September 1, 2014

Putin Goes Postal

Last week, as it became clear that without massive Russian assistance the rebels in eastern Ukraine would be decisively defeated, all hell broke loose. What Vladimir Putin saw when he gazed at the pro-Russian forces in Ukraine last week was a rabb...

August 29, 2014

History Repeating Itself in Europe

Watching history repeat itself in Europe is truly unsettling.  Just as occurred not once but twice with Germany, Europe is now allowing Russia to go wilding across the continent scant years after having done the same with the USSR.  Will th...

August 21, 2014

Russia at Bay

No nation in world history has destroyed its relationships with the outside world as rapidly or decisively as Vladimir Putin’s Russia has done in 2014. Yet the Obama administration has failed to galvanize world opposition in defense of Ukraine ...

August 4, 2014

Putin's Vietnam

In any normal country, an event like the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 would have resulted in, at the very least, a pause in overt military activity that might give rise to another such atrocity.  But in Vladimir Putin’s ...

July 28, 2014

John Boehner Vindicated on Foreign Policy?

It’s nothing short of astounding how recent history has validated Republican foreign policy analysis where Russia is concerned.  And it’s tragic how ineffective Republicans have been in translating their prescient analysis into tangi...

July 21, 2014

Putin Revealed

The argument about whether the regime of Vladimir Putin is evil and whether the people of Russia are complicit in that evil ended decisively on July 17, 2014 at 14:15 GMT, when Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was blown out of the sky over Ukraine by a...

July 16, 2014

An Obituary for Valeria Novodvorskaya

Her name meant “the new courtyard.”  She was one of Russia’s very last lions of freedom, and she tried all her life to urge her country to open a door onto a new courtyard, one free from the despair and wretched failure of the ...

July 8, 2014

Putin Crushes Internet Expression

Back in the days when Vladimir Putin was first launching his crackdown on Russian mainstream media, killing and arresting reporters and publishers and seizing or shutting down publications, the Russia apologists rationalized his actions by claiming t...

June 27, 2014

Obama and Russia: the World Laughs

Barack Obama, the president who was supposed to restore America’s reputation abroad after it was damaged by George W. Bush, has only succeeded in turning the country into an international laughingstock. Case in point:  A lengthy June 25...

June 23, 2014

Yeltsin's Warning

It is lucky for him that former Russian president Boris Yeltsin is no longer alive. Were he still living, the events unfolding in Russia each day for years now, events clearly showing a country rushing backwards into its dark Soviet past, events that...

June 9, 2014

Russia: the Noose Tightens

It was not that long ago that Vladimir Putin was being widely praised for saving the Russian economy from disaster. Many even argued that one should overlook Putin’s repressive acts since his economic policies were so brilliant and so essential...

June 5, 2014

Back to the (Soviet) Future

Those of us who correctly predicted years ago that the rise of proud KGB spy Vladimir Putin meant a return in Russia to Soviet-era practices of repression and aggression now find ourselves in a strange position. The overwhelming evidence of our ...

June 1, 2014

Has Russia Gone Rogue?

Has Russia gone rogue? Information revealed last week indicates that it has, and that because of the reckless weakness of Barack Obama, America now faces a neo-Soviet Russian bear primed for aggression, just as in the era of the USSR. Last week...

May 25, 2014

Corruption Forever in Russia?

Led by a proud KGB spy, Russia is descending back into the bleak darkness of Soviet dishonesty and hypocrisy as it becomes ever more mired in its imperialist aggression in Ukraine.  As in Soviet times, territorial lust has blinded Russia to the ...

May 20, 2014

Putin's War on the Internet

In two extraordinary developments this month, former National Security Agency Director General Keith Alexander and former CIA Director of Operations Jack Devine launched all-out assaults on U.S. traitor Edward Snowden, accusing him of being a Russian...

May 13, 2014

Putin and the Dogs of War

The dogs of war were howling at the moon in Vladimir Putin’s Russia last week. You could hear them all the way in California.  And they sounded for all the world just like nuclear bombers. General Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle bro...

May 5, 2014

Putin at Bay

The U.S. government crossed the Twitter Rubicon on April 29, 2014, where the Russian incursion in Ukraine is concerned. It’s a telling indicator of how deranged and malignant Vladimir Putin really is that he has been able to motivate the milque...

April 27, 2014

Russia's Achilles Heels (Plural)

Whenever the horrifyingly precarious fundamentals of the Russian economy are pointed out to its apologists, the response is always the same.  “Russia has low debt and high reserves, so it can weather any storm,” they chant, and the m...

