As I mentioned in my previous post, Putin’s administration is busy readying the Northern Sea Route for increased maritime traffic. In order to maintain control over the shipping lane, Russia will need a first-class navy and naval bases. Plans are underway to equip the navy with eight new nuclear submarines by 2020. Last month, at […]
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s administration is trying to get a leg up on development of the Northern Sea Route. Earlier this week, Secretary of the Security Council Nikolai Patrushev stated to RIA Novosti that the amount of state supervision and control over the Northern Sea Route was “not acceptable,” especially in the eastern part. […]
My last post on Pussy Riot received a thought-provoking comment from a reader. John was disgusted at the ‘perennial “whataboutism” that pervades [my] Russophilic interpretation of the Pussy Riot action’. But what about whataboutism? And what is it, really? According to the FT, it was the Communist-era tactic of deflecting foreign criticism of, say, human […]
The Arab Spring awoke people to the power of social media in a political context. Of course, you would have to be living under a rock to think it was the first time Twitter was ever used to coordinate mass protests — it was hugely prominent in Iran during the 2009 protests, Moldova, and the Greek riots in […]
A few months ago, few Americans had heard of Pussy Riot, the feminist punk band turned latest icon of the anti-Putin opposition. That’s because the band was known under a different name in the US press: ‘P***y Riot’. In an amusing and predictable turn of events, the same American newspapers have got busy accusing Putin […]
This article is a follow-up to “Three Flops That Make Leon Panetta Sad.” I talked a fair bit last week about the various costly mistakes the U.S. military has made in the context of the upcoming sequestration. A survey conducted by the Program for Public Consultation, the Stimson Center and the Center for Public Integrity […]
The results of the March 2012 presidential election in Russia were no surprise for Central European observers. Vladimir Putin, the new-old President, has returned to power and the political, social and economic atmosphere has again become tense and unpredictable. Yet the change might not be as radical as many fear. In the last few years shifts in Russian foreign policy have not been strategic, but merely tactical. During Dmitry Medvedev’s Presidency, Moscow attempted to create an atmosphere conducive to cooperation with Europe and was eager to pursue broader modernization. However, the ongoing economic crisis has revealed that Russia lacks the potential to implement any ambitious programs on the international stage. And now, Vladimir Putin will have to decide how to forge policy statements from his election campaign into real and concrete political actions. From a Central European perspective, three crucial questions have emerged following the election. First, how will Putin’s return influence Russia’s relationship with the EU? Second, what impact will that have on the potential future political and security scenarios in Europe’s Eastern neighborhood? And finally, what would a more assertive Russia mean both for the broader Central European security landscape at a time of relative U.S. retrenchment from the region, and for the prospects for sustainability and longevity of the rapprochement efforts between Moscow and several regional capitals, notably Warsaw?
Just what is Bill Browder really playing at? After the high-flying American investment banker was ousted from Russia in 2005, his lawyer Sergey Magnitsky was killed in police custody four years later. It is said that Magnitsky earned his Steve Biko-like death after the lawyer, investigating the authorities’ dismantling of Browder’s Hermitage hedge fund in […]
Isn’t it ironic? On the same day that Putin signed Russia’s official accession into the world economy, he also signed a law essentially labelling NGO workers foreign agents. As the country edges another step closer to western economics, it slips further from western ideals of human rights. Was this just another example of Russia’s characteristic […]
As Russia vetoed a Western-backed UN resolution imposing non-military sanctions on Syria as “unilateral” and directed only against the regime, it once again demonstrated that its position on the Syrian crisis remains unchanged, emphasizing its split with the West. The repetitive pattern of the Kremlin’s refusal to pressure regime change is often explained by […]
As Russia counts its dead from yet another summer tragedy, investigations continue into how flooding had killed 171 in Krymsk, near the Black Sea. “A system to warn the residents was set up,” confessed Emergency Minister Vladimir Puchkov yesterday, “but, unfortunately, not everyone was warned early enough.” The regional governor immediately dismissed the head of the Krymsk […]
After more than a year of planning, much diplomatic hype, and thousands of attendees, last month’s UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro produced what one activist called a “failure of epic proportions.” The few agreements—including yet another “universal intergovernmental high level political forum” to talk some more—seemed to fall well short of the challenge […]
In the latest edition of Russia in Global Affairs, Sergei Karaganov suggests that Russia needs three capitals: Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Vladivostok. The third city would be the capital of Siberia and would constitute a new economic capital for Russia. Vladivostok is about as far south as you can get in Siberia, and it’s really […]
For all his “democratic shortcomings”, there is one very “Western” thing about Vladimir Putin: he is the most pro-Israeli Russian ruler since Stalin (for all his anti-Semitism, Koba the Dread actually supported founding the Jewish state, and the US and USSR were the first countries to recognise it). Putin’s position is odd for two reasons: […]
Fatou Bensouda, newly sworn in as prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, is getting a lot of advice. Much of it is well-meaning. As the first African and the first woman to hold the post, Bensouda has rightly inspired much good feeling. For those who disagreed with her predecessor, one of her assets is, apparently, […]