Monday, February 19, 2018

Richard Sakwa: The Key Challenge for Russia is to Avoid Inflicting Damage on Itself – Rethinking Russia

Rethinking Russia sat down with University of Kent’s Professor Richard Sakwa to discuss his new book Russia Against The Rest, its relations with the West, its role in a new world order as well as its greatest challenges in 2018.
Richard Sakwa is on the level of Stephen F. Cohen and Paul Robinson as a Russian analyst — worth saying attention to.

Rethinking Russia
Richard Sakwa: The Key Challenge for Russia is to Avoid Inflicting Damage on Itself – Rethinking Russia
Interviewed by Pavel Koshkin

See also

Consortium News
Mutually Assured Contempt at 2018 Munich Security ConferenceGilbert Doctorow | European Coordinator of The American Committee for East West Accord Ltd.

4 comments:

lastgreek said...

A bit off topic, Tom, but important:

"Syrian Kurdish official - deal for Syrian army to enter Afrin"

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-mideast-crisis-syria-turkey/syrian-kurdish-official-deal-for-syrian-army-to-enter-afrin-idUKKCN1G20QD

No surprise since it was only a matter of time before the US was to betray, yet again, the Kurds.

Tom Hickey said...

@lastgreek

Syrian Arabs and Kurds against Turkish incursion into Syria.

lastgreek said...

That is what I meant to say, Tom. The Kurds realized that the US would once again choose Turkey over them, and that is why they struck a deal with the Syrian Arabs (remains to be seen of course).

By the way did you read David Graeber's recent article on Juan Cole?

"Manufactured ignorance: The strange case of Juan Cole and the Kurdish Freedom Movement, and the International Liberal Intelligentsia"

...Cole seems to share an instinctual sympathy for “moderate Islamist” strongmen, and an equally instinctual antipathy to anyone in his chosen area of study who purports to share his own left-wing commitments.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in his limitless animus against Turkey’s Kurdish Worker’s Party, or PKK, and any other element of the larger Kurdish Freedom Movement of which the PKK is a part.


http://www.focaalblog.com/2018/02/16/david-graeber-manufactured-ignorance/#sthash.4oJ3ObTz.dpuf

You know, the mere mention in the comments section of Cole's blog of the illegal Turkish occupation of Cyprus results in the removal of said comment.

Tom Hickey said...

Thanks, I was not aware of Graeber on Cole.