On March 6, 2016, at the age of 86, Harold H. Saunders - our partner in the Dartmouth Conference dialogues, and our friend, who has rendered outstanding service to the resumption of Russian-American relations, passed away.  Hal, as everyone called him.  Initially a public servant, working on the National Security Council, he…

Panview: Geo-politics in the Asia-Pacific region continues to face turbulent times. What are your thoughts about the current state of this region?
 
Maavak: Actually, they are not as "turbulent" as the Western media makes them out to be. Verbal spats – common to the Asia Pacific – are not the same as the pandemonium…

UN propagandists claim that the selection process to name the next secretary general, who will take office before the inauguration of the next U.S. president, will be the most transparent in the history of the organization, which was founded in 1945.
 
But on close examination, the security council recommends a new secretary general based on…

Rereading my 1984 article “Misperception, Ambivalence, and Indecision in Soviet Policy-making,” for the first time in many years, most of the analysis strikes me as just as valid today as it was in 1984 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1903573. 
 
There is, however, an important blind spot in the article…

The National People's Congress (NPC), China's top parliamentary body, and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China's top advisory body, are scheduled to convene its annual sessions, known as the "two sessions" on March 3-15 2016, which marks a pivotal year as the nation continues on to embark with its reforms and…

 
 




The satirical novel, "Vovochka; The True Confessions of Vladimir Putin's Best Friend and Confidant," is written by Alexander J. Motyl, a professor of political science at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey.

Photo by Courtesy



If your taste is for political satire, you will find a…

Why Putin Wants Syria

by Jiri Valenta and Leni Friedman Valenta
Middle East Quarterly
Spring 2016 (view PDF)

http://www.meforum.org/5876/why-putin-wants-syria


 






Russia has been largely landlocked for most of its history, and Moscow has always valued the Crimean peninsula for its coastline (see…

The U.S.-Russia agreement on the Syria ceasefire was in the spotlight of global media and think tanks last week. Likewise, Russia Direct has been extensively covering this deal and its implications for the world and the Middle East.   With a great deal of uncertainty about the future of the agreement, foreign policy pundits and former diplomats…

Sub-system formation is foreseen as a leading trend in international politics in 21st century and Eurasia is the region where the international public has already focused in anticipation of an emerging leader and architecture. Considering historical path-dependency and shared political traditions, it is not a surprise that Moscow is already a…

Two centuries ago, the Austrian statesman Klemens von Metternich astutely observed: "Asia begins at the Landstrasse.” Nations east of this Viennese street, were already exhibiting parochial undercurrents that were contrarian to Western thought.  This fault-line remains with modified contours, exacerbated by the trifecta of EU failures…

Recent 2 years there were some rumors in world media and blogosphere that North Korean leadership had been conducting remarkable economic reforms. However this hardly is true – perhaps we can say only Labour Party elite recognizes crisis of command administrative system and tries to enhance export production as well as ease burden of obligatory…

Monday's agreement, described by a U.N. spokesman as "a first step towards a more durable ceasefire," is the fruit of intensive diplomacy between Washington and Moscow, which back opposing sides in the 5-year-old civil war that has killed more than 250,000 people.  Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin discussed the accord by phone…