Core Russia Articles

Here are Core Articles from outside Sublime Oblivion that hi-light some key points you need to assimilate to understand Russia today.

First, an objective list on must-read books to better understand Russia:

• Putin’s Russia (Dale Herspring) – a series of essays from non-ideological Russia experts on its economy, politics, demography, society and military reform: an excellent foundational grounding in the subject.
• Russia and the Russians (Geoffrey Hoskings) – the past is now, perhaps especially so in Russia; just as Putin’s Russia is a good foundation for understanding today’s Russia, Russia and the Russians is an objective and exhaustive sweep of its history.
• Godfather of the Kremlin (Paul Khlebnikov) – an uncompromising look at the dirt and darkness of Yeltsin’s Russia, focusing on the life story of robber baron (and possibly worse), Boris Berezovsky. The 1990′s were very, very far from being a liberal democratic panacea. [original Forbes article]
• Virtual Politics (Andrew Wilson) – argues that Russia’s recent history cannot be characterized as a golden transition to democracy now being thwarted by silovik / chekist forces of darkness (the dominant Western narrative). Instead the story is of a corrupt, semi-authoritarian elite using postmodernist methods like media manipulation, electoral engineering and other forms of “political technology” to sustain a simulacrum of democratic politics and hang on to power. [Virtual Politics in the ex-Soviet bloc | eXile review]
• The Prodigal Superpower (Steven Rosefielde) - emphasizes the “structural militarization” of the late Soviet economy and its continuing implications on the Russian economy and politics today. [my review]
• The New Cold War (Ed Lucas) – poorly written, approaches complex issues in a simplistic way and exhibits little understanding of the cultural differences between Russia and the West. The language is Manichean and sensationalist. Not recommended except as a portal into the Russophobe mind (please borrow from a library). [eXile review]
• Russophobia: Anti-Russian Lobby and American Foreign Policy (Andrei Tsygankov) – an antidote to the above. [note: haven't read this myself yet]
• The Brothers Karamazov (Fedor Dostoevsky) – though divorced from modern Russia, getting an appreciation for Dostoevsky’s work is indispensable for a deeper understanding of the mythical “Russian soul”.

Now for some key articles which I find to be objective interpretations, because these are often lacking in the Western media. Make sure to read the ones in bold

General “Russophile” Articles

• A Normal Country (Andrei Shleifer & Daniel Treisman, Foreign Affairs, Mar/Apr 2004) – old but no less relevant for that. (Summary: Conventional wisdom in the West says that post-Cold War Russia has been a disastrous failure. The facts say otherwise. Aspects of Russia’s performance over the last decade may have been disappointing, but the notion that the country has gone through an economic cataclysm and political relapse is wrong–more a comment on overblown expectations than on Russia’s actual experience. Compared to other countries at a similar level of economic and political development, Russia looks more the norm than the exception.)
• Russia through the looking-glass (Nicolai N. Petro, openDemocracy, Feb 2006) – a refutation of the Western party line on Russia’s media environment, Chechnya and alleged deterioration in the rule of law. (A true understanding of developments in Russia challenges the distorted perceptions of western governments, media, and human-rights organisations.)
• 10 Western Media Stereotypes About Russia: How Truthful Are They? – not very, according to the Real Russia Project. Also check out this other Top 10 list about Russian myths.
• Why the Council on Foreign Relations Hates Putin (Mike Whitney, Counterpunch, Dec 2007) – despite its anti-globalist and NWOish tinges, it manages to get to the heart of the matter, namely, how influential neocons have subverted Washington’s foreign policy, united against the idea of close West-East co-operation and launched a comprehensive, double-standards laced propaganda campaign against Putin.
• More Questions than Can Be Answered (Patrick Armstrong) – points out the wisdom of the old saying that “one fool can ask more questions than ten wise men could answer”, and the lessons Russophobes drew from it.
• The Great Transformation: How the Putin Plan Altered Russian Society – an appraisal of Putin’s consolidation of Russia, the first of two steps in the Putin Plan to make Russia into an affluent, liberal nation – a kind of follow-up to Russia through the Looking Glass.
• Now Comes the Tough Part in Russia (Stephen Kotkin), Putin’s legacy is a Russia that doesn’t have to curry favour with the west (Jonathan Steele), Don’t rush to judgment (Tom Parfitt), The west’s new Russophobia is hypocritical – and wrong (Jonathan Steele), Putin’s Reaganesque Victory (Tony Karon), No Wonder they Like Putin (Norman Stone),  Unconventional wisdom about Russia (Henry Kissinger) and Those Russian Bastards (Jon Weiler) are all very perceptive articles (by the standards of Western coverage of Russia).
• Challenging the Western media hegemony (Peter Lavelle) – on Russia Today’s mission.
• The Failure of the Anti-Russian “Freedom Agenda” (Daniel Larison).