April 23, 2014

A Unified Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok

Over the past month, a stunned world has received its first glimpse of the true reality of neo-Soviet Russia, something I’ve been warning about ever since 2006.  It saw bloodthirsty aggression, and it saw ruthless repression. The big ...

April 17, 2014

How 'Stupid' Is It for Russia to Attack Finland and Sweden?

It’s very disturbing how academics and mainstream media are combining to misreport basic facts about Russian aggression in Ukraine.  Looking at their work, it’s easy to see how Vladimir Putin might imagine he could get away with any ...

April 9, 2014

Inside Vladimir Putin's Skull

In the space of just a few weeks, Vladimir Putin has destroyed his entire reputation in the Western world and all the foreign and domestic policies he has struggled for more than a decade to devise and implement.  What can he possibly be thinkin...

April 2, 2014

Who Was Right on Russia?

Two op-ed columns, one from last week by former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul and one from six years ago by CNN/Newsweek pundit Fareed Zakaria, highlight the mind-boggling failure of left-wing policy on Russia during the Obama administrati...

March 24, 2014

The Crimea 'Referendum': Russia Revealed

It’s shocking how quickly Russia has been revealed before the eyes of the world by its actions in Ukraine as a neo-Soviet dictatorship ruled by a pathologically violent and dishonest maniac.  And it’s equally shocking to see how slow...

March 18, 2014

Is the Right a Fan of Putin?

Americans sometimes forget who their real enemies are.  As some far-right American extremists side with Vladimir Putin’s bloodthirsty incursion into Ukraine, thinking he is somehow a “misunderstood” kindred spirit, a little rev...

March 12, 2014

Uproar at Russia Today

Russia’s invasion of Crimea in Ukraine has had the effect of unmasking the Putin dictatorship before the eyes of the world, and perhaps the institution most breathtakingly exposed has been Putin’s propaganda TV network Russia Today. In...

March 4, 2014

Will Ukraine Send the World into War?

Over the weekend, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Kiev, Ukraine in hopes of averting war between that nation and Russia.  Ukraine was mobilizing its army after Russia illegally seized numerous strategic sites on the Crimean peninsula ...

February 26, 2014

Farewell to Sochi

If you had told me before the Olympic Games opened in Sochi, Russia, two weeks ago that Russia would not only keep the games entirely free of any terrorist events but would also decisively win both the gold and total medal count races, I would have s...

February 24, 2014

'Heroes Never Die'

Just as the mainstream media vastly overestimated the significance of the opposition political movement in Russia, it vastly underestimated the potency of populism in Ukraine, which has exploded in a breathtaking manner in recent days to rewrite Ukra...

February 21, 2014

Russia's Best Olympic Event: Downhill Anti-Americanism

An amazing sequence of shockingly sordid anti-American behavior from the Russians has now permanently tarnished their second attempt to host an Olympic Games. Blessed with an absence of feared terrorist events, the Russians had a golden opportun...

February 17, 2014

The Double-Edged Swords of Sochi

As the first week of the Winter Olympiad in Russia drew to a close, Russia's balance sheet looked rather bleak.  It seemed that every piece of good news, and there were three very impressive high notes, was outnumbered at least five to one ...

February 13, 2014

Sochi vs. Squaw Valley

An interesting analogy can be drawn between the Olympics of 2014 in Sochi, Russia and the Olympics of 1960 in Squaw Valley, California. It's one that leaves Sochi looking rather the worse for wear. Sochi and Squaw Valley share two remarkable similari...

February 10, 2014

An Impoverished, Benighted Quagmire

Is Russia a child, a barbarian, or a fossil? It seems a purely academic question, because no matter what the answer, the consequences are the same: Doom. But still, since this is my 100th column for the American Thinker, on this occasion it is perhap...

February 4, 2014

What's Your Favorite Woody Allen Movie?

It seems Woody Allen has received one too many Oscar nominations. This year's nod, best screenplay for Blue Jasmine, was the straw that broke the camel's back for Dylan Farrow, whom Allen adopted along with Mia Farrow in the 1980s. On February 1, 20...

February 3, 2014

Dishonor at Sochi

If you would like to have a readily accessible glimpse from your armchair into the real neo-Soviet horror that is taking place in Vladimir Putin's Russia these days, you could not do better than perusing an article recently published by Russia Beyond...

January 26, 2014

Obama Vacillates (Again) on Edward Snowden

In yet another astounding act of craven political cowardice last week, the Obama administration began walking back its tough stance on the traitor Edward Snowden.  Even as this happened, three of the highest-ranking Republicans in Congress ...

