Featured Articles
NATO’s Paper Mache Agenda for Afghanistan
May 21, 2012, National Journal
By Kevin Baron
“The big if,” warned Brookings’ Steven Pifer, senior fellow and director of the Arms Control Initiative, is located far outside NATO’s borders: Who succeeds Karzai? It’s a topic only recently gaining traction in Washington. “Because if you get essentially the equivalent of a warlord winning, then I think all bets are off, and we'll be trying to, you know, control the damage at that point.”
Going to Extremes: Europe's Voters Strike Back
May 20, 2012, The Sydney Morning Herald
By Martin Daly
Jonathan Laurence, associate professor of political science at Boston College and author of The Emancipation of Europe's Muslims, believes the fact that one-fifth of the French electorate voted for Front National shows "serious fault lines" in terms of satisfaction with government, particularly as the front's members "do not hesitate to play fast and loose with some pretty vile politics".
Obama accueille Hollande
May 18, 2012, Le Parisien
By Alix Bouilhaguet
Enfin, sur le plan de la personnalité, François Hollande, « le président normal », semble plus compatible avec Barack Obama que ne l’était Nicolas Sarkozy. « Hollande est plus réservé, plus posé, plus pondéré. Un peu à l’image du président américain, qui ne change pas d’avis et qui n’est pas un impulsif », analyse Justin Vaïsse, de la Brookings, un club de réflexion. Le président américain, dont la devise est « no drama with Obama » (pas de drame avec Obama), pourrait ainsi trouver un alter ego à son goût.
Ce qui les sépare: le dossier afghan
May 18, 2012, Le Parisien
By Alix Bouilhaguet
« Les Français peuvent faire un pas en acceptant le principe qu’une force de formation reste plus longtemps pour assurer la transition », décrypte Justin Vaïsse. Reste une question à plus long terme : Barack Obama s’est engagé à laisser environ 15000 hommes — troupes combattantes et formateurs — après 2014 pour accompagner le pays pendant dix ans.
Euro Crisis and Growth the Focus at G8 Summit
May 18, 2012, The Irish Times
By Lara Marlowe
Attention will focus on Mr. Hollande, who will meet Mr. Obama in the White House earlier in the day.“This will be Hollande’s first chance to interact with leaders who gave him the cold shoulder during his campaign,” said Justin Vaisse, an expert on the US and Europe at Brookings. “François Hollande met with hostility when he promised to renegotiate the fiscal treaty,” Mr. Vaisse noted. “Since then, that has become the consensus. There will be a package of growth measures to balance the fiscal compact treaty.[German chancellor Angela] Merkel runs the risk of being isolated [at the G-8 summit]. The US is clearly on the side of growth.”
Obama Otherwise Engaged in Run-up to G8, NATO Summits
May 18, 2012, Business Recorder
By Peer Meinart
"For the first time in the history of NATO, Washington refused last spring to take on a leading role," says Clara O'Donnell, an expert in trans-Atlantic security issues. The Pentagon calls this taking a back seat in military operations. And O'Donnell warns that it could well happen again, given the current need for savings, whether or not Obama stays in the White House.
Chicago Summit Seeks to Deliver on Promises to Renew NATO
May 18, 2012, Xinhua
By Yi Aijun and Lin Yu
Steven Pifer, a senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution think tank, agreed on the alliance's indispensability to the security of the transatlantic community. However, "both the United States and Europe think NATO is going to remain relevant for the security of the transatlantic region," said Pifer. "Although my guess is that after Afghanistan enthusiasm both in Europe and the United States for that kind of operation in the future is going to be pretty limited, I think within NATO countries there's a sense that NATO is a useful tool, there is no organization in the world that is as good as NATO at organizing and conducting multinational military operations," he told Xinhua.
UN Observers Face Daunting Challenges in Syria
May 17, 2012, Voice of America
By Margaret Besheer
Richard Kauzlarich was U.S. Ambassador to Bosnia-Herzegovina in the late 1990s. He says one of the problems that plagued the Bosnian mission, known as UNPROFOR, was the parties’ unwillingness to stop fighting. “For whatever reasons, they saw war as the only solution to the political problem and UNPROFOR was given the impossible mission of trying to make peace in an environment where the people on the ground were not interested in peace," he said.
