One of the most powerful tools the Kremlin has in its secret arsenal of Special War is provocation, what they call provokatsiya. While Moscow cannot claim to have invented this technique, which has existed as long as there have been...
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Understanding Provocation
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Kremlin: “Russia Has Already Won”
Michael McFaul, who until recently was the U.S. ambassador in Moscow, published an op-ed in The New York Times last Sunday, “Confronting Putin’s Russia,” which rues how Vladimir Putin’s recent aggression in Crimea is upending the post-Cold War European order....
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How to Win Cold War 2.0
To beat Vladimir Putin, we’re going to need to be a little more like him. The last two weeks have witnessed the upending of the European order and the close of the post-Cold War era. With his invasion of Crimea...
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Honor and the Ukraine Crisis
Honor is an easily overlooked aspect of international relations among post-moderns. Although Thucydides told us that the three big motivators for war are fear, honor and self-interest, in recent decades the West has found little use for honor, while still...
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“Putin is Putting Europe on the Verge of World War III”: Ukrainian Intel General
The Parisian daily Le Figaro has run an interesting interview about the situation in Ukraine with retired General Ihor Smeshko, who is well positioned to understand the realities at play. Once a Soviet Army officer, Smeshko served as Ukraine’s military...
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“Crimea is Only the First Step”: Former Putin Adviser
The Austrian daily Wiener Zeitung has published an illuminating interview about Ukraine and the Kremlin with Andrei Illarionov, a prominent Russian economist who served as Vladimir Putin’s top economic adviser from 2000 to 2005, as well as the Kremlin’s representative...
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Western Journalists and Russian Intelligence
The Russian seizure of Crimea plus Moscow’s intimidation, and worse, of all Ukraine, has created an awkward situation for Edward Snowden’s fans and enablers. That Ed has taken up residence in Putin’s Russia, and continues to pontificate about privacy and...
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Ukraine: “We should expect invasion”
News from Ukraine today grows increasingly dire as Russian forces dismantle the Ukrainian Navy in Crimea and Kremlin-stoked tensions are now spreading deep into Eastern and Southern Ukraine. How Ukraine would fare in the event of an all-out Russian onslaught,...
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Russia to NATO: Drop Dead
Clearly Vladimir Putin did not heed my advice to cool it after his bloodless seizure of Crimea. Instead, he has doubled down, issuing a fire-breathing speech before the Duma yesterday, filled with Russian nationalist paeans and Chekist threats. Violence in...
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“Nobody Knows Anything”
In his memorable 1983 book Adventures in the Screen Trade, novelist and screenwriter William Goldman repeatedly cites a line, Nobody Knows Anything, meaning that, despite vast hours and sums spent by Hollywood on testing films with audiences, nobody in Tinsel...