The U.S. and Global Security Review - Blog by Michael Novakhov

Reuters Blogs (blog)

This drug, banned in Europe, Russia and China, may be in your lunch
Reuters Blogs (blog)
If you eat meat in any country in the European Union, or even in China or Russia, you don't have to worry about getting a dash of ractopamine with your pork or beef. All these nations ban the use of the growth-promoting drug. But if you eat meat in the ...

Путин собрал срочное совещание Совета безопасности - Сводка Украинских и Мировых Новостей
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:55 PM

В Мире – Новости Google

Путин собрал срочное совещание Совета безопасности
Сводка Украинских и Мировых Новостей
Путин обсудил на совещании внеполитические вопросы: ситуацию в Йемене, переговоры по иранской ядерной программе и обстановку в Украине и реализация Минского соглашения по прекращению войны в Донбассе. Кроме того, на повестке дня были внутрироссийские ...

и другие »

Russia – perhaps more restrained and less powerful than you think? - Washington Post (blog)
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:55 PM

Russia – perhaps more restrained and less powerful than you think?
Washington Post (blog)
The following is a guest post by political scientists Brandon Valeriano (University of Glasgow) and Ryan C. Maness (Northeastern University). *****. Debates about the origins of Russia'sintervention into Ukraine have typically taken as given Russia's ...

Польская армия будет обучать украинских военных инструкторов - Российская Газета
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:52 PM

В Мире – Новости Google

Российская Газета

Польская армия будет обучать украинских военных инструкторов
Российская Газета
Польская армия до конца года обучит три группы украинских военных инструкторов. Как сообщает министерство обороны этой страны, программа DEEP - Ukraine, направленная на реформирование украинского военного образования, осуществляется странами НАТО с 2013 года.
Украина, Польша и Литва определят структуру совместной военной бригады уже в апрелеУНИАН
Минобороны Польши обучит украинских военных инструкторовGazeta.KG
Польские военные готовы обучать украинских инструкторовПронедра
РИА Новости -Взгляд
Все похожие статьи: 46 »

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Page 2

NATO Reassures East European Allies of its Supportby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:51 PM

NATO's supreme commander in Europe said that an armored vehicles convoy of U.S. troops crossing eastern Europe is a "good message of reassurance” to member nations for the military alliance’s support. Speaking Tuesday in the capital of Romania, Bucharest, General Philip Breedlove said that the exercise tested many things that "hadn't been done for a long time in NATO ... like multiple border crossings.” He added that “the crowds have come out to welcome these soldiers and their vehicles as they returned home." He said that was a “a good message to our nations and we were able to exercise some skills that we haven't exercised in quite some time." Breedlove said that a decision on whether Romania would host heavy military equipment from NATO would be announced soon. The so-called "Dragoon Ride'' convoy started its journey last week from Estonia and passed through Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, before entering the Czech Republic on its way home to a German base. The convoy received a warm welcome in Poland and the Baltics, NATO members that have voiced concerns about their security because of the armed conflict in Ukraine. Earlier Tuesday a Czech citizen, Milan Wunsch, greeting NATO troops passing through his country, said that he expected them “to stop the Russian expansion which is advancing toward Europe." "If the Russians think we belong to them,” said Wunsch, “these people [U.S. Army] are here to stop them." NATO troops participated in the Atlantic Resolve exercise intended to demonstrate NATO's readiness to defend its members.

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Court in Turkey Acquits Military Officers of Trying to Overthrow Government by CEYLAN YEGINSU
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:50 PM

NYT > Europe

The court ruled that evidence in the case, which involved 236 defendants, was tampered with and ordered the suspects released.

