Search: International Relations,Russia (52 materials)

 

LESS SHEEP

Do not concern yourself with whether or not you find your opinions in the majority or minority. Majority or minority is irrelevant. Find your truth through research, logic, evidence, and reflection, deep across all levels. How many do or don't believe in it is immaterial. The world needs less sheep. The problem is not how big or small your flock is. The problem is you are SHEEP.

30.05.2014

Spies Don't Tweet: Why Social Media is Only a Grassroots Tool

The Intelligence Community, regardless of regime type, has famously always tried to co-opt and ultimately adopt advancements and evolutions in technology, especially in terms of media. Newspapers, radio, and television have long been appropriated in order to influence, massage, and outright manipulate messages and events important to the national interest. Often the question is not so much whether a country’s intelligence community engages in such activity but rather how explicit and open will...

21.05.2014

The Unintended Consequence of Maidan

... power nearby deeply interested in how affairs on the ground played out or the strongest power was the United States from a great distance just hoping an autocratic regime would fall one way or another. In the Maidan revolution this was not the case: Russia was very much interested in the long-term geostrategic consequences of regime change, and it was the blind laziness of Western academia that simply missed the obvious reasons as to why that would be so. Or, again, because of an intellectual presumptuousness ...

10.05.2014

When is an IO not an IO? The Strange Case of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization

... mutual understanding with Central Asia strategically advantageous. Thus Central Asia acts as a dual purpose economic-security bridge for China: a bulwark against Uighur and pan-Turkic nationalism/separatism and an energy hub for importing oil and gas. Russia Russia has always viewed Central Asia as its own backyard and particular sphere of influence. Thus, the SCO has largely been seen as a soft entry for Russia to maintain and project its military influence into the region. While Central Asia may ...

03.05.2014

The Folly of Sanitized Cyber War

The debate over the applicability or non-applicability of international law to cyber war and the need for a cyber-specific international treaty might be irrelevant. Both camps, pro and con, argue about the need for cyber war to have the Law of Armed Conflict or some new international legal project properly cover the cyber domain. Both camps, however, misread how the structure of the cyber domain precludes strategically ‘piggy-backing’ on conventional norms of war. International laws on...

25.04.2014

Cold War Residue in Syria

... consequences booming across Europe, an on-going conflict and crisis continues in a critically important region of the world. The problems in Syria remain poorly understood in the West across the board, but especially so when it comes to understanding Russian strategy on Syria vis-à-vis the United States. The common US position has simply dismissed Russian initiatives as knee-jerk anti-Americanism: getting in the way for the sake of being a nuisance to American power. This is, in fact, incorrect: ...

11.04.2014

Putin and the West: To Dance or Not to Dance?

... At least, this is likely the lament privately voiced by many in the corridors of American and European power. Obama’s recent trip to Europe to shore up greater resolve and commitment for strengthening sanctions and isolating (or is it shaming?) Russia after the Crimea annexation (or is it secession?) was fairly uneventful. The fact of the matter is no one in Europe seems to be all that eager to truly push violent confrontation with Russia as long as Russia doesn’t seem intent on trying ...

01.04.2014

Beware the Sheep with Fangs

Starting to heat up the internet (well, at least in Russia and Eastern Ukraine, while likely not even to be acknowledged in Western Europe) is a hacked telephone call last week between the former Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council Nestor Shufrich and the former Prime Minister,...

25.03.2014

Что Делать, или, Куда Дальше?

... much good.’ Authorities in Kiev are understandably displeased. They will remain displeased. They must learn to make peace with this defeat. And let’s be honest: it IS a defeat. A relevant piece of territory is now going to be part of the Russian Federation and no longer part of Ukraine. But Russia has the superior military force in Crimea and the Crimean people have voted their own political will in a referendum that supports Russia. And please, no more discussions about its legitimacy....

21.03.2014

How to Make a Russian Demon: Western Media 101

March 16, 2014 marks the day when the people of Crimea go to the voting booths to decide whether they will be part of Ukraine or part of Russia. While the referendum is no doubt important to people living in Crimea, I for one remain highly skeptical that the results will actually be the ultimate arbiter on the territorial decisions made about Crimea. The outside players, namely Ukraine,...

17.03.2014
 

Poll conducted

  1. In your opinion, what are the US long-term goals for Russia?
    U.S. wants to establish partnership relations with Russia on condition that it meets the U.S. requirements  
     33 (31%)
    U.S. wants to deter Russia’s military and political activity  
     30 (28%)
    U.S. wants to dissolve Russia  
     24 (22%)
    U.S. wants to establish alliance relations with Russia under the US conditions to rival China  
     21 (19%)
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