" as a whole.
Click on the extended post to read an extensive excerpt from Weir's article.
The Guardian Reports on Chechnya, Terrorism, and Wahhabism
Bruce Chapman
Another interesting insight that appears, instructively, first in Europe, not the U.S.
Grozny in 2000...
...and Grozny in 2008.
It's Over, and Putin Won Chechnya is being rebuilt with Russian oil cash and its leader obeys Moscow. Separatist ideas are on ice
By Jonathan Steele in Grozny
The Guardian Originally published on September 30, 2008
No corkscrew. That's the first surprise about Chechnya. Unlike in Baghdad today or Kabul during the Soviet occupation, planes don't arrive high above the airfield and then dip one wing in a steep and terrifying spiral so as to reduce the risk of ground fire as they land. In Grozny they glide in over woods and villages, apparently confident there are no resistance fighters lurking in wait.
Surprise number two is the amount of reconstruction in the Chechen capital. Five years ago when I last visited Grozny it still looked like the ruins of Dresden or Hiroshima, street after devastated street. Now new nine-storey blocks of flats, shops, and cafes flank the main streets. In the central square workers are laying the last paving stones outside what is described as Europe's largest mosque, a concrete replica of Istanbul's Blue Mosque, financed and largely built with Turkish aid and Turkish engineers.
Cold Warriors Kissinger and Schultz Scope Out Today's Russia
Bruce Chapman
The article in the International Herald Tribune by two prominent Republican secretaries of state, Henry A.Kissinger and George P. Schultz (LINK), is likely to be read closely in Washington and Moscow alike. Isn't it interesting that it ran first in Europe?
Finding Common Ground By Henry A. Kissinger and George P. Shultz
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
The crisis over Georgia raises an issue familiar from history: In 1914, an essentially local issue was seen by so many nations in terms of established fears and frustrations that it became global in scope and led to the First World War.
There is no danger of general war today. But there is the risk that a conflict arising out of ancestral passions in the Caucasus will be treated as a metaphor for a larger conflict, threatening the imperative of building a new international order in a world of globalization, nuclear proliferation, ethnic conflicts and technological revolution.
Short Course of Sarah Palin Features Opinion from Discovery's John Wohlstetter
Yuri Mamchur
John Wohlstetter, Discovery Institute's Senior Fellow, was quoted in an article published by a Russian financial firm BCS. Below is the translation of the original article.
The Republican Party is actively working on the strong boost of "international experience" of Sarah Palin, as a vice-presidential candidate. Analysts believe that this flaw might neutralize the positive factors that the Alaskan governor is believed to be bringing into John McCain's campaign.
During the annual UN General Assembly on September 24 Sarah Palin will conduct meetings with the presidents of Georgia and Ukraine, as well as with leaders of Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Colombia, and India. The "conversations" with the world leaders should help Palin in her preparations for the pre-election television debates with Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden. At the moment, he leads the Senate Committee on International Relations.
DAIWA Institute: Washington Blunders into an Unwinnable Campaign Against Russia
Yuri Mamchur
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, left, and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, right, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, back view (Photo by AP).
A report (download the report in PDF format) from a British group called the DAIWA Institute (a research organization affiliated with the European branch of a Japanese investment firm) is interesting in several respects. Nonetheless, the blame-pointing is not necessarily sound and the picture of both American and Russian policy options is, at best, mixed. I think the idea of a "Medvedev Doctrine" also seems peculiar. When did the United States ever say that it supports a "uni-polar" world? That would be ridiculous. But that apparently is what the report says Medvedev wants the world to think America is proposing.
As for Russia's reserving to itself the right to protect Russian citizens anywhere, it is a striking concept, but it needs to be carefully defined. The U.S. has often intervened in the past to protect U.S. citizens around the world, sometimes deploying military forces to do so (the invasions of Grenada, to name one examples in the last thirty years). But then again, the U.S. does not do this often, for various reasons. So claiming the "right" to do so is strange. It would seem that every nation has the right to protect its citizens, but that right has to be clearly hedged by circumstances. So I can't say I am impressed with this alleged new Doctrine.
The warning about nuclear conflict is correct, if even in the abstract. There really should be fewer public pronouncements now and more serious diplomacy behind closed doors where leaders from both sides can be both frank and mutually respectful.
When Russian troops moved into Georgia, foreign investors moved out and the Russian market plummeted. When U.S. troops moved into Iraq, foreign investors hesitated but the U.S. market barely blipped. Is this a double standard?
