16 Feb 2010
I thought I would draw attention to Ariel Cohen’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this morning (God forgive me), where he argues that the sale of a French assault ship to Russia “imperils the security of the NATO members and aspirants.” Cohen suggests that Russia’s acquisition of a “formidable power projection tool” will upset [...]
15 Feb 2010
Last week, Romanian President Traiain Basescu announced that Romania will host U.S. Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) tactical interceptors, which should become operational by 2015. Two weeks before that, the U.S. agreed to deploy patriot missiles to Poland and place SM-3s on ships in the Black Sea. In response to the hubbub kicked up as a result, [...]
14 Feb 2010
Robert Kagan — decorated academician, Carnegie Endowment talking head, and older brother of Fred Kagan, ‘author’ of the Iraqi and Afghan Surges — has an article out in the current edition of World Affairs. In ‘Obama’s Year One,’ Kagan tries to debunk the concept that the President’s foreign policy is realist, arguing instead that it [...]
11 Feb 2010
Last week, the Institute of Modern Development released a report that caught a few headlines because it called for radical reforms in the Russian government. Igor Yurgens, the group’s director, “has regularly called for liberal reforms, [though] is not considered to have particular sway over Mr. Medvedev, who serves as chairman of [the] board of [...]
4 Feb 2010
I came across this in the New York Times this morning: Sergei M. Mironov, the speaker of Russia’s upper house of Parliament, set off a barrage of criticism on Monday night when he told a television interviewer that the leaders of his party “categorically oppose the budget proposed by Vladimir Putin,” now the prime minister, [...]
3 Feb 2010
Julia Ioffe, a young journalist who’s written for Fortune, Newsweek, and the New Yorker, has an interesting new article out in Foreign Policy. “The Revolution Will Definitely Not Be Televised” is about the Russian opposition’s new campaign of “thirty-firsts,” which is an uncharacteristically well conceived strategy that’s recently popped up among the liberals. Modeled on [...]
1 Feb 2010
In a recent Foreign Policy article, Lilia Shevtsova has done a wonderful, though I think unintentional, job of synthesizing the paranoia of today’s neoconservatives. According to her assessment, America and Europe are abandoning Russia, leaving her to the wolves of illiberality. Russia’s dissidents are being deprived of their last “moral support and understanding,” and the [...]
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