Search: USA,Human security (28 materials)

 

Walk the Line: Russia as the New Chair of the UN Security Council

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...

26.10.2016

The Donkey and the Elephant: American Presidential Politics, Russia, and 'None of the Above'

... have had to fend off as an entire party in the past generation of presidential races: that Democrats are too focused on domestic affairs and are unfit or inexperienced to handle world affairs. In essence, Democrats always have to defend against the accusation of being foreign policy weaklings. This accusation is never leveled against Republican candidates (even when a particular candidate may be internationally amateurish, his party’s reputational legacy is apparently automatically transferred ...

30.06.2016

American Jihadi: Why Westerners Fight with the Islamic State

... and malleable minds. Only now it is being powerfully pushed through the technological and virtual advantages of the 21st century, making its reach and scope far beyond anything the West could ever think plausible. Against this backdrop, it is inexcusable that American agents find themselves at a loss to understand the appeal of that small percentage willing to abandon the U.S. and go fight in a land that America says is barbarous, for a group only more barbarous and a cause most ignoble. To see ...

18.04.2015

The American UAV Attempted Apartheid

... newcomers to the drone party will do what the U.S. has not is simply illogical. All of this consternation revolves around four fundamental questions that the United States has been unwise to ignore and the honest answers, based on previous American drone usage, probably carry some severe repercussions for American foreign and military policies: Who is controlling the weapon system? Does the system of control and oversight violate international law governing the use of force? Are drone strikes proportionate ...

05.04.2015

America's National Security Schizophrenia

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...

23.02.2015

Cold War Triumphalism and the Chicken-and-Egg Dilemma

... George Will, Alexander Motyl, and Fiona Hill are quick to damn ‘Russian provocations’ as moving the country to becoming a de facto ‘fascist’ state. In reality no such explicit initiatives can be found backing up such radical accusations. More calm analyses find Russia simply not accepting being told what to do on the world stage and that general position (operating in its own interests for its own interests) is so incredibly basic and elementary for all nations it is perplexing ...

14.02.2015

Keeping Russia the Enemy: Congressional Attitudes and Biased Expertise

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 the...

07.02.2015

U.S.-Russia Relations: The Problem of Intellectual Insincerity

There are 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...

03.02.2015

The Saudi Bait-and-Switch

Western media members are currently basking in what to them seems to be a story of economic ‘come-uppance.’ Saudi Arabia announced that its 2015 budget will suffer from a significant economic shortage, resulting in a nearly $39 billion dollar deficit. Most in the West look at this fact curiously, mainly because it seems to be that Saudi Arabia is causing its own problem, by refusing to budge off of its own insistence at maintaining an oil production level of 30 million barrels per day...

06.01.2015

Old American Punishment, New Russian Strength

... that slow progressive countermeasures would be enacted that would see the return of a healthy ruble over the course of the next two years. Perhaps most intriguing of all was the fact that Putin actually claimed that sanctions had only a 25 to 30% causal value in the fall of the ruble. Much more important was Russia’s continued dependence on oil and natural gas, thereby making it especially vulnerable to fluctuations in the world market. Again, most in America will laugh this off. Surely this ...

22.12.2014
 

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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