RUSSIA & UKRAINE – Johnson’s Russia List table of contents :: JRL 2018-34 :: Saturday, 24 February 2018
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Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2018-#34
Saturday, 24 February 2018
A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs
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1. Carnegie Moscow Center: Dmitri Trenin, The Disruptor. Summary: Russia seeks to exploit divisions in the West. But how big is the threat?
2. Irrussianality: Paul Robinson, ASYMMETRICAL RULES. [Text with links https://irrussianality.wordpress.com/2018/02/18/asymmetrical-rules/]
3. The National Interest: James N. Miller, Richard Fontaine, and Alexander Velez-Green, Averting the U.S.-Russia Warpath. Even as U.S.-Russian tensions have risen, fundamental shifts in the military-technological environment threaten to erode strategic stability between the two nations. (excerpt)
4. The Nation: Patrick Lawrence, Why Russia Is Emerging as the World’s Indispensable Diplomatic Power. Moscow, working in concert with others, has set courses toward the diplomatic resolution of several key conflicts. [https://www.thenation.com/article/why-russia-is-emerging-as-the-worlds-indispensable-diplomatic-power/]
5. www.rt.com: Russian presidential candidates release first official videos.
6. The Unz Review: Anatoly Karlin, Russia Elections 2018: Media Coverage. [Complete text with charts http://www.unz.com/akarlin/elections-media-coverage/]
8. http://usforeignpolicy.blogs.lalibre.be: Gilbert Doctorow, Russia’s Presidential Election, 2018: first impressions. [http://usforeignpolicy.blogs.lalibre.be/archive/2018/02/23/russia-s-presidential-election-2018-first-impressions-1163507.html]
9. Russian and Eurasian Politics: Gordon Hahn, Why the Kremlin Keeps Navalnyi on the Street.
10. Intellinews.com: Opposition activist Alexei Navalny will spend Russia’s presidential elections in jail.
11. The Unz Review: The Saker, Russian Presidential Elections: Boring, Useless and Necessary? (excerpt) [Full text http://www.unz.com/tsaker/russian-presidential-elections-boring-useless-and-necessary/]
12. PONARS Eurasia: Nikolay Petrov, Russia on the Eve of its Presidential Election: How Long Can Change and Stasis Coexist? (excerpt)
13. www.rt.com: Russia to bar US monitors from March presidential election – deputy FM.
14. Financial Times: Viv Groskop, How Russian theatre is speaking truth to power. Nearly two decades into the age of Putin, the battle for the soul of the Moscow stage rages on
15. Bloomberg: Leonid Bershidsky, Putin Has to Find a Way to Raise Incomes. In a government-dominated economy, only the state can help increase what Russians earn.
16. Bear Market Brief: TsMAKP on economy: “stagnation with a plus sign”
17. www.rt.com: S&P raises Russia’s rating to investment grade, Fitch sees positive outlook.
18. Financial Times: Russia’s middle class opens door to private healthcare providers. Strains on public system and cost of treatment abroad drive demand for western medicine.
19. Rethinking Russia: Dmitri Trenin: “Russia Will Get Stuck in Syria for a Long Time.” Carnegie Moscow Center’s Director Dmitri Trenin and Rethinking Russia discussed his new book “What Is Russia Up To in the Middle East?”, Moscow’s role and place in the region, the future of Syria and the Islamic State as well as Russia’s Syria collaboration with Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the U.S.
20. Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Remarks and answers to questions by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the Middle East Conference of the Valdai International Discussion (Club, Moscow, February 19, 2018.
21. Russian International Affairs Council: Sanctions Have Not Been So Bad. (interview with Richard Connolly)
22. New York Times: James Hill, Russia, the Olympics’ Awkward Guest. Despite the country being barred from the Winter Games, Russian athletes and fans showed up and had a good time.
23. The Nation: Ronald Katz, We Need a Better System for Addressing Olympic Doping.A bungled response to Russian doping allegations shows that our regulatory patchwork is disorganized and unjust.
24. Brookings: Stephen Pifer, ORDER FROM CHAOS. Ukraine four years after the Maidan. (excerpt)
25. www.rt.com: Bryan MacDonald, Four years after ‘Euromaidan,’ corruption is still king in Ukraine.
26. Christian Science Monitor: Fred Weir, Before Russia’s ‘troll farm’ turned to US, it had a more domestic focus. Though the outfit indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller may now be most famous for targeting US audiences, its original purpose was to sway Russians on domestic issues. And it was well covered by the Russian media.
27. The New Yorker: Masha Gessen, The Fundamental Uncertainty of Mueller’s Russia Indictments.
28. The American Conservative: Robert Merry, Russia’s Election Meddling: Worse Than a Crime; a Blunder. U.S.-Russian hostility is now inevitable, and the results could be tragic.
29. The Nation: Stephen Cohen, ‘Russiagate’ Is Revealing Alarming Truths About America’s Political-Media Elites. Its allegations and practices suggest disdain for American institutions, principles, best interests, and indeed for the American people.
30. Rolling Stone: Matt Taibbi, #Russiagate Skeptics Take a Beating. We don’t know for sure where the Mueller probe is going, but don’t dare say that out loud. [Text with links https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/taibbi-russiagate-skeptics-take-a-beating-mueller-probe-w517006]
31. Wall Street Journal: Holman Jenkins, Mueller Focuses on Molehills. The mountain is whether the FBI was an unwitting agent of Russian influence.
32. The Economist editorial: Russia’s dirty tricks. How Putin meddles in Western democracies. And why the West’s response is inadequate.
33. Washington Post editorial: The Russians are coming. Republicans need to do something about it.
34. New York Times editorial: Why Americans Could Believe the Worst From Russian Trolls.
35. New York Times: AMANDA TAUB and MAX FISHER, Russian Meddling Was a Drop in an Ocean of American-Made Discord.
36. The Atlantic: Alexis C. Madrigal, Russia’s Troll Operation Was Not That Sophisticated. “If the Internet Research Agency were a start-up media company, they probably would not be picking up a fresh round of venture capital.”
37. Moon of Alabama: “Russian bots” – How An Anti-Russian Lobby Creates Fake News. http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/02/russian-bots-how-an-anti-russian-lobby-creates-fake-news.html#more
38. Consortiumnews.com: George Eliason, A Crisis in Intelligence: Unthinkable Consequences of Outsourcing U.S. Intel (Part 3). Privatized intelligence operations have become a favored practice of the U.S. and other Western governments, but the tactics of so-called spies for hire are often unethical and possibly illegal. https://consortiumnews.com/2018/02/18/a-crisis-in-intelligence-unthinkable-consequences-of-outsourcing-u-s-intel-part-3/
39. The New Yorker: Adrian Chen, A So-Called Expert’s Uneasy Dive Into the Trump-Russia Frenzy. Is it possible to express skepticism about the impact of Kremlin interference in the 2016 election without the Internet turning you into a pro-Trump propagandist?
40. The Guardian (UK): Cas Mudde, Democrats beware: the Trump-Russia inquiry isn’t the path to power. The Trump-Russia collusion story might be the talk of Washington, but it’s not the case in the rest of the country.