News Views

When US Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III declared that Washington wanted to see Russia so “weakened” that it would no longer be able to invade a neighboring state, he lifted the veil on US goals in Ukraine. He also held out the prospect of a long-term US-Russian contest for power and influence. Austin’s remarks were problematic on several fronts. For one, they legitimized Russian President Vladimir Putin’s justification of the invasion of Ukraine as a defense against US-led efforts to box Russia in and potentially undermine his regime. “US policy toward Russia continues to be plagued by lack of rhetorical discipline. First calling for regime change, now the goal of weakening Russia. This only increases Putin’s case for escalating & shifts focus away from Russian actions in Ukraine & toward Russia-US/NATO showdown”, tweeted Richard Haas, the president of the New York-based Council of Foreign Relations and a former senior State Department official. Haas was referrin...

To be clear at the outset, what is going on in Ukraine is horrific. With nothing more at the ready than a national ego bruised by the 20th century, Vladimir Putin has brought death and destruction to Ukraine, a country that has been trying to manage its geopolitical affairs in a relatively responsible manner. There can be no meaningful excuses advanced to overcome the heinous brutality of a war that no one provoked and only the Russian president wanted. False equivalencies have no place in this discussion. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, however, can be viewed as yet another product of the ongoing damage done when public policy is driven by political agendas adrift from critical factual and historical context. Dangerous  us-versus-them  narratives abound. And grievance is encouraged to fester for political gain at the expense of an analytical framework that might actually promote problem solving. Unfortunately, the world continues to be at the mercy of marauding cold warriors...

Phenomenon of Zhirinovsky To this day LDPR is the most popular radical right party in Russia regularly re-elected to the State Duma. The success of LDPR is associated with the rhetorical strategies of its recently deceased leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a master of political  épatage  [shock], which includes the use of rough metaphors, stereotypes, and political scandals (for example, fist fights during public debates). The effectiveness of the Liberal Democratic Party also lies in its active use of social media (for example, Twitter) and even its own mobile apps to receive the support of people with limited political knowledge and seemingly focused on simple, rapid solutions. Thus, party members appeal to everyday life metaphors and the needs of “ordinary” citizens. They position themselves as “simple” “Russian people.” In this respect, the populist rhetoric of LDPR’s members (and especially of the late Zhirinovsky himself) resembles Donald Trump’s, minus Trump’s stated de...

The idea that governments are the instrument of the people rather than an established ruling class became universally accepted as a feature of “evolved civilization” at some point in the 20th century. It is applied even in many traditional monarchies, such as the United Kingdom and Spain, though exceptions exist, notably in the Arabian Peninsula. Modern dictatorships in the Marxist tradition think of themselves as governments of the people and for the people, though to a limited extent by the people. Otherwise, the standard model in most people’s minds is a liberal democracy, which essentially means a system in which ordinary people can cultivate the ambition to govern their peers and can hope to earn their trust by appealing to a popular vote.  The fact that governments are elected by the people should mean that no outcome decided by a privileged class or obscure clan is foreordained. Crises may occur – due for example, to abuse of power – but they are rarely expected to destabili...