There is no stronger example of the schizophrenic nature of American foreign policy toward Russia than comparing statements written in the formal National Security Strategy (NSS) of President Obama with actual testimony given by the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. In 2010 the NSS asserted that the U.S. would endeavor to ‘build a stable, substantive, multidimensional relationship with Russia, based on mutual interests.’ What’s more, the NSS called Russia a 21st century ...
... In this particular case reality better supports the Russian side: it is more accurate to describe Putin’s hostility toward America as one far more deeply rooted in frustration. But instead, America characterizes Russia as having an unstable mania ... ... its own future political cataclysm.
This perfectly matches what Stephen Cohen astutely called several years back as ‘Cold War Triumphalism.’ In basic terms, since Russia lost the Cold War it was and should be treated as a de facto defeated ...
... initially placed on the so-called Obama ‘reset’ in American relations with Russia in 2008, the reality is that enthusiasm quickly faded and subsequently placed the Democratic Party as squarely pessimistic and adversarial in its attitude toward Russia as the Republicans. Indeed, in today’s environment of divided government having a problem with Russia seems to be one of the few happy consensus points in Washington. The only problem, of course, is how that consensus is built more upon ...
... but rather as base and simple logic: America would never strive to copy another country and it most certainly does not endorse another country trying to force-influence its foreign policy. So why should Russia? It is this very simple and straightforward question that seems to never be asked by what are otherwise august media institutions and impressive political think tanks in the West.
Sometimes this tendency can reach near farcical levels. When Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the Russian parliament’s ...
Anyone who has worked through post-mortems on the Iraq war is familiar with the pitfalls associated with ‘groupthink’ and preconceptions. Indeed, it is perhaps one of the ... ... administration not interested in counter-arguments and alternative information. Others pointed to embedded preconceptions within the Intelligence Community itself, making it impossible to jump off the analytical train once it started rolling down the track. Both ...
Common complaints within Intelligence Studies about the examination of foreign intelligence communities, especially ... ...
Despite every effort by officials within the Russian Federation since the end of the Cold War to decry a new foreign policy strategy and to instigate new relations based... ... cultural conditions will instead leave you diving into budget concerns, internal turf wars over specific issue-areas, and the changing dynamics of micro-subjects that might...
... effectively against the United States in a conventional military confrontation. Indeed, many Chinese and Russian actors suggest cyber warfare is considered an obvious asymmetric instrument for balancing overwhelming US power. This latter argument is more compelling ... ... Russia? This is likely to be considerable.
The United States invests heavily in cyber security and several members of the Intelligence Community work to create cyber weapons meant to preserve US military predominance. However, there are still missed ...
... in long-term Ukrainian political affairs. Those responsible for leading the Maidan revolution were equally blind or presumptuous: while they are quick to lay blame on Russia now, it is obvious going back two months that they were completely caught unaware and off-guard that anyone on the outside would have words or actions for their behavior other than simple congratulatory phone calls. Obviously, this has proven to be a rather large mistake.
A second aspect to play out from the Maidan revolution ...