Not really. The difference lies in the way investor perceptions are challenged or fulfilled by the political decisions of a country's leadership. Investors create models about their investments -- how much they are promised at the point of sale and how much they are likely to get back in a variety of circumstances. These models can be simple, ranging from a conceptual understanding about a company and the environment it operates in, to a complex econometric simulation with all the macro indicators included. Investor models implicitly include uncertain factors, such as interest or exchange rate movements. Geopolitical decisions must also be included because investors need to know in advance the possible trajectories of government action.
The Kremlin may or may not have been justified in its initial attack (or counter attack) in South Ossetia. But its decision to keep pressing ahead and not to leave even the Georgian territory (the so-call buffer zone) is costing the Russian economy a lot. This article may be an "opinion" piece, but the figures are daunting.
Maybe "it doesn't matter." But is there a point where it does matter? Is it really smart to put the screws to Poland and Germany on gas supplies?
Please visit the extended post to read the original article.
Wars often start for seemingly absurd reasons connected to tendentious issues of honor, perceived military commitments and, most of all, erroneous expectations that escalation can be limited and managed. No one anticipates a war now between Russia and NATO. That is what is worrying. Only when a nuclear exchange is imaginable does controlling one become truly feasible. Even if the chances of a larger war are small, the stakes are stupendous and ought to give leaders and opinion leaders a pause.
Please pause. The hot rhetoric could start an unnecessary fire.
Remember that World War I, the granddaddy of 20th century folly, was triggered by the act of an anarchist in the Balkans. When forces already are poised for confrontation, as they were then, it doesn't take much to launch hostile actions, and often the fuse is lit by a minor figure.
In retrospect, it is clear that Russian-Western tension before the Ossetia debacle was much greater than almost anyone realized. This dispute is not just about ethnic rivalries and boundary lines in the Caucasus, but rather the whole post-Soviet relationship and "New World Order." It is bigger even than Russia's fear of "encirclement" or the fears of its near neighbors that Russia wants to swallow them up. Both sets of fears are genuinely held, but it is likely--as good diplomacy could show--that neither set is justified.
Is the West Ready to Fight Russia to Preserve Stalin's Legacy?
Edward Lozansky
Many Americans blame George W. Bush for the disastrous state of U.S. foreign policy in the region, but to be fair, the blame should go to the older Bush and Clinton as well...
It looks like the Western leaders, and especially two U.S. Presidential hopefuls, Barack Obama and John McCain, are trying to outdo one other in condemning Russia's recognition of independence for Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Meanwhile, an impressive armada of U.S. and NATO military ships is docking in the Georgian port of Batumi or is on the way to the Black sea while Russia also sent three missile boats to show the flag. At the same time, British foreign secretary David Milliband has arrived to Ukraine to promote the idea of building some kind of anti-Russian coalition, and other EU leaders are making very tough statements too.
There is a great danger that if this verbal war continues at some point the inflammatory rhetoric will get out of control. To save face the West might be forced to follow words with deeds and we would arrive not just at the new edition of the Cold War but to something much hotter, perhaps close to 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, or even worse.
The war in South Ossetia and Georgia, though appalling, resulted in fewer deaths and damage than originally reported. It is still not "over" and probably won't be for some time. Meanwhile, it definitely did serious damage to Russia's relationship with the West. In some ways, relations are worse than at any time since well before the collapse of the USSR--in other words, in roughly a quarter century.
We are going to say a lot more on this, and we are not inclined to be particularly laudatory to any of the players. The war has not made any country look good.
Meanwhile, before the war we wrote a report on Ten Reasons Americans Should Care About Russia. It follows, and, as you will see, it remains valid. Perhaps as tempers cool, people of good will can consider what is at stake; what there is to gain, and what there is to lose.
The Battle of the Dueling Presidents: Take Your Pick or "None of the Above"
Yuri Mamchur
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili (left) and Russian President Dimitri Medvedev
Russians and Georgians fight it out--in print. The Financial Times has scored by publishing articles by both Dimitri Medvedev and Mikheil Saakashvili. (P.R. firms representing both sides must be working overtime.) Obviously, both presidents are biased, but their points of view could have not been presented more clearly. Medvedev's "Why I had to Recognise Georgia's Breakaway Regions" and Saakashvili's "Moscow's Plan Is to Redraw the Map of Europe" in the order of their appearance in the FT:
Why I had to Recognise Georgia's Breakaway Regions By Dmitry Medvedev
Financial Times
August 26, 2008
On Tuesday Russia recognised the independence of the territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It was not a step taken lightly, or without full consideration of the consequences. But all possible outcomes had to be weighed against a sober understanding of the situation -- the histories of the Abkhaz and Ossetian peoples, their freely expressed desire for independence, the tragic events of the past weeks and interÂnational precedents for such a move.
