Winston Churchill

Give it up, Psmithe

Economic historian Gregory Clark, a Glaswegian now at UC Davis, has been extending a main channel of British science into the 21st Century. His new book, The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility is another milestone in the revitalization of the human sciences after their ...

But Is It Good for the Gays?

Young Jewish Man: "€œIs there a proper blessing for the Czar?"€ Rabbi: "€œA blessing for the Czar? Of course! May God bless and keep the Czar… far away from us!"€ Fiddler on the Roof As Enoch Powell noted, "€œThe supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable ...

Half a Loaf

William Goldman's fantasy tale The Princess Bride made famous the saying “never get involved in a land war in Asia” (it was purportedly advice General Douglas MacArthur gave to President John F. Kennedy regarding Vietnam). But historically the costs of a land war in Europe have been ...

Dmitro Yarosh

Waving the False Flag

With murky foreign affairs much in the news, it’s worth trying to figure out how to think about the notion of “false flag” operations"€”would, say, a counterterrorism agency stage an act of terrorism to make its political enemies look bad or perhaps just to drum up support for ...

One if by Land, Two if by Sea

While American geopolitical thought tends to divide the world up morally into the Democratic (whoever is on our side) and the Evil (vice-versa), Russians tend to strategize geographically in terms of Land (Mother Russia) v. Sea (those deplorable Atlanticists). This dichotomy leads to endless ...

An Israel-Russia Alliance?

For some time now, I had been concerned that the growing urge of American elites toward bear-baiting"€”what I call World War G for its bizarre premise of resurrecting the Cold War over, of all things, gay marriage"€”was a bad habit. But as it turned out in Kiev, a street battle attracts a ...

Conservatism in Russia and America

Similarities and differences between Russian and American conservatism"€”especially in regard to the topic of the moment, Ukraine"€”can be observed in the thought of Russian geopolitical theorist Aleksandr Dugin, director of the Center for Conservative Studies at Moscow State University. ...

The Kremlin, Moscow

Nationalism Is a Blast

On this 100th anniversary of the Great War, the rise of anti-Russian jingoism in the American media is apparent to both the right and the left. In The Nation, NYU Russian Studies professor Stephen F. Cohen lamented about the press’s run-up to the Sochi Winter Games: American media on Russia ...

The River Rhine

The Borders of Empire

I was wondering why Russia chose to hold its Winter Olympics in the Black Sea beach resort of Sochi, which is almost as far south as you can get in that notoriously northern land. And that got me thinking about borders in general. African governments are always complaining that they inherited ...

World War III

With the 100th anniversary of World War I upcoming and old enmities between America and Russia resurging in contemporary form"€”for example, Glenn Beck recently said, “I will stand with GLAAD against...hetero-fascism” in Russia"€”due to the approach of that gayest of sporting ...