Russia Extends Natural Gas Deal With Ukraineby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:45 PM

Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved a plan to extend Moscow's current natural gas deal with Ukraine for another three months. Russian authorities announced the extension Tuesday, just hours before a temporary pricing agreement reached in October 2014 was set to expire. The deal required Ukraine to make monthly payments in advance of delivery, with Kyiv paying $365 per 1,000 cubic meters in the first quarter of 2015. Russian energy officials recently said Ukraine would pay $348 beginning April 1. In a separate development, a top Russian economist said Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula would cost up to $200 billion in the next four years as the Russian economy teeters on the brink of recession. Alexi Kudrin, Russia's finance minister from 2000 to 2011 and a former deputy prime minister, issued his prediction Tuesday at a forum marking the 15th anniversary of Putin's rise to power. In his televised comments, Kudrin warned that Russia — already facing plummeting global oil prices and stiff Western economic sanctions for supporting Ukraine's pro-Russian rebellion — is not likely to return to economic prosperity in the near future. Moscow's RBC news agency said that Kudrin predicted five years of economic stagnation and that he described the economic crisis as the most serious challenge facing Putin's widespread popularity. The Russian economy is expected to contract 3 to 6 percent this year, its steepest decline since Putin was first elected president in 2000.

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Russian strategist suggests nuking Yellowstone - WND.com
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:45 PM

Window On Eurasia -- New Series

WND.com

Russian strategist suggests nuking Yellowstone
WND.com
Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a ...

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Наследник американского нефтяного магната найден мертвым в своем доме - Российская Газета
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:44 PM

В Мире – Новости Google

Российская Газета

Наследник американского нефтяного магната найден мертвым в своем доме
Российская Газета
Тело 47-летнего Эндрю Гетти было найдено во вторник днем в его доме на Голливудских холмах. Кончина отпрыска основателя крупнейшей нефтяной империи, как отмечают американские СМИ, пополнила список "загадочных смертей Америки". Для бизнеса Соединенных Штатов клан ...
Внук американского миллиардера Гетти найден мертвымКомсомольская правда
Внук знаменитого миллардера Гетти найден мертвым в Лос-АнджелесеНТВ.ru
Внук американского миллиардера Гетти найден мертвым в собственном домеРИА Новости
Вести.Ru -BBC Russian -Газета.Ru
Все похожие статьи: 24 »

Russians Identify with Putin to Cope with Unpredictability He Causes, Moscow Psychologist Saysby paul goble (noreply@blogger.com)
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:43 PM

Paul Goble

Staunton, April 1 – The overwhelming support Russians currently give to Vladimir Putin has less to do with approval of his policies than with their need to find a way to cope with the unpredictability and sense of powerlessness his regime and the world around them have produced, according to Marina Arutyunyan, a Moscow psychologist.

Just as was the case under Stalin but was not in Brezhnev’s times, Russians today feel their world lacks predictability and that in turn leads them, on the one hand, to a depressed state of powerlessness and, on the other, to identification with the aggressor who has created that situation, she says (meduza.io/feature/2015/03/23/ya-chuvstvuyu-sebya-rossiey).

“When aggression is equated with force and you have no choice or so it seems,” she says, “then this identification with aggression is a mechanism very much in evidence. By identifying with hatred and anger, you as it were [feel that you have become] stronger.” Of course, she adds, “this is an absolute fiction, but psychologically, it makes life easier.”

That is what is going on among the overwhelming majority of Russians today, she continues, noting, however, that there are some Russians who are not doing so. But to the extent that they do not, they find themselves in increasing psychological difficulties because they want to negotiate with the authorities, but the authorities have no interest in doing.

One response of the sense of powerlessness and depression is emigration. Another is the displacement of aggression onto those one can attack with relative impunity, a trend that explains the rise in the level of aggressiveness in interpersonal relationships in Russia of all kinds. But internal emigration of the kind that existed in late Soviet times isn’t possible, she says.

The reasons for that conclusion are two-fold, Arutyunyan continues. On the one hand, those who want to separate themselves from the rest of society have to find a consensus among themselves, something they were able to do in Brezhnev’s time because people in this category agreed about what they were opposing.

And on the other, the hostile surrounding world needs to be relatively predictable. That was the case under Brezhnev, but it is not under Putin; and that makes it extremely difficult for groups to form and survive because they are under constant threat of being pulled apart by changes in the surrounding society.

