in my early business career, I had experience in commodity markets. Very early in the war (ny March 8), I picked up on how US economic warfare against Russia through sanctions was backfiring in the form of much higher commodity prices and trade surpluses for Russia: https://twitter.com/search?q=exports%20(from%3Aclimateaudit)&src=typed_query&f=live
There's an amazing lack of knowledge about Russia among Americans, coupled with a lack of curiosity. Historical, economic, cultural. Most of America has clung to Cold War ideas of Russia with a frankly jingoistic view of our role as World Cop. Very interesting thread.
in the 1950s and early 1960s, I don't recall the same sort of almost racist anti-Russianism as we see today. While there was fierce anti-Communism, there was considerable respect for Russian literature (Pasternak's Dr Zhivago was a sensation; Solzhenitsyn), ballet, mathematics, whereas, for example, Strzok and Lisa Page, had nothing but contempt for Russians as a people and civilization. The transition from anti-Communism to anti-Russian racism seems not insignificant to me, and, of course, to have a disturbing historical precedent.
In the most critical point of the Cold War, Kennedy and Khrushchev maintained contact. Indeed, Khrushchev even traveled through US after Kennedy and he defused the crisis. Can you imagine anything comparable happening today? And yet the ideological basis of the Cold War conflict has totally disappeared. The more one reflects on it, the stranger it seems.
True. I was quite struck by the ignorant tweets between Strzok/Page in that regard--they appeared to have as much contempt for Russians as people as they had for Americans outside the Beltway. Perhaps they thought the smell was similar. The attitude isn't dissimilar to Neocons like Kristol advocating for getting a new population for the US, ditching the Deplorables.
When I was working Soviet CI in the NYO in the mid 80s I don't recall that same anti-Russian animus--more, as you say, anti-Communism. I knew quite a few agents who were fluent in Russian and steeped in Russian history/culture. I suspect that the transition came with a certain triumphalism in the wake of the Cold War and the rise of the Neocons beginning under the Clintons. Prior to the Clintons the old timers like Papa Bush were distrustful of Neocons and even warned Dubya against them. Papa Bush's "Chicken Kiev" speech, widely ridiculed by Neocons, signaled the change and the ascendancy of the Neocons, who really did have a specifically anti-Russian animus, unlike the prior FP establishment people like Papa Bush, Kennan, etc. It may be that the demise of the USSR was simplistically sold as proof that the Neocons had been right all along, raising their prestige.
"It may be that the demise of the USSR was simplistically sold as proof that the Neocons had been right all along, raising their prestige."
Jack Matlock, the Reagan era ambassador to Soviet Union, who was at the table with Reagan and Gorbachev - and who seems to me to be an acute observer and fine person - has vehemently criticized Neocon triumphalism as unhistorical. Matlock says that end of Cold War arose from brave internal Russian democracy movement, not from US military spending. Matlock said that claiming the end of Cold War as a triumph of military spending has been a disservice to democracies in both Russia and US. I watched the video of Matlock and McFaul testify to House Foreign Affairs in June 2016 - it was appalling. The congressmen obsequiously lathered praise and encomiums on belligerent and ignorant McFaul, while ignoring the truly wise Matlock.
If you want another perspective to understand better what happened to Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union, and how Vladimir Putin eventually came to power, look carefully at the events of the Yeltsin interregnum, and, in particular, at the actions of a handful of American 'opportunists' who travelled to Russia to cash in on the chaos that followed Gorbachev and Reagan's accomplishment.
For one, David Browder's controversial activities in Russia are very instructive. As an investor during the time of chaos he made millions in Russia. He later lost millions and ended up seeking substantial tax refunds from the Russian government, which may or may not have been justified. This led to the Magnitsky debacle, where Putin and his government were accused by Browder of murdering his accountant, Sergei Magnitsky in prison, where he was being held for making fraudulent tax refund claims. Browder was Magnitsky's champion and his claims have led to the passage of numerous 'Magnitsky Acts' around the world, which place governmental sanctions against foreign individuals who have committed human rights abuses or been involved in significant corruption. Yet, it is very debatable whether Magnitsky was wrongfully charged by the Russian government and whether Browder was not deeply corrupt himself. The best evidence I've found of Browder's likely corruption is in a documentary called The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes, which tells a very different story. You can find the film at: https://magnitskyact.com/#rec77681968. It is well worth putting some time aside to watch if you want to better appreciate where Putin might be coming from in his approach to the United States.
Another useful primer in better understanding US - Russian relations as they developed in the 1990s is David McClintock's superb 2006 article in the Institutional Investor titled 'How Harvard Lost Russia'. Here's a link: https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b150npp3q49x7w/how-harvard-lost-russia. The article describes the fraudulent activities of a Harvard economics professor named Andrei Schleifer who went to Russia to find fame and fortune. Don't overlook that Schleifer's mentor at Harvard was one Lawrence Summers, the one-time US Treasury secretary and Harvard president.