The Russian Economy

• Russia’s booming economy – this article illustrates the bankruptcy of several conceptions about Russia’s economy, including a) its hydrocarbons dependence and b) supposed stagnation in investment and manufacturing. In a similar vein, see Russia’s Surging Economy. Though now outdated due to the 2009 economic crisis – no nation can be said to have a booming economy at this time – their analyses nonetheless stand historically valid.
• Diagnosing Dutch Disease: Does Russia Have the Symptoms? (Nienke Oomes & Katerina Kalcheva, IMF, 2007) – no firm evidence of that since manufacturing growth remains buoyant.
• How to sustain growth in a resource based economy? (Rudiger Ahrend, OECD, 2006) – used wisely Russia’s resource windfall is no barrier to sustained industrial growth.
• The Medvedev Economy (Josh Wilson) – an analysis of likely economic development trends in the next decade, which will focus on areas like agriculture and forestry that were relatively neglected during the transition period.
• Dreaming with BRICs is the seminal paper in which Goldman Sachs predicted that Brazil, Russia, India and China will come to dominate the world’s economy as their average incomes converge to Western levels, as was the case in pre-industrial times. Note, though, that Russia is the only member who’s GDP per capita is expected to catch up to the leading countries’ in the foreseeable future. How Solid are the BRICs? expounds on this, evaluating each country’s ability to sustain growth by constructing a Growth Environment Index.
• Russia’s Development Path (Chris Weafer) – “One of the criticisms levied at Russia is that it remains far too dependent on and, therefore, vulnerable to earnings from commodities… But the evidence is that, even from the early days of Vladimir Putin’s presidency, there existed at least a broad outline of a long-term development plan (see below for description) to transform the economy from its dependency on natural resources to one with a better range of drivers, where the risk of the sort of boom-to-bust cycle experienced recently is substantially reduced. In critical areas, the development plan for Russia differs very little from those of other nations, which have successfully transformed their economies”. [source]
• RUSSIA 2010: Slow build over first half to boom in 2011 (Ben Aris) – calls to throw Russia out of the BRIC’s are “rubbish” according Jim O’Neill, the inventor of the concept. A detailed analysis of the Russian economy at the dawn of 2011.

Russian Politics and Society

• The Medvedev Moment (Nicolai Petro) – challenges the notion Medvedev is a Putin puppet; instead, he is a friend and protege who share’s Putin’s Plan of transforming Russia into an affluent, liberal society.
• Needed: Better Western Coverage of Russia (Nicolai Petro) – details the Western media’s worrying ‘erosion of the crucial distinction between objective reporting and advocacy when it comes to Putin’s Russia’.
• The Misconception of Russian Authoritarianism (Kevin Patrick Cyron) – PhD thesis by an American graduate student at the University of St.-Petersburg makes a forceful argument that Russia has decisively shed its authoritarian past and is engaged in building up stable long-term democratic institutions.
• Russia at the Crossroads (Nicolai Petro) – an account of his participation in the Valdai Discussion Club, where Western journalists meet up with top Russian leaders.
• Russia’s New Cyberwarriors (Nicolai Petro) – warns of Russians’ creeping disillusionment with the West because of its perceived insensitivity and hypocrisy, which is especially prevalent amongst the young Internet users who are most intimately acquainted with Western coverage of their nation.
• A Charmed Profession (Fedia Kriukov) – discusses a BBC poll that kills two birds with one stone by demolishing the myth that a) Russians are oppressed and b) the Western media is balanced.
• Is CNN Getting Kicked Out of Russia? (Sasha Levine) – CNN censors Putin for being too darn sensible.
• Western treatment of Russia signifies an erosion of reason (Vlad Sobell) – argues that Western views on Russia’s “post-totalitarian” society have ossified since the end of the Cold War and are no longer able to consider the possibility that Russia is pursuing its own path to democracy.
• Solzhenitsyn and the Struggle for Russia’s Soul (George Friedman) – an interesting argument that Putin is neither restoring Soviet socialism nor moving towards Western forms of government, but instead pursuing Russia’s own Sonderweg according to Solzhenitsyn’s vision.
• The Real Reason why Putin arrested Yukos oligarch Khodorkovsky (Mark Ames), Will the Real Russian Dissident Please Stand Up (A Good Treaty), ZOMG! Mikhail Khodorkovsky is going on hunger strike! (Mark Adomanis) & Why is Misha Khodorkovsky a Dissident? (poemless).
• How do you spell Hypocrisy? O-S-C-E (Mark Ames) & Who Killed The OSCE? (Mark Ames & Alexander Zaitchik).

