(3 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Still a MAD World: The Insanity of Nuclear Weapons Jerry Brown provides an excellent and thought-provoking review of William J. Perry's book, My Journey at the Nuclear Brink, this month at the New York Review of Books. Brown takes the reader through Perry's evolution of thought about the weapons that he was providing research, management and advice on over the course of decades.

(9 comments) SHARE        Friday, June 24, 2016
"EXTENDING AMERICAN POWER" -- A Sneak Peek at What a Clinton Foreign Policy May Look Like The Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a think tank connected to the Democratic Party, particularly with Obama's transition team at the beginning of his first term, published a 20-page policy paper last month called "Extending American Power." This think tank is not only close to the Democratic Party establishment, but this policy paper is disturbing because it was co-authored by Neocon Robert Kagan.

(4 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, June 1, 2016
"FAIL-SAFE": How a Classic Cold War Novel Still Resonates Today Unlike articles, which attempt to marshal facts and logic, story-telling is what moves people. Our need and capacity for story-telling is perhaps one of the most essential aspects of being human. A film, book, or other work of story-telling art for a contemporary mass audience that can convey on such a visceral level what is at stake in terms of the continuing dangers of geo-politics in the nuclear age is desperately needed.

(14 comments) SHARE        Friday, February 26, 2016
Review: JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why it Matters The book elicits a profound respect for the moral courage demonstrated by both President Kennedy and his Cold War counterpart, Nikita Khrushchev, at moments when so much hung in the balance. The bond these two men developed as a consequence of their taking humanity to the brink and the terror they both felt from looking into the abyss led to a mutual desire to negotiate an end to the Cold War and work toward disarmament.

(10 comments) SHARE        Monday, January 25, 2016
The Empire Files: Examining the Syrian War Chessboard The war in Syria is an unparalleled crisis. It has gone far beyond an internal political struggle, and is marked by a complex array of forces that the U.S. Empire hopes to command: Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kurdistan, Iran, Lebanon, Iraq and more. To simplify this web of enemies and friends, Abby Martin interviews Dr. Vijay Prashad, professor of International Studies at Trinity College and author of several books.

(64 comments) SHARE        Sunday, January 10, 2016
Vladimir Putin: Neither a Monster Nor a Messiah I have debunked a number of myths propagated by the western mainstream media that portray Putin as some archetypal monster-villain. But in my perusal of a wide range of alternative media sites and their comments sections, I have observed another trend: a segment of people who are viewing Putin as some kind of Messiah figure. Just like the demonizers, some of these people lack nuance and complexity in their analysis of Putin.

(4 comments) SHARE        Sunday, October 18, 2015
Postcard from St. Petersburg After dinner, we stopped to gaze in awe at the Neva river, surrounded by illuminated bridges, with the spire of the Peter and Paul Fortress visible northeast and the Hermitage in the south, as well as Catherine's Palace and St. Isaac's Cathedral. I can now understand why many experienced world travelers name St. Petersburg as their favorite city in the world. It's beauty, history and character make it hard not fall in love.

(5 comments) SHARE        Friday, October 16, 2015
Rotary Meeting In Krasnodar, Russia In a provincial Russian town, I meet Rotary members, NGO workers, members of a "Public Council" who work with local governments to make sure they are responsive to the needss and desires of residents, and a group of high schools students eager to set up exchanges with their American counterparts.

(3 comments) SHARE        Saturday, October 10, 2015
Yalta Then and Now I continue my guided tour of Vladimmir Putin's Russia in Crimea, whose residents voted overwhelmingly to rejoin Russia last year. The Black Sea peninsula has harboured Russia's main warm water port since Catherine the Great and had only been gifted to Ukraine by Kruschev in 1954.

(2 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, October 6, 2015
My Arrival in Moscow Many journalists and academics write about contemporary Russia, but few have actually been there. Sharon Tennyson offered Natylie Baldwin, co-author of "Zbig's Grand Chessboard and How the West was Checkmated"a unique opportunity to meet with Russians in several Russian locations. More to follow.

