Next president can cope with Putin redux and China’s sinister rise … if his name is not Obama

Next president can cope with Putin redux and China’s sinister rise … if his name is not Obama

Lev Navrozov “China Builds the Bomb” is the title of a 327-page book written by two American nuclear scientists and published in 1988. I bought this book as soon as it hit the bookstores. Indeed, the book invited the readers to pay special attention to Chapter “China’s Nuclear Weapons Tests, 1964-1978” (pp. 244-245). Quite a […]

Regime security, not national security, is dominant priority in Beijing and Moscow

Regime security, not national security, is dominant priority in Beijing and Moscow

Sol W. Sanders Minxin Pei, the most original of current Sinologists, makes the point authoritarian/totalitarian regimes inherently prioritize requirements for protecting regime leaders over long-term national interest. To preserve the former’s power, they sacrifice the latter’s needs. In the process, they encourage breakdown in the world order. Beijing is now demonstrating the phenomenon in spades. […]

World waits for someone to do something, and then waits some more

World waits for someone to do something, and then waits some more

Sol W. Sanders Looking around the world, the striking characteristic is waiting out a number of crises. Their outcome seems almost artificially suspended, and their interaction on one another and their ultimate effect on the world is at issue. We start with the Euro. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s supplications in Beijing were perhaps laudable but a […]

2012: What a year and it’s just starting!

2012: What a year and it’s just starting!

John J. Metzler NEW YORK — It’s once again time to peer into the foggy crystal ball and try to decipher the future political trends and events. Indeed, after the roller-coaster year of 2011, it’s hard to imagine that 2012 could hold some equally disquieting social, political and economic turmoil. But few predicted the sweeping […]

Mikhail Prokhorov, man of mystery

Mikhail Prokhorov, man of mystery

Lev Navrozov Who is Mikhail Prokhorov? His is not an unfamiliar name to American sports fans. A Russian billionaire entrepreneur, he became the owner of the American basketball team the New Jersey Nets in 2010: “A Russian tycoon with a longstanding passion for basketball agreed to a $200 million deal … that will make him […]

Unreported: Putin’s six million guaranteed votes

Unreported: Putin’s six million guaranteed votes

Lev Navrozov By the autumn of 1917, Russia had become, culturally, a free society. The Russian 19th-century prose was intensely read in all culturally advanced countries, Chekhov’s plays were staged, several composers were considered classical, Chaliapin’s voice was admired… Now, since the autumn of 1917, Lenin, who was only for a short time in power, […]

Not satire: Putin wins ‘Confucius Peace Prize’ for Chechen War

Not satire: Putin wins ‘Confucius Peace Prize’ for Chechen War

John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — George Orwell would have laughed at the very notion. Russian Premier Vladimir Putin has won a curiously-awarded Peace Prize for his military attack on Chechnya in 1999, and his “iron hand and toughness” in dealing with separatists near and far, the old fashioned way. For his bellicose actions, Putin […]

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