Russia’s Liberasts & Western Kremlinologists

• Through a Distorted Lens: Chechnya and the Western Media (Anatol Lieven) – a brilliant, in-depth exploration of the origins and outcome of the Second Chechen War and the Western myths and hypocrisy surrounding it. Includes profound reflections on the nature of Western Russophobia.
• Why Russian liberals lose (Nicolai Petro) – quite simply, because they are unpopular and discredited in the public opinion, despite all their arrogant, delusional protestations to the contrary.
• Russia’s Limousine Liberals (Anatol Lieven) – spells out the mendacity, hypocrisy and sheer incompetence of Russia’s so-called liberals
• The champions of liberal democracy have embraced the cause of Chechen separatism (Carl Thomson) – the dark links between liberals and Chechen terrorists.
• Godfather of the Kremlin (Paul Khlebnikov) – far from being the heroic pro-democracy crusader he now tried to portray him as, in the immortal words of General Lebed, “Berezovsky is the apotheosis of sleaziness on the state level: this representative of the small clique in power is not satisfied with stealing–he wants everybody to see that he is stealing with complete impunity”. The murder of the author in 2004 remains unresolved.
• An Audit of the Committee to Protect Journalists (Fedia Kriukov) – first, significantly more journalists were killed under “democratic” Yeltsin than “authoritarian” Putin; second, only a small percentage of the latter deaths can be definitively tied to their work. An exhaustive, must-read dissection of Western propaganda.
• A Brave Kremlinologist. Too bad for him (Fedia Kriukov) – exposes the lies and red herrings of quackademic Michael McFaul in his stupid essay The Myth of the Authoritarian Model.
• A Kremlinologist in Dire Need of Econ 101 Textbook (Fedia Kriukov) – takes a look at the disturbing level of Stephen Sestanovich’s economic ignorance (e.g. not understanding the difference between real and nominal GDP).
• On the Follies of Extrapolation from a Small Sample (Fedia Kriukov) – Luke Harding’s pathetic efforts to prove life in Russia is getting worse by interviewing an alcoholic in some Godforsaken village. Speaking of Luke Harding, his low-life plagiarism has been exposed by the eXile here, here and here).
• Everything you ever wanted to know about the Economist‘s Russia coverage here, here and here. Their star Russia reporter, Edward Lucas, deserves special mention – check out his nuanced and balanced coverage here and here (with friends like these, Russophobia needs no foes – talking of which, Fedia has a theory that he’s actually a Kremlin propagandist). His magnum opus is reviewed here, here and here.
• Repression of Journalism in Russia in Comparative Perspective (Gordon Hahn) – when one looks at journalist deaths per capita and their imprisonment rate, it emerges that Russia is not the paragon of journalistic repression it is usually portrayed to be.
• The Unholy Alliance and Looking West (Leos Tomicek) – on the bankruptcy of Russia’s “liberal” “opposition”.
• The Blues of the Orange (Eugene Ivanov) – deconstructs Keith Gessen’s account of Orange Revolution as “no complicated facts, no sophisticated interpretations. Just conclusions”.
• Criticisms of Mikhail Gorbachev, Stephen Blank, Leon Aron, Boris Nemtsov, Conrad Black, Barrett Brown, Mark Steyn, Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, Paul Goble (Mark Adomanis).
• On “Minor & Non-Critical” Issues: Oleg Kozlovsky vs. Gay Rights (A Good Treaty) – Kozlovsky’s opposition-by-indifference to gay rights in Russia.
• Yulia Antoinette (Sean Guillory) – on how Russian “liberals” are profoundly anti-democratic.
• Paul Goble’s Prometheism reaches into Ecclesiastical Spheres (Leos Tomicek) – more on his nefarious propaganda.
• Vladimir Socor: Hound for Hire (Philby Burgess).
• The Albats Archipelago (Anna Arutunyan) – how one of Russia’s foremost liberasts resembles a Stalinist show trial judge.
• Solidarnost’. Itogi. 2 goda. (Solidarity. The Results. 2 Years.) (A Good Treaty) – devastating indictment of Russia’s liberal leaders for authoritarianism, hypocrisy, homophobia and egomania.

