Section: The American Interest (USA)
Austria Swings Right
In a year of surprise elections in Europe and the United States, Austria’s vote on Sunday did not disappoint. But the surprises didn’t come in the form of upsets. Overall, the polls leading up to the election proved to be accurate. As predicted, the center-right People’s Party (ÖVP) led by the baby-faced foreign minister...
Russian Propaganda In Germany: More Effective Than You Think
In the wake of the September 2017 German elections, many observers have been puzzled by the seeming absence of Russian interference in such a high-stakes European race. A representative New York Times headline posed the question most directly: “Why no Russian meddling”?In 2015 and 2016, Russian activity in Germany had followed the same toolkit...
Getting Tough with Aliyev
“The Azerbaijani regime continues to use torture, politically-motivated criminal charges, harassment, international kidnapping, and other forms of intimidation to silence human rights defenders, independent journalists, and religious leaders,” said Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), who chairs the House panel on global human rights. “It is evident that...
Is There a Crisis of Liberal Democracy?
For two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, democracy enjoyed unprecedented global preeminence. In Europe and Asia, the most successful web of alliances in history, led by the United States, bonded the world’s liberal democracies, not only through common interests, but through deeply shared values as well. As a result, when the...
The Russia Lobby Flops in Canada
On Wednesday night, Canada’s lower house of Parliament voted unanimously to approve its own version of the Magnitsky Act, the 2012 U.S. law sanctioning Russian officials involved in human rights abuses. That law has become a famously radioactive issue in U.S.-Russian relations, first triggering a retaliatory ban on American adoptions of...
Make America Vigilant Again
I am a Russian, and I support the efforts of the Committee to Investigate Russia. I even think that Morgan Freeman’s much-maligned video remarks are a good thing. Here’s why.I lived in Russia for almost thirty years before I had to leave it due to threats against my life stemming from my work as a journalist. I know my country and my...
Five Priorities for Europe’s Transatlantic Strategy
Amidst periodic calls from the policy community (including some by me on these pages) for the United States to develop a new grand strategy for Europe, there is also a growing realization in key European capitals that the Transatlantic relationship requires more from Europe than the usual tactical “muddling through.” Security optics in Europe...
War Games Meet Mind Games
Russia and Belarus officially launched their weeklong war games on Tuesday, in a display of military muscle-flexing that has set much of Europe on edge. As the Wall Street Journal notes, the Zapad (“West”) drills began with Russian tanks moving toward Belarus, while a wary NATO keeps watch with a surveillance plane: NATO had promised to keep a...
Gas Attack
The Russia/Iran/DPRK sanctions bill, passed overwhelmingly by Congress this past July and sent to the White House for President Trump’s grudging approval, represents a significant escalation in Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia. Provisions in the legislation raise the possibility of U.S. sanctions being imposed on companies that partner...
The West Needs a Strategy
The last decade has not been good for the collective West. The list of setbacks is long: the resurgence of Russia along Europe’s periphery signaled by the 2008 Russian-Georgian war; the economic meltdown in the United States and Europe; the continued rise of China and the accelerated shift in economic power balances across the globe; the...
