Archivo etiqueta «Rusia»

By Ariel Cohen, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Institute for International Studies (THE WASHINGTON TIMES, 10/03/10):

President Obama has his hands full dealing with Russia. However, high on his agenda should be the release of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Moscow’s most famous prisoner.

Success there would demonstrate the administration’s ability to promote freedom in Russia and around the world. It even might encourage the freeing of other political prisoners and a new wave of reforms that would make Russia a better partner for the U.S.

Who is Mr. Khodorkovsky? Until the fall of 2003, he was the richest man… Seguir leyendo

By Anders Åslund, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and most recently the author of Russia’s Capitalist Revolution (THE WASHINGTON POST, 26/02/10):

A recent week in Moscow left one clear impression: The Putin model of crony state capitalism is dead.

For years, the structure that Vladimir Putin crafted looked invincible, with its steady, high growth rates and effective, mild repression. But the system only distributed ample oil rents to the elites and the ordinary people, creating neither moral nor economic value.

Today the bill is due. In 2009, Russia’s gross domestic product plunged 7.9 percent, even… Seguir leyendo

By Masha Lipman, editor of the Carnegie Moscow Center’s Pro et Contra journal who writes a monthly column for The Post (THE WASHINGTON POST, 19/02/10):

Street protests are not uncommon in Russia, but with very few exceptions they are small and focused on local, socioeconomic issues. In the past month, however, calls for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to resign were heard at rallies in different parts of Russia. These events — one organized in late January in Kaliningrad, on Russia’s western border; the other last week in the Siberian city of Irkutsk — were not related and are not likely… Seguir leyendo

By Leon Aron, resident scholar and director of Russian studies at the American Enterprise Institute and the author, most recently, of Russia’s Revolution: Essays 1989-2006 (LOS ANGELES TIMES, 12/02/10):

The security of the United States continues to be tied to decisions in Moscow, as evidenced by President Obama’s touting of the pending strategic arms-control agreement with Russia in his State of the Union address. And those decisions, in turn, will hinge on Russian domestic politics. The central question is whether President Dmitry Medvedev’s increasingly radical rhetoric will begin to translate into policies that would spell a decisive break with those… Seguir leyendo

By Fraser Cameron, director of the E.U. Russia Centre, an independent information resource on Russia (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 11/02/10):

President Dmitri Medvedev has publicly stated that Russia needs to change course if it does not want to end up as a third-world country. Igor Shuvalov, the first deputy prime minister, recently told investors that although Russia had suffered its worse recession in a decade, it would be transformed into a “new country” by 2020 through innovation and investment in “human capital.” He said the investment climate would be significantly improved within a year through a reduction of red tape… Seguir leyendo

By Retired Navy Adm. James A. Lyons, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and senior U.S. military representative to the United Nations (THE WASHINGT0N TIMES, 01/02/10):

The Obama administration has made a major attempt at renewing a cooperative relationship with Russia. At this point, it is less than clear that Russia shares the same “reset”-objective relationship, except on its terms. Trying to appease Russia by capitulating on missile-defense installations in the Czech Republic and Poland only compounds problems we have with Russia in other areas of major interest.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has suggested that Iran… Seguir leyendo

By Ilan Berman, vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington (THE WASHINGTON TIMES, 31/01/10):

There’s an old saying, familiar to historians and foreign policy practitioners, that “geography is destiny.” A modern twist to this rule is that demography is no less decisive.

Russia is finding this out the hard way. Over the past several years, under the direction of former President (and current Prime Minister) Vladimir Putin and his handpicked protege, Dmitry Medvedev, Russia may have re-emerged on the international scene with a vengeance. But behind all of the Kremlin’s contemporary geopolitical bluster, the successor state of… Seguir leyendo

By Ivan Krastev, chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, Bulgaria, and a founding member of the European Council on Foreign Relations (THE WASHINGTON POST, 01/12/09):

It was Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who observed that relations between two actors really involve six “persons”: each actor’s self-image, each actor’s image of the other and, finally, what each actor actually is. Under this rubric, the success of President Obama’s “reset” policy with Russia will depend not only on getting U.S. actions toward Moscow right but also on getting insight into the way the Kremlin views the United States and its… Seguir leyendo

By Masha Lipman, editor of the Carnegie Moscow Center’s Pro et Contra journal who writes a monthly column for The Post (THE WASHINGTON POST, 03/11/09):

On Friday, as Russia recognized its annual commemoration of political prisoners, President Dmitry Medvedev published a videoblog in which he condemned Joseph Stalin’s crimes and called on the nation not to forget about past political repression or its victims. Medvedev called Stalin’s repression “one of the greatest tragedies in Russian history” and expressed concern that “even today it can be heard that these mass victims were justified by certain higher goals of the state.” He… Seguir leyendo