What’s at Stake in Ukraine

“If you want peace, prepare for war”

Thus, the potential occupation of Ukraine should not be seen as a local affair, nor should the country be viewed as a strategic sacrifice to appease Putin’s fears about NATO. Instead, it should be seen as a warning of how far he can push his might, if not properly restrained. ...
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What’s at Stake in Ukraine

Ghosts of Weimar

Is factual accuracy even the point when it comes to the discourse of antifascism?

Alexander Yanov, the emigré historian of Russia and Russian nationalism, was critical of major Western approaches towards post-Soviet Russia in the 1990s. He criticized the "devious simplicity" of the Western logic holding that, because a non-market Russia had been the West’s sworn enemy, a free-market Russia would become its partner. ...
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Ghosts of Weimar

The Illiberal International

Stalin, in the first decade of Soviet power, backed the idea of “socialism in one country,” meaning that, until conditions ripened, socialism was for the USSR alone. When Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán declared, in July 2014, his intention to build an “illiberal democracy,” it was widely assumed that he ...

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The Illiberal International

An Open Letter to John McCain

Dear Senator John McCain: We don’t know each other. You are a war hero, a major public personality, a former Presidential candidate, a distinguished leader of your party, and a Republican. I am a 59 year old political science professor who grew up in New York and lives in Indiana, has ...
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An Open Letter to John McCain

The Trump Conspiracy Story and the Left

President Obama has confirmed that the FBI thinks agents of the Russian government were behind the Wikileaks that brought down Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. The FBI is now actively investigating if any laws were broken. The widely discussed theory is that President Vladimir Putin does not like Hillary ...
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The Trump Conspiracy Story and the Left

Russia’s Game in Syria

Security, geopolitics, and a balance of powers

On Wednesday September 30, the Russian Federation started a bombing campaign in Syria with one objective in mind: the stabilization of the country and the survival of Assad’s regime. This action is very relevant for many reasons, but among them is the fact that it is historical. This presents Russia’s ...

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Russia’s Game in Syria

Vilnius and Warsaw: Our Common Cause

Upon receipt of the Freedom Prize

Mrs. President, Mrs. Chair of the Parliament, Mr. Prime Minister,

I am moved and embarrassed by this honor bestowed by the Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania on a Pole -- a Polish journalist and editor of Gazeta Wyborcza. I treat it as a sign of recognition for my friends and colleagues ...

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The War on Fascism

By my title,“The War on Fascism,” I do not mean the war between the US, the Soviet Union and Great Britain, on the one hand, and Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Italy and imperial Japan on the other, the war that took place between 1939 and 1945. Rather I mean an unspoken ...

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The War on Fascism