Austerity to Strain Transatlantic Ties at NATO Chicago Summit
May 16, 2012, Reuters
By Adrian Croft and David Brunnstrom
"There is definitely going to be an effort to present things in the best light possible, but the fact remains that as soon as we are talking about more ambitious forms of defence cooperation, which require large budgetary investments, it's really hard to progress and it's going to remain so for the foreseeable future," said Clara O'Donnell, a visiting scholar at Brookings.
Le camouflet de Poutine à Barack Obama
May 15, 2012, Le Figaro
By Laure Mandeville
À la Brookings Institution, Fiona Hill, directrice du centre sur les États-Unis et l'Europe, dit elle aussi «ne pas être surprise». «Pour Poutine, le G8 n'est pas vraiment une priorité et la relation avec l'Amérique non plus. Il est beaucoup plus confortable pour lui de faire sa rentrée de président au G20, où il est le leader informel des nouveaux pays émergents», explique-t-elle. «Cette surprise correspond à son style, mettre tout le monde sur la défensive et maintenir l'ambiguïté sur ses intentions», ajoute Fiona Hill.
Obama Hosts NATO, Focus on Afghanistan and Alliance Future Global Role
May 15, 2012, Voice of America
By Dan Robinson
Steven Pifer, at the Center on the United States and Europe at The Brookings Institution in Washington, said, "The question with smart defense is how can NATO together spend money so that NATO as an entity has more capability than if countries make independent decisions."
Economic Turmoil in Europe Could Be Key That Turns U.S. Elections
May 15, 2012, Public Radio International
"More (nations) could join (the recession), especially if François Hollande and Angela Merkel don't find a way to stimulate growth in the next few weeks," Justin Vaisse said. "A stronger recession in Europe would contaminate the U.S. economy by virtue of the very strong investment and trade links between the two sides of the Atlantic."
France's Hollande in Diplomatic Test With Obama
May 15, 2012, Reuters
By John Irish
Merkel, whose country has the third-largest troop contingent in Afghanistan, said on May 10 that NATO allies had joined the war at the same time and should leave together. "In the year running up to the election the last thing they (the Germans) want is to be maintaining an unpopular presence in Afghanistan when even France is withdrawing," said Clara O'Donnell at the Brookings Institution.
Sunni-Shia Strife: The Sword and the Word
May 12, 2012, The Economist
European Shia-Sunni acrimony is part of a many-sided contest over the future of the continent's tens of millions of Muslims, says Jonathan Laurence, a scholar at Boston College. The religious authorities in migrant-sending countries like Turkey and Morocco struggle to keep their people loyal to their own varieties of Sunni practice: they see Shia Islam and hardline Sunni groups like the Salafists as equally dangerous and insidious temptations for their sons and daughters in Europe.
Romney’s Adversarial View of Russia Stirs Debate
May 11, 2012, The New York Times
By Richard A. Oppel Jr.
A number of arms control specialists said they were startled by some of Mr. Romney’s assertions, like fretting about intercontinental ballistic missiles mounted on bombers. “It would be really fun to watch a Russian bomber with an SS-25 strung to its stomach try to take off,” said Steve Pifer, a former American ambassador to Ukraine and now director of the Arms Control Initiative at the Brookings Institution. “Some of the arguments just left people scratching their heads.”
Putin's No-Show at US Meeting Sets a Sour Tone
May 11, 2012, The Associated Press
By Anne Gearan
Putin has a variety of troubles at home and isn't likely to pick a fight with the United States despite sharply negative rhetoric about Washington during his election campaign. But he also isn't likely to welcome friendly ties for their own sake, said Steven Pifer, a Russia and arms control expert at the Brookings Institution. "I think you'll see a more transactional relationship," Pifer said. Putin will be prepared to cooperate with the U.S. where he sees fit, "but it will be, `If I do this for you, what do I get?'" Pifer said.
