Russia

So let’s total up what was gained and what was lost by the Obama administration’s decision to scrap the never-built ballistic missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. In favor of abandonment:
1. Russia, a much more important country than either Poland or the Czech Republic, viewed it as needlessly provocative.
2. The thing was never [...]

Foreign Policy replies to my skepticism at the idea of Russia and China backing an oil-embargo package on the Iranian regime with this recent piece by Brookings’ Erica Downs on China’s looming oil-sector investments in Iran. Downs gives some reason for thinking that the United States has leverage with the Chinese:
Beijing recognizes that a nuclear-armed [...]

It sounds pretty simple: if negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program stall/don’t restart/break down, put together a sanctions package on Iran’s oil imports. (Yes, Iran has the world’s second-or-third proven highest oil reserves, but it still imports gasoline.) But here’s the soft underbelly, reports David Sanger at The New York Times:
But enforcing what would [...]

Vice President Biden was pretty … real about Russia in a Wall Street Journal interview published this weekend, and it’s being played as something of a gaffe. Among Biden’s observations:
“Russia has to make some very difficult, calculated decisions,” Mr. Biden said. “They have a shrinking population base, they have a withering economy, they have a [...]

President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev released numerous joint statements outlining the outcomes of today’s talks but fell conspicuously silent on the controversial anti-missile system proposed by the U.S. to be deployed in Europe, which Russia considers a threat to its security. Remarks concerning the proposed ABM system only came when the heads of [...]

It’s not been the greatest year for resupplying the Afghanistan war. The Kyrgyzstan government has been iffy about allowing the U.S. continued access to the Manas Air Base, a major transit hub, though it’s looking more like the U.S. military will keep access to Manas. Then there’s the NATO supply route through Pakistan, which goes [...]

National Review’s conspiracy-minded legal writer is angry, furious, shocked at a weekend New York Times story on President Obama’s approach to nuclear disarmament:
[N]early six months into the Obama presidency, the mainstream media has finally done a bit of the candidate background reporting it declined to do during the campaign — other than in Wasilla — and whaddya [...]

Here’s a really smart Manu Raju piece on how Republicans, who were completely on message mere weeks ago with anti-Nancy Pelosi and anti-Gitmo closing campaigns, are flummoxed by the Iran revolt. Sen. John Thune (R-Nev.) backs the president’s careful approach, and no Senate Republican is as agitated as Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.):
I’m just thinking of [...]

So claims Human Rights Watch in a press release.
The former detainee, Rasul Kudaev, has been held for more than three years in pretrial detention in Nalchik, a city in southern Russia, where he is accused of participating in an October 2005 armed uprising against the local government. Human Rights Watch’s investigations into Kudaev’s case found [...]

Just one quick point about President Obama’s speech yesterday in Prague on a U.S.-led global agenda for nuclear disarmament. Did you ever think you would hear the president of the United States say this:

There is violence and injustice in our world that must be confronted. We must confront it not by splitting apart but by [...]