Of course it’s a deal
Meir Javedanfar at the Guardian has an article entitled “Did the US do a deal with Russia?” Duh. I wonder when Israel sends a wry thank you letter to Poland and the Czech Republic. Should Russia desert Iran’s si...
Americas
RA in Moscow Times: Clan Politics of Russia, Venezuela, and Iran
Robert Amsterdam has an opinion article published in The Moscow Times today: The recent visits to Moscow and Tehran by Hugo Chavez raise a number of concerns about the deepening relations between Russia, Iran and Venezuela. The motivation behind t...
There’s More to Russia’s Competitiveness Than Meets the Eye
I’ve finally gotten around to looking more closely at the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Competitiveness Report, released last week. The report ranks 133 countries on the basis of 12 measures of an economy’s competitiveness...
Still Squaring the NATO-Russia Circle
There are a number of media outlets reporting on the most recent NATO-Russia foxtrot, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s call for an “open-minded and unprecedented dialogue” with Russia. Personally, I’d first ra...
Video: Russian Arms to Venezuela
Hugo Chávez’s Pattern Recognition
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is known for his erratic behavior, but his latest move to extend official recognition to Georgia’s separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia during his visit to Moscow is a bit of a head-scratcher.&nbs...
Grigory Pasko: Welcoming our Friend, Lt. Col. Chávez
It’s September again, and that means the children are heading off to school, and the birds – heading south. And, as tradition goes, Comandante Chávez has embarked on a world tour. This time, the Lt. Col. – the leader of the Boliv...
The Inter-American Dialogue on Similarities between Venezuela and Russia
According to Daniel Erikson of the Inter-American Dialogue, as told to Radio Free Europe: “If you look at Russia under Putin there is a remarkable similarity to Venezuela under Chavez in so far as democratically elected leaders have systemat...
Summer Reading, Part 2: The (Un)Silence of Hugo Chávez
Continuing our slog through the end of August, I have just published a book review of The Silence and the Scorpion by Brian Nelson over on Huffington Post, which makes a pretty good case that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez should be standing tri...
Sechin as Russia’s New Viktor Bout?
Did you know that Igor Sechin allegedly worked with the famous arms dealer Viktor Bout back in Mozambique in the 1980s? Neither did I, but you probably already know we have been watching all these orders coming for more Russian tanks from Ve...
