In earlier essays here this author has noted that Russia can be thought of as a frozen culture that cannot escape its past and therefore is condemned endlessly to repeat it. Allegedly as well, Vladimir Putin is a keen student of Russian history. But if that is the case, rather than learn from that history […]
Marx famously observed that when history repeats itself it comes first as tragedy and then as farce. Likewise, Adam Ulam, one of the founding giants of Russian studies in the US, wrote, “Russian history is tragic and glorious, but also preposterous.” Vladimir Putin’s cult of personality long since transcended the farcical to become utterly preposterous. […]
No sooner did John Kerry leave Sochi than did Moscow announce that it would not support an provision calling for an automatic re-imposition of sanctions on Iran should it violate the treaty now being negotiated with the P5+1 states. A Russian veto would mean that there is no “snapback” provision as President Obama called it. […]
Russia’s 70th annual VE day celebration is now over. Therefore we can provide an objective analysis of he controversy around it. Predictably Russia’s claque in Europe, the UK, and the US attacked the political leaders who declined to attend this pageant of Russian military prowess. Those refusals were, of course, in large measure due to […]
One of my colleagues once remarked that Russia is what the French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss called a frozen culture. This does not mean that Russian history merely repeats itself. But it does signify the recurrence of many patterns confirming Mark Twain’s observation that while history does not repeat itself it does rhyme. Vladimir Putin’s current […]
Recently Stephen Sestanovich observed that whenever Putin faces a crisis he blames America and other governments for it. The latest example of this Putin tactic of misdirection and evasion is his claim that the US and other intelligence agencies actually conspired with Islamic terrorists to detach the North Caucasus from Russia. Although this charge will […]
Western scholars habitually view Putin’s Russia as an authoritarian state. While this is true; it reflects political science’s methodological urge to compare phenomena and validate theories rather than to grasp the Russian state’s real nature. Russia today remains, as it was under Tsars and Communist rulers, a patrimonial state, much as Max Weber defined the […]
While assigning criminal culpability for the murder of Boris Nemtsov is essential; it is by no means the whole or possibly even the most important story. Nemtsov’s murder once again highlights a much more critical series of issues that any observer or politically active person in Russia must grapple with. Nemtsov’s murder shows that if […]
In a recent documentary Vladimir Putin recounted that when planning the annexation of Crimea he even thought about calling a nuclear alert. Whether this remark is true or false, Putin undoubtedly was striving to impress upon the audience an image of the gravity of the crisis as he saw it and therefore to appreciate his […]
Many will regard Vladimir Putin’s latest story that he ordered the occupation of Crimea after an all-night meeting with his Security Council on February 22-23, 2014, as an admission of the truth. Unfortunately they would be wrong again. This “admission” represents just another of Putin’s never-ending lies intended to enhance his image and offer willing […]