Putin Not Attending Camp David G8, Will Send Medvedev
May 10, 2012, Reuters
By Alister Bull
"The excuse could be legitimate," said Fiona Hill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "But on the other hand, maybe neither Obama, nor Putin, wanted to have their first big meeting, with Putin back as the president, at the (White House)," she said. A White House bilateral could have had repercussions on the U.S. election campaign trail, where Obama's likely Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, has already criticized the Democrat for not being tough enough in his dealings with Russia.
Not Normalizing Trade With Russia Could Hurt U.S.
May 9, 2012, National Journal Daily
By Kelsey Snell
As a WTO member, Russia can turn its irritation with the sanctions into a retributive policy when it gains the power to deny tariff rates and preferences to U.S. businesses, according to Steven Pifer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "Once [Russia] joins the WTO, this is going to be a congressional sanction on U.S. companies," Pifer said. "You may be unhappy with Russian behavior on other issues, but I can't see anything that continued coverage by Jackson-Vanik is achieving for us."
In Putin's Third Term, US-Russian 'Reset' Revisited
May 9, 2012, Voice of America
By Jonas Bernstein
Pavel Baev, a research professor at the Peace Research Institute in Oslo, Norway, said a mounting showdown between the government and Russian opposition could exacerbate tensions with the United States and other Western countries. "This sort of development objectively puts Putin on the course of a kind of self-isolation [and] greater tension with the West, because, for the West, opposition forces in Russia [are] something very sympathetic," he said. "For Putin, it is a mortal enemy with which he can fight, with which he will fight, tooth and nail. Putin will have to use every instrument at his disposal, including presenting the whole thing as a plot by the West and the United States in particular."
Book Review: The World America Made
May/June, 2012, Foreign Affairs
By Walter Russell Mead
As usual, Kagan’s writing bristles with insights and ideas. His latest book aims to counter the view of many liberal internationalists that because the United States seeks a liberal order it must eschew traditional great-power diplomacy and power projection. Kagan believes in the value of a liberal, democratic world order and fears that anarchy and chaos will result if this order breaks down.
Change in Paris May Better Fit U.S. Economic Positions
May 7, 2012, The New York Times
By Annie Lowrey
Mr. Hollande seems “naturally more palatable to the administration,” said Justin Vaïsse, the director of research for the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution. The administration seems to reason that “Europe probably has a better chance of avoiding a breakup or another renewed sovereign debt crisis by focusing on growth, rather than just sticking to austerity,” he said.
Putin Again Takes Reins of an Agitated Russia
May 6, 2012, USA Today
By Marc Bennetts
"Mr. Putin faces serious economic and political questions at home," said Steven Pifer, senior fellow and Russia expert at the Washington-based Brookings Institution think tank. "He may need a different set of political skills than have been necessary in the past."
Hollande Signals Return of France as Complicated Ally for West
May 6, 2012, Bloomberg
By Helene Fouquet
At the same time, he has fashioned a persona that may be familiar to the U.S. leader. “No drama, no surprise: the Obama recipe,” Justin Vaisse, an analyst at Washington-based Brookings Institution wrote on April 13.
The Ins and Outs of Russia’s Next Government
May 4, 2012, Reuters
By Douglas Busvine
"Elevations and falls from grace have become enmeshed in the hidden but acute rivalry between the two rulers, (and) clashes of interests between clans and ambitious newcomers," analyst Pavel Baev wrote in a commentary for the Jamestown Foundation.
One Man Rule Bad for Russia - Medvedev
April 26, 2012, RIA Novosti
By Marc Bennetts
“Medvedev will be remembered as a softer face of Russian foreign policy,” said Steven Pifer, senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution think tank, in comments to RIA Novosti. “[But] Washington has always assumed that Putin as prime minister was closely involved in major foreign policy decisions,” he added.
