Illustrations by Stephanie Mannheim In Russia’s parliamentary elections on December 4, 2011, United Russia – the party of President-turned-Prime Minister-turned-current-President Vladimir Putin – won the majority of seats in the Duma, the Russian Parliament, amid cries (and video evidence) of widespread election fraud. On December 5, Russians took to the streets in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Over the course of the next three months, tens of tho...
...’s growth for 200 years at current rates of consumption. The Arctic is the new Mediterranean; the 21st century is the Arctic Century. In 1472, when Ivan the Great married Sophia Palaiologina, the destiny of the Grand Duchy of Moscow changed overnight. By marrying the niece of Constantine XI, the last Byzantine Emperor, Moscow became, in the eyes of the Muscovite elite, the “third Rome” – the one and only recipient of the Roman Empire’s heritage....
...lobal players do not have the ability to tap into their domestic resources. Either because of political issues, such as the power of the green lobbies in Europe and Australia; because of pure hegemonic grand strategies, as in Moscow and Beijing; or because of a simple lack of both conventional and unconventional oil resources, particularly in New Zealand, South Korea, and Japan, these countries are looking for outside ways to be more energy-indep...
...f the players’ backgrounds. Excellent play on the field provides a reason to respect all the individual players and components of the team, just as fans love the team itself. After having the enjoyable experience of living in Moscow for the entire tournament, I mistakenly suspected the same thing for Russia with their ubiquitous “Charge Russia” chants. (Russians are also big fans of the triptych “Ros-si-ya” chant, similar to “U-S-A.”) However, al...
photo of 2006 P5+1 Meeting from Wikimedia Commons Last week, the second round of the seminal P5+1 (the US, the UK, France, Russia, and China plus Germany) talks surrounding Iranian uranium enrichment concluded in Baghdad. The powers had met with Iran in April in Istanbul and plan to commune a final time in late June in Moscow. In classic fashion, and altogether unsurprisingly, the outcome of the Baghdad talks seems inconclusive and vague: Russi...
In light of the new round of talks with Iran that began yesterday in Moscow, former ambassador and United States diplomat Dennis Ross published a short piece in The New Republic that suggests that the P5+1, a coalition of the five members of the UN security council and Germany, who are joined in diplomatic efforts related to Iran’s nuclear program, adopt a new strategy in their negotiations. “The Iranian nuclear program is approaching what the I...
Historically, the Olympics have been a hotbed of diplomatic hostilities. In response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Jimmy Carter announced that the U.S. would be boycotting the Moscow Olympics in 1980. Four years later, the Soviets announced their retaliation-boycott of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, on the allegation that the U.S. government would not sufficiently protect U.S.S.R. athletes and may even actively harm them. Both...
...the 19th century. “He operated successfully as a reporter and rose rapidly within the Foreign Service,” Gaddis said of Kennan’s early career. Kennan then developed a foxlike enterprise, adapting to work with Avril Harriman in Moscow from 1942-46. He was incredibly astute and warned his superiors early on that the Soviets would not be peacetime allies. To his frustration, these warnings were merely sent to file. Gaddis added that Kennan’s break ca...
...ill have been either prime minister or president for nineteen straight years. In response to Putin’s decision to return to the presidency and the fraud of the December Duma elections, a large protest movement, based mostly in Moscow, has sprung up in the urban middle class. Whether this protest movement has any bearing on Sunday’s elections is yet to be seen. While the protest movement is certainly indicative of a slide in Putin’s approval rating...
The pose is almost menacing. Two penetrating, steel-blue eyes gaze downward at the viewer, the mouth calm but clenched. Russian president Vladimir Putin, Time’s 2007 Person of the Year, projects a threatening image in the magazine’s cover shot. The same could be said about Russia’s current image in the West. Western observers have decried Moscow’s silencing of opposition leaders and state control of the press, as well as Russia’s use of its natu...
Follow us at
Like us on
Recent Comments