Autyunyan insists that she “does not want to say that convictions do not have significance,” but the psychological state that Putin has created and in which Russians today live “is also very important.” When people feel suppressed and powerless, it is “very easy” for them to become angry, and they need a target for that anger.

As Theodor Adorno showed after World War II in his studies of authoritarian societies, the Moscow psychologist points out, that is something authoritarian rulers have always understood and been ready to provide because, by providing an explanation for their populations that eases the latter’s psychological state, it generates support for themselves.

For extended periods, such a strategy can be effective, but ultimately it is doomed to fail because it does not address the underlying problems people face or allow them to re-acquire the sense of efficacy and a feeling of predictability which allow them individually and collectively to act in a mature and self-confident manner.

Read the whole story

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Page 3

Ukraine Says It Would Buy Russian Gas At $250
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:42 PM

Ukrainian Energy Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn says Ukraine is not currently buying gas from Russia's Gazprom and will resume if a price of $250 per 1,000 cubic meters is agreed.

World Bank sees protracted recession in Russia - Reuters
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:41 PM

Reuters

World Bank sees protracted recession in Russia
Reuters
In its baseline scenario, the bank expected Russia's gross domestic product to contract by 3.8 percent in 2015 and a further 0.3 percent in 2016, describing medium-term growth prospects as dim. The World Bank's lead economist for Russia, Birgit Hansl ...
Russia's Economic Outlook Worse Than Thought, World Bank SaysWall Street Journal

all 8 news articles »

Moscow Court Orders New Detention Hearing In Nemtsov Killing Case
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:41 PM

Russian News, All The Latest And Breaking Russia News

A Russian court has overturned a ruling to keep one of the suspects in opposition politician Boris Nemtsov’s killing in pretrial detention.

Abramovich gets boost from Evraz $375m share buybackby Andrew Critchlow
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:40 PM

Russian steelmaker said it plans to return capital to shareholders through a tender offer

Read the whole story

· ·

Ukraine Rejects Georgia's Request To Extradite Saakashvili
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:40 PM

The Moscow Times Top Stories

Ukraine has rejected Georgia's request for the extradition of former President Mikheil Saakashvili, saying it was politically motivated.

World Bank Says Russia Facing Protracted Recessionby Reuters <moscowtimes@themoscowtimes.com>
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:40 PM

Russia faces a protracted recession as the impact of Western sanctions lingers and oil prices stay low, the World Bank said in a report published Wednesday.

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Page 4

BRICS leadership passes to Russia, $100bn development bank 'main priority' - RT
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:39 PM

BRICS leadership passes to Russia, $100bn development bank 'main priority'
RT
As Russia assumes the chairmanship of the BRICS business council, the launch of the New Development Bank for its members will begin as an alternative to the US-dominated International Monetary Fund (IMF). Sergey Katyrin, President of the Russian...
Putin: BRICS Chair Country Russia to promote Contingent Reserve ArrangementRussia Beyond the Headlines
Russia Takes Over BRICS Chairmanship From Brazil Sputnik International

all 16 news articles »

Chief Suspect In Nemtsov Killing Denies Guilt
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:39 PM

The chief suspect in Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov's killing has denied his guilt, saying he confessed under pressure and was not at the scene of the crime.

Putin Creates State Agency To Oversee Ethnic Issues
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:39 PM

Europe News: News And Headlines From Europe - The Washington Post

Russian President Vladimir Putin has decreed the creation of a federal agency to oversee ethnic issues in the huge, multiracial country.

Crash challenges German identity, notions of privacyby Anthony Faiola, Michael Birnbaum
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:39 PM

BERLIN — In the case of Andreas Lubitz
— the seemingly unstable co-pilot who crashed a German jetliner into a French mountainside last week
— it is almost as if this nation is reluctant to ask itself what went wrong.Read full article >>

Ethnic Jokes in Russia are No Laughing Matter, Moscow Experts Say by paul goble (noreply@blogger.com)
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:38 PM

Window On Eurasia -- New Series

Paul Goble

Staunton, April 1 – Almost half of the residents of the Russian Federation think that ethnic jokes are something impermissible, according to a new VTsIOM poll (interfax-religion.ru/islam/?act=news&div=58346). But Moscow scholars say that they can play a positive role in certain circumstances but, of course, not in all.

