Russia and China’s Growing Military Interaction; Surprised?
Why does Russia place such emphasis and media attention on incredibly large military exercises with China?
Russia and China’s Growing Military Interaction; Surprised?
The drums are already rolling for the upcoming Russian “Vostok” (east) wargames commencing on September 11. With its focal point in the Trans-Baikal region of eastern Siberia adjoining Chinese Manchuria and Mongolia, this is a nationwide Russian military and societal event.
These Are the High Stakes of the NATO and Trump-Putin Summits
Trump and America’s allies must stand firm while also not sleep-walking into war. The summit between President Donald Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin scheduled for July 16 in Helsinki is now a certainty. While all such encounters between the United States and Russia carry strategic weight, this one is crucial. The Russian meeting is […]
Russia’s Looming Military Exercise: A 21st Century Trojan Horse?
Beginning Thursday, as many as 100,000 Russian and Belarusian troops will launch major military exercises along the border of three NATO countries. Russia’s upcoming Zapad military exercise, which will simulate a response to an attempted overthrow of the Belarusian government by an insurgency unfriendly to Russia, has European countries and the United States on edge […]
Zapad 2017: Should We Fear Russia’s Latest Military Dress Rehearsal?
The Russian military is now a sharpened policy tool of choice for an emboldened but strategically defensive regime that relies on preemption. In mid-September, Russia will conduct Zapad “West” 2017, a major quadrennial military exercise that takes place near the borders of the Baltic States and Poland as well as inside independent Belarus and the […]
The Quiet Americans
Can Washington’s “Russia hands” help explain why the post-Cold War relationship has gone off the rails? By KEITH GESSEN The strangest Russian political scandal so far this year — a year that hasn’t lacked for them — revolves around a Belarusian escort named Anastasia Vashukevich, who goes by the name Nastya Rybka. Rybka, whose pseudonym […]
US and Russian Military Leaders Are Meeting Again, Breaking a Long and Dangerous Drought
Over three years had passed without direct senior-level contact between the world’s preeminent nuclear powers. The military leaders of the world’s most lethal nuclear-tipped states met in February, the first such meeting in three years. The two generals got together again earlier this month, once more in relative obscurity that belied their meetings’ tremendous importance. […]
New York Times Quote
Brig. Gen. Peter Zwack, a retired Army officer who was the American military attaché in Moscow at the time of the visit, said Mr. Flynn was not blind to the pitfalls of forging closer ties to Russia. He saw areas of mutual interest, as did many others in the United States at the time, but […]
Breaking Down US-Russian Distrust With Time, Talk, and Meals
A recent session of the long-running Dartmouth Conference shows how non-governmental dialogue can ease tense relations. I was a recent participant in the Dartmouth Conference, one of the few remaining Track 2 — that is, non-governmental — dialogues between the U.S. and Russia. Its results may be especially interesting in the wake of the recent victory of President-elect […]
A Bright Spot in U.S.-Russian Relations
With the Trump administration soon entering office, it is important to highlight increasingly rare U.S.-Russian non governmental engagements. I recently participated in the Carnegie Endowment-supported “Task Force on Regional Conflicts.” The topic was Syria, the Middle East and Afghanistan. Its goal was to develop several joint recommendations to forward to each government for consideration. Delegations […]
A Reawakening Nuclear Nightmare
When lecturing, I often ask students and young officers if they have seen the movie “Dr. Strangelove.” About a third typically raise their hands. I then ask them what is the essence of good satire, and someone will eventually offer, “The truth?” As crazy as Stanley Kubrick’s atomic-age cautionary tale was, that was the tension-edged […]