Monthly Archives: July 2010
Palestine and the Kosovo Precedent
I mentioned several situations yesterday in my post on the ICJ decision regarding Kosovo that could be affected by the decision. The implications for Palestine are even more intriguing. John Whitbeck describes some of them at: http://www.counterpunch.org/whitbeck07232010.html
Kosovo and the International Court
The ruling by the International Court of Justice that Kosovo’s declaration of independence did not violate international law (see Dan Bilefsky’s article in the New York Times today) will be used by the Kosovo government to argue that it entitles … Continue reading
Shultz PBS Series: Ethics Questions?
OK, the producers interviewed me for this series and have included a few cameo snippets of that interview, so I guess some may feel I have a “conflict of interest” in evaluating it. However, I didn’t choose the excerpts, didn’t edit the film, … Continue reading
Shirley Sherrod – A Teaching Moment?
I don’t spend much time watching television, but yesterday when I was on the treadmill at the gym, I tuned into CNN, listening through earphones. What I saw was excerpts from Mrs. Sherrod’s talk to the NAACP, and her interview with … Continue reading
Nina Khrushcheva: The Spy Who Came in by Amtrak
Nina Khrushcheva knew one of the Russian spies. Here is her hilarious account on ForeignPolicy.com: The Spy Who Came in by Amtrak
Obama and the Gulf Oil Spill
I have been amazed at the way much of the public—and, it would seem, even more of the media—has treated the oil spill caused by the BP drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico as a problem for the federal … Continue reading
The Spy Swap
Second, perhaps, only to sex, spies seem to stimulate the emotions, at least in the United States. And so it was when reports of the arrest of ten—and then eleven, and then twelve—Russian undercover agents in the United States moved … Continue reading
Nina L. Khrushcheva, Imagining Nabokov: Russia Between Art and Politics
I was privileged to have Nina Khrushcheva, Nikita Khrushchev’s great granddaughter, as my research assistant when I was Kennan Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study. She is now a tenured professor at the New School University in New York. In her book on Vladimir Nabokov, … Continue reading
Andrei Grachev, Gorbachev’s Gamble: Soviet Foreign Policy and the End of the Cold War
Written by one of Gorbachev’s closest advisers, this is probably the best account published as yet in any language of what went on within the Soviet government as the Cold War came to an end and the Soviet Union fell apart. No … Continue reading
Dick Combs, Inside the Soviet Alternate Universe: The Cold War’s End and the Soviet Union’s Fall Reappraised
Dick Combs, who served several tours at the American Embassy in Moscow, has written one of the best studies of the end of the Cold War and the Soviet collapse. In addition, Dick’s book contains many wise observations about current Russian and American … Continue reading