Alexandr Solzhenitsyn Street The Legacy Begins to Clarify
Edward Lozansky
It may take 50, 100, or even more years before historians acquire a proper understanding of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's legacy. For his contemporaries, however, he is first of all the literary giant who almost single-handedly delivered the most powerful weapon in the East -- West ideological confrontation with his works. This weapon helped the West to defeat the "Evil Empire" with the collateral result of crushing the Communist International and "reeducating" the European Left, which to some extent was sympathetic to the Soviet experiment.
History knows other cases when words were more powerful than guns. Without going into dangerous religious waters one could point to Karl Marx, who published a powerful indictment of a capitalist system which eventually led to the enslavement of nearly half of mankind. And it took Solzhenitsyn to undo the work of Marx. For this, the world and especially Russia should be forever grateful to this man. However, when it comes to modern times, Solzhenitsyn's ideas of rebuilding his native land did not find too many followers, at least so far.
To be published in the International Herald Tribune.
Like the heroes in Leo Tolstoy's short story, Russia and America have become "Prisoners in the Caucasus," their options constrained by the irreconcilable positions of protagonists whose hostilities dates back centuries.
But while Russians have more than two centuries of historical, political, cultural and military experience to guide them in this crisis, the Bush administration is a novice to the region.
It shows. The administration's main argument for supporting Georgian sovereignty seems to be that Georgia has a rare combination of two virtues: 1) a staunchly pro-American strongman, Mikheil Saakashvili, whose lapses into martial law and seizure of opposition television stations are quickly forgiven; and 2) the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which connects the Caspian oilfields to the Black Sea.
To Reduce Russia Stand-off, Reduce Western Oil Dependence
Bruce Chapman
By Mike Wussow and Bruce Chapman
A Russian gas rig in Siberia. Russia currently produces over 9 million barrels of oil per day and has the world's largest proven reserves of natural gas, giving Moscow significant geopolitical clout
(Note: Some of the issues described in this post - particularly U.S. oil dependency and energy security - will be the focus of a major conference hosted jointly by Discovery Institute's Cascadia Center and Microsoft on September 4-5, 2008. Participants will include Anne Korin and James Woolsey, both of whom are also referenced in this post. Details are available here.)
The Russia-Georgia conflict brings uncomfortably to the surface the question of energy security. Like much of the rest of the world, America is addicted to oil, most of it now imported. We rely on petroleum to fuel just shy of 100 percent of our transportation. America imports from its neighbors, Canada and Mexico mainly, but almost as much from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Nigeria. Russia supplies 762,000 barrels each day to the U.S. according to numbers released by the U.S. government in June.
"Russians in Georgia: Behind the harrowing individual tales of destruction and want, analysts see a clash between the US and Russia reminiscent of old Cold War divisions," reports BBC News.
The Washington Post has perhaps the best report so far on how the war in South Ossetia and Georgia got started. It is astonishing how this episode ignited a torrent of abuse and prejudice, second guessing and histrionics on both sides.
"George Bush's Administration is promoting interests of candidate John McCain," said Dr. Markov. "Defeated by Barack Obama on all fronts, McCain has one last card to play yet - the creation of a virtual Cold War with Russia..."
Wild rumors somehow still make the news. The silly efforts in Moscow to link the outbreak of war in Ossetia/Georgia to the U.S. Presidential race effectively treats this whole tragedy as farce. Does this mean it also is not being taken seriously?
From The Times (London)
By Charles Bremner in Moscow
August 15, 2008 Link to the original article Kremlin dusts off Cold War lexicon to make US villain in Georgia
Russians were told over breakfast yesterday what really happened in Georgia: the conflict in South Ossetia was part of a plot by Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, to stop Barack Obama being elected president of the United States.
Georgian troops fleeing under attack from Russian forces.
The scene on the ground would have been very different today if Georgia had been able to move past Tskhinvali after they shelled the city last week. Of course, it is not known if moving forward was the plan.
