Russia international relations

John J. Mearsheimer Aug 05, 2024 The question of who is responsible for causing the Ukraine war has been a deeply contentious issue since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022. The answer to this question matters enormously because the war has been a disaster for a variety of reasons, the most important of which is that Ukraine has effectively been wrecked. It has lost a substantial amount of its territory and is likely to lose more, its economy is in tatters, huge numbers of Ukrainians are internally displaced or have fled the country, and it has suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties. Of course, Russia has paid a significant blood price as well. On the strategic level, relations between Russia and Europe, not to mention Russia and Ukraine, have been poisoned for the foreseeable future, which means that the threat of a major war in Europe will be with...

Given their lack of information about the Ukraine-Russia deal scuttled by Boris Johnson early in the war, many Americans will be inclined to believe Biden’s evidence-free claims in last week’s CNN debate. Ray McGovernSpecial to Consortium News, July 2, 2024 July 5, 2024 At Thursday’s debate with Donald Trump, President Joe Biden, calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal,” claimed that he “wants all of Ukraine. … Do you think he’ll stop? … What do you think happens to Poland and other places?” Spoiler Alert: Official Ukrainian sources confirm that Putin did stop in March 2022, after Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky agreed to forswear membership in NATO. This was the key provision in the Ukraine-Russia deal initialed by Davyd Arakhamia, who at the time was Zelensky’s chief negotiator (and his party’s faction leader in the Rada) at the talks in Istanbul at the end of March, hardly a month...

When he first took office, the Russian president was trying to integrate with the West, now the whole ball game has changed Fyodor Lukyanov May 30, 2024 The question of how Russia’s foreign policy will be managed during President Vladimir Putin’s new term seems redundant, if not irrelevant. The head of state is a man who has led the country in one form or another for almost a quarter of a century. He is known for his conservatism – not only in the ideological sense, but also in his aversion to sharp turns. Moreover, Russia is engaged in an intensive military campaign against an international coalition, and there is little point in making plans until it is over, and while its prospects are still unclear. The successful completion of this campaign remains a task of incomparable importance. Nevertheless, it is necessary to reflect on this issue. Firstly, all of the...

Moscow by night. Photo by Pavel Homenko on Unsplash And it means turning its back to the West once and for all, finding itself and joining the non-West Majority World Dmitry Trenin April 23, 2024 When President Vladimir Putin, back in February 2022, launched Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, he had specific, but limited objectives in mind. It was essentially about assuring Russia’s security vis-à-vis NATO. However, the drastic, expansive and well-coordinated Western reaction to Moscow’s moves – the torpedoing of the Russo-Ukrainian peace deal and the mounting escalation of the US-led bloc’s involvement in the conflict, including its role in deadly attacks inside Russia – have fundamentally changed our country’s attitude towards our former partners. We no longer hear talk about “grievances” and complaints about “failures in understanding.” The last two years have produced nothing less than a revolution in Moscow’s foreign policy, more radical and far-reaching than anything...

Vijay Prashad April 16, 2024 On March 19, 2024, the head of France’s ground forces, General Pierre Schill, published an article in the newspaper, Le Monde, with a blunt title: “The Army Stands Ready.” Schill cut his teeth in France’s overseas adventures in the Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, and Somalia. In this article, General Schill wrote that his troops are “ready” for any confrontation and that he could mobilize 60,000 of France’s 121,000 soldiers within a month for any conflict. He quoted the old Latin phrase—“if you want peace, prepare for war”—and then wrote, “The sources of crisis are multiplying and carry with them risks of spiralling or extending.” General Schill did not mention the name of any country, but it was clear that his reference was to Ukraine since his article came out just over two weeks after French President Emmanuel Macron said on February 27 that...

“This was never about Ukraine, it was about weakening Russia.” Ex-NATO analyst, Colonel Jacques Baud, is a special guest with Afshin Rattansi’s “Going Underground” April 15, 2024 Jacques Baud is a legendary expert on Ukraine – not the least thanks to his book, “Operation Z”, his former life at NATO’s HQ and his being in Ukraine at the time when the historical changes took place… that you never heard about. You know, you only began to hear about Ukraine under the headline of Maidan and then when Russia took over Crimea. But it all started a bit earlier, and everything the West/NATO did was about getting control of Ukraine – not because that country has any importance to the West – but because it could be used to “weaken Russia.” The US/NATO “useful idiots” in our media, politics and research continue to deceive you (and themselves?) that it all started...