January 20, 2014

Russia's Economy: The Paper Bear

Last week, a devastating report emerged from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development  (OECD) in Europe to puncture one of the most persistent myths out there about Russia -- namely, that the country's greatest strength lies in ...

January 13, 2014

Can Russia Stop a Terrorist Attack during the Olympics?

The U.S. government issued chilling warnings last week about the risk of bloodshed in Russia during the Olympic games there next month.  A wave of recent terror attacks in Stavropol and Volgograd, two of the most significant Russian metropo...

December 31, 2013

Putin's no-win Situation

Desperate to salvage his pet project of staging the Olympic Games from a public relations nightmare, the Russia dictator Vladimir Putin began releasing numerous political prisoners last week. But even as he did so, an expected wave of terrorist attac...

December 23, 2013

Vladimir Putin and Edward Snowden: Best Buddies

By a margin of two to one or better, Americans believe that Edward Snowden is traitor, not a hero, who did serious damage to, rather than helping, the people of the United States.  Americans do not consider him worthy of amnesty in return f...

December 16, 2013

The Return of Soviet Media

The speed and domestic impunity with which the dictator Vladimir Putin is sovietizing the Russian media is truly breathtaking. Last week it seemed as if Russians woke up in a whole new country, but one which they recognized only too well: the USSR. W...

December 10, 2013

Russia's Great Stagnation

If they were to make a TV show called "The Biggest Loser" about countries instead of fat people, and if the point of the show were to focus on the worst of the worst rather than the best of the worst, the starring role would surely be played by Russi...

December 9, 2013

Snowden's New Tactic

Back in July, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia might give Edward Snowden asylum if he agreed to stop harming the United States, and then Snowden was in fact given asylum. But last week Snowden resumed his attack on his country, releasing document...

December 2, 2013

An Open Invitation to Aggression

Developments last week conclusively established the dire threat posed by Russian nuclear forces to U.S. national security and the even more terrifying risks posed by the craven policies of the Obama administration in responding to that threat. In an ...

November 27, 2013

How Many Times Can Putin Screw Up before the Olympics?

Paranoid, petty, and panicky: that's how Russia has responded to protests against the Kremlin's policies on the environment and on homosexuality.  Russia's conduct reveals not a strong, confident nation, but one that worries it can be toppl...

November 21, 2013

Russia through the Peanut Hole

"Little peanut sittin' on a railroad track, his heart was all a-flutter!Along came a choo-choo train: Toot! Toot! Peanut butter!" You may have heard about Russia's land grab in the Arctic, where the already enormous and unwieldy nation seeks dominion...

November 16, 2013

Russia Flunks Out

See also: Moving Beyond the Cold War without Embracing Putin It's that time of year again, when countries begin to receive their national report cards from the array of international proctors who evaluate their performance across a wide gamut o...

November 9, 2013

Women and the GOP

Once again, conservative Americans have experienced stark disappointment at the polls. One of the biggest reasons for this disappointment is their failure to bring female voters and candidates into their tent. Women voted for Barack Obama in 2012 in ...

October 31, 2013

Welcome to the 'Danger Games'

If Russia's handling of the Olympic torch relay leading up to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi is any indication of what will happen during the event itself, it may not be precaution enough to stay out of Russia. One may need to leave the planet (ju...

October 26, 2013

How does Russia Rate G-8 Membership?

Once again, an avalanche of data has forced the world to ask: What is Russia doing in the G-8? There are no empirical criteria you can name which support Russian membership. It is an outlier, and by most measures in fact a barbarous state, whose pres...

October 17, 2013

Olympic-Level Corruption in Putin's Russia

The one thing nobody can take away from Russia is its ability to surprise.  Every time you think you've seen it all from Russia, the country delivers something more -- often much more.  The only problem is, almost every single surprise is b...

October 11, 2013

Vlad goes to Sochi

Say what you like about the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, no prior Russian ruler has come close to deluging the world with as much English-language propaganda. And as the Sochi Olympics approach, his minions are moving into overdrive. It all start...

October 2, 2013

Putin vs. the Arctic Sunrise

Following the pattern established by the USSR, the despotic regime of proud KGB spy Vladimir Putin has declared war on every aspect of society that does not conform to Putin's bland, homogenized orthodoxy. Homosexuals, artists, opposition political l...

September 25, 2013

A Prize to Remember

Next month, the hand of a dead physicist may well shake the world. In October, the 2013 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought will be announced, and the prize will be awarded at the end of the year in Strasbourg, France. One nominee for the prize is ...