Anecdotes and ethnic humor, Natalya Shmelyeva of the Moscow Institute of the Russian Language says, can reduce tensions and aggression if they are told “in times of peace.” Stories about Jews, for example, are fine now, but they wouldn’t have been during the Holocaust (nazaccent.ru/content/15425-smeh-s-prichinoj-i-bez.html).

The same thing is true of Russian jokes about Ukrainians and Ukrainian jokes about Russians, she continues. Before the annexation of Crimea, both groups were able to tell them often to the delight of each. But now, that is not the case. Instead, Russian jokes about Ukrainians are often nasty as are those of Ukrainians about Russians.

“But this,” Shmelyeva says, “however paradoxical it may seem, shows the closeness [of the two nations] for the most evil jokes are always about the nearest peoples who speak a similar, albeit distorted language.”

Shmelyeva’s observation is supported by Igor Morozov, a scholar at the Moscow Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, who notes that just as Russians tells jokes about Roma because the latter live among them, so do Mordvins and Udmurts about Maris, and Lithuanians and Ukrainians about Jews and Poles.

According to some Russian scholars in fact, Russians began to tell ethnic jokes in significant numbers at the end of the 19th century when Jews were able to move out of the pale in significant numbers and settle among them. Given the prominence of humor in Jewish life, Russians in this interpretation began to copy the Jews.

Russians told ethnic jokes about Jews, Ukrainians, Armenians and Chukchis throughout Soviet times, often making fun in these other groups of things that were an exaggeration of what they saw among their own community. But ethnic humor in Eurasia has not remained unchanged.

The disintegration of the USSR significantly changed it, Moscow experts say. In Soviet times, people in Russian cities saw non-Russians in various professions. Now, because most of the migrants occupy positions on the lower end of the social scale, Russian jokes about them have become far more standardized about these various groups.

For some nations within the Russian Federation, humor about themselves and others occupies a particular niche and are used to establish social hierarchies. For others, such jokes are about promoting fertility. And for many, Moscow scholars say, such stories are used to delineate the limits of the permissible for both insiders and outgroups.

Read the whole story

· · ·

New US Sanctions Target Overseas Cyber Attackersby webdesk@voanews.com (Reuters)
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:38 PM

Window On Eurasia -- New Series

The Obama administration on Wednesday launched the first-ever sanctions program to financially punish individuals and groups outside the United States that are engaged in malicious cyber attacks. U.S. President Barack Obama, in an executive order, declared such activities a “national emergency” and allowed the U.S. Treasury to freeze the assets and bar other financial transactions of entities engaged in cyber attacks. Under the program, first reported by the Washington Post, cyber attackers or those who conduct commercial espionage in cyberspace can be listed on the official sanctions list of specially designated nationals, a deterrent long-sought by the cyber community. The move, which the paper said has been in development for two years, comes after a string of high-profile cyber attacks ranging from corporate hacks targeting Target, Home Depot and other retailers, to an attack on Sony and other data breaches. Commercial espionage Subjecting cyber criminals, companies that benefit from commercial espionage and even foreign intelligence operatives, to tough financial sanctions could have a “momentous” effect in deterring the growing number of cyber attacks seen daily on U.S. networks, said Dmitri Alperovitch, chief technology officer of Crowdstrike, a cybersecurity firm. “Today, the White House is making yet another huge leap forward in the effort to raise the cost to our cyber adversaries and establish a more effective deterrent framework to punish actors engaged in serious intentional destructive or disruptive attacks,” Alperovitch wrote in a blog posted on the company's website. The executive order gives the administration the same sanctions tools it now deploys to address other threats - including crises in the Middle East and Russia's aggression in Ukraine - and makes them available for less visible cyber threats. The program could prompt a strong reaction from China. Cybersecurity has been a significant irritant in U.S.-China ties, with U.S. investigators saying hackers backed by the Chinese government have been behind attacks on U.S. companies, and China rejecting the charges. Obama has moved cybersecurity toward the top of his 2015 agenda after recent breaches, and last month, the Central Intelligence Agency announced a major overhaul aimed in part at sharpening its focus on cyber operations.

