Russia-Iran Energy Road Map: Is Moscow Trying to Sit on Two Chairs?

07-16-2010 Full text

An Alarming Franco-Russian Arms Deal

02-16-2010

French President Nicolas Sarkozy last week approved the first sale of a Mistral-class assault ship to a foreign nation—Russia. Paris is also considering Moscow’s request for three more of these powerful vessels to be built under license in Russia. It’s the Kremlin’s first major warship purchase from the West since before World War I and the first major weapons sale to Russia by a NATO member.

And what’s Alliance’s reaction? A big yawn. Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced through a spokesman that NATO doesn’t consider Russia a threat. The Baltic nations and Georgia beg to differ. As Russia is not yet a trusted partner, the sale imperils the security of the NATO members and aspirants.

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Russian Pressure is Growing in Ukraine

09-15-2009

MOSCOW - Is the Obama Administration, busy pushing the “reset button” with Russia is about to suffer a geopolitical setback in Ukraine? When talking to the security experts here, it sure looks like it.

Ukraine is the key to making Russia an empire and, some here believe, a superpower once again.

In the run up to Ukrainian presidential elections in January 2010, the Kremlin has been ratcheting up pressure on President Victor Yushchenko, which Moscow regularly vilifies as pro-American and anti-Russian.

Ties between the two countries have increasingly frayed following the 2004 Orange Revolution, the 2006 and 2009 gas conflicts, and the war in Georgia last August. The relations have reached their lowest point in recent weeks, and there is a buzz in the Moscow policy elite of further mischief to come.

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Russia’s New Scramble for Africa

07-02-2009

The Kremlin has launched an ambitious project to restore Moscow’s past glory on the African continent. Policy makers in the U.S. and Europe need to understand that it’s happening -- and formulate an effective response -- before they find their own relationships with Africa changing in significant and problematic ways.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and more than a hundred Russian businessmen last week visited Egypt, Nigeria, Namibia and Angola on the longest tour of Africa a Russian leader has undertaken since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Unlike President Obama, who is going to Africa next week for a brief stop to talk about global warming, Mr. Medvedev and his team targeted oil, gas, diamonds and uranium. Mr. Medvedev is trying to score points before his G-8 meeting with Western leaders in Italy July 8-10.

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Russia on the March: The Return of the Red Square Parades

02-12-2008 Full text

Confronting Putin’s Push

02-14-2007

Ariel Cohen

The cold shower Russian President Vladimir Putin unleashed on the United States at the international security conference in Munich should not have come as a surprise. After all, Mr. Putin himself and a host of other senior spokesmen, including his defense minister and one of the official heirs-apparent Sergey Ivanov and military Chief of Staff Gen. Yuri Baluevsky have said as much in the past.

The list of complaints Mr. Putin heaped against the United States is long. The main beef is that the American "hyperpower" is pursuing its unilateral foreign, defense, cultural and economic policy, disregarding international law and ignoring the U.N. (where Russia has a veto power). French President Jacques Chirac would be proud. However, Russia takes its opposition much further.

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Putin’s Legacy and United Russia’s New Ideology

06-01-2006

“The Party has been, and remains, the main organizing and coordinating force capable of leading the people along the path of profound Socialist renewal.…”

— Mikhail Gorbachev

With the fall of the USSR, the Russian post-Soviet elite was demoralized by the collapse of Soviet power and sought a new direction. For a time, ideol­ogy took a back seat to market reforms, competition, and repudiation of government control. However, “men of the state” and “men of force”—known in Russian as “derzhavniki” and “siloviki”—have reversed this trend.

 

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Russian Spying for Saddam Demands a Careful U.S. Response

04-30-2006

On March 25, the Pentagon reported that Russia had given Saddam Hussein intelligence about U.S. military plans for the invasion of Iraq back in the spring of 2003. Recently declassified documents suggest that Russia’s ambassador to Iraq at that time, Vladimir Titorenko, provided Hussein with information on the timing of the U.S. attack on Baghdad, U.S. troops, and invasion tactics. Fortunately, some of the information was inaccurate, which ultimately aided U.S. forces. Regardless, this incident demonstrates the need for a critical reassessment of U.S. cooperation with Russia.

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