It is no giant leap for me to see in Browder's and Schleifer's actions a pattern of fraud, corruption and greed that nearly destroyed the new Russian state and in which activities they were hardly alone. One result was the ascendancy of Putin which, I would submit, can be much better understood in light of what came before.
Strzok was a college classmate. The educational opportunity definitely was there...no excuse for that ignorance.
Like your NYO colleagues, the motivation for many of us specializing in Soviet/Russian/Eastern European studies was fundamentally anti-Communist, i.e., to absorb as much as we could about the languages, histories, cultures, etc. as part of an increasingly-promising push to finally topple tyranny in Eastern Europe. With that "mission" largely accomplished before graduation, I opted to go "commercial" (rather than State/CIA) with that background, and had a nice run (and made some great friends) practicing transactional law in Moscow before everything went south financially in the late '90s/early '00s.
It disgusts me that we've abandoned all nuance and genuine expertise in our dealings with Russia--make a reasonable suggestion based on real understanding of a situation, get branded "anti-American" and "pro-Putin." I am the LAST of those things, I assure you.
in Canada, the hockey series against Soviet Union and Red Army teams in the 1970s were milestones in our national culture and had the greatly beneficial result of demystifying both sides to one another. Almost everyone in Canada watched or listened to the 1972 series. There's never been any subsequent athletic event even remotely comparable in our culture. I can still name 10 or so Russian players on that team. Since then - at least until current Trudeau regime - I think that Canadians have been much more phlegmatic about Russia than US. However, Trudeau's deputy PM, Crystia Freeland, is of Ukrainian (Nazi) background and a total Ukrainian zealot, so Canada, if anything, has been more militant than US in Ukraine (at least until the $40 billion), even though the linguistic division in Ukraine is something that Canada could give helpful diplomacy, rather than the subjugation imposed by Kyiv regime.
Ha! I was still in Milwaukee for Lake Placid Olypmics. We were all riveted to the TV, but it seems to me that the great thrill was for an underdog team beating the favorites. Also, a bit of a revelation in that US born players were on that team, rather than Canadian imports. I can only recall Vladimir Tretyak. But that started an era of Soviet Bloc (also Swedish and Finnish) imports to the NHL. There was great admiration for Russian skaters, as well.
I'm just waiting for BlackRock to come out with an iShares ETF for Russia. Maybe they could call it the "Great Patriotic Fund." That would appeal both to patriotic Americans and Russians. This ETF would be invested in various metals and natural resources, commodities, fertilizer, energy, Russian government bonds, and the "Rubble." In short, all things that will hold up well during a prolonged U.S. recession. When BlackRock comes out with this fund we will know both that the Ukraine war is over and that the U.S. has met its economic Waterloo.
Totally off topic, but is anyone else as tired as I am of Bill Bart’s self-aggrandizing? This guy was in a position to make a huge difference and actually put a stop to a lot of the stuff that was going on during his tenure as AG, but he chose to do N O T H I N G. Now he is everywhere trying to convince us what a stand up guy he is and how outraged he is by what went down. Does he really think that we are that stupid and uninformed?
His colossal gall is breathtaking!
It’ll be a cold day in Hell before I see him as anything but a self-serving bureaucrat who displayed cowardice when courage was required. Pathetic.
Bill Barr’s impersonation of Patrick Henry,
“Give me liberty, or hey, maybe we can work something out.”
In one sense he’s not. However, as AG he had greater authority than the average bureaucrat and his failure to act inflicted much greater damage to the country. For my money, the standard is the greater the authority the greater responsibility for your actions.
My theory is that Barr's mission was to save the office of the presidency from being destroyed by the IC and to save the IC from the self-destruction it was heading toward with its overreach.
Viewed in that light, it starts to make sense how he was "helping Trump." He was helping the Office. But he limited his efforts to the minimum necessary, which reflects his commitment to the Establishment - notice how he would release just enough info about Flynn's case to get it dismissed (LOL), but not enough to outrage the general population over the methods and behavior of the FBI.
Zhou's approval rating fell to 36 percent in a Reuters-Ipsos poll released Tuesday, marking its lowest point to date in that particular poll.