The route by which Russian troops, weapons and humanitarian supplies came south while thousands of refugees went north is a single narrow road from the Roki Tunnel built in 1985. Readers are invited to "drive" this road on Google Earth. If one does so, one comes to a large bridge where the road turns south in a defile at 42°21'29.61"N 43°54'2.58"E. This location is about 25 kilometres from the South Ossetian border.
The London Times: Vladimir Putin's Mastery Checkmates the West
Yuri Mamchur
Russia Blog's editors found this article informative and interesting.
Vladimir Putin's Mastery Checkmates the West
Russia has been biding its time, but its victory in Georgia has been brutal - and brilliant The Times
By Michael Binyon
August 14, 2008 Link to the original article
The cartoon images have shown Russia as an angry bear, stretching out a claw to maul Georgia. Russia is certainly angry, and, like a beast provoked, has bared its teeth. But it is the wrong stereotype. What the world has seen last week is a brilliant and brutal display of Russia's national game, chess. And Moscow has just declared checkmate.
President Sakozy (left) and President Medvedev (right). "President Nicolas Sarkozy has shown a flair for the high-profile diplomatic intervention," reports BBC. (Photo by AFP). Russia and Georgia declared today, August 13, 2008, a Day of Mourning for the victims of the conflict.
France, which currently holds the Presidency of the EU, in the persons of President Sarkozy and Foreign Minister Kouchner, has induced President Saakashvili to sign the Medvedev-Sarkozy agreement.
According to both President Medvedev's office and a French news agency the terms are as follows:
1. Tbilisi must make a commitment not to use force to settle its secessionist problems.
2. Georgian armed forces must cease fire.
3. Georgian armed forces must return to their barracks.
Russian soldiers sit atop military vehicles in South Ossetia
TSKHINVALI, Georgia -- The Kremlin said Tuesday that it was suspending military action in the separatist enclave of South Ossetia inside Georgia, but huge Russian military convoys still snaked toward the scarred capital, Tskhinvali.
After five days of fighting -- Russia's biggest use of force outside its borders since the 1991 Soviet collapse -- a victorious Russian army offered a small group of foreign journalists a carefully controlled glimpse of the territory it went to war over.
Georgian soldiers helping an injured comrade. Georgian troops are wearing U.S. Marine camouflage uniforms; the only difference - the Georgian flag badges.
Ethnic separatism once again has further destabilized world geopolitics, with the outbreak of military conflict between Russia and Georgia over the breakaway regions of South Ossetia & Abkhazia; Russia also attacked Georgian targets in Abkhazia--and as of midday Monday has invaded Georgia and occupied Gori (Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's birthplace), just 55 miles from the Georgian capital of Tblisi.
While President Bush, out to lunch in China, watches swimming, basketball & baseball in Beijing, here is what one Georgian farmer told a British reporter: "Why won't America and NATO help us? If they won't help us now, why did we help them in Iraq?"
Four lessons come immediately to mind:
(1) the risk minor powers pose to major-power relations;
(2) the risk of excessive compartmentalization in policy;
(3) the risk from grossly misplaced strategic focus;
(4) the risk of making a fetish of democracy promotion--especially in the form of volatile multi-ethnic states.
Ossetian survivors of Georgian army attacks on Tshinvali are hiding in the basements of destroyed buildings without food and water
This article will ask and attempt to answer three questions:
1. War in Georgia: Russian aggression against an independent country or an indiscriminate Georgian assault against Ossetians overlooked by the U.S. media?
2. What would the United States have done if a bordering country (let's say Mexico) slaughtered 1,400 U.S. citizens and 10 U.S. soldiers overnight, leaving U.S. citizens by the tens of thousands without food and water?
3. If ethnic cleansing on Russian borders is none of Russia's business, and should not result in a Russian military response against the aggressor, how can one explain NATO's bombing and occupation of Serbia in 1999, a country that did not share a common border with the U.S. or other NATO members?
War in Georgia: Misreading Ossetia -- Chronology Matters
Patrick Armstrong
Georgian army rocket batteries firing on Ossetian cities and villages Friday, August 8. As the result of this bombardment, 1,400 civilians, including women and children, and 10 Russian peacekeepers died the first night of the Georgian attack. Hours later, Russian troops responded to protect Russian citizens and soldiers in the region.
"In addition to promoting the anti-science hoax of 'intelligent design,' the Discovery Institute runs a pro-Russian site called 'Russia Blog,' and today they come out in favour of Russia's brutal assault on the breakaway republic of South Ossetia".
