The net result of the growing public row heralded by the bitter rebuke to Warsaw of European Parliament president Martin Schulz may be to unravel one of the key foreign policy achievements of Angela Merkel’s 10 years in power – consolidating her country’s hold over Mitteleuropa.
Continue reading “Germany, the European Union and the Polish Question”
Though the latest issue of Foreign Affairs shows continuing decline in professional standards, it has upside surprises that the editors may yet regret. In a newsworthy essay, by hit or miss, the author rejects current U.S. policy on Russia for its abject failure to deliver on expectations.
If ‘World Order’ is a piece of propaganda, it is sophisticated and serves certain higher values, not the interests of individuals or power for power’s sake. In effect, it is a wake-up call to avert nuclear war by reining in exceptionalism and safeguarding the principles of the UN Charter.
The US establishment writers on Russia are one and all “presstitutes” and when you put their writings together, back to back, in 40 pages or so as JRL has so kindly done in their Christmas eve issue, the result is an astounding propaganda barrage.
Continue reading “A Christmas Present to Russia-bashers from Johnson’s Russia List”
For those who read into my account the suggestion that there are vulnerabilities in the presidential security, my best advice is to send in emails to the Kremlin urging Vladimir Vladimirovich to yet again sack his security detail. The last thing we all need is regime change in Russia.
The leading German print publications are today largely hostile in their reporting on Russian foreign policy, at best noncommittal. For mainstream, Russia is a country which invents foreign enemies to suit current domestic needs and changes them at will. Above all, there is a German confidence in its own superiority and bemusement at the follies of the barbarians at the outer limits of the EU.
Continue reading “Overview of German Press Reports on the Russian-Turkish Confrontation”
While it is good that the Russian narrative is reproduced in leading news outlets, the arms-length approach implies confusion in the editorial offices over how to handle these developments which do not match the image of Russia as the West’s enemy…
Continue reading “News Blackout: Civil society living in near total ignorance”
Europeans can take pleasure in the rare phenomenon these days of diametrically opposed narratives on major international issues being laid out before them on the single most watched news channel. This is something friends in America can only envy. Where this will lead Europe in policy choices remains to be seen.
It is improbable that any of the glaring contradictions and sources of weakness in NATO will deal it a fatal blow. However, in conditions of near-hysterical concern over how to cope with the refugees and still more fears of terrorist attacks, the true role of NATO in undermining rather than bolstering European security is becoming more widely appreciated.
The real parallels between the then as described by Lieven and now are not at the level of the international landscape but within Russia itself. This is so not merely because it seems to be the case to a casual reader like me, but because that relevance is understood by the leaders of Russia’s government today who act accordingly.
Continue reading “Then and Now: A Review of Dominic Lieven, ‘The End of Tsarist Russia,’ 2015”
Gilbert Doctorow 