The Collision of Self-Importance and Despair
In the United States today, as in 1990s Russia, for a lot of intellectuals, total nihilism seems more plausible than hope for even modest reform.
In the United States today, as in 1990s Russia, for a lot of intellectuals, total nihilism seems more plausible than hope for even modest reform.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine transformed the energy politics of Europe: America became Germany’s main importer of liquid natural gas and Putin pivoted east. This new order is likely to generate more conflicts than the one that came before it.
With his original war aims in shambles, a desperate Vladimir Putin is openly threatening nuclear warfare in Ukraine. The rhetoric of nuclear retaliation and escalation is a risk to the entire world, and, yes, you should be alarmed.
Almost all knowledgeable observers believe the war in Ukraine will have to end with a negotiated agreement. Yet the US, Ukraine's leading patron, has signaled it has no patience for diplomatic efforts that cut against its hope for Moscow's "strategic defeat."
Many of the Russian superrich who have had their assets frozen in recent weeks have deep connections to the art world. As the curtain is pulled back on these holdings, art’s role in creating and sustaining the 1 percent has once again been revealed.
The foreign policy establishment remains confident it can steer the US into a new age of global hegemony.
Even before Russia rained terror on its cities, Ukraine was a poor country with limited economic sovereignty. Today, Ukraine’s creditors should free it of its debts, allowing it to rebuild on the basis of self-sufficiency and democratic choice.
Israel’s war in Gaza has been portrayed as a gift for Moscow, helping it rally the Global South against the West. But Kremlin policy in the region has long relied on a tacit deal with Israel — and its unraveling is causing splits within Russia’s elite.
Russiagate looks less like a righteous crusade for truth and justice and more like the typical shenanigans for which the FBI and US security state have long been known: prosecutorial overreach, entrapment, and the criminalization of foreign policy dissent.
Stephen Kotkin aspires to give us the definitive picture of Stalin — and to bury socialism with his crimes. But Kotkin’s political outlook, neglect of ideas, and addiction to hindsight warp his presentation of Russian and Soviet history, undermining his entire project.
The February Revolution erupted 100 years ago today and swept away a blood-soaked monarchy.
In Russian novelist Vladimir Sorokin’s Telluria, inhabitants of a war-ravaged Europe can find solace only by hammering nails made of a hallucinogenic substance into their skulls. It's a postapocalyptic world that isn't quite like our own — yet.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has sent tanks into the Donbas on dubious pretexts. But a far bigger danger awaits if the West seeks an escalation that will only pour fuel on the fire.
Today, Russians vote in a constitutional referendum designed to give Vladimir Putin a fresh burst of legitimacy. His feeble response to the coronavirus pandemic has ruined his “strongman” reputation — and it’s feeding a growing mood of popular discontent.
Many thought that, with the end of the Cold War, the world had seen the last of big-power nuclear brinksmanship. But the Ukraine crisis has revealed that leaders have forgotten the lessons of that era.
Lenin and the debates that shaped the Russian Revolution have been misunderstood by friends and foes alike.
Lenin and the debates that shaped the Russian Revolution have been misunderstood by friends and foes alike.
The Donbas is at the heart of Vladimir Putin’s claim that Lenin divided Russia to create Ukraine. Yet the region’s real history shows how much the Bolsheviks struggled with demands for national autonomy amid the collapse of the tsarist empire.
Ninety-nine years after the Russian Revolution, let’s free Lenin from distortions of all types.
In the heated propaganda war between Russia and the “West,” rationality is in short supply.