Month: August 2008

August 27, 2008

Rogozin and the 9/11 Comparison to South Ossetia

Apparently Russia’s Ambassador to NATO Dmitri Rogozin seems to believe that terrorist murder of thousands on U.S. soil is comparable to Georgia’s attempt to reign in its own separatists. I believe this is offensive and incredulous, and...
August 27, 2008

Kouchner Accuses Russia of Violating International Law

It seems abundantly clear that no one in Moscow is particularly concerned by these kind of pronouncements or feeble diplomacy, but here goes what French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner is saying: “We cannot accept these violations of inter...
August 27, 2008

The Steep Decline of Courage in the West

French political philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy has a very passionate article of conclusions about the war in today’s Wall Street Journal: – Western public opinion fell with disconcerting facility for the thesis advanced — from t...
August 27, 2008

Individual Sovereignty and the Olympics

Events in the month of August have certainly placed our modern notions of nationalism, identity, sovereignty, and the Westphalian concept of the nation state under close scrutiny. This bit from Alvaro Vargas Llosa on individual sovereignty and the...
August 27, 2008

The Lack of Candid Legal Advice in Russia

Law professor Ethan Burger has an interesting article on political interference in Russia’s judicial processes in Legal Times. In light of the ongoing pillaging of more and more companies and seizures of private property all while the state ...
August 27, 2008

What Country Will Russia Invade Next?

I am only being somewhat facetious in the title of this post, but I just wanted to underscore the logic expressed in Medvedev’s Financial Times editorial yesterday, “Why I had to recognise Georgia’s breakaway regions,” which pres...
August 27, 2008

Energy Blast – Aug 27, 2008

India’s state-run Oil & Natural Gas Corp. has agreed to a takeover of Russia-focused oil explorer Imperial Energy for $1.4 billion, beating Sinopec’s bid. The imminent takeover is a positive story for Western oil companies in Russia, sa...