September 13, 2013

Deconstructing Putin

Writing in the New York Times in 1999, Vladimir Putin argued that Russia could bomb Chechnya regardless of what the rest of the world might think. Writing in the same paper in 2013, he has just argued that the United States cannot not bomb Syria unle...

September 8, 2013

U.S. and Russia Trade Barbs on Syria

The poisonous rhetoric flowing out of Russia against the U.S. and U.K. in recent days leaves no doubt about the utter collapse of the Obama "reset" with the Putin dictatorship.  Under the leadership of the man who promised us better relations wi...

September 3, 2013

Sharapova: Poster Child for Russia

Maria Sharapova, the poster child (sometimes literally) for today's Russia, appears to have jumped the rails even as her country does the same. While Vladimir Putin is provoking a new cold war over Snowden and Syria, Sharapova is doing her best to ma...

August 27, 2013

Putin and the New Appeasers

There he goes again. When last we heard from U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a fourth-term Republican of California, he was working feverishly to help U.S.-despising Russian dictator Vladimir Putin deflect blame justifiably coming his way over th...

August 12, 2013

Russia Makes a Fool Out of Obama, Over and Over

The worst has finally happened.  It took much longer than expected -- nearly two thousand days -- but Barack Obama's foreign policy has finally collapsed, leaving Americans to gape slack-jawed at the smoking ruins.  Obama has undermined Ame...

August 2, 2013

Freeing Eddie Snowden

The Neo-Soviet Colossus (with apologies to Emma Lazarus) Not like the mighty woman of American fame,With imprisoned lightning seen from land to land;Here at our blood-washed, gloomy gates shall standA grinning B-lister with palm up, whose nameIs J-l...

July 15, 2013

Obama's Reset Collapses

Has any U.S. foreign policy ever failed as spectacularly as Barack Obama's "reset" policy towards Russia? How is it possible that the policy's architect, Michael McFaul, still has his job as U.S. Ambassador to Moscow? In the Edward Snowden saga, we s...

July 6, 2013

Bowing to Moscow

In March of 2011 Vice President Joe Biden made a two-day visit to Moscow. His purpose was, among other things, to assist Russia's government in gaining admission to the World Trade Organization. Not only didn't Russia pay the U.S. a consulting fee fo...

June 18, 2013

Civilization by the Numbers

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has published the results of a study which evaluates 34 major countries around the world against a set of eleven criteria to produce what OECD calls its Better Life Index (it's a Eurocentric l...

June 11, 2013

Two GOP Turncoats

Last week was an exceptionally ignominious one for Americans who care about the U.S. House of Representatives (granted, an endangered species). Not one but two epic new lows were recorded in that body's tormented history. First, let's talk about the ...

June 3, 2013

Larry King Carrying Soviet Water

Last week was a truly extraordinary one at the borders of the Putin dictatorship.  Passing through the outward-bound turnstiles on a one-way trip into neo-Soviet exile were a trio of dissidents named Sergei Guriev (an economist), Masha Gessen (a...

May 27, 2013

Russia's AIDS Epidemic: It's America's Fault (of Course)

HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) is raging out of control in Vladimir Putin's Russia.  It is perhaps the single most devastating hallmark of the demographic crisis that has his nation by the throat.  Instead of contending with it forthrig...

May 22, 2013

Boston, Benghazi, and Barack

Be careful what you wish for: being re-elected president of the United States is not all beer and skittles. It's called the Second Term Curse.  Watergate.  Iran-Contra.  Lewinsky.  The economy.  These events torpedoed t...

May 11, 2013

Russia Approaching the Breaking Point

An unusually intense barrage of criticism was fired at Vladimir Putin's Russia last week, which is saying something where he's concerned.  Three different highly respected international organizations condemned in the strongest terms his neo-Sovi...

May 10, 2013

Putin Condemned

An unusually intense barrage of criticism was fired at Vladimir Putin's Russia last week, which is saying something where he's concerned. Three different highly-respected international organizations condemned his neo-Soviet crackdown on the press in ...

May 2, 2013

Vladimir Putin and the Boston Bombings

The Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is singing you a siren song, Mr. and Mrs. America, about how you and he are struggling together against global terrorism.  Don't you believe it, though -- not for one neo-Soviet second.  Russia stands wit...

April 11, 2013

The Russian Military and the New Cold War

In 2013, the U.S. military budget fell by 15% while the military budget of the Putin dictatorship in Russia is expected to soar nearly 60% from 2012 to 2015. But according to Putin's English-language propaganda mouthpiece "Russia Beyond the Headlines...