(6 comments) SHARE        Sunday, September 27, 2015
Tour the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow with Pretty Russian Guide (Video) While in Moscow in May/June of this year, Sharon Tennison's citizen diplomacy group took some time out from meetings to visit the famed Moscow Tretyakov Gallery. It houses a thousand years of magnificent Russian art. The collection began in 1856 when a wealthy Moscow merchant, Pavel Tretyakov, developed a passion for collecting art for himself and his family.

(2 comments) SHARE        Monday, September 21, 2015
Citizen to Citizen Diplomacy: Americans in Russia Interview Andrei Kortunov (Video) Note: As part of the citizen-to-citizen diplomacy group, consisting of 20 Americans and led by CCI's Sharon Tennison, that traveled to Russia in June of this year, a discussion was conducted with Andrei Kortunov, Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) and President of the New Eurasia Foundation (FNE). Below, Sharon provides an introduction to the interview.

(2 comments) SHARE        Thursday, September 17, 2015
Citizen to Citizen Diplomacy Group's Trip to Russia: Video of Red Square In June of this year, Sharon Tennison, founder of The Center for Citizen Initiatives (CCI), took a group of approximately 20 Americans on a citizen-to-citizen diplomacy tour of Russia. Sharon provides an introduction to the 13-minute video of the high points of the group's tour from Moscow airport to Red Square.

(1 comments) SHARE        Thursday, September 10, 2015
9/11/06: Russia Dedicates Memorial to 9/11 Victims I wonder how many Americans know about the monument that was created by a renowned Russian sculptor, Zurab Tsereteli, and dedicated as a gift in 2006 by the Russian government in honor of the victims of 9/11. The mainstream western media does not seem to have provided much coverage of the event, if any at all.

(41 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Review: War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning I have read many accounts of the horrors of war; yet, I never seem to become inured to it. I still wince and feel my stomach curdle, not knowing whether to weep for or rage at humanity.

(4 comments) SHARE        Thursday, August 27, 2015
Texas Woman Who's Lived in Russia for 25 Years Speaks Out Cheryl Ann Sigsbee is originally from Texas and has lived in Russia for 25 years. She is married to a Russian man named Victor Konovalenko who is of Belarussian and Ukrainian descent. This is a letter she wrote in response to 2 articles by Peter Pomerantsev, a writer at the Legatum Institute, which she believes repeated many of the distortions about present-day Russia and Vladimir Putin that are so common in the western media

(14 comments) SHARE        Friday, August 21, 2015
Review: Dying Unneeded: The Cultural Context of the Russian Mortality Crisis The book is deeply sad at times, but the reader does not walk away simply feeling sorry for Russians, something this proud people likely wouldn't want. In addition to the sadness, one also comes away with a glimpse of what gives the Russian people their character and resilience as well as their mystique.

(31 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, July 21, 2015
The Case for Enlightened Isolationism At a time when Washington is experiencing the hubris of imperial overreach and the prospect of the eventual collapse that history shows is the inevitable endgame of all empires, it is time for concerned Americans across the political spectrum to begin to seriously consider what a new paradigm and policy platform representing sanity might look like.

(9 comments) SHARE        Friday, June 26, 2015
State Capitalism on Behalf of Militarism What is hard to argue with is the fact that what constituted a huge part of the Soviet economy in terms of input of resources -- and, ironically, what it has had in common with the U.S. economy -- was a sprawling and wasteful military-industrial complex guaranteed by the state to enable an arms race.

(8 comments) SHARE        Monday, June 1, 2015
American Propaganda and the Mass Media Edward Bernays' work and the philosophy underpinning it have paved the way for the cynical use of grand ideas like freedom, democracy and human rights to sell mindless consumption, wars, coups, color revolutions (i.e. contrived regime changes under the pretense of spreading democracy or "western values"), and instability - all in the service of a small group of people who benefit.