The poll found Biden’s approval rating fell 6 percentage points from a week earlier, and it dropped from 76 percent to 72 percent among Democrats in that same span.
in my early business career, I had experience in commodity markets. Very early in the war (ny March 8), I picked up on how US economic warfare against Russia through sanctions was backfiring in the form of much higher commodity prices and trade surpluses for Russia: https://twitter.com/search?q=exports%20(from%3Aclimateaudit)&src=typed_query&f=live
There's an amazing lack of knowledge about Russia among Americans, coupled with a lack of curiosity. Historical, economic, cultural. Most of America has clung to Cold War ideas of Russia with a frankly jingoistic view of our role as World Cop. Very interesting thread.
in the 1950s and early 1960s, I don't recall the same sort of almost racist anti-Russianism as we see today. While there was fierce anti-Communism, there was considerable respect for Russian literature (Pasternak's Dr Zhivago was a sensation; Solzhenitsyn), ballet, mathematics, whereas, for example, Strzok and Lisa Page, had nothing but contempt for Russians as a people and civilization. The transition from anti-Communism to anti-Russian racism seems not insignificant to me, and, of course, to have a disturbing historical precedent.
In the most critical point of the Cold War, Kennedy and Khrushchev maintained contact. Indeed, Khrushchev even traveled through US after Kennedy and he defused the crisis. Can you imagine anything comparable happening today? And yet the ideological basis of the Cold War conflict has totally disappeared. The more one reflects on it, the stranger it seems.
True. I was quite struck by the ignorant tweets between Strzok/Page in that regard--they appeared to have as much contempt for Russians as people as they had for Americans outside the Beltway. Perhaps they thought the smell was similar. The attitude isn't dissimilar to Neocons like Kristol advocating for getting a new population for the US, ditching the Deplorables.
When I was working Soviet CI in the NYO in the mid 80s I don't recall that same anti-Russian animus--more, as you say, anti-Communism. I knew quite a few agents who were fluent in Russian and steeped in Russian history/culture. I suspect that the transition came with a certain triumphalism in the wake of the Cold War and the rise of the Neocons beginning under the Clintons. Prior to the Clintons the old timers like Papa Bush were distrustful of Neocons and even warned Dubya against them. Papa Bush's "Chicken Kiev" speech, widely ridiculed by Neocons, signaled the change and the ascendancy of the Neocons, who really did have a specifically anti-Russian animus, unlike the prior FP establishment people like Papa Bush, Kennan, etc. It may be that the demise of the USSR was simplistically sold as proof that the Neocons had been right all along, raising their prestige.
"It may be that the demise of the USSR was simplistically sold as proof that the Neocons had been right all along, raising their prestige."
Jack Matlock, the Reagan era ambassador to Soviet Union, who was at the table with Reagan and Gorbachev - and who seems to me to be an acute observer and fine person - has vehemently criticized Neocon triumphalism as unhistorical. Matlock says that end of Cold War arose from brave internal Russian democracy movement, not from US military spending. Matlock said that claiming the end of Cold War as a triumph of military spending has been a disservice to democracies in both Russia and US. I watched the video of Matlock and McFaul testify to House Foreign Affairs in June 2016 - it was appalling. The congressmen obsequiously lathered praise and encomiums on belligerent and ignorant McFaul, while ignoring the truly wise Matlock.
@Stephen McIntyre
@Mark Wauck
et al.
If you want another perspective to understand better what happened to Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union, and how Vladimir Putin eventually came to power, look carefully at the events of the Yeltsin interregnum, and, in particular, at the actions of a handful of American 'opportunists' who travelled to Russia to cash in on the chaos that followed Gorbachev and Reagan's accomplishment.
For one, David Browder's controversial activities in Russia are very instructive. As an investor during the time of chaos he made millions in Russia. He later lost millions and ended up seeking substantial tax refunds from the Russian government, which may or may not have been justified. This led to the Magnitsky debacle, where Putin and his government were accused by Browder of murdering his accountant, Sergei Magnitsky in prison, where he was being held for making fraudulent tax refund claims. Browder was Magnitsky's champion and his claims have led to the passage of numerous 'Magnitsky Acts' around the world, which place governmental sanctions against foreign individuals who have committed human rights abuses or been involved in significant corruption. Yet, it is very debatable whether Magnitsky was wrongfully charged by the Russian government and whether Browder was not deeply corrupt himself. The best evidence I've found of Browder's likely corruption is in a documentary called The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes, which tells a very different story. You can find the film at: https://magnitskyact.com/#rec77681968. It is well worth putting some time aside to watch if you want to better appreciate where Putin might be coming from in his approach to the United States.
Another useful primer in better understanding US - Russian relations as they developed in the 1990s is David McClintock's superb 2006 article in the Institutional Investor titled 'How Harvard Lost Russia'. Here's a link: https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b150npp3q49x7w/how-harvard-lost-russia. The article describes the fraudulent activities of a Harvard economics professor named Andrei Schleifer who went to Russia to find fame and fortune. Don't overlook that Schleifer's mentor at Harvard was one Lawrence Summers, the one-time US Treasury secretary and Harvard president.
