Cold War – Old and New

Here’s a joke, borrowed from a Russian website. The Russians always have had a dry humour. “Trump, Merkel, May and Macon – Putin is heartily sick of them all. They keep calling and calling, so he switches his phone to voicemail. His message says; “Hello, you have called Russian President Vladimir Putin. Unfortunately I cannot take your call at the moment. If you want to surrender, press 1. If you want to threaten sanctions, please press 2. If you want to discuss the situation in Ukraine, press 3. All buttons other than 1 activate our Topol-M intercontinental missiles. Have a nice day!” After you’ve laughed remember it does not reflect current Russian attitudes. Most people in Russia are not seized with the vigorous animosity towards the West as they were in Soviet times. And most people in Russia support Putin. He may have lost a sizeable slice of his supporters...

Oh yes! It can and it is ready to. And perhaps it even will. To tell you the truth, although NATO is the strongest, it could well fall apart thanks to Russia’s – Putin’s – cunning schemes. See here is how and why – in a video from The Infographics Show – and you’ll understand it all. You fear will increase and you’ll be more to pay more to your national military. Looked at from a professional conflict analytical perspective, one may mention a few problematic aspects of this piece of propaganda: • There is no conflict analysis. Russia is treated as the independent variable (active), the US/NATO the dependent (re-active). • Almost no mention of history (except that Russia was weak before but strong now). No mention, for instance, of NATO’s expansion in spite of promises given to then president Gorbachev. • Security and peace is about military matters...

When I was in Moscow three weeks ago, I was briefing myself for an interview with the Soviet Union’s last president, Mikhail Gorbachev. As it happened he had to cancel it as he went into hospital for tests. One of the American academics I always read is Gordon Hahn, an ex fellow of the highly regarded Centre for Strategic and International  Studies. He wrote that American policy towards Russia is a runaway train without rails, driven by a troubling confluence of hubristic ideological influences and bureaucratized sectorial interests. I would add to that Republican members of the Senate who have allowed President Donald Trump small room to manoeuvre on Russian issues, even though there are some indications that he’d like to make peace with Russia.  I also re-read what President Bill Clinton’s secretary of defence, William Perry, has said on a number of occasions: “The US is as much to...

Photo: Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Credit: rferl.org Why Barr’s investigation is important and should be encouraged. By Stephen F. Cohen June 7, 2019 It cannot be emphasized too often: Russiagate – allegations that the American president has been compromised by the Kremlin, which may even have helped to put him in the White House – is the worst and (considering the lack of actual evidence) most fraudulent political scandal in American history. We have yet to calculate the damage Russiagate has inflicted on America’s democratic institutions, including the presidency and the electoral process, and on domestic and foreign perceptions of American democracy, or on US-Russian relations at a critical moment when both sides, having “modernized” their nuclear weapons, are embarking on a new, more dangerous, and largely unreported arms race. Originally published by The Nation Rational (if politically innocent) observers may have thought that when the Mueller report found no...

By Dr. Lawrence Wittner June 5, 2019 In late April, the highly-respected Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reported that, in 2018, world military expenditures rose to a record $1.82 trillion. The biggest military spender by far was the United States, which increased its military budget by nearly 5 percent to $649 billion (36 percent of the global total). But most other nations also joined the race for bigger and better ways to destroy one another through war. Originally publishes on Counterpunch.org on May 29th, 2019 here This situation represents a double tragedy. First, in a world bristling with weapons of vast destructive power, it threatens the annihilation of the human race. Second, as vast resources are poured into war and preparations for it, a host of other problems―poverty, environmental catastrophe, access to education and healthcare, and more―fail to be adequately addressed. But these circumstances can be changed, as shown by...

Ukrainian priests lead a commemoration ceremony for Maidan activists or “Heroes of the Heavenly Hundred” killed during anti-government protests in Kiev this time last year. Photograph: Roman Pilipey/EPA By  Ivan Katchanovski May 24, 2019 The new Ukrainian government is faced with reopening an inquiry into evidence of an organized mass killing in Kiev that Poroshenko stonewalled. Ivan Katchanovski investigates. Five years ago, the Maidan massacre in Kiev, Ukraine, of Feb. 18-20, 2014, was a watershed event, not only for the politics and history of Ukraine but also for world politics generally. This mass killing in downtown Kyiv set the stage for the violent overthrow of the pro-Russian government in Ukraine and a new Cold War between Washington and Moscow. Therefore, it is remarkable that five years after this massacre shook the world, no one has been sentenced for any of the Maidan killings. This was the best-documented case of mass...