Read the whole story

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Page 5

What the Real Putin Constitution Looks Likeby paul goble (noreply@blogger.com)
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:37 PM

Paul Goble

Staunton, April 1 – A constitution is not just words on paper but a living and breathing document that is given meaning by those who use it. That is certainly true in the Russian Federation where the words contained in the 1993 basic law provide little guidance on how the Russian political system functions, according to Vladimir Pastukhov.

As a guide to the perplexed, the St. Antony’s College Russian historian provides an outline of what the Constitution of the Russian Federation is in the mind of its most important interpreter and implementer, Vladimir Putin, and how those now considering the revision of the existing document might change it (polit.ru/article/2015/04/01/constitution/).

Herewith is an informal translation of Pastukhov’s understanding of Putin’s understanding of the Russian constitution:

The President

Article 1

The president is the leader of all the peoples of Russia and especially of the Chechens.
The president is one in three persons: the president is the favorite father of the nation, the president is the great son of the nation, and the president is the spirit of the Constitution.

Article 2

The president administers those who control but does not control those who administer.
The president governs with the help of the Chosen Rada. The chosen Rada is not elected. Note: From February 23, 2014, the Chosen Rada is the Elected Khural.

Article 3

The president defines the bases of domestic and foreign policy of the Russian Federation in correspondence with the recommendations of the chief advisor on whom is laid the obligation of being “the Jew attached to the governor.” “The Jew attached to the governor is an honorary title which is given in the Kremlin to persons whose last names end in “-ovsky.”
Power in Russia is divided if the President listens at one and the same time to the opinion of several advisors. In this case, the decision is taken by a consensus of the internal “egos” of the President.
To avoid a conflict of interests, the President must have only one “Jew attached to the governor.” Such a person may serve several Presidents. In this consists, the continuity of power in Russia.

Article 4

The President occupies his position as the result of a palace coup and rules until the next palace coup.
The time and place of the palace coup is decided upon by a secret vote of members of the Chosen Rada (since February 23, 2014, the Khural).
The people greets the appointment of the President in general elections. Despite the wealth of choices, there is never an alternative to the incumbent president. Each president in turn is considered irreplaceable until he is.
The President is chosen once and forever. The time of the President’s rule may be divided into terms. Each successive term is to be considered the first. Each third term is to be considered sacred. The President can leave his post before the beginning of a palace coup in the event of his unexpected death.

Article 5

The President and Russia are indivisible. We say President and we mean Russia. We say Russia and we mean the President.
Each new President creates his own Russia and destroys the old one.
At the end of his term, the President loses Russia so that his successor will have something to look for.
Each successive President must return the Russia which his predecessor destroyed.

Article 6

The President can do anything and everything.
If the President cannot do that, it means that revolutions have begun.
The competence of the President does not depend on his competence.
All disputed issues regarding the authority of the President are resolved by competent organs.

Article 7

The President is the apex of the power vertical.
The President dreams up, issues and implements laws.
The President judges his own actions and those of others.

Article 8

The President of Russia by default is considered the President of the world. The world by default is considered Russian.
Peace is a hybrid of war. The President has the right to begin and end hybrid war whenever it suits him.
The President prefers war to revolution.

Article 9

The President is the guarantor of the stability of his own power.
The President defends Russia from color revolutions with the help of black and white television.
Any attack on the power of the President is state treason.

Article 10

The question about the removal of the President from his position is decided by the Federal Assembly the means of a collective flipping of a one-ruble coin on which the shield of the Russian Federation is to be found on both sides.
The President is considered to have been removed from the position if, despite this precaution, the coin lands on its edge.

