Staunton, October 12 – The creation by the United States of the Trans-Pacific Partnership signals both the continuing American role as the key pole in international affairs and the declining importance of Europe, developments that “paradoxically” have more serious consequences for Russia than any other country, Vadim Shtepa says. On the one hand, it highlights […]
Staunton, October 12 – Even in Russia where lying has become “an officially approved social norm” and where leaders lie on big things and small, even they find it impossible to lie all the time because to maintain consistency in a world where everything is a lie is impossible and thus they sometimes perhaps unintentionally […]
Staunton, October 11 – Estimating the real costs, direct and indirect, of a military conflict is always difficult because so many factors need to be considered, but Moscow economist Andrey Illarionov says that even if one ignores direct human and property losses, Vladimir Putin’s wars are currently costing Russia approximately US $94 billion every year. […]
Staunton, October 19 – The imposition of new rules prohibiting the sharing of statistical information among various levels of Russian government and the continuing impact of Soviet assumptions that individuals only work where they live mean that 33 to 37 percent of the population of Russian regions is “invisible” as far as state statistics are […]
Staunton, October 9 – Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s turn to the West, reflected by his expressed refusal to accept a Russian airbase on his territory and reports that the EU will be lifting some sanctions against him, has infuriated Moscow and prompted the Russian authorities to make plans to overthrow him, according to Yury Tsarik. Tsarik, a […]
Staunton, October 1 – Vladimir Putin has adopted a very risk approach in Syria: One misstep there and he will alienate most of the Muslim world, and the possibility he may dispatch ground troops once it becomes obvious that airstrikes alone won’t be enough could cost him most of his support at home, according to […]
Staunton, October 3 – George Kennan’s famous “long telegram” of February 1946 was written to explain to Western leaders something they found difficult to understand: how Moscow could turn from being a wartime ally into an implacable enemy, a problem that some Western leaders are again finding it difficult to understand. hat makes rereading Kennan’s […]
Staunton, October 4 Clausewicz famously observed that “war is the continuation of politics by other means;” but in the case of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has inverted that definition and is seeking to make peacemaking into another means for continuing the policies behind his war there, according to Ukrainian commentator Vitaly Portnikov. The chief results of […]
Staunton, October 6 The Moscow media have long focused on the extent to which Islam is recovering among the historically Muslim peoples of Russia and on the acceptance of Islam by a limited number of ethnic Russians, but these outlets have devoted far less attention to the spread of Islam among non-Russian groups not historically […]
Staunton, October 6 – Many in the West assume that popular risings against sitting governments in the post-Soviet states will work only to put in place a more democratic and Western-oriented regime, but in such unsettled times, at least one outside player – Russia — sees a chance them to install a less democratic and […]
