Russia Archives - EconCurrents

Book Review: ‘Who Will Defend Europe? An Awakened Russia and a Sleeping Continent’

By John West November 3, 2024opinionNo Comments

Despite frequent US calls to lift defence spending, most of NATO’s European members pocketed a ‘peace dividend’ in recent years by reducing their armed forces and defence industries. They imagined that war would never return to Europe and that, in any event, they could rely on the US to ensure their national security.

Both of these assumptions were illusory, as Keir Giles argues in a new book, Who Will Defend Europe? Giles is a senior fellow at Chatham House and Director of the Conflict Studies Research Centre. He has been a very active and prescient analyst of Russia, especially since the invasion of Ukraine, notably through his books Moscow Rules and Russia’s War on Everybody.

Europe, on the Brink Again

By John West October 6, 2024opinionNo Comments

“There is a dynamism about nineteenth-century Europe that far exceeds anything previously known. Europe vibrated with power as never before: with technical power, economic power, cultural power, intercontinental power.” — Norman Davis

Europe. (2024, September 24). In Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe.
Rob984, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The China/Russia Axis

By John West June 2, 2024opinionNo Comments

While the West has greatly assisted Ukraine against Russia’s aggression, China has substantially supported Russia despite China’s professed strong attachment to the principle of national sovereignty. How can we understand the China/Russia axis? How solid is this partnership? What does the future hold?

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, Wikipedia, CC BY 4.0

What happened to the Asian Century?

By John West May 19, 2024opinion2 Comments

The prospect of the 21st century becoming an ‘Asian Century” is fading from view. Rather than adapting to an Asian Century, the paramount challenge for the West is now learning to live with illiberal regimes and resisting illiberal forces within its own countries.

Shanghai, Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Germany’s Troubled Soul

By John West November 5, 2023opinionNo Comments

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Germany is abandoning its intimate relationship with Russia. But when peace eventually returns, Germany may find it difficult to resist returning to the embrace of Russian friendship.

Russia-Ukraine War: Six Powerful Videos

By Frank Li March 19, 2022opinionNo Comments

In this post, I will provide six videos that offer contrary views of the Russia-Ukraine war against the American establishment (i.e., the Biden administration and the MSM).

Three New Kingdoms

By Frank Li January 26, 2022opinion2 Comments

By “three new kingdoms”, I mean the U.S., China, and Russia. I call them the “three new kingdoms”, because of their striking resemblance to the “three kingdoms” in ancient China. The three new kingdoms have been fighting against one another since 1945 and will continue to do so in the coming decades.