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Ukraine
A Holiday “With Tears in Your Eyes”
One thing that Trump hasn't done today yet (which he should have if he wants to stay in Putin's good graces) was to congratulate Russians with Victory day. It's an incredibly important holiday in...
Ukraine’s New PreZE!dent
"Servant of the People" The history of the Next President Cue in the Twitter hot-takes in which Ukrainians elected themselves “a TV show star” with “no political experience”. Relax, not all TV stars...
Under Pressure
Somewhat cranky and slightly under the weather Putin graced the foreign journalists with his presence for almost 4 hours. Starting right off the bat with some optimistic economic indicators (that he...
More Ukraine Posts
Former Duck Gets Riled Up by Ukraine Coverage
For some smart commentary on what's going down in the Ukraine and how (not) to cover it, I point you to former Duck Dan Nexon on his personal blog (*and also cross-posted below). Dan knows a thing or two about the region having served in the Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia regional office in the Office of the Secretary Defense as a CFR International Affairs Fellow in 2009-2010. Here, Dan bemoaned the coverage in the WaPo of the Ukraine crisis by one Scott Wilson. Wilson lambasted the Obama administration's strategy in the Ukraine writing that: The signal Obama has sent — popular among his domestic...
Reporters and Foreign Affairs Analysis: Ukraine Edition
This is a guest post by former Duck of Minerva blogger Dan Nexon. It is cross-posted at his personal blog, Hylaean Flow. One of the ongoing rationales for The Monkey Cage is that journalists do a poor job of covering US electoral politics. They focus on personality and style. They downplay the role of fundamentals, such as economic forces and the nature of the electoral system. The same is too often true in foreign-affairs reporting. Consider a recent piece by multi-award-winning reporter, Scott Wilson: "Ukraine crisis tests Obama’s foreign policy focus on diplomacy over military force."...
Why the Crimea is the Third Rail of International Politics
*this is a guest post by Konstantinos Travlos, currently a Visiting Assistant at Georgia Southern, who writes on international conflict and history. The arguments presented below are based on past research. Russian policy towards Ukraine is partly driven by short term political reasons such as protecting an investment in the form of Yanukovych, the Russian view of Ukraine as a “little brother”, a legitimate worry over the future of the Russian minority in Ukraine, and a very real opposition to what is seen by the Kremlin elite as the meddling of Western powers in its Near Abroad. However, I...
Significant developments on the WMD front
I would be negligent if I did not call attention to three important developments on the nuclear proliferation front.First, the Ukrainian government claims to have arrested three of its citizens--including one local politician--who were trying to sell radioactive material.The metal cylinder supposedly contained eight pounds of plutonium 239, a highly dangerous radioactive material that could be used in a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb. The price: $10 million, sought by three Ukrainian men, officials said Tuesday.The men did not make a sale, the officials said, but were arrested in an...
The Russia-Ukraine Gas Row
I haven't found a great many voices claiming that the Russia-Ukraine gas dispute is some sort of Russian power play. Which is a good thing, because, as a friend recently explained to me, it isn't. While some of its dynamics are fairly complicated, there's also a very simple process at work here.Gazprom is badly over-leveraged from its many acquisitions--some driven by its apparent goal of becoming a Russian zaibatsu.Gazprom itself is mired in debt, and was recently included on a list of companies eligible for a government bailout. Its shares, which once valued the company at over $300...
In other news
Bolivia remains on the brink of falling apart.... and the Ukrainian government collapses. Can't say that I'm surprised.
The Black Sea Fleet
Sloph on Ukraine's threat to bar the Black Sea Fleet from returning to Sevastopol.Obviously the dithering is over, Ukraine has told Russia it's not allowed to bring its navy back to Sevastopol so clearly theyve dispatched some/all the fleet. Is Russia going to take on Ukraine as well? Having said that, I don't know how you go about stopping a fleet of warships parking wherever the hell they want to.Background: Khrushchev gave the Crimea to his native Ukraine in 1954. Its population is overwhelming Russian and Tatar; neither have much love for Ukraine, and Crimea was the site of anti-NATO...
NATO enlargement: who’s fooling whom?
How should one account for President Bush's April 1, 2008 speech at the NATO summit? In my view, either those who drafted the speech went a bit too crazy with the Control-X and Control-V buttons, or they just don't care if he makes transparently inconsistent arguments.Bush on missile-defense deployments in Eastern Europe:"This week President Putin is planning to attend his first NATO summit and later this week I plan to travel to Sochi, Russia, for further talks on this and other matters. In our discussions, I will reiterate that the missile defense capabilities we are developing are not...