... depletion of confidence worse than 2009. Western voices say that “Russia has brought NATO together”. Well—after the current Western songs and hymns are replaced with... ... Andrey Kortunov started a post-24-February debate with a very eloquent
piece
“End of Diplomacy? Seven Glimpses of the New Normal”. I glimpse a more positive new normal... ... involved and consulted in Moscow’s planning of the “special military operation” in Ukraine. This level of coordination gives Kremlin the justified confidence that “the...
... rise of Beijing’s global influence, nor the coronavirus pandemic—nothing prevented these preparations.
Igor Ivanov:
Russia-NATO: On the History of the Current Crisis
Russia proceeded with a rapid modernization of its armed forces, pursuing programs ... ... increasing policy coordination both within the Alliance and within the European Union as well as military-technical assistance to Ukraine, while consistently attacking Russia in a variety of international settings ranging from the UN General Assembly to OSCE ...
... anti-Americanism; it cannot afford democracy approaching its borders—hence, the assault on Ukraine; and, when economic success fails as a source of popular support, its leadership... ... of assumptions would suggest an approach less monochromatic, more in tune with the NATO alliance’s 1967 Harmel Report that, in dealing with an equally challenging Soviet... ... registration lists and electronic poll books. This only has a chance if done through diplomacy, treating it as a question of national security—which it is—striving to...
... unsurprisingly, Putin was emboldened on all these fronts.
Even during Kerry’s fastidious diplomacy, on September 19th Russia deliberately bombed a well-known UN aid convoy heading... ... and Assad are, with impunity, threatening whole parts of Aleppo with mass slaughter); Ukraine also saw Russian escalation.
Kerry’s talks failed because the Russians... ... swaying votes in what was an intensely close decision; Russia has also been active in non-NATO Sweden this year, particularly when it was voting on closer ties with NATO; Finland...
New threads in the Team Trump/Team Putin tangled web show Manafort and Page linked to each other as part of a Russian plot to control Ukraine and also show a mutual Russian mafia godfather linking them with each other and Trump, providing even deeper and more fertile ground on which to question Trump’s pro-Russia, Pro-Putin positions and their origins. Author's note: this ...
... America, and the state of their relationship is the lack of measured and reasoned commentary. Make no mistake, though, the problems between Russia and America are serious and affect a whole host of major issues around the world from wars in Syria and Ukraine to global energy distribution, access, and prices, to space exploration and militarization, just to name a few.
Perhaps this is understandable, given the nature of the history of the most serious, dangerous rivalry the world has ever seen. Sparta ...