The Rubio Doctrine
April 25, 2012, Foreign Policy
By Joshua Keating
Rubio's foreign-policy views have evidently been recently shaped by a reading of Robert Kagan's The World America Made, a much-discussed refutation of the now-popular notion of American decline. He cited the author and Brookings scholar, who was sitting in the front row, repeatedly throughout the speech. (As a Romney advisor who has penned bedside reading for President Barack Obama, Kagan could plausibly claim to be the most prominently cited writer in Washington right now.) Rubio repeatedly echoed Kagan's arguments for the necessity of U.S. involvement in solving international crises.
French Jews’ Fears Rising
April 24, 2012, The Jewish Week
By Stewart Ain
Justin Vaisse, director of research at the Center on the United States and Europe and a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institute, pointed out that it is a “longstanding Socialist position to support a two-state solution [Palestinian and Israeli] dating back to the end of the ‘70s and early ‘80s – long before most other observers were in favor of it. (Hollande) does not have a distinctive take on it that would distinguish him from the Socialist mainstream.”
Beyond Freedom Fries: The Roots of American Francophobia
April 23, 2012, The Atlantic
By Max Fisher
Historian Justin Vaïsse thinks that the absence of a strong, unified French-American community means that there is little stigma against expressing Francophobia -- compared to anti-Japanese or anti-German attitudes, for example -- which over time has allowed Francophobia to flourish more freely than have other anti-national attitudes.
You Can Stop Being Scared Now
April 22, 2012, The Boston Globe
By Thanassis Cambanis,
Not everyone agrees. Robert Kagan, the most influential proponent of robust American power, argues that America is safe today precisely because it throws its military might around. President Obama said he relied for his most recent state of the union address on Kagan’s newest book, The World America Made.
When a Minority Population Rebels
April 20, 2012, The Washington Times
By Joshua Sinai
As stated in its title, Jonathan Laurence's "The Emancipation of Europe's Muslims: The State's Role in Minority Integration" sets out to present a "positive" spin on these issues. The book's merit is as a reference volume on the policies that governments across Western Europe have adopted in their attempts to better integrate Muslim communities into their societies and the types of organizations, ranging from mainstream to extremist, established by the Muslim communities to express themselves politically on these issues.
Le match Sarkozy-Hollande vu d'Amérique
April 19, 2012, Les Echos
By Pierre de Gasquet
“En cas de victoire, François Hollande pourrait négocier un protocole additionnel sur la croissance européenne qui aurait toutes les chances d'obtenir le soutien des autres partenaires européens et de l'administration Obama, soucieuse de ne pas voir la reprise américaine menacée par une récession en Europe,” résume Justin Vaïsse, chercheur à la Brookings Institution.
Do Americans Love War?
April 17, 2012, Salon
By Jefferson Morley
As a living embodiment of Washington’s bipartisan foreign-policy consensus, Robert Kagan has few peers. The author of the best-selling book “The World America Made,” Kagan has pulled off the neat trick of impressing the only two men on the planet who have a realistic chance of serving as president of the United States any time soon.
Turks, Armenians Aim For Dialogue in Washington
April 13, 2012, Today’s Zaman
By Ali H. Aslan
Ömer Taşpınar, a member of HasNa executive board and an academic at the National War College in Washington delivered a speech at the event, saying that while Armenians suffered a trauma due to the 1915 incidents, Turks suffered a trauma due to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and he called on both Turks and Armenians to avoid acts which will recall their traumas.
Can the 'Toulouse Effect' Save Sarkozy From Defeat in France?
April 12, 2012, MSNBC.com
By Becky Bratu
Three opinion polls showed the incumbent's narrow lead over challenger Francois Hollande is steady or shrinking for the April 22 first round, and Sarkozy is still expected to lose the subsequent May 6 runoff. "He’s been trailing Hollande in the second round pretty consistently," Justin Vaïsse, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told msnbc.com. "It’s hard to see where the reservoir of votes would come from to make him win."
[…]
Polls show the electorate is growing weary of the rhetoric as well. A recent national survey found 32 percent of respondents don't plan on hitting the polls, a figure that Jonathan Laurence, nonresident senior fellow at Brookings and term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, says is atypical. The turnout in the 2007 elections was about 80 percent.