Liberate yourself from NATO’s anti-intellectual and militarist fearmongering today! Why the omnipresent, massive, and uniform propagation of Russia as a threat against NATO is humbug. How a credible professional quality threat analysis is made instead. Why deciding military expenditures as a percentage of GDP is exemplary nonsense. Why NATO cannot be called ‘defensive’ and 17 reasons why Russia is not a threat to NATO or to neutral states. NATO soon turns 75 – amid its deepest crisis ever, no matter what they say. During all these years, we have heard repeatedly that the ” Russians” – the Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact and today’s Russia – are coming! But while the Soviets/Russians have invaded other countries, they’ve never invaded a NATO or a neutral country in Europe. And when the First Cold War ended a good 30 years ago, and archives were opened, allegedly no plans were found for an out-of-the-blue attack...

NATO now holds its largest military exercise for decades, Steadfast Defender, involving 90 000 troops from all 31 NATO members and Sweden Over the last 70 years, we have heard here in Europe that ”the Russians are coming.” During the old Cold War ending in 1991, they did come to Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968) – and Afghanistan (1979). But they came neither to any of the neutral countries – Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Yugoslavia or Austria – nor to any NATO member. NATO’s militarist predictions and enemy images have proven consistently wrong over seven decades. During the First Cold War, the Moscow-dominated Warsaw Pact’s military expenditures were about 65-80% of NATO, and its technology and efficiency was way behind that of its Western brother. But to be sure, the OSCE – the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (set up in the early 1970s with 57 members) constructively developed a...

, I had the great pleasure of being Ania K’s guest on her YouTube Channel. Here is a link to it – and I want you to use the link to access it on YouTube and not here. The amusing thing is that it’s been viewed by 11,000 people in a few days, and less than a week later, there are 160 comments, 99,99 % positive about the whole thing. I note a frequent comment from Ania’s viewers: Where have you been hiding, Jan? How come I did not hear about him before and that sort of “we never heard about him…” comments. This is striking after having been the co-founder and director of the Transnational Foundation since 1986 – and quite active in doing research, on-the-ground conflict mitigation work and having written thousands of articles, book chapters and comments. But I’ve heard it before and here are some reasons: One,...

Václav Klaus Second President of the Czech Republic 2003-2013 January 31, 2024 Many thanks for the invitation. It has made some of us part of the annual political pilgrimage to Davos, which – I have to admit – not all of us support. Not all of us are happy with the radical turn of the Davos Forum into a Mecca of progressivism in recent years. There are many pressing issues to be discussed here tonight, but our friend asked me to say a few words on the very risky topic of the Russia-Ukraine war from the perspective of a former Central European politician. A politician who does not pretend to be an expert on Ukraine, but – hopefully – can claim to have some expertise on the – in the case of Ukraine – unsuccessful and unfinished transition from communism to parliamentary democracy and market economy. I have quite deliberately...

One of the enigmatic aspects of international politics is that big and militarily superior countries have systematically lost wars in smaller countries – the last 50 years, from Vietnam to Ukraine. ’Losing’ here means military defeat, being forced out, losing the struggle for the hearts and minds of the people, and facing fiasco when it comes to achieving the presumed noble motives like introducing human rights, democracy, freedom or liberating women. And given the tremendous human costs, particularly in the Middle East, the US’s Global War On Terror since September 11, 2001, is also an intellectual and moral disaster. The United States – the world’s by far largest military spender, interventionist, warrior, occupier, global base-builder with the most militarised foreign policy – is in a class of its own. In losing wars too. It is now rapidly losing legitimacy, relevance and credibility in the eyes of most of the world...

A collection of relevant articles brought to you by The Transnational Foundation. When will the investigative reports come, if not after one year? The destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines had neither a photogenic character nor a death toll comparable with 9/11, 2001. It also did not provoke a German or Russian response in the vicinity of the totally out-of-proportion US Global War on Terror that has cost millions of innocent lives. That said, one could hypothesise that, as a destructive event and over time, this gigantic infrastructure destruction will have consequences for the international order as comprehensive as 9/11. Be this as it may, we’ve all noticed how this unique destruction disappeared very quickly from the media and has also not been mentioned in, say, statements from NATO, G7, G 20 or the EU. The world has also not heard anything from any formal investigation, and an investigation could...