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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 ...
... campaign, the reality beyond America seems to show his candidacy is being taken quite seriously by other countries. Some may even be taking it not just seriously but favorably when compared to the anticipated presidency of another Clinton. At the moment, Russia seems to be one of those countries. However, deeper analysis shows this ‘support’ might be more of an indictment against past Hillary positions and statements rather than based on real evidence that accurately predicts what a Trump ...
Media outlets and government circles both cringe and squirm when the subject of Westerners leaving the West to go fight in Syria and Iraq with the Islamic State arises. While acquiring data and calculating accurate numbers wildly diverges from source to source, there is no doubt that ANY number simply makes countries like the United States uncomfortable and perplexed: in short, how could anyone want to leave the land of the free, the tolerant, the open, the just and go fight for a group that represents...
... was unarmed but was operated by agents elsewhere and was attempting to relay images back to a home base. Israelis did not disclose whether or not that enemy objective was successful but they were certain that the drone was not American, Chinese, or Russian: IDF claimed it to be an Iranian drone assembled in Lebanon and flown by Hezbollah. I have loosely called this in the past the world’s first ‘Islamic Crescent drone’ and emphasized how much it signaled the transnational nature ...
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 ...
There is a decided chicken-and-egg quality when trying to unravel Russian-American relations. The general pessimism and pejorative characterizations that come from the U.S. Congress clearly have a negative influence on Putin’s strident bravado and dismissive arrogance to the United States. What is perplexing is ...
America seems reluctant in accepting the fairly benign fact that countries do not like to be dictated to and thus misses opportunities for creating new dialogues. This is especially prominent in explaining the poor relationship at the moment with Russia. There seems to be an element of purposeful animosity in the way Russia is viewed, analyzed, and engaged, especially at the so-called expert level and most prominently within the now Republican-controlled United States Congress. Perhaps one of ...
... cars. But on top of all of these domestic reasons, there is one other significant foreign policy angle that makes this a uniquely American Faustian bargain: the oil price slide has clearly put greater teeth into the American sanctions imposed against Russia, as it has hurt the Russian ruble significantly. Sanctions alone for the first half of 2014 basically had no real impact on the Russian economy and the real lives of Russian citizens. It was only this Autumn as world markets saw the Saudi decision ...
On December 18 President Vladimir Putin gave his traditional end-of-year holiday speech. Think of it as a Russian version of the American State-of-the-Union address always given by our President. In it Putin expressed dismay and concern at the manner in which Russia’s “Western partners” were behaving, even going so far as to declare Western ...
... Ukraine today is still massively misconstrued and misinformed in the West. Once again, it is the over-reliance on grand strategic culture that pushes the problem. This approach leaves an analyst with no choice but to begin from a foundation that assumes Russian aggression, Russian aspiration for re-establishing empire (whatever that actually means is never defined of course), and Russian desire to interfere in the affairs of its neighbors. All of these approaches are overblown and sometimes purposely ...
| U.S. wants to establish partnership relations with Russia on condition that it meets the U.S. requirements |
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| U.S. wants to deter Russia’s military and political activity |
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| U.S. wants to dissolve Russia |
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| U.S. wants to establish alliance relations with Russia under the US conditions to rival China |
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