Read the whole story

· · · · · · ·

Ukraine's Security Service Apprehends 'Bombers' In Odesa
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:37 PM

The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) has detained three people suspected of involvement in a series of explosions in the southeastern city of Odesa.

Russia Claims 'Take Or Pay' Gas Deal With Ukraineby noreply@rferl.org (RFE/RL)
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:37 PM

Russia's energy minister says his country has a "take or pay" deal for natural gas with Ukraine that, in the absence of any fresh agreement, comes into effect on April 1.

US House Speaker in Israel as Iran Talks Continueby webdesk@voanews.com (Scott Bobb)
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:35 PM

As the negotiations over Iran's reported nuclear weapons program were extended into Wednesday, Israel's prime minister and the leader of the Republican-led, U.S. House of Representatives have reiterated their opposition to the deal being negotiated. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly welcomed U.S. House of Representatives speaker John Boehner, who is visiting the Middle East with a delegation of U.S. congressmen. Neither leader spoke directly about the Iranian nuclear negotiations headlining news around the world. But analysts said the timing of the visit, as negotiations between world powers and Iran are winding down in Switzerland, was a reminder there is strong opposition in both countries to the deal being reported. Before meeting with Netanyahu, Boehner did not mention any Middle Eastern country by name but made clear he is concerned over the situation in the region. "Regardless of where in the Middle East we have been, the message has been the same, 'You can not continue to turn your eye away from the threat that faces all of us,' " he said. Boehner inflamed partisan hostilities last month when he invited Netanyahu to speak before a joint session of U.S. Congress without advising the Obama administration. In that speech in early March, Netanyahu sharply criticized any deal that would allow Iran to maintain what he said was most of its nuclear weapons-making capabilities. Threat highlighted On Wednesday, Netanyahu highlighted what he sees as a threat to the values of democracy and freedom espoused by the two countries. "The Middle East is plagued by anti-Western, anti-democratic and anti-American extremism. Terrorists brutally behead their shackled captives before video cameras. Despots lead their people with chants of 'Death to America' while building intercontinental missiles to reach America," he said. The prime minister avoided mentioning any country by name. But an hour before meeting the U.S. delegation, he told journalists any concessions to Iran would ensure a bad deal that would endanger Israel, the Middle East and world peace. "A better deal would link the eventual lifting of the restrictions on Iran's nuclear program to a change in Iran's behavior," he said. "Iran must stop its aggression in the region, stop its terrorism throughout the world and stop its threats to annihilate Israel. That should be non-negotiable and that is the deal that the world powers must insist upon." Iran said its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes and it has a sovereign right to develop this program. The reported deal would limit Iran's ability to produce weapons-grade uranium and would provide international oversight of its nuclear facilities in exchange for a lifting of international economic sanctions. On CNN's Sunday news show State of the Union, Boehner warned that if the Iran nuclear negotiations collapsed, new "sanctions are going to come, and they’re going to come quick." The U.S. delegation’s trip to the Middle East also included stops in Jordan on Sunday and Iraq on Monday.

Read the whole story

· · ·

The Untouchables And The Expendables
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:35 PM

The InterpreterThe Interpreter

Contract killings in Russia are solved only when the untouchable perpetrators become expendable.

Nuclear Weapons and Democratization in Putin’s Russiaby Stephen Blank
Wednesday April 1st, 2015 at 1:35 PM

In a recent documentary Vladimir Putin recounted that when planning the annexation of Crimea he even thought about calling a nuclear alert. Whether this remark is true or false, Putin undoubtedly was striving to impress upon the audience an image of the gravity of the crisis as he saw it and therefore to appreciate his masterful and resolute management of the crisis. But for us this remark raises deeply troubling perspectives and not just because it shows how hysterical and inflated Russian threat perceptions are and how they could lead to the ultimate military miscalculation of nuclear weapons use.