Freedom in Post-Democratic Europe
April 9, 2012, Commentary
By Seth Mandel
The democracy deficit–in this case forcing the single-currency suicide pact on disapproving commoners–has led to increasing actual deficits. Those financial debts, in turn, have a corrosive effect on freedom abroad. For example, as Justin Vaïsse wrote in February, European governments promised “money, markets access, mobility” to emerging Arab states, especially Tunisia and Libya, during the Arab Spring. But the debt crisis at home resulted in modest, and disappointing, results–just as those countries needed it the most.
Playing Missile Defense
April 5, 2012, National Journal
By Yochi J. Dreazen
That has left Russia feeling sure that it, not Iran, is the true target. “They don’t worry about what our missile defenses can do now. They worry about what they can do down the road,” says Steven Pifer of the Brookings Institution, who spent decades on arms-control issues at the State Department. “The Russians basically say, ‘Iran doesn’t have ICBMs, so this must really be about us.’ ”
The Big Bang
April 5, 2012, The New York Times
By Jonathan Freedland
The authors are big hitters in the geopolitics genre. Robert Kagan coined what passes for a catchphrase in the international relations field when he declared a decade ago that ''Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus.'' At the time, Kagan, a veteran of Ronald Reagan's State Department, was one of the leading advocates of military action against Iraq.
Oil Prices Fueling Russia's Disruption of U.S. Foreign Policy
April 3, 2012, U.S. News and World Report
By John T. Bennett
"Putin still aspires for Russia to be a superpower," says Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. "There are only two ways for Russia to achieve that: nuclear weapons, and oil and natural gas sales."
Source Says White House Never Floated Cut to Only 300 Warheads
April 3, 2012, U.S. News and World Report
By John T. Bennett
The White House never asked for options about shrinking the U.S. nuclear arsenal to just 300 deployed warheads, a former senior official says. "The Pentagon was never asked to look at options for going to 300," says Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, citing conversations with Defense Department officials.
Power and Weakness... and Perspective
April 2, 2012, Foreign Policy
By Daniel Drezner
It's hard to believe, but ten years ago Robert Kagan published "Power and Weakness" in the pages of Policy Review. Coming on the heels of the invasion of Afghanistan and the start of the Iraq debate, Kagan's essay seemed to crystallize the state of the transatlantic relationship back in the day. To celebrate it's 10th anniversary, Policy Review has come out with a special issue devoted to the essay, asking a variety of smart people to weigh in.
Russia and the US: Friend, Foe or It’s Complicated?
March 30, 2012, ABC News
By Dana Hughes
“Russia bashing plays well to a certain part of the American electorate,” Steven Pifer, the director of the arms control initiative at the Brookings Institute, told ABC News. “I find it hard to believe that the Romney foreign policy team really does see Russia as foe number one."
A World of Uncertainty at Brussels Forum
March 29, 2012, The Philadelphia Inquirer
By Trudy Rubin
In the same vein, the Brookings Institution's Robert Kagan noted: "China is about to have a bigger military budget than Europe. Brazil and India are increasing their military capacity. Europe needs to be part of this game." A decade ago Kagan famously coined the saying "Americans are from Mars, Europeans are from Venus." After the Cold War, "Europe thought it could rule the world by economic power," he explained.
German Effort to Save Euro Zone Comes at a Cost
March 28, 2012, The Washington Post
By Howard Schnieder
"It has not been cheap to get the consent of Germany," said Carlo Bastasin, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution. He said the price included the ouster of Greek and Italian leaders who had not taken strong enough action to tackle their nations' debts and harsh austerity measures, such as deep cuts in public spending, in several countries. "The brinksmanship was a precise strategy - and it worked pretty well in terms of results," he said.
Emerging Markets Flex Collective Muscle At BRICS Summit
March 28, 2012, International Business Times
By Martin Baccardax
The BRICS "have benefited enormously from an international order that has an open economic system that allows them to trade with the United States and with other powers and they don't have to spend a lot of money on their defense," argued Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington.