April 7, 2013

Torture Behind the Headlines

If you pick up the hard copy of the Wednesday issue of the New York Times, you will often find within a supplement bought and paid for by the Russian Kremlin and designed to improve Russia's image in the West. It is called "Russia Beyond the Headline...

March 24, 2013

When It Comes to Russia, We Told You So

I started my blog, La Russophobe, in the spring of 2006, just as folks had begun asking questions about Vladimir Putin's future.  His second term was winding down, and one school of thought was that Putin would stay in power forever and take Rus...

March 11, 2013

Putin's Russia: Still an Empire, Still Evil

Last week was the thirtieth anniversary of Ronald Reagan's "Evil Empire" speech before the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando Florida (on March 8, 1983).  Today, Russia is just as evil, and has been governed for an extended period a...

March 1, 2013

Depardieu Heads East

The authorized biographer for Gerard Depardieu referred to his subject as being characterized by "animal-like brutality."  That's the authorized scribe, mind you, for the hulking, apelike Gallic monstrosity. Do you dare to imagine what the unaut...

February 12, 2013

Putin's RuNet Crackdown

Back in December, I wrote about the onset of open warfare on the Internet by the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, helped along with his American enabler Barack Obama. Recent developments indicate a surprisingly bold and rapid escalation of this ...

February 1, 2013

Putin's Russia and the Big Lie

With his nation's economy on the ropes once again due to his gross mismanagement, Vladimir Putin is falling back on a tried-and-true Russian response to bad news: The Big Lie. And he's bringing as many Americans on board as possible to help him carry...

December 28, 2012

The End of 'Reset': Russian Orphans Get the Shaft

This Christmas, Santa Claus delivered what is likely the biggest lump of foreign policy coal that any U.S. president has ever received in his stocking: Barack Obama's "reset" policy with Russia collapsed almost as spectacularly as did the USSR. Whe...

December 12, 2012

Misreporting on Russia

If you pick up the hard copy of the Wednesday issue of the New York Times, you will often find within a supplement bought and paid for by the Russian Kremlin and designed to improve Russia's image in the West. It is called "Russia Beyond the Headline...

December 1, 2012

Putin Cracks Down on Russian Internet

Russia's Vladimir Putin has declared war on the Internet, and not just within his country's own borders. Putin's war may be coming soon to a laptop or smart phone near you. For years we've been told by Putin's apologists that his moves against tradit...

November 20, 2012

A Violent Russia

Russian families are under siege in Vladimir Putin's Russia, and they are getting hit from every conceivable front. Putin's response is the typical Soviet answer: lies and coverup rather than reform. Even state-sponsored propaganda mouthpiece Russia ...

October 23, 2012

A New Iron Curtain

The new Iron Curtain may be descending farther to the east than its predecessor, but it is just as surely descending.  And Barack Obama is no Winston Churchill.  This time, instead of catcalls, the leader of the free world is applauding as ...

October 2, 2012

Obama and Putin

The scope and intensity of the neo-Soviet crackdown now underway in Vladimir Putin's Russia is truly breathtaking to behold, even for those of us who saw it coming.  But even more terrifying is the craven, dishonorable response to that crackdown...

September 24, 2012

Untold Loss: Media Blackout on Military Disaster on Obama's Watch

Under the leadership of Barack H. Obama, though hardly noticed by the pro-Obama mainstream media, the U.S. Marine Corps has suffered its worst air squadron catastrophe since Vietnam, and its prized VMA-211 squadron has taken its worst hit since its d...

September 12, 2012

Russia's Surprising Post-Communist State Ideology Emerges

The apologists for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin have always maintained a two-pronged position when they argue that we should not worry about his aggressive moves to recreate a Soviet state.  First, he has no ideology analogous to Communism, a...

August 18, 2012

New York Times misreports Pussy Riot case

On August 17, 2012, the New York Times reported on the front page of its website that three members of the now-famous all-female Russian group known as "Pussy Riot" had been convicted of hooliganism and sent to prison.  The article was so rife w...

August 6, 2012

Once Again, Elites Think They Know Best

Watch out, Mr. and Mrs. America: Spanish celebrity chef José Andrés and the New York Times are worried about what you have been eating, and they intend to make you change your evil ways.  Luckily for you, however, Andrés is yet one more ignorant...

July 9, 2012

Neo-Soviet Russia Is Another Obama Legacy

Just as America was celebrating the birth of a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, Russia was doing the opposite.  As the current American president continued to turn his back on Amer...

May 5, 2012

Top Russian military man threatens preemptive strike

When Nikolai Makarov was born, the ruler of Russia was Josef Stalin.  Makarov spent his entire life in the Soviet and Russian military, rising through the ranks to ultimately be named, by proud KGB spy Vladimir Putin, head of the Russian army an...

