October 2, 2022
After almost eight months of fighting, it feels like developments have been shifting in the Russia-Ukraine war in recent weeks, doesn't it?
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On the face of things, there is worrying news. The prospect of Russia using nuclear weapons is particularly frightening, without question. It is unclear what the US or NATO response would be to something like that, but at the same time I don't know how Putin's making these threats should change Washington's behavior right now.
Saturday, October 1, 2022
This past week I spent a few days in Austin talking about a book of mine that'll be coming out next year.
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| I paid a visit to the Longhorn anti-Leninists of Texas |
Thursday, September 22, 2022
After a flurry of posts regarding Russia-Ukraine in the winter and spring, I haven't had much to say in recent months. As I'd expected, invading Ukraine proper proved to be a much messier and difficult affair than the annexation of the Crimea.
Now, with Russia planning hastily-organized referenda in Eastern Ukraine and more public criticism of the war emerging in Russia following the announcement that Moscow will call up as many as 300,000 reservists, it feels like there could be some changes coming.
Saturday, September 17, 2022
Today we had the Fall Festival parade in Belgrade. I'd forgotten about the event, but while Zooming with my parents and brother this morning I noticed the large numbers of people parking in front of my house and pedestrians walking up the street.
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| Time to grab your fez and head to Belgrade |
Thursday, June 30, 2022
It had been three years since I'd been in Istanbul, and even that had been a short, week-long trip back in 2019. After living in Turkey between 1992 and 1999, I'd returned to the US to begin graduate school. But, given the fact that I work on Turkey professionally, I return frequently. From 1999 until 2020 there had been only one calendar year, 2002, when I hadn't gone to Turkey. And now, three years had passed.
I was supposed to be in Kazan, Russia this summer. That obviously didn't work out, but I was able to switch to researching in Amsterdam and Istanbul instead.
Thursday, June 23, 2022
I was at a hippish-type of place in Çukurcuma, not far from the AirBnB I'd rented in Cihangir. A friend of mine runs an art gallery there and she'd invited me to a soiree. It was a nice evening. I'd always despised Cihangir, which is lousy with youngish western foreigners, but Çukurcuma is alright. A DJ was playing cool- sounding music that was dribbling in the background, and we were all sipping red wine and talking about the paintings on the walls.
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| It's good to be back |
A couple of dudes, old-school Turkish leftist types, started chatting me up. It turned out we had some friends in common, people I'd known from the various times of my life that I've lived in this city. Talk turned to politics and the Russia-Ukraine war, and they asked me what I thought. I deflected, half-knowing what would come next. Of course they blamed the US for everything.
Monday, June 20, 2022
Three years. It had been three years since the last time I'd been out of the US--a delightful summer spent in Moscow, Mongolia, and Istanbul in 2019. Up until 2020, the last time I'd gone an entire calendar year without crossing a border had been sometime back in the mid-1980s.
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| Which way to the Borderlands Lodge? |
But yeah, I didn't do much traveling in 2020-2021, other than a couple of quick trips to Michigan. So, let's just say that the old backpack was a bit dusty when I retrieved it from the back room to prepare for this summer's travels.
Saturday, April 9, 2022
The news these days, of course, is that Russian forces have been withdrawing from most of Ukraine as part of an effort to establish more defensible positions in the east of the country.
But alongside this retreat to the East that we've seen this week, there have also been some hints of a retreat to the West.
Saturday, April 2, 2022
The news from Russia and Ukraine this week has oscillated between intense Russian bombardments of Mariupol and other cities in Ukraine, followed by Moscow's pledges to relent somewhat and re-position its forces in the eastern part of the country.
I could be wrong, of course, but I'm of the opinion that Moscow probably is really planning to re-group in eastern Ukraine. From the looks of things, some troops are also retreating to Belarus for now.
Saturday, March 26, 2022
Well, it certainly has been a messy, destructive March. All month long, observers have been watching the war in Ukraine and wondering why Putin has been doing this.
If this is indeed the case, it seems like a noteworthy sign. Could this be Vladimir Putin's "mission accomplished" moment?
Saturday, March 5, 2022
What an odious and sickening week this has been. It's starting to look pretty clear that Vladimir Putin is determined to punish Ukraine, regardless of the cost. No matter what happens in the long run, the goal right now is to make Ukraine, and Ukrainians, pay a terrible price for not knuckling under.
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| Putin winning more hearts and minds in Kharkiv |
Even if Russia were to stop shelling Ukrainian cities and power plants right now, it would take years for Ukraine to recover from what has been done so far. And much more damage will be inflicted on the country and its citizens, I think, before this comes to an end.
Sunday, February 27, 2022
Well, another day of fighting has passed in Ukraine and the government in Kyiv is still in place. One interesting development is that the Russian government appears open to negotiating with Kyiv now. Zelensky is in the agonizing position of having to choose between extending the war or giving into Putin's demands.
Saturday, February 26, 2022
If the events of this past week tell us anything, it's that there are advantages to being in NATO. Ukraine is being picked apart precisely because it's not a part of the organization. And if, for example, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia were not part of the alliance right now, chances are good that they would have come under similar pressure/intimidation/attack from Moscow.