Tibet, India, China, and the Yearning for Freedom
March 28, 2012, Forbes
By Kapil Komireddi
“If America’s future competitor in the world is likely to be China,” Robert Kagan recently wrote in a celebrated essay, “then a richer and more powerful India will be an asset, not a liability, to the United States.”
Barack Obama Caught Hinting at Concessions to Dmitry Medvedev
March 26, 2012, The Telegraph
By Jon Swaine
Steven Pifer, the director of the Brookings Arms Control Initiative, said that a re-elected Obama administration might offer to share information on the project with Moscow or even effectively allow Russian officials to inspect the system. "Essentially you say 'here are our plans, here are the number of things we have, and we will keep you updated'," said Mr Pifer. "They could also permit official observations of testings. However Mr. Obama's opponents would say these put the US on a slippery slope."
Please Don’t Go
March 24, 2012, The Economist
To those who believe that a multipolar world could be at least as peaceful as the one dominated by America, Robert Kagan says history proves otherwise. Rules rarely outlast the powers that created them. Nations go to war when they are “in doubt about which is stronger,” he writes. The world is more stable when one nation dominates, especially when it is a nation like America.
NATO, Russia Look Headed for Conflict
March 24, 2012, Deutsche Welle
By Roman Goncharenko
And that, says Steven Pifer, a defense expert at the Brookings Institute in Washington, creates a political dilemma for US President Barack Obama. "Even if the Obama administration would like to do that, there is no chance that the American Senate would ratify that," Pifer told DW. "Unfortunately missile defense has become very, very political."
Sifting Through What We Know About the French Shootings Suspect
March 21, 2012, NPR
By Corey Flintoff
Jonathan Laurence, a professor of political science at Boston College, says that the profile of the case — with its Jewish and North Africa victims — at first suggested that the killer might be from the extreme right-wing. Some were drawing parallels to the Norwegian shooter involved in the attacks that killed dozens of people last summer in Norway.
Russia Warms to Syrian Ceasefire Plan, Says Red Cross
March 20, 2012, The National
By Dan Peleschuk
Moscow's posture towards Damascus is "much more fluid" than it might appear, said the Russian foreign policy expert, Pavel Baev. When looking at which side deserves more support, Russia picks whoever is on top, Mr Baev said. For now, "there is no point" in helping the opposition "because they're the forces of chaos, and in the Russian perception, revolution and chaos are pretty much synonymous".
Second Mates
March 16, 2012, National Journal
By Charles Kupchan
Those of us who write about foreign policy—or any topic, for that matter—yearn for the day when the president of the United States lauds our work. That is exactly what happened in January to Robert Kagan, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and an adviser to the Romney campaign. Just before delivering the State of the Union address, President Obama told a collection of news anchors that his thinking had been influenced by Kagan’s recent cover essay in The New Republic, “Not Fade Away: The Myth of American Decline.” It is not often that a president running for reelection praises his chief rival’s counselor.
Book Review: ‘The World America Made’ by Robert Kagan
March 9, 2012, The Washington Post
By James Mann
So what should we make of the fact that President Obama has recently been touting parts of Robert Kagan's new book, “The World America Made”? The president let it be known before his State of the Union address that he had been reading an essay adapted from the book, published by the New Republic under the title “The Myth of American Decline.”
Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears
March 9, 2012, The Boston Globe
By Editorial Board
Although Putin remains popular for bringing order and prosperity to Russia after the chaos of the post-Soviet era, the urban middle class he helped create has grown disillusioned with corruption and authoritarianism. Some 4 million Russians - about 3 percent of the population - have left Russia to work elsewhere over the last 10 years. Now millions who have chosen to stay are more defiant than before. The big question now is how Putin will handle them. “They are not going to stick everyone in the gulag again,’’ says Fiona Hill of the Brookings Institution.