April 22, 2012

Obama Suckering America into Loving Russia

Lies have consequences.  And the lies told by the Obama administration about Russia for the past four years, lies which can be characterized only as Goebbels-like propaganda, have had devastating consequences indeed. Polls show that from the mom...

April 1, 2012

Obama's Russia Policy: Hysterical Ambassadors and Leg-Rubbing between Presidents

Where U.S. policy towards Russia is concerned, March came in like a meek little kitten and went out like a braying jackass. The month started out with President Obama calling Vladimir Putin and congratulating him on his election victory, one which li...

March 19, 2012

Obama, Russia, and Gasoline Prices

The Obama administration has responded to Vladimir Putin's landslide re-election as president of Russia by doubling down on appeasement.  America may never live down the shame, and it will keep on paying through the nose at the gas pump for this...

March 5, 2012

Putin's Victory, With an Obama Assist

For their own crass political gain, our ambassador in Moscow, and our president, have just helped the KGB to consolidate power in Russia. They've turned a blind eye to the Russian efforts to help the maniacal ruler of Syria to butcher his fellow citi...

January 28, 2012

Obama's Love of Neo-Soviet Russia Shines Through in SOTU Address

There he goes again.  President Obama is once again placing Russian interests before American ones in order to placate his Russian friends, in the hopes of scoring cheap election-year PR in the form of "cooperation" from a Russia with which he h...

January 19, 2012

Russia: Re-Elect Obama, or It's World War III

Last week, Americans learned that they are, or soon may be, at war with Vladimir Putin's Russia.  That is, of course, unless they do just exactly what the Kremlin asks, which is pretty simple, really, and consists largely of re-electing Barack H...

December 10, 2011

The Futile Demonstrations in Russia

As he watched a protest demonstration of perhaps 25,000 Russian citizens dissolve into the chilly Moscow night on December 10, 2011, the New York Times Russia correspondent Michael Schwirtz issued a final tweet from his vantage point on the protest s...

November 19, 2011

Russia's Dangerous Implosion

Russia is set to experience a debilitating demographic crisis.  Its population will sicken and drop by one-third, and its dominant Slavic-Orthodox population will dwindle and be surpassed by its Islamic faction.  The consequences of this cr...

October 23, 2011

Michael McFaul: Not Exactly Russian Ambassador Material

The statement read by Michael McFaul to the U.S. Congress at the outset of his confirmation hearings to assume the post of U.S. ambassador to Russia was so full of misleading statements that it might as well have been made by a Russian spy -- or Vlad...

October 3, 2011

He's Back! Putin Gearing Up for His Hundredth Term as President

Well, that's it, then.  Russia has gone completely insane.  If Gordon Hahn has anything to say about it, however, you ain't seen nuthin' yet. Last week, a top figure in the Russian Orthodox Church stated: "This is a genuine example of kin...

September 8, 2011

Yet another Russian air disaster

On September 7, 2011, a Yak-42 passenger jet crashed on takeoff from the airport in Yaroslavl, Russia (northeast of Moscow).  36 of the 37 passengers on board, all members of the Yaroslavl Lokomotiv hockey team of Russia's Kontinental Hockey Lea...

August 30, 2011

Obama's Big Fail on Resetting Russia

Even knowing that Russia is ruled by a proud KGB who despises the USA, and even knowing that America is led by a shameless liar and coward whose "reset" policy is not worth the paper is was printed on, it is still surprising how relentlessly and aggr...

August 15, 2011

Obama's Failed 'Re-set'

The love was flowing fast and furious in Vladimir Putin's Russia last week on the occasion of the 85th birthday of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Russian "president" Dmitry Medvedev got things rolling as he gushed: "Your life is a notable example of s...

August 4, 2011

Russia, Obama, and America the 'Parasite'

Two news reports from August 2, 2011, place the true horror of the Obama presidency into stark relief. First, the world learned that Vladimir Putin had attended the annual convention of his Hitler-Jugend equivalent, Nashi, and boldly declared that th...

July 25, 2011

A Power Struggle in Russia?

Pop quiz: Name the man who has control of Russia's armed forces and interior security forces; participates in formulating and implementing foreign policy and makes proposals for coordinating the work of federal and regional executive bodies in nation...

July 16, 2011

Neo-Soviet Russia crawls back toward darkness

Events in Vladimir Putin's Russia in recent weeks were such that even seeing them reported by unimpeachable sources does not make it easy to believe they occurred. First, Putin instructed his entire cabinet that each of them must contribute a month's...

