An anti-neocon president appears to have been surrounded by neocons in his own administration.
President Trump campaigned and was elected on an anti-neocon platform: he promised to reduce direct US involvement in areas where, he believed, America had no vital strategic interest, including in Ukraine. He also promised a new détente (“cooperation”) with Moscow. And yet, as we have learned from their recent congressional testimony, key members of his...
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Historically and even today, Russia has much in common with Ukraine—the United States, almost nothing.
For centuries and still today, Russia and large parts of Ukraine have had much in common—a long territorial border; a shared history; ethnic, linguistic, and other cultural affinities; intimate personal relations; substantial economic trade; and more. Even after the years of escalating conflict between Kiev and Moscow since 2014, many Russians and Ukrainians still think...
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Alarming things we have learned under Trump, but not always about him.
Almost daily for three years, Democrats and their media have told us very bad things about Donald Trump’s life, character, and presidency. Some of them are true. But in the process, we have also learned some lamentable, even alarming, things about the Democratic Party establishment, including self-professed liberals. Consider the following: The Democratic establishment is...
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Is US national security being trumped by loathing for Trump?
The transcript of President Trump’s July 25 telephone conversation with Ukraine’s recently elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has ignited the usual anti-Trump bashing in American political-media circles, even more calls for impeachment, with little, if any, regard for the national security issues involved. Leave aside that Trump should not have been compelled to make the transcript...
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Vital questions about perhaps the worst alleged presidential scandal in US history remain unanswered
It must again be emphasized: It is hard, if not impossible, to think of a more toxic allegation in American presidential history than the one leveled against candidate, and then president, Donald Trump that he “colluded” with the Kremlin in order to win the 2016 presidential election—and, still more, that Vladimir Putin’s regime, “America’s No....
Read MoreLiberals and other Democrats seem to want to cover up the CIA’s role in Russiagate
William Barr, a two-time attorney general who served at the CIA in the 1970s, would seem to be an ultimate Washington insider. According to his Wikipedia biography, he has—or he had—“a sterling reputation” both among Republicans and Democrats. That changed when Barr announced his ongoing investigation into the origins of Russiagate, a vital subject I,...
Read MoreThe Trump-Putin meeting in Japan is crucial for both leaders—and for the world
Despite determined attempts in Washington to sabotage such a “summit,” as I reported previously, President Trump and Russian President Putin are still scheduled to meet at the G-20 gathering in Japan this week. Iran will be at the top of their agenda. The Trump administration seems determined to wage cold, possibly even hot, war against...
Read MoreWhy Barr’s investigation is important and should be encouraged
It cannot be emphasized too often: Russiagate—allegations that the American president has been compromised by the Kremlin, which may even have helped to put him in the White House—is the worst and (considering the lack of actual evidence) most fraudulent political scandal in American history. We have yet to calculate the damage Russiagate has inflicted...
Read MoreWhy would Moscow want to fight terrorists without the US? It doesn’t
Manichaean Cold War myopia and ludicrous Russiagate allegations have produced one of the worst periods of American “geopolitical” thinking in recent decades. Consider President Trump’s recently announced withdrawals of US forces from Syria and Afghanistan. Instead of applauding these long-overdue steps, the bipartisan US political-media establishment has denounced them as “Trump’s gifts to Putin.” But...
Read MoreBaseless Russiagate allegations continue to risk war with Russia
The New Year has brought a torrent of ever-more-frenzied allegations that President Donald Trump has long had a conspiratorial relationship—why mince words and call it “collusion”?—with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin. Why the frenzy now? Perhaps because Russiagate promoters in high places are concerned that special counsel Robert Mueller will not produce the hoped-for “bombshell” to...
Read MoreA wise decision is greeted by denunciations, obstructionism, imperial thinking, and more Russia-bashing
President Trump was wrong in asserting that the United States destroyed the Islamic State’s territorial statehood in a large part of Syria—Russia and its allies accomplished that—but he is right in proposing to withdraw some 2,000 American forces from that tragically war-ravaged country. The small American contingent serves no positive combat or strategic purpose unless...
Read MoreThe year 2018 in the history of the new Cold War
Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of politics and Russian studies at Princeton and NYU, and John Batchelor mark the fifth anniversary of their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments are at TheNation.com.) Cohen reflects on major developments in 2018, in part drawing on themes in his new book War with...
Read MorePresident Trump’s withdrawal from the INF Treaty nullifies a historic precedent
Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at Princeton and NYU, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fifth year, are at TheNation.com.) After a brief discussion of Cohen’s new book, War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump...
Read MoreThe president has broken with the nearly 20-year orthodoxy of blaming Russia alone for today’s post-Soviet confrontations
Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (You can find previous installments, now in their fifth year, at TheNation.com.) As has every American president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1943, President Trump held a...
Read MoreIf it actually occurs, never in the 75-year history of such US-Russian meetings will an American president have had so...
Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (You can find previous installments, now in their fifth year, at TheNation.com.) Discussing the apparent decision to hold a prepared Trump-Putin meeting in July, Cohen points out...
Read MoreTen ways the new US-Russian Cold War is increasingly becoming more dangerous than the one we survived
Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (You can find previous installments, now in their fifth year, at TheNation.com.) Recent reports suggest that a formal meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin is...
Read More“Russiagate” and the Skirpal affair have escalated dangers inherent in the new Cold War beyond those of the preceding one
Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian Studies and Politics at NYU and Princeton, continue their weekly discussion of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.) Cohen begins by expressing to the Russian people and government profound sympathy and sorrow for the death of scores of Russians,...
Read MoreSome reflections on the Russian presidential election and on the Sergei Skripal case
Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian Studies and Politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.) Cohen thinks that the proximity—in time and politics—of the Russian presidential election on March 18 and the...
Read MoreAt an international summit in Vietnam last week, President Trump took necessary steps to reduce the perils of the new...
Nation contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.) Cohen argues that America is now in unprecedented danger due to two related crises. A new and more dangerous Cold War with Russia that is fraught...
Read MoreCooperation with Russia is imperative, but never has the US political-media elite’s opposition to it been so virulent.
Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.) Cohen argues that a new détente—cooperation in place of conflict—with Russia is imperative due to the unprecedented dangers of the new Cold War, with conflicts from...
Read More“Kremlingate” is said to have killed any prospect for Trump administration cooperation with Putin’s Kremlin, but...
Nation contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen and radio-show host John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, can be found here.) Cohen reiterates a general theme he has developed in recent years: The exceedingly dangerous nature of the new Cold War makes détente—that is,...
Read MoreThe hunt for Trump’s “Kremlin connections” indulges in practices reminiscent of the Soviet Kremlin and its media.
Nation contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.) Batchelor begins by recalling the early 1950s, when President Eisenhower finally ended Senator Joseph McCarthy’s hunt for Communists in the US government. Cohen remarks that this...
Read More“Kremlin-puppet” allegations against Trump are said to have crippled Trump’s ability to initiate cooperative...
Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Now in their fourth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com.) Cohen deeply regrets that the discussion must begin again with neo-McCarthyism, but it has become perhaps the most important factor in today’s American political-media establishment, and...
Read MoreThe Russia-connected allegations have created an atmosphere of hysteria amounting to McCarthyism.
The bipartisan, nearly full-political-spectrum tsunami of factually unverified allegations that President Trump has been sedi
tiously “compromised” by the Kremlin, with scarcely any nonpartisan pushback from influential political or media sources, is deeply alarming. Begun by the Clinton campaign in mid-2016, and exemplified now by New York Timescolumnists (who write of a “Trump-Putin regime” in Washington),...
Read MoreBipartisan allegations that Trump is a “puppet” of or “compromised” by the Kremlin have grown into latter-day...
Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.) Cohen regrets the subject of tonight’s discussion. He prefers to focus his decades of scholarly study and personal experience on loftier developments in Russia and issues...
Read MoreThe January 28 phone conversation between Presidents Trump and Putin signified their quest for a new détente, and its...
Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Now in their fourth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com.) Cohen begins by reiterating his historical generalization that 20th-century episodes of détente—under Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan—encountered ferocious opposition, even sabotage, on the part of enemies...
Read MoreAllegations that the president is a “puppet of Putin” could prevent him from making decisions in America’s best...
Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Now in their fourth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com.) Cohen worries that unrelenting allegations that President Trump is a willing or unwilling agent of Putin’s Kremlin—charges made thus far without any factual evidence—could limit or...
Read MoreEvents this past week make clear that Trump was serious about changing US policy toward Russia, and the enemies of...
Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions, now in their fourth year, about the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments are at TheNation.com.) Cohen begins by noting that he has discussed the 20th-century history of détente, its lessons, and the imperative of détente in today’s exceedingly dangerous new Cold...
Read MoreNew allegations that President-elect Trump can be controlled by the Kremlin through compromising information are...
Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments are at TheNation.com). This installment comes in the immediate aftermath of allegations that the Kremlin possesses compromising materials, from sexual to financial, that would enable it to “blackmail” President-elect Trump. The leaked documents were...
Read MoreWhatever Americans think of the next president’s other policies, exceedingly dangerous US-Russian conflicts have...
While pro-Clinton “liberals” and others escalate their slurring of Trump as Putin’s “agent” and “puppet,”...
The missing pro-détente argument may now be provoked by Donald Trump but is being suppressed by McCarthy-like attacks...
We should listen to what Trump says about Russia policy instead of Putin-baiting him.
Nation contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen tells CNN that Donald Trump is being wrongly linked to Putin and criticized because he’s trying to end the new Cold War.
The Syrian-Russian retaking of a major ISIS stronghold and the West’s further control over the Kiev government refute...
Trump’s challenge to 20-year bipartisan consensus may finally produce the missing public debate.
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