Sarkozy’s ‘Southern Strategy’: French President Says ‘Too Many Foreigners’ in France
March 7, 2012, Yahoo!News
By Laura Rozen
Sarkozy is trying to knock off the current third-place challenger, far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, daughter of age-old right-winger Jean-Marie Le Pen, before the first round of voting on April 22nd. "The biggest threat for Sarkozy is to go down in polls so much ... that Le Pen goes to a second round," Justin Vaïsse, a French expert at the Brookings Institution, told Yahoo News Wednesday.
Our Views: If Not Adored, Still Powerful
March 5, 2012, The Advocate
For a quick history lesson, Robert Kagan of The Brookings Institution wrote recently about the myth of American decline. His arguments are particularly relevant in an election year, when there is going to be much loose talk about America’s waning influence in the world. Kagan quoted many other doomsayers of the past who proved to be wrong, such as Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who in 1952 talked about our own relative decline. That was relative to the Soviet Union, which no longer exists.
America and the Middle East: An Explosive Mix
March 5, 2012, The Financial Times
By Geoff Dyer and Richard McGregor
Alternatively, some observers point out that, purely in terms of electoral politics, a US-led attack would yield big benefits. “If you ask anyone inside both of the campaigns, if Obama were to use force against Iran, then the election is over,” says Robert Kagan, the foreign policy scholar who has advised a number of Republican candidates. “This is what people think. He would win the election overwhelmingly.”
Vladimir Putin: The Man, the State, the Destiny
March 4, 2012, RIA Novosti
By Marc Bennets
“Putin is not generally well-disposed to the US. He is always touchy and distrustful on relations,” said Fiona Hill, director of the Centre on the United States and Europe at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. “Forging a relationship with Putin will be difficult for [US President Barack] Obama, as well as for whoever else might come next in the US presidency."
Russia’s Elections: Putin Makes U.S. Enemy #1
March 2, 2012, The Washington Post
By Allen McDuffee
With Vladimir Putin expected to win the Russian presidential elections set for Sunday, Brookings scholar Fiona Hill says the United States should be concerned that the U.S.-Russian relations reset under current president Dmitry Medvedev is at risk. “The rhetoric of [Putin’s] campaign has been very nasty,” says Hill. “Anti-Americanism is always an old tool in the toolkit for Russian politics,” she said, adding, “Now, during this campaign, Putin has put U.S. right back up top as enemy number one.”
Putin Power Play Casts Cloud Over Obama's 'Reset' With Russia
March 2, 2012, FoxNews.com
By Judson Berger
Another six, possibly 12, years of Putin as the United States' negotiating partner could make that relationship frostier still. Fiona Hill, director of the Center on the United States and Europe at The Brookings Institution, said Putin's anti-U.S. posture on the campaign trail is "not going to bode well for U.S. relations." A second Putin presidency is likely to be far more "defensive" than the first, she said, because he faces serious opposition at home. This means "he's more likely to play to the crowd, more likely to push harder-line policies," Hill said.
Putin ‘Moving Into His Berlusconi Phase,’ Russia Scholar Says
March 2, 2012, Yahoo! News
By Laura Rozen
As polls universally predict victory for Vladimir Putin in Russian presidential elections Sunday, a prominent Washington Russia scholar likened the once and likely future Russian president to Italy's disgraced former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who was ousted from power last year during the European financial crisis. "Putin is now moving into his 'Berlusconi phase,'" Fiona Hill, a Russia scholar at the Brookings Institution, said in an analysis prepared by the think tank and sent to journalists in advance of Sunday's polls.
The Politics of Meat and Muslims in Election-Year France
March 2, 2012, The Christian Science Monitor
By Scott Baldauf
Jonathan Laurence, a political scientist at Boston College and author of the book “The Emancipation of Europe’s Muslims,” says that France is not alone in its concerns over its growing Muslim minorities.“The big picture is that in the last 20 years how much things have changed, and how governments have realized that people are here to stay,” says Professor Laurence, in a recent conversation with Monitor editors. But now, as the European economy is shrinking or staying flat, European politicians have “realized there is election gold in undoing the little they got done” in changing their laws to accommodate Muslim minorities.