June 28, 2011

Putin's Russia And Obama's America

The more Vladimir Putin's policies come a cropper in Russia, the harder he cracks down on opposition political forces.  It's not surprising given that Putin is a proud KGB spy; he's just doing what he learned to do in Soviet times. What's surpri...

June 12, 2011

Obama and Russia's descent into tyranny

Russia is an 'entire society' that is becoming 'morally corrupt to the core.' If you think that statement was made by a reckless, rabid, rampaging Russophobe, think again:  It was made by Vladimir Ryzhkov, a fourteen-year veteran of the Russian ...

May 17, 2011

Putin as King Midas

America and the West are being led into a trap set by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, mostly because of the craven, benighted "leadership" of Barack Obama and his foolish Russia policy adviser Michael McFaul.  If the Republican Party ...

March 13, 2011

Helpful Business Advice from the New York Times

If you are the nation's preeminent fast food purveyor, no good deed goes unpunished -- by the New York Times.McDonald's recently introduced a new menu item which it calls "Fruit & Maple Oatmeal." With just 4.5 grams of fat per serving, ...

February 22, 2011

Muslim Separatists Plan Bloodbath for 2014 Sochi Olympics

Ignoring repeated and unmistakable warnings, President Obama still intends to allow American athletes to walk into what can only be called the meat grinder of the 2014 Olympic Games. It's time to ask whether the U.S. President has lost his mind or, w...

February 9, 2011

Obama, Russia, and Trust

For years now, those who would defend the neo-Soviet regime of Vladimir Putin have been telling us that, come hell or high water, it was impossible for Russia to go back to the bad old days of the USSR.  We just needed to give Russia time, we we...

January 21, 2011

BP's Russian Gambit

Oil major BP has announced another foray into the Russian market despite being burned many times in the past by Russia's fundamental corruption.  It should reconsider. Both the empirical facts and basic morality dictate disengagement from the Ru...

December 29, 2010

Moscow's Blizzard/New York's Blizzard

Just after Christmas, both New York City and Moscow, Russia faced blizzard conditions, and their airports were shut down.  But even though New York is far less familiar with winter emergencies, the lights stayed on in the Big Apple's airports.In...

December 15, 2010

From Bad to Worse in Russia

Once again, the Russian government is moving rapidly to arrest and imprison a prominent regime critic who is calling boldly for an end to corruption.  And the appalling cowardice of Barack Obama is greasing the Russians' skids.On October 8, 2010...

November 18, 2010

New York Times with Obama to the Bitter End

The Obama administration is coming apart at the seams, with only the most recklessly dishonest of its partisans, among them New York Times reporters, left to defend it. The devil, you know, is in the details.On September 13, 2010, for instance, First...

September 26, 2010

Strange Coziness with neo-Soviet Russia

"Josef Stalin of Russia and Adolf Hitler of Germany signed two Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) [sic] outlining their military relationship that notes shared threats and similar challenges as also placing defense cooperation as a cornerstone ...

August 1, 2010

Brave Russian Dissident Ignored by Obama White House

A brave soul speaking truth to power in Russia was just arrested for blowing the lid off corruption there. But President Obama is not lifting a finger to help democracy and liberty take root in Russian soil.  Two years ago, I wrote about an acad...

April 13, 2010

Obama's Kyrgyzstan Disaster

The irony was truly spectacular, reaching that special level that only matters involving neo-Soviet Russia and U.S. President Barack Obama can attain.On the very same day that the Miami Herald quoted an anonymous "senior Obama administration off...

April 5, 2010

Obama's Russian Disaster

The point of President Barack Obama's much-ballyhooed "reset" of relations with Vladimir Putin's Russia was simple: Get Russia to stop supporting American enemies and use its influence to reduce the threat of nuclear terror being rained dow...

March 17, 2010

Neo-Soviet Russia and America

A revolution is brewing in Vladimir Putin's Russia. The chickens of his incompetence and shameless artifice are finally coming home to roost. Now, he has only neo-Soviet brutality to fall back upon. How long that will maintain him, only the like...

March 5, 2010

Obama Is Bungling Russia

The tsunami of political devastation known as Barack Obama continues to wreak havoc abroad, both for American interests specifically and the cause of freedom and democracy generally (the two are often, happily, one and the same).The disastrous conseq...

February 13, 2010

The Ambassador and His Twitter Account

Relying upon the unfettered ego of public figures and the sense of anonymity offered by the internet, the online messaging system Twitter is proving itself a valuable, if sometimes disconcerting, means of gathering insight into the psyche of powerful...

