One of my favorite spots in the Greater Boston area is the kiosk in the center of Harvard Square, which I visit every couple of weeks or so, looking around the rich collection of periodicals, and usually buying a few that I am not subscribed to. On my last visit I picked up the September […]

In early September, American Interest publisher Charles Davidson spoke with Hermitage Capital co-founder and CEO William Browder about the origins, impact and future of the Magnitsky Act. Charles Davidson: Welcome, Bill; we appreciate you talking with us. Our timing is good, given the news out of New York two days ago. William Browder: Yes, the […]

Americans awoke to the possibility this morning that the US has found a ‘solution’ to the Syria situation. The Times is reporting that the US and Russia have reached an agreement to remove or destroy Syria’s chemical weapons by mid-2014 (the official state department framework document on this agreement is here).If this deal goes through, […]

President Obama is not a stupid man. After more than four years in the White House, he cannot be called a naive man or an inexperienced leader. He is not, despite the suspicions of some of his angrier critics, actively seeking to undermine the prestige and the power of the United States. So why has […]

In the course of history, there have been many problems that could not be solved given the tools available at the time. Such insoluble problems are generally related to a civilizational impasse of some kind. Relations between Russia and the West—and to an even greater degree between Russia and the United States—exemplify one of these […]

Compared to the G8 meeting in June in Northern Ireland, when he seemed isolated on the issue of Syria, Vladimir Putin seemed to have lots of company in opposing any possible U.S. military action at last week’s G20 meeting in St. Petersburg. Reasonable people can have legitimate differences over what should be done in Syria […]

The dispute over Edward Snowden—if anyone still remembers him—gave us the chance to slough off the mindset constraining Western policy towards Russia. How Western nations proceed over Syria will show how far that chance is developed. The US “reset” was a reset to factory mode, not a fresh beginning, and the factory was built to […]

The Circus Is Over (For Now) by Lilia Shevtsova The Real Test for Obama on Russia by David J. Kramer Russia and the West: No Special Treatment by Andrew Wood

It has been barely more than a week since I wrote on Syria and U.S. policy, so-called, toward that issue. I started back on September 3 with an expression of surprise that things could possibly have gotten crazier since having written on August 30. So what am I to say now by way of introduction, […]

On September 4, 2013 there was an interesting story in The Christian Century, the banner publication of liberal Protestantism. It contained an objective account of a development that probably did not please the editors of the Century (they deserve good marks for unbiased reporting!).  The report is about a success story of a decidedly non-liberal […]