Scholars analyzing Russia habitually pay insufficient attention to issues of Russian threat assessments, civil-military relations in Russia, and the urgent need of democratizing Russia’s security sector. This episode shows why such reform has long since become urgent. If Putin actually considered calling a nuclear alert, this shows that the special services and armed forces, who are tasked with providing accurate threat assessments, are not just out of control but are also systematically and deliberately mendacious, habitually inflating threat assessments to cater to Putin’s worst instincts and enshrine their own bureaucratic position. Furthermore, they do so with insufficient appreciation and even a cavalier approach to the risks they thereby run. This point heightens the danger that we, Russia’s people, and neighbors face from this regime’s continuation. Not only is this entire network of security organizations exempt from any kind of effective democratic control, it is apparently becoming increasingly brazen in its actions and more pathological in its views of the outside world.

Indeed, Putin’s March 26 address to the FSB’s board is notable for the complete acceptance and institutionalization of the xenophobic, besieged fortress mentality that licenses this systematic threat inflation. In fact such centrally mandated but also long-established threat perceptions have both fostered and now dominate policy. In effect such thinking reinforces the inherent structural tendencies towards systematic paranoia in Russian security thinking (and we are not dealing with deranged individuals). The fostering of this uncontrolled atmosphere of pervasive fear, menace, and the corresponding systematic organization of hatred is visible throughout Russian policy and cripples not just people’s lives but also their mentalities. And at the same time it justifies an inordinately large military and police establishment and the increasing international isolation of Russia in world affairs. But most dangerously this mentality and its institutionalization all but guarantees the ever-present specter of real war that Putin has now created and which could spiral out of his control due to the fundamental misreading of the outside world.

On the other hand if Putin is cynically lying about the consideration of nuclear weapons because he knew or should have known that there never was any Western or NATO threat then we are again encountering a systematic policy to create a situation of mass delusion and psychosis among the Russian people. This internal xenophobia already manifests itself in heightened attacks on Jews and Muslims in Russia, as well as on dissidents. This is an atmosphere in which the poisonous rivalry between the special services and Ramzan Kadyrov’s hit teams can flourish and leads the way to the recreation of conditions favorable to the incitement of mass terror and repression inside Russia.

In other words, if Putin was telling the truth on this point he is deliberately bringing the country to the brink of an international and/or domestic catastrophe while also stimulating the development of what I earlier described as the collective psychosis of mass militarization against unknown and seemingly all-encompassing enemies. And even if he is merely cynically posturing for enhancement of his domestic ratings and for the deeper institutionalization of this paranoia and mass delusion, Putin is setting the stage for an internal war like others we have seen in Russian history. This domestic explosion of all the trappings of the full-blown police state does not have to reach the levels of the Oprichnina under Ivan Groznyi or Stalin. It will be bad enough if we come to see the kid of conspiratorial police state that appeared under Alexander III or Nicholas II where police and revolutionaries freely intermingled and the police or their agents among the revolutionaries conducted political assassinations of prominent political figures, including members of the royal family. Alexander Herzen described this as the romance of the police. And we have now reached the stage of Russian history where the police are in full control and rule through unchecked absolutism and despotism.

All these considerations make it ever more urgent that we understand the urgent need to advocate in and out of Russia not just for civil and human rights, including property rights, and the rule of law but also for the democratization of the entire system of national security structures. Yeltsin’s failure to do so was among the most glaring failures of the 1990s and the potentially catastrophic consequences, reaching all the way to potential use of nuclear weapons have now openly appeared. And the fact that the absence of effective democratic controls over the system of state security has such potentially global repercussions means as well that the democratization of the entire state, including this sector, has now become a matter of international urgency. Experts like Aleksandr’ Golts and Alexei Arbatov warned about the dangers of failing to address these issues twenty years ago but they were not heard. If we fail to grasp the vital necessity of addressing these issues as well how long will we have to wait until the chance to do so arises again? Neither is it pleasant to imagine under what conditions this question may become so topical as to become clear to all observers In many ways, and not only the ones we have discussed here, the continuation of Putin’s regime means war. Do we have to wait for another, larger war to grasp the urgent necessity of addressing these questions?

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