Outside Moscow, the Kremlin is laying plans to turn a forlorn patch of farmland into a new Silicon Valley, and Russia into a major technological power. Cisco, Nokia, and MIT are eager partners. Russia’s people, by and large, are less enthusiastic. A report on Russia’s peculiar version of capitalism today, as that country gathers itself for its next leap forward. Read More
Twenty-five years ago this week, the Soviet Union was crumbling. The Baltic states had declared independence after the attempted coup against Gorbachev in August, and other Soviet republics were moving toward independence. Read More
It appears that attempts at hacking the US presidential election are continuing. The news reports are sensational and need to be read carefully. What has been reported this week is that attempts were made to get into voter registration records – not the voting system itself. Read More
A Dutch-led investigation of the downing of Malaysia Airlines MH17 over Ukraine in July 2014 concludes that it was downed by a Buk missile fired from a rebel-held area, implicating Russia. Read More
“She’s totally pissed off at Nate Silver for not saying what she wants to hear.”
Carter Page is or perhaps is not an advisor to Donald Trump on foreign policy. Both have been said by people on Trump’s campaign staff. He has written favorably (if oddly) on Russia and gave a speech in Moscow earlier this year. He was not willing to share the content of that speech or much about his visit with the press. Read More
Comparison of open-source photos of Iranian and North Korean missiles suggests that the two are not collaborating on missile designs. Top graphic from here. Read More
I try to restrain my “someone is wrong on the internet” impulses, but Sillamäe is one of my favorite cities. I’m also not fond of Soviet-nostalgia tourism. So this article irked me on both counts. Read More
It’s one thing to act as one thinks a great power would act. It’s another to be acknowledged as a great power. Vladimir Putin thinks a great power would freely take a bite of a neighbor’s land, intervene on behalf of a client, and flaunt its cruise missiles. But the real prize is negotiating with other great powers over spheres of interest. The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
But the great powers, particularly the United States, are not cooperating. Read More
Steve Sack
Nuclear Diner 