It is no giant leap for me to see in Browder's and Schleifer's actions a pattern of fraud, corruption and greed that nearly destroyed the new Russian state and in which activities they were hardly alone. One result was the ascendancy of Putin which, I would submit, can be much better understood in light of what came before.
Tx. I did read that article but it's always good to be reminded. I'll bookmark it this time around.
Do you happen to have a link?
Strzok was a college classmate. The educational opportunity definitely was there...no excuse for that ignorance.
Like your NYO colleagues, the motivation for many of us specializing in Soviet/Russian/Eastern European studies was fundamentally anti-Communist, i.e., to absorb as much as we could about the languages, histories, cultures, etc. as part of an increasingly-promising push to finally topple tyranny in Eastern Europe. With that "mission" largely accomplished before graduation, I opted to go "commercial" (rather than State/CIA) with that background, and had a nice run (and made some great friends) practicing transactional law in Moscow before everything went south financially in the late '90s/early '00s.
It disgusts me that we've abandoned all nuance and genuine expertise in our dealings with Russia--make a reasonable suggestion based on real understanding of a situation, get branded "anti-American" and "pro-Putin." I am the LAST of those things, I assure you.
The fact that you feel the need to offer "assurances" of that sort says a lot about the current situation.
in Canada, the hockey series against Soviet Union and Red Army teams in the 1970s were milestones in our national culture and had the greatly beneficial result of demystifying both sides to one another. Almost everyone in Canada watched or listened to the 1972 series. There's never been any subsequent athletic event even remotely comparable in our culture. I can still name 10 or so Russian players on that team. Since then - at least until current Trudeau regime - I think that Canadians have been much more phlegmatic about Russia than US. However, Trudeau's deputy PM, Crystia Freeland, is of Ukrainian (Nazi) background and a total Ukrainian zealot, so Canada, if anything, has been more militant than US in Ukraine (at least until the $40 billion), even though the linguistic division in Ukraine is something that Canada could give helpful diplomacy, rather than the subjugation imposed by Kyiv regime.
Ha! I was still in Milwaukee for Lake Placid Olypmics. We were all riveted to the TV, but it seems to me that the great thrill was for an underdog team beating the favorites. Also, a bit of a revelation in that US born players were on that team, rather than Canadian imports. I can only recall Vladimir Tretyak. But that started an era of Soviet Bloc (also Swedish and Finnish) imports to the NHL. There was great admiration for Russian skaters, as well.
I'm just waiting for BlackRock to come out with an iShares ETF for Russia. Maybe they could call it the "Great Patriotic Fund." That would appeal both to patriotic Americans and Russians. This ETF would be invested in various metals and natural resources, commodities, fertilizer, energy, Russian government bonds, and the "Rubble." In short, all things that will hold up well during a prolonged U.S. recession. When BlackRock comes out with this fund we will know both that the Ukraine war is over and that the U.S. has met its economic Waterloo.
Totally off topic, but is anyone else as tired as I am of Bill Bart’s self-aggrandizing? This guy was in a position to make a huge difference and actually put a stop to a lot of the stuff that was going on during his tenure as AG, but he chose to do N O T H I N G. Now he is everywhere trying to convince us what a stand up guy he is and how outraged he is by what went down. Does he really think that we are that stupid and uninformed?
His colossal gall is breathtaking!
It’ll be a cold day in Hell before I see him as anything but a self-serving bureaucrat who displayed cowardice when courage was required. Pathetic.
Bill Barr’s impersonation of Patrick Henry,
“Give me liberty, or hey, maybe we can work something out.”
How is he any different from any other career bureaucrat?
In one sense he’s not. However, as AG he had greater authority than the average bureaucrat and his failure to act inflicted much greater damage to the country. For my money, the standard is the greater the authority the greater responsibility for your actions.
My theory is that Barr's mission was to save the office of the presidency from being destroyed by the IC and to save the IC from the self-destruction it was heading toward with its overreach.
Viewed in that light, it starts to make sense how he was "helping Trump." He was helping the Office. But he limited his efforts to the minimum necessary, which reflects his commitment to the Establishment - notice how he would release just enough info about Flynn's case to get it dismissed (LOL), but not enough to outrage the general population over the methods and behavior of the FBI.
Revelations about the elite from Epstein? No way.
A second term for Trump? Over his dead body.
By ignoring the election fraud Barr, went beyond the bare minimum.
Barr was a Bushie / uniparty plant. He was / is more about saving the institution’s reputations, than cleaning them up.
Seems plausible. Would explain a lot.
Thumbs up on that TD!
Zhou's approval rating fell to 36 percent in a Reuters-Ipsos poll released Tuesday, marking its lowest point to date in that particular poll.
The poll found Biden’s approval rating fell 6 percentage points from a week earlier, and it dropped from 76 percent to 72 percent among Democrats in that same span.
LOL! I just meant till I left the house for my medical procedure.