International Relations

• The Specter that haunts the Death of Litvinenko (Edward Jay Epstein) – see #42 in my Russophobe Myths for an alternative look at this supposed FSB assassination. Contrary to popular opinion, a) polonium is not that rare or specific to Russia, b) there is evidence Litvinenko was contiminated with polonium well before the fatal ingestion or his meeting with Lugovoi and c) Russian requests for actual evidence as to the guilt of Lugovoi were stonewalled by the British, who nonetheless arrogantly insisted on extradition in contravention of the Russian Constitution.
• The Alexander Litvinenko Story Revisited (David Habakkuk) – delves further into the unpleasant murk.
• Would the real Ukraine please stand up? (Graham Stack) – demolishes the myth that Ukrainians hate Russia – more of them want to join a Eurasian union than the EU.

Geopolitics & Security

• The Geopolitics of Russia: Permanent Struggle (George Friedman) – the thesis that Russia’s geopolitics are a permanent struggle to avoid collapse, consolidate its position in Eurasia and keep up with the military-technological developments of its neighbors.
• Russo-Georgian War and the Balance of Power (George Friedman) – how it marked a watershed in the “Russian Resurgence”.
• Russia and Rotating the US Focus (George Friedman) – Russia is trying to use the window of opportunity opened up by the US presence in Iraq to consolidate its geopolitical position.
• The Medvedev Doctrine and American Strategy (George Friedman) – how the US should respond to the assertive Medvedev Doctrine.
• The Western View of Russia (George Friedman) – why Russia is suspicious of both old Cold Warriors and new liberal internationalists.
• The Coming Era of Russia’s Dark Rider (Peter Zeihan) – why Putin is Russia’s “dark rider”.
• The Russian Gas Trap (Peter Zeihan) – Russia is failing at the energy game.
• Russia, Iran and the Biden Speech (George Friedman) – Biden on how Russia is irrelevant in the long-term.
• The Financial Crisis and the Six Pillars of Russian Strength (George Friedman) – why the economic crisis has relatively little effect on Russia’s geopolitical power.
• For the war nerds here, check out Surviving the Modern IADS System, Assessing Russian Fighter Technology and stuff about the Sukhoi Flanker fighter from Air Power Australia. Their conclusions are that Russian military technology improved rapidly in the 1990′s and 2000′s as it gained access to Western information and electronic technologies (even despite the funding collapse), and that new systems now being developed threaten the primacy of the carrier battle group and US aeronaval dominance. If you read Russian, check out the Rian Novosti “Arsenal” series of articles on Russian weapon systems.
• Russia, China, Iran redraw energy map (M K Bhadrakumar) – the Eurasian energy map redrawn in Russia’s favor.

Other Points of View on the Baltics

• Russian rights and Estonian wrongs (Nicolai Petro) – Western double standards on human rights in Russia and Estonia: even as SS veterans proudly march through the streets of Riga and anti-fascist conferences and protests are brutally broken up, Western HR organizations whine about how Russian police disperse unsanctioned protests clogging up major city thoroughfares.
• Linguistic minorities in Estonia: Discrimination must end (Amnesty International, Dec 2006) – the respected HR organization AI comprehensively documents Estonia’s pervasive anti-Russophone discrimination in language law, employment and democratic participation.
• Discrimination against the Russophone Minority in Estonia and Latvia (London School of Economics, Feb 2005) – characterizes the two Baltic states as “ethnic democracies” which place “extensive policy regimes of discrimination” based on restrictions on Russophones under three policy pillars – citizenship, language, and participation. This is despite the fact that the vast majority of Baltic Russians (perhaps naively in terms of their own interests) supported the independence of their newly-adopted nation, not knowing that it would refuse to reciprocate the favor.
• Discrimination of ethnic Russians in Latvia and Estonia (Carl Thomson) – another good summary.
• Polity IV Country Report 2007: Estonia – the Polity IV project considers Estonia to be a marginal democracy because of its restrictions on political participation by Russophones.
• Latvia’s economic boom turns sour (BBC) – Latvia prosecutes economists who dare suggest it will have to devalue its currency for “sabotage”.

