The greatest lesson of the Belgian experience in governance is that divorce is utterly thinkable and possibly preferable to a bad marriage of peoples who have aspirations, cultural orientation and economies as different as East Ukraine and West Ukraine have today. Read on…
In the rapidly evolving New Cold War, not all Russian responses to the psychological warfare coming from America are healthy. Their mass media and, in particular, state television, show a steadily rising level of propaganda, pushing aside entertainment or news reporting to save the nation’s soul from the falsehoods being disseminated by both Western and home-grown enemies. Read on….
Continue reading “Russian State Television and the Information War”
Paradoxically, the vile propaganda offensive directed against Russia in US and European media these past few weeks has had a positive outcome in the emergence from their relative silence and defensive postures by some of America’s most responsible, experienced and well-informed thinkers on Russia. In this essay I join their dialogue with some related observations.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland’s remark “Fuck the EU” let drop within the context of her strategy discussions for Ukraine with Ambassador to Kiev Geoffrey Pyatt, has made the rounds of world media today bringing to the fore the mindset of arrogant world puppet-masters which has defined Barack Obama’s foreign policy team from the very start of his presidency five years ago. The ill wind from Washington heralds only rancor and divisive international relations ahead.
Continue reading “Victoria Nuland: whence the ill wind blows”
In his showcasing the Great Famine in Ukraine of 1932-33, we see how Snyder the scholar (and not just Snyder the pundit dealing with current affairs) plays into the hands of those many American ideologists who conflate Stalinism with Communism, Communism with Great Russian imperialism, and Great Russian imperialism with Putinism. Read on…
Continue reading “Timothy Snyder: American Intellectual Discourse on the Holocaust and Much Else”
Kauffmann’s op-ed essay shows that she deals in platitudes and makes foolhardy mistakes of fact and interpretation which, due to her august position in mainstream media, few if any call out. In this brief critique, I will break that silence…
The grim expressions on the faces of Russian ministers seated in the front rows of the Kremlin hall where Vladimir Putin and Viktor Yanukovich announced their agreement on rapprochement yesterday, sealed by $15 billion in loans and a steep discount on natural gas, indicated skepticism that many ordinary Russians also share over the generous handout to their dodgy southern neighbors. Has Putin got it right? Read on…
Continue reading “Ukraine-Russia Rapprochement, 17 December 2013: Point, Set, Match”
In his speech to the Federal Assembly yesterday, Vladimir Putin demonstrated repeatedly that Russia will stand up to the USA intellectually and physically to defend not merely its own national security, but to advance its own values…Read on
Continue reading “Making sense of Vladimir Putin’s State of the Nation Address, 12 December 2013”
When I learned that the eminent historian on East Central Europe, Yale professor Timothy Snyder, published a commentary article in The New York Review of Books five days ago entitled “A Way Out for Ukraine?” I lost no time bringing it up on the screen for a close read. Disappointment came quickly…Read on
Continue reading “Rebuttal to Timothy Snyder’s essay on Ukraine in the ‘New York Review of Books’”
Given the divisions in Ukrainian society over its history, its official languages, and its future civilizational orientation, the only way forward, the only win-win situation that can come out will be arrived at if all interested parties – EU, Russia and Ukraine – sit together at the table to define how Ukraine can move forward…Read on
Continue reading “Ukraine, between East and West: What Lessons can be Drawn?”
Gilbert Doctorow 