December 8, 2009

Putin's Own Worst Enemy

Pound for political pound, Russian "prime minister" Vladimir Putin may well be the most powerful human being on this planet. Yet he may still be brought down by the inevitable corruption of power.Though he is no longer even officially ...

December 1, 2009

Putin's Folly

Recently, in separate incidents over the course of a single week, three Russian citizens died while in police custody. Two were brutally beaten to death by cops, the third even more savagely tortured to death by being denied medical treatment for a c...

October 29, 2009

Lord of War

No Hollywood scriptwriter could come up with a protagonist more colorful and chilling than Victor A. Bout of Russia. You can come across all sorts of wild and fanciful statements on the Internet just by surfing at random. But if you spent the next ce...

September 30, 2009

Re-imposing totalitarian information control in Russia

The internet, Russia's last source of information free of state control is now under threat. Seizing  control of internet freedom could be the next step in the re-imposition of totalitarianism in  Russia.Over the past decade, while proud KG...

August 30, 2009

Spinning for Russia

Russia is aggressively trying to spin the invasion of a tiny neighbor Georgia for the purpose of annexing its territory and intimidating its anti-Russian government into doing the Kremlin's bidding or, failing that, to promote domestic insurrection a...

July 16, 2009

Another political assasination in Russia

When internationally known Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was shot and killed outside her apartment in Moscow in October 2007, prize-winning reporter Natalya Estemirova was there to pick up her fallen flag and carry on.  Now, the world mu...

July 13, 2009

Obama's Failed Mission to Moscow

In his visit to Moscow late last week, President Obama tried to satisfy all sides, and accomplished nothing other than sounding good in the moment and feeling good about himself. Americans have seen this sort of personality type before.In his immorta...

July 7, 2009

Obama in Russia

Things are getting very hot in Vladimir Putin's kitchenski.  Visiting Russia July 6-8, Barack Obama should make sure the precious energy being created doesn't go to waste.A few weeks ago, a massive protest by unpaid aluminum industry workers in ...

June 22, 2009

Caucasus Unrest Threatens 2014 Olympics

In less than ten days, between June 5th and 13th of this year, three high-ranking local officials in Russia's Caucasus region were assassinated.First came Adilgerei Magomedtagirov, the Interior Minister of Dagestan.  Next was Supreme Court judge...

May 19, 2009

The Caucasus Tinder Box

The ominous storm clouds of war are gathering once again over tiny, besieged Georgia have shed their first droplets of conflict. On May 13th, Russia stood alone against the entire Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in order to veto a...

May 9, 2009

Russia and the NYT

A May 2nd analysis piece from New York Times Russia correspondent Clifford Levy highlighted the paper's hopeless inability to offer readers real insights about Vladimir Putin's neo-Soviet regime.  As the paper attempts to carry out a demented ef...

May 2, 2009

Obama and Russia

One hundred days into his first term, President Barack Obama has now held formal televised news conferences in each of this first three months in office (February 9th,  March 24th and April 29th). Shockingly, despite famously proclaiming a desir...

April 26, 2009

Putin panicking on Russian economy

Most educated people understand two simple facts about central banks.  They can increase or decrease the national money supply by raising or lowering the "discount rate" they charge banks to borrow from the treasury, and they need to b...

April 20, 2009

Russia seeking provocation in Georgia

Early in the morning of April 16th, Georgian Interior Ministry agents arrested a young Russian man named Alexander Kuznetsov in the Georgian city of Gori.  Kuznetsov had crossed into the disputed territory of South Ossetia a few days earlier, wi...

April 13, 2009

Russia goes from bad to worse

Two frightening events last week showed the unbridled contempt with which the neo-Soviet regime of proud KGB spy Vladimir Putin views the rule of law.First, a Russian court in Siberia entered a $1.7 billion judgment against the Norwegian telecommunic...

March 26, 2009

Russia sliding toward tyranny

Something unusual happened a few days ago to Vladmir Putin's party of power, known as "United Russia," which dominates Russia's national parliament and faces no credible opposition there.It lost an election, lost it in a landslide.The poll ...

January 22, 2009

A Inconvenient Man Dies in Russia

Suppose that during Bill Clinton's two terms as president Ken Starr, Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter, Newt Gingrich and five other prominent Clinton critics had all been shot and killed, in gangland-style contract hits. Suppose that Clinton had maintaine...

January 10, 2009

Resurgent Racism in Russia

On Friday December 5, 2008, 18-year-old African-American Stanley Robinson of Providence, Rhode Island was waiting at a bus stop in the city of Volgograd, Russia (formerly Stalingrad).  It was about six in the evening.  Robinson was three mo...