Other Points of View on Georgia & Caucasus

• On the South Ossetian War of 2008, see the Spiegel article Saakashvili under Pressure from EU Probe and the sources in my piece The Corpse Stumbles On for the belated Western recognition of the facts of Georgian aggression against South Ossetia and Russia (I criticized their initial propaganda here), as well as Patrick Armstrong’s writings on the chronology, Mark Ames on how the news media set about mendaciously covering their tracks after lying to us again in How to Screw Up a War Story and Carl Thomson on The West’s hypocritical stance on Iran (as regards Georgia).
• The Real Meaning of the South Ossetian War: Russia Strikes Back (The Vineyard of the Saker) – a truly insightful article connecting Russia’s forceful, resolute response to the Maniac of Tbilisi’s craven aggression with Russians’ understanding of the sheer depths of the West’s hypocrisy, double standards and hate against them.
• A Shattered Dream in Georgia: EU Probe Creates Burden for Saakashvili (Spiegel, 2009) – “Unpublished documents produced by the European Union commission that investigated the conflict between Georgia and Moscow assign much of the blame to Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili. But the Kremlin and Ossetian militias are also partly responsible.”
• Watch the films War 080808: Art of Betrayal and What really happened in South Ossetia? for evidence of Georgian war crimes in the 2008 South Ossetian War.
• The Georgian Economy under Saakashvili (Irakli Rukhadze & Mark Hauf) – asserts that much of Georgia’s growth was one-off, being based on state asset sale and government lay-offs – despite the expert spin. This was accompanied by accelerating deindustrialization, continued emigration and poverty and the destruction of all remaining safety nets. The govern acquired the habit of pressuring independent businesses to provide “voluntary contributions” in return for not bankrupting them under corruption prosecutions.
• Keeping up with Georgia (Carl Thomson) – Western double standards on beatings of protesters in Georgia and Iran.
• Legal Case for Russian Intervention in Georgia (Nicolai Petro) – a scholarly defense of Russia’s intervention in South Ossetia, which was a just and proportionate response to Georgia’s attack on Russian citizens and UN-mandated peacekeepers.
• The international legal status of the Republic of Abkhazia in the light of international law (Viacheslav Chirikba) – a formal defense of Abkhazia’s sovereignty and independence in semi-legalese.
• Saakashvili PR companies – compilation of data on the PR companies Saakashvili hired to burnish his image in the West, sourced from anonymous contributor at the Untimely Thoughts discussion group.
• Misha’s World (Tsotne Bakuria) – former member of Georgian parliament condemns Saakashvili for corruption and support of terrorism.
• Танки Августа – a Russian-language report on the war.
• Why Chechnya cannot be independent (Leos Tomicek) – because it would lead to a Caucasus Emirate inimical to the interests of both Russians and the indigenous peoples.

Other Articles

• Russians don’t much like the West (Susan Richards) – what N. Petro and many others say
• Russia is a Denikinist state (Yuri Scherbak / in Russian) – asserts Russia is preparing to rebuild its past empire, including Ukraine.
• The future’s ours: Russia’s youth activists (Zygmunt Dzieciolowski)
• Russia’s reinvented empire (George Schöpflin)
• The end of Russia? (Yury Afanasiev)
• Russian foreign and defence policy: Suggested reading for UK House of Commons
• Reading Russia Right (Dmitri Trenin) – Russia as a neo-Tsarist power whose political economy rests on the granting of rents in exchange for management and loyalty.
• Russia’s new arms development (Pavel Podvig) – the deterioration of Russia’s nuclear arsenal has been checked and it will soon start growing again under current trends.
• What does Russia Think? (ed. Ivan Krastev, Mark Leonard & Andrew Wilson) – an 85-page collection of essays by leading Russian political scientists.

“Russophobe” Articles

• On Russophobia (Craig Pirrong) – “It is this fundamental philosophical and moral divide between the classical liberal views I espouse, and the anti-liberal views of the Putinists, that explains my intense antipathy for the current Russian government and state, and which is the wellspring of my trenchant criticism. It is not a divide that can be bridged, as these are antithetical conceptions of the roles of the individual and the state.”
• Poles with Megalomania (Craig Pirrong) – Russians are…well, Poles with megalomania.
• Neurosis (Craig Pirrong) – you guessed it.
• Comment on George Handlery’s comment (Craig Pirrong) – characterization of Russia’s state-driven development as ““limited” resources become bundled by dictatorship to achieve maximal effect at a chosen point” and its problems.
• DR (or is it S-O?) on Russian Demographics (Craig Pirrong) – he attempts to “refute” my article on Russian demography (Rite of Spring) and fails miserably.
• The Slave Soul of Russia (Craig Pirrong) – Russia as a Romantic country defined by its holy suffering.
• It’s so Romantic (Craig Pirrong) – argues Russia is afflicted by latter-day German Romanticism.
• Russophobe Translations (La Russophobe) – say what you will about “her”, this is a useful service; unfortunately no such organization exists to translate Russophile thinking into English.
• Nemtsov White Papers – yawn… see Sean Guillory’s response.