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| Tartu, Estonia, 1998 |
My sense, moreover, is that in both western and eastern Europe, the current crisis has likely driven home some of the importance of being in the alliance. I imagine that today there are more people in, say, Warsaw who are relieved their country is part of NATO than was the case six months ago.
Friday, February 25, 2022
Well, wow.
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| Shock and awe |
First off, I have to say that I was surprised by the breadth of the attack, the shock-and-awe show.
What else?
Wednesday, February 23, 2022
On the heels of Monday's announcement by the Kremlin that it was recognizing the independence of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions, it now appears that Russian tanks and artillery may be moving into the region.
So where is this heading? I wish I could say for certain. I do, however, have a few ideas.
Monday, Feb. 21, 2022
The Kremlin has announced that it will recognize two separatist regions in eastern Ukraine: Luhansk and Donetsk. Russian "peacekeeping" troops are being sent in.
Why do this? And why now?
Sunday, February 6, 2022
Well, the drums of war have been beating more loudly lately re Ukraine and people are predictably freaking out. But I think the Biden administration has been doing a good job of responding to a crisis that was by no means of its own making.
I think that part of the problem is that people have come to reflexively see Vladimir Putin as some kind of evil genius whose every move will inevitably bring success. That, and the idea that the US is somehow the aggressor in this dispute are the two weakest takes that I've encountered over the past month or so.
Saturday, February 5, 2022
Thirty years ago this upcoming week, on Feb. 7, 1992, I began a four-month trip that would change my life in several ways.
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| I was a Copy Consultant |
I had recently graduated from college and, since August of the previous year, had been living in my parents' house in Ann Arbor. I was working two jobs--at Kinko's and delivering furniture--that I'd had in high school. The goal? Saving up money for a trip through central and eastern Europe.
Sunday, January 16, 2022
Friday, January 14, 2022
US and Russian negotiators met in Geneva this week to talk about the Ukraine/NATO crisis. According to the official Russian news agency TASS, however, the Russian government views the talks as a failure.
Moscow wants to receive a response to its demands by next week.
Saturday, January 8, 2022
Kazakhstan has been in the news a lot this week, following demonstrations on Sunday over the doubling of fuel prices that took effect on January 1. Since then, the situation appears to have spiraled out of control, with Vladimir Putin sending Russian troops to Kazakhstan on Thursday and Kazakh president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev issuing shoot-to-kill orders on Friday.
So what's been going on, and what does this all mean with respect to the larger geopolitical context of post-Soviet space?
Friday, December 31, 2021
Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin had their second "Skype Summit" of the month yesterday. I found this rather interesting. The two had, after all, just conferred on Dec. 7 and are representatives of the two administrations (but not Biden and Putin themselves) due to meet in Geneva on January 10.
So, why the second Skype meeting?
Sunday, December 26, 2021
In my last few posts I've written about Russian-Ukrainian relations, discussed the role of water and other resources within this relationship, and explored the reasons for why some in Russia might want to invade Ukraine.
But what might happen if Russia actually did launch a full-fledged invasion of Ukraine?
Friday, December 24, 2021
In a post yesterday, I discussed water-related issues between Russia and Ukraine. I did this as a means of exploring what, if any, concrete benefits an invasion of Ukraine might bring to Russia. The point I was making was that, rather than just looking to "nationalism," "Russian pride," or any other vague explanation for why something like this might happen, it makes more sense to look at tangible issues.
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| Sevastopol, Ukraine, in the Summer of 2006 |
But what about the rest of Ukraine? What benefit to Russia would an invasion bring? Or is Vladimir Putin simply rattling Ukraine's cage as a means of extracting concessions from the US and NATO?
Wednesday, December 22, 2021
There's been a lot of talk lately about the likelihood of Russia invading Ukraine, an issue that I discussed here last week. One point that I emphasized last week was that there are real differences between the respective value of the Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and the value of eastern Ukraine, where the Russian government has been intervening ever since 2014.
Thursday, December 16, 2021
The big story lately in Eurasia has been that relating to Russia's alleged designs on Ukraine. Following Joe Biden's Skype chat with Vladimir Putin earlier this month, the chatter hasn't ceased. Whether or not Russia will invade Ukraine remains a burning question.
Wednesday, October 20, 2021
I saw an interesting article in the New York Times today. The article relates to the small Turkish city of Kilis, located not far from the border with Syria. The focus of the piece was that, whereas much of Turkey is now demanding that Syrian refugees go home, Kilis is somehow different.
Sunday, September 26, 2021
A month ago I began my thirteenth year of teaching at Montana State University. A number of my friends, seeing the skyrocketing Covid case load in Montana these days, and perhaps having also heard that it's mainly young people who are driving the pandemic here, have asked me lately how things have been going so far.
Monday, September 20, 2021
Look out, world: the Detroit Lions are on Monday Night Football tonight!!!
Sunday, September 19, 2021
We've got some snow on the mountains this weekend...
Thursday, August 5, 2021
The other day I received an email message from the Wilson Center in Washington DC referring to borders, so you know I was interested. The message was advertising an interview with Paul Werth, an historian of the Russian Empire and professor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. The question-and-answer session with Werth, who has written extensively on the issue of religious administration in Russia, is rather short but interesting. I recommend that you check it out.
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| Sarpi border crossing between Georgia and Turkey |
