I have zero sympathy for the Russian and Chinese governments who decided to block a U.N. Security Council resolution to amp up the pressure on the Assad regime in Syria. I’m not sure the resolution would have been decisive in ending … Continue reading
Tag Archives: Russia
Multipolarity Doesn’t Mean Intervention is Dead
Shashank Joshi, writing in The Telegraph, speculates that the rising power of BRIC countries may make Libya “the last place where the West is allowed to intervene.” Joshi highlights how different the international situation is now compared with a decade … Continue reading
The Democracy Bandwagon
During Putin’s second term, an adviser to the Russian government coined the phrase “sovereign democracy” to describe the country’s top-down style of governance. The slogan, which quickly caught on, provided an easy way to explain the country’s authoritarian excesses; sovereign … Continue reading
Quick Hit: Self-Determination
Jeb’s post this weekend on Siberian nationalism highlighted the broader problem of ethnic minorities and the practical issues raised by their purported right to secede from existing states. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a pretty good summary of the … Continue reading
Siberian Self-Determination?
First off, I want to apologize about my MIA status for the last little while. A slew of apps and an unexpected work load has kept me away from this blog. Jumping right back in, the report that grabbed my … Continue reading
Wouldn’t it be Nice…
Thomas de Waal’s piece in Foreign Policy on the poverty of the traditional great power approach to the Caucuses is worth a glance. As I was reading it, though, I couldn’t help but think about Christopher Beam’s piece on what … Continue reading
In South Ossetia, Russia Digs In
Ghia Nodia, a professor of politics at Ilia State University, has a rather oddly argued piece in RFE/RL suggesting that Russia’s war with Georgia in 2008 has brought few benefits for Moscow. Without going too much in to the contours … Continue reading