By Gerald Sussman If it’s an election year, there must be a Russiagate story. The Clintons and their neoliberal progeny, including the current standard bearer for corporate liberalism, have turned the Democratic Party into a branch office of the Deep […]

By Edward Lozansky Looking at today’s America, one would be hard pressed to say that the gods were not interested in destroying this great country. For who can argue that this once proud and noble nation has not fallen into […]

By Matthew Ehret In June 2019, the small landlocked nation of Moldova found itself in a life or death struggle between two opposing futures: Oligarchs like the notorious Vladimir Plahotniuc had worked diligently for years to bring this nation into […]

By Patrick Lawrence  The signs of America’s decline are ubiquitous now such that the phenomenon is no longer worthy of debate. China, Japan, South Korea; Italy, Spain, Germany, the Danes and Norwegians  — Asia and Europe all gain control of […]

By M.K. Bhadrakumar Former Indian diplomat Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a phone conversation today with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin that Beijing will “continue to work” with Moscow in “firmly supporting” each other’s efforts “rejecting external sabotage and […]

By Lucy Komisar The U.S. and UK are intensifying their Cold War against Russia. In Washington, calls for sanctions are based on the fake “bountygate,” and the UK has sanctioned selected Russians based on William Browder’s Magnitsky hoax. The “bountygate” […]

By James George Jatras James George Jatras is a former State Department Service Officer, adviser to the Republican Policy Committee  in the U.S. Senate Analysts of world affairs tend to fall into certain traps concerning the motivations and behavior of political actors. We […]

By Edward Lozansky For many open-minded Americans and Russians it has become a tradition to congratulate each other on their independence days, which are June 12 for Russia and July 4 for America. This year we decided to note some […]

June 12th for Russians is to some extent the equivalent of July 4th for Americans when the former colony of the British Empire has declared its independence.“Russia Day” commemorates the adoption in 1990 of the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Russian Federation that eventually lead to the collapse of Soviet empire and Russia becoming one of the new 15 independent states.

By Paul Robinson
For many in the Western world, Russia is, and long has been, a significant ‘other’, comparison with which serves a useful purpose in the creation of self-identity. Beyond that, negative (and on occasion even positive) portrayals of Russia feed into domestic political struggles and help legitimize one side or other in whatever argument people are having.