To seize the opportunity to avert a third world war with Russia and China, Biden should negotiate a comprehensive security agreement with Russia by building upon what Putin has outlined, while also taking decisive action to shore up America’s defenses against existential attack by U.S. adversaries.

As the Russian president’s year-end presser helped underscore, Europe will increasingly understand itself as the western end of Eurasia rather than the eastern shore of the Atlantic.

Pity the political scientist studying Russia. How does one analyze such a highly personalistic regime, in which key decisions are made behind closed doors and democratic elements have been squeezed out over the past decade? How should one assess the politics of a country that is a geopolitical outlier: the largest territory in the world, with borders from Norway to North Korea, and that has played a decisive role in every major European war of the last 200 years?

In the past couple of days, my peers in the community of Russia analysts have addressed the question of “what if” – what is it that Russia can and may do if the negotiations with the United States over its draft Treaties on security in Europe fail within the very short time period the Russians have set, apparently one month. Parenthetically, I am amused that spokesmen for the U.S. State Department say that they may enter into talks with the Russians some time in January. It seems they did not catch the short timeline the Russians have set or mistakenly believe it was a bluff.

Russian President Vladimir V. Putin and I have something in common. My big brother, Joe-Ray, died during the World War II. Unlike Putin’s big brother, though, mine was done in by meningitis – not by the Germans.

While much of the world wonders when Russia will invade Ukraine, the US Senate’s number 2 ranking member on the Armed Forces committee has added something new: When will the US invade Russia?

This study examines the origins and development of a specific strand in Russia’s political and strategic cultures — Russia’s ‘national security culture’ and ‘security vigilance norm’ – doing so in the context of Russian-Western relations.

Vladimir Putin would probably prefer to find an alternative way to derail a U.S. alliance with Ukraine if Biden is prepared to bargain. But if Washington refuses to recognize that Russian redline, he may well be prepared to fight—and there is not much the United States could do to stop him.

An outside observer could be forgiven for thinking that the current agitation about Russia resembles a carefully orchestrated pantomime of aggression, rather than real aggression. Were an invasion actually imminent, any military leader worth his salt would insist on it being swift, decisive, and above all, secret.

U.S. corporate media accounts of how tough President Joe Biden was at his virtual summit with President Vladimir Putin yesterday followed a weeks-long script recently catalyzed by the eye-catching Washington Post Dec. 3 story entitled: “Russia planning massive military offensive against Ukraine involving 175,000 troops, US intelligence warns.”