How’s that Russia “reset” going? Not so well, as the news this week shows. In addition to blocking tougher sanctions on Iran for its illicit nuclear weapons activities after a damaging report by the U.N.’s watchdog, Russia is “studying” building more reactors at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant. Recently, Speaker of the House John Boehner […]
One would be justified in wondering, what makes Vladimir Putin feel he has to campaign? The opponents of his United Russia party and the added popular front are harassed even when they only want to make fun of Putin and compare him to Dracula. Only a tame or a discredited opposition like the Communists is […]
After attending the summit of the Shanghai cooperation organization in Kazakhstan Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jin Tao flew to Moscow where they worked on a mammoth gas sale agreement from Russia to China guaranteed to provide the Chinese with energy security and Russia with hefty profits. The haggling over price […]
An old Russian joke that merely expanded with every leadership change goes like this: A Russian train is stuck. Stalin comes in and orders that the train driver be shot. His order is carried out but the train remains stuck. Stalin’s successor Nikita Khrushchev comes in and gives an order to rehabilitate the train driver […]
Ever since the dawn of arms control negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union, the issue of antimissile defense systems has featured prominently. In the SALT I Treaty the Russians were allowed to deploy a system around Moscow, the Americans were prohibited from the blowing in the system. The logic behind the limitation […]
Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday that public transportation would undergo a security overhaul in his country following a suicide bombing Monday at Domodedovo International Airport in Moscow. He criticized airport officials as having been “absolutely passive” about security, and called for “comprehensive security” instead. “Unfortunately, it should be intrusive,” he said. “Each of us […]
In his annual address Tuesday to both houses of parliament, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev warned that a new arms race would erupt if Moscow and the West cannot agree on a joint European missile defense program. Medvedev gave the following ultimatum: “Either we reach agreement on missile defense and create a full joint cooperation mechanism, […]
In his latest Los Angeles Times article, Doyle McManus identifies President Obama’s attempts to sell New START, the nuclear arms reduction treaty between the U.S. and Russia, to the Republicans in the Senate as “increasingly desperate.” Indeed, the Administration’s arguments for ratifying the treaty have evolved from claiming that the accord is a modest treaty […]
Much is at stake for President Obama in the lame duck session. New START, an offensive arms control treaty with the Russian Federation, is capturing the stage as the most important foreign policy issue before the new Congress is sworn into the office in January. However, concerns with New START are real and transcend the […]
In Ordinary Lives, US Sees the Work of Russian Agents,” Scott Shane and Charlie Savage said they “lived for more than a decade in American cities and suburbs from Seattle to New York, where they seemed to be ordinary couples working ordinary jobs, chatting to their neighbors about schools and apologizing for noisy teenagers.” The […]
