After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the Warsaw Pact dissolved, the breakup of the USSR began. But the dissolution did not stop with the 14 Soviet "republics" declaring their independence of Moscow. Decomposition had only just begun. Transnistria broke...
The US and Russia are talking again today, but this time focused on Ukraine. The two sides are discussing President Vladimir Putin’s demand that America and NATO respect Moscow’s security interests. Having treated Russia as of no account since the collapse of the...
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Yes, it’s true. After 20 years of war – actually, more like 30 years if you count American involvement in the Russian version of that conflict in the 1980s – the U.S. has finally waved goodbye to Afghanistan (at least for now). Its...
On January 3, 2022, Emma Watson, a famous English actress, posted an image of a pro-Palestinian rally, with the words "Solidarity is a verb" written across it. It was accompanied by the following quote about the meaning of solidarity from the academic Sara...
An American Russia expert recently observed that diplomacy is not a reward for good behavior. Rather diplomacy is a necessary activity required for averting war. Skilled diplomacy requires one to understand the perceived interests of the other side and what shapes...
As the day of the US-Russian talks in Geneva over revising the security architecture in Europe approaches, analysts on both continents are publishing their prognoses of the outcome. Among them are great optimists that the ongoing acute confrontation can be scaled...
Take heart, most of you who fear war rather than profit from it. You would not know it amid the gloom and doom about "another Russian invasion" of Ukraine, but diplomacy – not war – is about to break out this month. As senior U.S. and Russian negotiators...
Propaganda is most impactful when people don’t think it’s propaganda, and most decisive when it’s censorship you never knew happened. When we imagine that the U.S. military only occasionally and slightly influences US movies, we are extremely badly...
With Syria still embroiled in its own war, Israel has been actively rewriting the rule book regarding its conduct in this Arab country. Gone are the days of a potential return of the illegally occupied Golan Heights to Syrian sovereignty in exchange for peace, per the...
