Moscow is on the march. After invading Georgia and establishing Russia’s dominance over the secessionist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Mr. Putin is now bent on dismembering Ukraine. The Russian strongman has made no secret of his contempt for Kiev’s independence. At a NATO summit in April, he told President Bush that Ukraine is [...]

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Russia is weaker than it looks, which is why NATO’s soft-power strategy can still prevail.
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That was the point Sean McCormack was making about Russia’s rickety fleet. Moscow is not the threat that it wants to appear. With more than 5,000 nuclear warheads and its status as the world’s largest energy exporter, it cannot really be [...]

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Yes, the American “mission impossible” 500 lb gorilla is crumbling into the sands, its pretentious military overstretch now compounded by its loose fiscal stupidities. Don’t you agree with that, Professor Kennedy? Hasn’t your controversial prediction in the closing parts of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers been realised?
Well, slow down a minute. It [...]

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THE President of Russia has called on Europe’s leaders to create a new world order that would minimise the role of the United States.
Confident that a row with Europe prompted by Russia’s invasion of Georgia in August was over, Dmitry Medvedev arrived in the French spa town of Evian on Wednesday determined to woo his [...]

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Wonder why Russia has Europe over a barrel? Ask German environmentalists.
Two decades of stringent environmental regulations have made Germany, Europe’s largest economy, increasingly dependent on natural gas from Russia, the world’s largest exporter. Of course, economic leverage translates seamlessly into political power, and Russia’s sway over German foreign policy has been conspicuous as the recent [...]

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