October 1st began what could be one of the more interesting Chairships of the United Nations Security Council, with Russia taking over and being charged with a rather delicate balancing act: between conducting the numerous affairs expected to be covered by any standard Chair of the UNSC and deftly handling the ‘special’ relationship with the United States that has recently become woefully deficient. Even more intriguing, some of the most vivid recent examples of that degrading relationship...
... Hillary are old school members of the military, foreign policy, and security establishment that chronically view Russia with Cold War attitudes, regardless of evidence.[6] • During the Crimea crisis in 2014, Hillary tried to make a connection between ... ... narrative’ is continually irritating to Russia: what it considers to be blatant and untruthful manipulation of the global media covering events actually transpiring on the ground. • Hillary has not been very gracious when discussing her personal ...
... predicated on lazy assurance that no real rivals are emerging to learn from these ambiguities and obfuscations. The following evidence seems to indicate that might be the biggest mistaken assumption of all. China and Pakistan Most discussions of an immediate drone rival to the United States begin and usually end with China. At last count China supposedly had over 900 different types of drones, ranging from micro, blimps, unmanned combat air vehicles, and rotary-wing UAVs. The three most common Chinese ...
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...
... influence on America, it would be naïve to think that open American support and encouragement, at least through formal media declarations and diplomatic speeches, did not have an impact on increasing the intensity and duration of domestic protest.... ... mistrust, and manipulation.
In a sense, the debate is one of degree: there is no doubt Russia has accepted that the end of the Cold War signaled a decided shift in the balance of power. It did not, however, allow that change to mean that it now had to be ...
... Russian Institute for Strategic Research is a prime example of this problem. Upon his exit early in 2015, Reshetnikov unleashed a torrent of information that, while interesting, really does not amount to more than just gossip and hearsay. Worse, American media and political analysts adopted it almost wholly as fact rather than as one perspective from a motivated source to talk badly about Russia:
“The Russian analyst’s scathing remarks about the country’s leadership and about the community ...
... numerous think tanks, both in the United States and Russia, which are deeply concerned about the state of Russian-American relations. Places like the Moscow Carnegie Centre or the Brookings Institution in Washington DC are regular go-to places for the media when seeking expert opinion and analysis. However, these centers of independent knowledge production have had a decided slant in allocating blame for the poor bilateral relations to the Russian side, with the explanations ranging from the fairly ...
... during these difficult times, marked most powerfully by the decline of the Russian ruble. In America, where economic problems immediately and automatically translate into dismal popularity ratings for its politicians, it is easy to see where such assumptions ... ... entire nature of the Russian-American global relationship could change fundamentally.
So here we sit, once again looking at a Cold War-like detente between Russia and America with the latter side utterly confident that its maneuvers and actions will have ...
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 few modern examples of consensus across American partisanship. Some have argued such assumptions emerged from an 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...
... often never analyzed from a perspective that emphasizes contemporary reality, purpose-based objectives and actual organizational functionality.
Russian Federation
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 on ideas of multipolarity and balanced global power, most American analyses of Russia cannot seem to get past characterizing every Russian maneuver and interest in a ...