Obama Needs Israel to Rattle Its Saber
The Obama administration may be acting as if its rift with Russia won’t affect the attempt to broker a nuclear deal with Iran. It can hope against hope that Russia will forget its quarrel with the...
View ArticleHow Rational Is Putin’s Threat Perception?
During the Ukrainian election of 2004, Angus Roxburgh sat down with Sergei Markov, who was helping the pro-Putin candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, at the behest of the Kremlin. Roxburgh, who describes the...
View ArticleRussia Threatens More Than Neighbors
Today while speaking at The Hague during a meeting of the newly contracted G-7 Nations, President Obama threatened Russia with expanded sanctions. But he also made it clear that he isn’t that worried...
View ArticleSlurring Israel with the Crimea Comparison
For those who make a profession of inciting hatred against Israel, just about every new eventuality seems to present another opportunity to demonize the Jewish state. The recent invasion and annexation...
View ArticleObama Loses Complete Touch with Reality
Last week I wrote that President Obama, having been bested by Vladimir Putin at virtually every turn, has retreated into a world of his own making. “He’s created a fantasy world where disengagement...
View ArticlePutin and Pyrrhic Victories
Of the attempts to take a more optimistic view of Vladimir Putin’s shoplifting spree on Ukrainian territory, two stand out. One is the idea that Putin is, as President Obama said, acting “out of...
View ArticleThe Obama Doctrine of Selective Memory
On June 17, 2009, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said something strange. On the topic of a deal struck on settlement construction between George W. Bush and Ariel Sharon, Clinton said: “In...
View ArticleThe U.N.’s Parallel Universe
In the midst of the greatest threat to European stability since the Balkans war of the 1990s, and perhaps back to the Berlin Crisis of 1961, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon just announced that the...
View ArticleEdward Snowden, Putin Propagandist
Back in September, I described Vladimir Putin’s op-ed in the New York Times, in which he lectured Barack Obama over Syria, as an example of Putin’s trollpolitik. He is an exceptional practitioner of...
View ArticleHow to Get Moscow’s Attention
Ukraine is drawing ever closer to dismemberment. The government in Kiev has dispatched forces to reclaim control of eastern Ukraine from pro-Russia militants whose ranks undoubtedly include covert...
View ArticleDoes Ukraine Exist?
The latest reporting out of Ukraine is a good demonstration of just how much Vladimir Putin has accomplished without the kind of military incursion he sent into Georgia in 2008. And it raises basic...
View ArticleFinish the Sentence, Mr. Vice President
With Russian provocations raising the temperature in eastern Ukraine, the Obama administration rightly felt it was time to brush back Moscow with a gesture that would reinforce the American...
View ArticleSo Much for Self-Determination in Crimea
Vladimir Putin has repeatedly justified Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Russia’s annexation of Crimea with an argument about ethnic solidarity. Just as Nazi Germany based citizenship on ethnicity...
View ArticleThe Crimea-Kuwait Parallel
Another day, another (so far unfulfilled) promise by Vladimir Putin to move his troops back from the border of Ukraine. Meanwhile his proxies continue to try to exert influence in eastern Ukraine as...
View ArticleThe Putin Doctrine
Back in March, Columbia University’s Kimberly Marten had a fascinating guest post at the Washington Post’s political science blog, making a noteworthy claim. She wrote that Vladimir Putin had made a...
View ArticleWill the Russian Army March into Ukraine?
It scarcely seems possible, but the situation in Ukraine keeps getting worse. First Vladimir Putin let loose his “little green men”–a collection of Russian intelligence agents and military personnel...
View ArticleAnother Russian Invasion on the Horizon?
On August 19, the New York Times carried an interesting story on the “fading rebellion” in eastern Ukraine, where Vladimir Putin appeared to be “maneuvering for a face-saving settlement.” The Russians...
View Article2014’s Big Winners: Putin and ISIS
It tells you something about the increasing irrelevance of news magazines that I entirely missed the fact that Time had designated “Ebola fighters” as their “Person of the Year”. A feel good choice,...
View ArticlePutin’s Gambit and the Future of Ukraine
Throughout the Russia-Ukraine conflict, I’ve referred to the “Georgia precedent”: the idea that Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 showed Vladimir Putin how much he could get away with in terms of...
View ArticleOur Agonized President
Sigh. Here we go again. The law professor turned president is having another one of his endless policy reviews. Previously he agonized over, inter alia, whether to surge troops in Afghanistan (yes—but...
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