As a contributor to this blog, I want to answer Mr. Johnson's guilt-by-association allegation. I personally have no use for "intelligent design" or other claims against evolution, but one would search Russia Blog's website in vain for any mention of this topic. And Mr. Johnson's characterization of "Russia's brutal assault on the breakaway republic of South Ossetia" gets it exactly backwards. Chronology is the key: it tells you here, as it so often does (in evolution as well) what is actually happening.
Russian peacekeepers at an anti-aircraft gun in the disputed region of South Ossetia
Yesterday, after Russia sent reinforcements to back up its peacekeepers under seige by the Georgian army in the tiny disputed territory of South Ossetia, Arizona Senator and Republican Presidential candidate John McCain denounced the move as "Russian aggression" against Georgia. Nevermind that it was the Georgian army which launched the offensive that ignited the present round of fighting, and thousands of refugees have been streaming out of South Ossetia into Russia in the last few days.
The reported death toll of over 1,400 is the worst the region has seen since 1992. In that year, the Soviet Union was formally dissolved, and South Ossetia and Abkhazia, both regions with strong ethnic ties to compatriots in Russia, were ceded to Georgia within their Soviet-drawn borders. After the U.S. and NATO countries recognized the independence of Kosovo in early 2008, the South Ossetians and Abkhazians decided that they could declare their independence from Georgia, which has sparked the recent violence.
UPDATE - August 10, 2008 Welcome, Instapundit and Little Green Footballs readers! Please click here to read Russia Blog contributor Patrick Armstrong's excellent post responding to LGF blogger Charles Johnson. Click on the extended post to read the author's response to some of the questions and comments written elsewhere about this post.
Senator Barack Obama loves hope and change. And it's easy to understand why--hope is a powerful motivator and change can often bring important improvements to America or to the wider world.
But turning hope into change isn't easy. Among other things, it requires considerable realism in assessing current realities, understanding what is simpler or more difficult to change, who needs to be involved to create change that sticks, and how change in one area might affect others. This is where Senator Obama comes up far short of what the United States needs in a President.
The Misconception of Russian Authoritarianism: Part 4 - From Reformist Czars to Gorbachev
Kevin Cyron
Czar Nicholas II and his family were murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1918
Editor's note: In the fourth part of his masters thesis, "The Misconception of Russian Authoritarianism", St. Petersburg University graduate Kevin Cyron examines the history of political and economic reforms in Russia from the 19th century Czars to Mikhail Gorbachev and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Click on the links to read previous installments in this series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Click on the extended post to read part four of this extended essay.
President Dmitry Medvedev's plan to redesign Europe's security system with Russia as its integral part, followed by the Russian foreign ministry's tough statements aimed at America and intended for McCain and Obama's consumption, show that the new Kremlin administration is serious about becoming a global player on the international geopolitical arena.
Interestingly, practically at the same time Pentagon came out with its new military doctrine which mentions Russia as a potential security threat. Here is a direct quote from the June 2008 National Defense Strategy report: "Russia's retreat from openness and democracy could have significant security implications for the United States, our European allies, and our partners in other regions.... Furthermore, Moscow has signaled an increasing reliance on nuclear weapons as a foundation of its security. All of these actions suggest a Russia exploring renewed influence, and seeking a greater international role."
If you were running the largest newspaper in the capital city of the world's sole superpower, which foreign-policy issues would you select as your top priorities? The war in Iraq? Terrorism? Nuclear terrorism, something that could change the American way of life forever? Energy policy, which is already severely affecting many Americans' lives? If you don't like these, what about China, India, Iran, North Korea, the Middle East peace process or climate change?
The Washington Post's answer to this question may surprise you: it's Georgia (the one ruled from Tbilisi, not Atlanta). In barely more than five months since the beginning of January, Lexis-Nexis shows that the Post's editorial pages have carried at least nineteen separate contributions focused on Georgia and its relations with Russia--almost one per week--if one combines editorials (seven) and opinion pieces (twelve).[1] The vast majority of these (but not all) have the same thesis: that Georgia, under grave threat from Russia, must be rescued by the United States, usually through accelerated membership in NATO and American pressure on weak-kneed Europeans.
