Section: The American Interest (USA)
Iran Avoids the Outstretched Hand
In a blustery speech at New York University today, Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif drew a hard line on the ongoing nuclear negotiations. He started by calling into question American talking points on sanctions relief, which Zarif said would have to be implemented as soon as the deal was signed. Bloomberg’s Josh Rogin reports:...
Gazprom’s 2014 Was a Year to Forget
Russian state-owned natural gas firm Gazprom had a rough go of it last year, to say the least, as net profits fell 86 percent. The FT reports: Gazprom, the world’s biggest gas producer which accounts for about a fifth of Russian government revenue, reported on Wednesday that net income attributable to its shareholders for 2014 fell to...
“All In” On Ukraine
In October 1949, as the defeated forces of Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan and Mao Zedong declared the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Republicans in Congress blamed Harry S. Truman for losing China. Some demanded a pivot from Europe to Asia in U.S. foreign policy. Truman might have been persuaded a few years earlier when U.S....
Finland Goes After Russian Sub With Depth Charges
Finnish forces dropped depth charges into Baltic waters as a warning after sighting a foreign submarine presumed to be Russian. The Financial Times has more: Commodore Olavi Jantunen, the navy’s chief of operations, told Finnish broadcaster YLE that he could not say for certain whether it was a submarine, and he did not want to speculate....
Ukraine Increasingly Under Pressure
Is another Russian-backed rebel offensive in the offing? The OSCE reported last night that fighting outside Mariupol in eastern Ukraine had reached its highest intensity since conflict first broke out in the area in mid-February 2015. The report went on to note that its unarmed surveillance drones had seen rebel tanks, self-propelled howitzers,...
Laborers Protest Deadbeat Russia
There’s an old Soviet joke that goes: “As long as our bosses pretend to pay us, we’ll pretend to work.” But it’s been 25 years since the Soviet era, and things have changed. Now, with the Russian state hard up for cash due to the collapse of global oil prices as well as sanctions, unpaid employees are staging small protests...
An Escalating War of Words in Ukraine
NATO’s secretary general joined the chorus of concern coming out of the U.S. State Department about reports of increased Russian activity in eastern Ukraine, including the strengthening of air defenses and battlefield training that involves the use of drones. “What we see both in eastern Ukraine and on the border to eastern Ukraine gives...
The Lit Match Nears the Powder in Eastern Ukraine
BBC journalists filed a somewhat breathless report this morning of having witnessed rebels shelling a Ukrainian army position east of Mariupol, in the embattled town of Shyrokyne. The OSCE has been witnessing engagements like these for the past several weeks, and Ukrainian soldiers interviewed by the BBC appear to have slept through the shelling,...
Brussels Hits Gazprom with Anti-Trust Charge
Brussels officially charged Gazprom with violating EU anti-trust legislation today. The accusation is four years in the making and comes at a time when tensions between Europe and Russia are at a post-Cold War high.The EU’s complaints are straightforward. In the words of EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, Gazprom, which...
Poland Picks U.S. Missile Shield
Today Poland announced its selection of the U.S. Raytheon Company, supplier of the Patriot air defense system, as its strategic partner for the modernization of the country’s air and missile defense (AMD) systems (negotiations will now proceed, with the final contract to be inked in 2016). In addition to the AMD decision, the Polish...