By Gordon M. Hahn April 26, 2019 Three almost uninterrupted centuries of Russian self-comparison, self-assessment, self-identification with the West and ever deeper involvement in the intra-Western geopolitical and imperial competition have come to an end. Harsh lessons Russians have drawn from its three centuries of intimate interaction with the West — its Occidental Era — were reinforced by the post-Cold War failure to create a ‘common European home’ from Vancouver to Vladivostok, leading to the conclusion that Russia had betrayed the meaning of its national seal – the double-headed eagle looking both west and east. Although Russia still references the West as a competitor as well as standard in some respects, Vladimir Putin’s Russia now rejects the post-modernist West and its neo-imperial civilizational, indeed, ‘civilizationalist’ ambitions in Russia’s neighborhood. Instead of seeking to be part of the West or defeat the Western geopolitical paradigm, it seeks along with China and,...

By us-russia.org April 18, 2019 The Sunday, February 24 edition of Russian state television’s flagship program News of the Week with Dmitry Kiselyov provided a detailed description of the “mirror like” response that Russia will take to any US installations of land based cruise missiles directed against Moscow following termination of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) Treaty. Originally published at us-russia.org The scenario focused on the new hypersonic Zircon missile system which can be launched from existing Russian submarines carrying the “normal” Tomahawk-like cruise missiles called Kalibr and which were used successfully in the recent operations against ISIL in Syria. We were told that the Russians are prepared to station such submarines holding 40 Zircons each just outside the territorial waters of the US economic zone, at perhaps 250 miles from the American East and West coasts. That would give them a 5 minute flight time to precision attack all...

By Gordon M. Hahn January 29, 2019 The alienation of post-Cold War Russia has proceeded in waves. Each successive Western overreach for not just maintaining but expanding its global hegemony has produced a new wave of Russian alienation. What will probably be the last wave, one that might help spark a wave of ultra-nationalism afterward has begun. This new wave is alienating the West’s last base of support for Russian democratization and international cooperation: Russia’s liberals. The first wave: The alienation of Russia began with the West’s failure to significantly assist Russia during its very great depression and talk of NATO expansion in the early 1990s but was staunched somewhat by the then still unbroken Western promise not to expand NATO beyond reunited Germany. This alienated a large part of the elite. Originally published on Gordon M. Hahn’s excellent blog here The second wave of Russian alienation began with the...

How interesting! President Trump tweets on December 3, that he believes that the present level of military expenditures are ‘crazy’ – and he wants to talk with China and Russia about reducing them. I was asked by Russia Today to comment on that and here is what I said – being granted long enough time to deliver the longer argument which is unusual in most media today. Russia Today then asked me some more questions and here are the answers:

By David Krieger December 4, 2018 It would be a mistake of significant proportions for the U.S. to unilaterally withdraw from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. It would end an important arms limitation treaty, one that eliminated a whole category of nuclear-armed missiles with a range from 500 km to 5,500 km. The treaty eliminated 846 U.S. nuclear missiles and 1,846 Soviet nuclear missiles, for a combined total of 2,692 nuclear missiles. President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the treaty in 1987. It was an agreement that followed their realization, “A nuclear war cannot be won, and must never be fought.” Fast forward to President Trump and his national security advisor, John Bolton announcing their intention to jettison the treaty that ended the Cold War; took Europe out of the cross-hairs of nuclear war; and allowed for major reductions in nuclear arms. After the signing of the...

  Reacting to the radio interview by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, to mark Armistice Day, in which he was reported as saying, “We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America… We need a true European army”, President Donald Trump blew a fuse. He tweeted: “President Macron of France has just suggested that Europe build its own military in order to protect itself from the U.S., China and Russia. Very insulting.” In fact Trump’s reaction was based on reading a false report of what Macron said. In that part of the interview he was talking about cyber attacks. Nevertheless, Macron was indeed angrily critical of Trump: “When I see President Trump announcing that he’s quitting a major disarmament treaty which was formed after the 1980s Euro-missile crisis that hit Europe, who is the main victim? Europe and its security”. The treaty...