Caucasus Archive

In August 2008, Russia and Georgia fought a brief, bloody war over Georgia’s pro-Russian region of South Ossetia. After hundreds of casualties, Georgia withdrew its forces, essentially ceding the breakaway province to Russia. Moscow’s overall aim was to ensure “that Russia’s power is respected both within and outside the post-Soviet space,” according to U.S. Army Lt. Col. Robert Hamilton, a fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. While the bulk of the fighting in South Ossetia pitted tanks against tanks and infantry against infantry, the conflict also featured sophisticated propaganda efforts, on both sides. Russian and Georgian […]

Over at the Columbia Journalism Review, I have a quick rundown of the continuing American media war between Georgia and Russia. But there is something I left out, and it speaks to how we can try to make sense of global events: opinion journalism. In this Great Newsmedia Contraction we’re all puzzling our way through, most news agencies have either removed or severely constrained their foreign bureaux. As a result, there are far fewer reporters covering global hot spots — both print and TV. A few years back, in 2007, well before the current crisis point newspapers have hit, the […]

U.S.-Russian Nuclear Arms Control under Obama and Medvedev Since assuming office in late January 2009, President Barack Obama and his senior foreign policy advisers have resurrected the traditional approach toward Russian-American strategic arms control negotiations pursued by U.S. administrations during the 1990s. After an initial internal review and successful talks between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva on March 6, the Obama administration decided to attempt to negotiate a new strategic arms control agreement before the existing START accord expires on Dec. 5, 2009. At their July 6-7 summit in Moscow, Obama and […]