Section: Foreign Policy (USA)
Clapper: Give Ukraine “Lethal Defensive Weapons”
The U.S. government’s senior intelligence official said that he believes the Obama administration should give Kiev “lethal defensive weapons” for its struggle against the Russian-backed separatists battling the country’s military in eastern Ukraine Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told the Council on Foreign Relations...
Putin’s Next Prize in Eastern Ukraine
During the four-month-long “ceasefire” that followed the Sept. 5, 2014, Minsk agreement between Ukraine’s government and the Russia-backed separatist rebels, the shells never stopped falling on four key targets: Two of them — the Donetsk airport and the city of Debaltseve — have now been captured. Indeed, Russia’s second major...
The Future of Wombs for Rent
When Thailand’s parliament passed a law banning most forms of surrogacy late last month, its main motivations were clear. Last year, two major scandals brought to a head longstanding concerns that Thailand wasn’t doing to enough to protect the women hired to bear children for other people and the children born through surrogacy. Last...
FP’s Situation Report: The man in the middle of the U.S./Israel spat; Defiant Russians take to Moscow’s streets; U.S.-backed rebels in Syria split; and much more from around the world.
By David Francis with Sabine Muscat Meet the man in the middle of the U.S./Israel spat. American-born Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer was in Israel last week helping Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu draft his controversial speech to Congress, a testament to the closeness of their relationship. But Dermer’s absence from D.C. allowed the...
Remembering Boris Nemtsov and His Dream of a Free Russia
With every passing year, the Putin regime engages in thuggish acts that turn the once-unthinkable into dreadful new norms. To cite just a few examples, the past decade has seen the cut off of gas to Europe, the invasion of Georgia, the state-sanctioned killing of Sergei Magnitsky, the expulsion of USAID because of its support for civil society...
Death on the Kremlin’s Doorstep
It was always hard to ignore Boris Nemtsov. You couldn’t help but notice when he came into a room. The physicist-turned-politician was smart, pugnacious, brash. And so it was when I last saw him, in November 2010. Almost inevitably our conversation turned to the topic of the violence that permeates Russian political culture. We talked...
Russian Opposition Leader Boris Nemtsov Shot Dead in Moscow
Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, 55, a leading critic of President Vladimir Putin, was shot dead in central Moscow early Saturday, according to Russian media reports. He was reportedly shot four times in the chest, while walking home near the Kremlin, by several assailants who opened fire on Nemtsov and a woman with him. A former deputy...
‘House of Cards’ Needs to Read Up on Russia
Spoiler alert: This review includes plot details from the first six episodes of season three of House of Cards. At the outset of House of Cards’ third season, Frank Underwood is president of the United States. After all his mischief and plotting, the time has come for Underwood, played by Kevin Spacey, to do the inevitable: govern. But by...
Meet America’s New Public Enemy No. 1
Move over China. Americans have a new public enemy number one. According to a new Gallup poll, 18 percent of the American public now view Russia as the top threat to the nation. Some 15 percent viewed North Korea as the America’s top rival, while just 12 percent viewed China as the biggest threat. Last year, 20 percent of Americans believed...
Let Slip the Bureaucrats of War
The people arguably doing the most to clip Russian president Vladimir Putin’s wings and neuter Russia’s ability to effectively wield its energy weapon are a bevy of largely bland and anonymous European bureaucrats. While the European Union has never become a traditional, hard-power geopolitical player, it has deployed what gear it has...