Just over thirty years ago, Alexander Solzhenitsyn (ÐлекÑаÌндр ИÑаÌевич СолжениÌцын), who passed away at his home outside of Moscow last weekend at the age of 89, was greeted warmly by a group of students at the commencement for Harvard University's class of 1978. The Harvard graduates likely expected to hear some typical words of inspiration before going out into the world, or an analysis of Solzhenitsyn's novels, or the progression of the Cold War. What they received instead was a sermon, a jeremiad hurled against the very society they were about to join as adults, as well as against the dying Soviet system that had exiled Solzhenitsyn to the West. On the audio recording of the speech, many graduates can be heard applauding loudly, while others murmur, probably wondering when this old man they regarded as a crazy, reactionary Russian would finally shut up.
To read excerpts from one of Solzhenitsyn's final interviews, click here.
Click on the extended post to find more thoughts on Solzhenitsyn, and to read a transcript of his most famous speech.
Solzhenitsyn in Vermont near his U.S. home in exile
Yesterday The New York Times and National Review offered contrasting profiles of the great Russian dissident and writer, who passed away at his home outside Moscow on Sunday. Russian Orthodox funeral services will be held tomorrow at the Dimitri Donskoy Monastery in Moscow, where Solzhenitsyn requested to be buried. The Donskoi necropolis houses the tombs of many prominent families and liberal scholars from 19th century Russia, the graves of Red Army soldiers who died defending Moscow from the invading Nazis, and anonymous victims of the NKVD buried by the Church. Solzhenitsyn, who fought his way into East Prussia in 1944-45 as a Red Army artillery officer, wanted to be buried close to his comrades.
By Deroy Murdock
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
August 2, 2008
NEW YORK - If you like bilingualism, you will love septalingualism.
Big Apple Mayor Michael Bloomberg's latest brainstorm outstrips his notorious war on trans-fats, both for its audacity and sheer senselessness. America's largest municipality soon will conduct official business in English and Spanish - which would be bad enough - plus five other foreign languages: Russian, Chinese, Korean, French Creole and Italian.
The Misconception of Russian Authoritarianism: Part 3 - The Roots of Russian Democracy
Kevin Cyron
Tsar Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible) depicted after murdering his own son in a famous painting by 19th century Russian artist Ilya Repin
Editor's note: In this third part of his thesis, St. Petersburg University master's program graduate Kevin Cyron examines the history of U.S.-Russia relations and of Russian representative government from medieval times to the 18th century.
Jack Matlock, Reagan's Ambassador to the USSR On U.S.-Russia Relations
Charles Ganske
Jack Matlock served as U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987 to 1991
Ambassador Jack Matlock served as the point man for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush in Moscow from 1987 to 1991, a period which saw the end of the Cold War. The Carnegie Council in Washington D.C. recently sat down with Ambassador Matlock to talk with him about the current state of U.S.-Russia relations. Ambassador Matlock's thoughts may surprise those who would claim that carrying forward the legacy of President Reagan means continued confrontation with the Russians in their back yard. Instead, Matlock points to the need for additional cooperation to tackle the consequences of global problems, including nuclear proliferation and climate change.
Click on the extended post to watch Ambassador Matlock's and other videos related to U.S.-Russia relations.
An American friend wrote to me about the current Russian spy scandal in America: "
On June 12, 1918, Grand Duke Mikhail Aleksandrovich (henceforth Michael) and his secretary Brian Johnson, a Brit, were randomly executed in the outskirts of the far away city of Perm in the Ural Mountains. A year ago, Russia "rehabilitated" both, along with other Romanov-related victims of Soviet repression. The decision followed a similar act about Tsar Nicholas II and his family on October 1, 2008.
Back in 1974 Senator Henry (Scoop) Jackson and Representative Charles Vanik introduced an amendment to a trade law with the purpose of punishing the Soviet Union and other communist countries for the denial of emigration rights to their citizens. At the time it was a justified decision, but in case someone forgot the evil empire has been gone since 1991. Unfortunately, for one of its former parts which never had any emigration restrictions, the Russian Federation, the Jackson-Vanik amendment remains in force. Strictly speaking, the amendment has been a dead letter since 1994 due to a ritual of annual Presidential waivers based on humiliating compliance reviews. Yet it continues to be a constant irritant in U.S.-Russia relations, and therefore should be repealed for good without further delay. It is easier said than done as both the Clinton and Bush administrations tried to get rid of this amendment but failed miserably since the U.S. Congress has the authority to act and refuses to go along.
This publication tries to debunk some popular, but misguided, views on demographic trends in today's Russia. These consist of the perception that Russia is in a demographic "death spiral" that dooms it to national decline (
