While there is considerable room for debate over the future extent of Sino-Russian relations (a formal alliance looks far from likely), it is worth considering the potential geopolitical implications of a growing entente between the two Great Powers. In no short measure, close alignment between Beijing and Moscow would accelerate the decline of U.S. relative power […]
The collection’s story begins in the 1920s, when the Bolsheviks turned what was once the Rumyantsev arts museum into the country’s national library. As the newly anointed Lenin Library began amassing new literature, it also opened a rare book department to house compromising materials, acquired primarily from confiscated noble libraries. Read Here – Moscow Times
In the 1930s travellers returned from Mussolini’s Italy, Stalin’s Russia, and Hitler’s Germany praising the hearty sense of common purpose they saw there, compared to which their own democracies seemed weak, inefficient, and pusillanimous. Democracies today are in the middle of a similar period of envy and despondency. Authoritarian competitors are aglow with arrogant confidence. […]
The question that everybody now is asking is this: Why this new development in China-Russia relations? Obviously, the main trigger is the recent Ukraine crisis that has seriously damaged Russia-West relations, thereby pushing Russia closer to China. However, there is also a larger strategic reason. That is, there are mutual strategic needs as both China and Russia […]
What’s in a name? Place names often change, and those changes stem from a tangle of politics and language. A fun tool from Google, the Ngram Viewer, lets us watch those changes play out across history. The Ngram Viewer charts how often a particular word appears in some five million books digitized as part of the […]
The United States is on the brink of committing a cardinal sin in foreign policy: antagonizing two major powers simultaneously. There are frictions in bilateral ties with both Moscow and Beijing that have reached alarming levels over the past year or so. Read Here – The National Interest
Several times in the last decade, a group of countries has urged that control of domain names be transferred to the United Nations. All you need to know about this movement is that it is led by China and Russia. In the very dull, very important meetings of the International Telecommunications Union, speeches by these countries […]
The former secretary of state’s comments on Russia and Crimea suggest she’s trying to create a foreign-policy buffer ahead of the 2016 campaign. Read Here – The Atlantic
“The water in Afghanistan,” General Zia-ul-Haq had told his spymaster in December 1979, “must boil at the right temperature.” India still has time to learn from the lessons of the war that was lost 25 years ago, and work to make sure the pot doesn’t boil over, writes Praveen Swami Read Here – The Hindu
Missing from this “analysis” about how Obama should respond is why Barack Obama should respond. After all, the US has few strategic interests in the former Soviet Union and little ability to affect Russian decision-making. Read Here – The Guardian
looking beyond borders 