Assad's Fall and Russia's Stumble

Thursday, December 12, 2024 

I can only imagine how eerie it must have been for the residents of Damascus to wake up this past week and find themselves finally rid of the Assads. 

All smiles for now

But it must be terrifying as well, at least for those who don't savor the idea of living under the rule of fighters who, until quite recently, were affiliated with ISIS and other extremist Sunni Muslim militias. So, while I doubt that there are very many Syrians who will miss the tyranny of Assad's rule, there are some who will definitely be sorry to see the secularism of Baath party rule come to an end. 

Now that Assad has been overthrown, the jockeying for power begins.

Kristmas Konvoy N & P: News from Belgrade and the World

Sunday, December 8, 2024

This past Thursday was our last day of classes at MSU, so there's been a lot going on. In the city of Belgrade, meanwhile, the Christmas Convoy rumbled through town last night. 

The rumbling was so loud that I've barely been able to focus on the news. Russia, Romania, South Korea, Georgia--so much stuff going on. For my takes on the latest at home and abroad, see below. 

Arming Ukraine: Why it's in American Interests

Friday, December 15, 2023

Every GOP senator voted no this week on a supplemental funding bill that included money for Ukraine. The vote, which failed 49-51, required 60 supporters in order to pass. Republicans voting no mainly argued that they wanted the Biden administration to make concessions regarding US border policies before they would consider supporting the spending bill. 

Bernie Sanders also voted against the measure, which included funding for Israel, arguing that the US shouldn't be giving money to the Israeli government "with no strings attached." 

In fact, it seems likely that, eventually, the measure will pass and that aid to both Ukraine and Israel will continue. At the same time, however, the vote points to a worrying trend regarding the evolution of American thinking regarding the Russia-Ukraine war. 

My Thoughts on Nagorno-Karabakh

Sunday, October 1, 2023

Since Azerbaijan's attack on the remaining Armenian-held territory in Nagorno-Karabakh on September 19-20, a number of people have gotten in touch and asked me what I thought.

So, here goes:  

The Breakup of Russia?

Wednesday, April 12, 2023

Putin's air of invincibility is shrinking by the day. But what would happen if he were somehow removed from power?

In my previous post, I speculated on the possibilities of sudden collapse in Russia. My argument was that, as was the case with respect to the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, there's a possibility of a similarly unexpected downfall in today's Russia as well. While Vladimir Putin by all accounts appears to be quite secure with respect to his ability to maintain his position in power, there is certainly precedent in Russia for seemingly stable regimes falling unexpectedly. 

As I noted on Monday, Putin's legitimacy rests largely upon his ability to deliver. He has no dynastic claim. There is no all-powerful party in the manner that there was in Soviet times. Nor is there any real ideology associated with Putin's rule. Instead, Putin's competence has been his primary tool of legitimacy in Russia. And, no matter how much Russian authorities endeavor to hide the truth from their citizens, the fiasco that is the war in Ukraine is becoming increasingly difficult to explain away. So, when your claim to legitimacy is based mainly upon your competence, that legitimacy evaporates once you've been exposed as incompetent. 

And that can be very bad news if you happen to be the incompetent one in power.  

Thinking beyond Putin

Monday, April 10, 2023

Lately I've been thinking about the possibilities of collapse. No, not my own--but rather that which could take place inside Russia. 

When Nicholas II of Russia was, in 1905, pushed to the brink of overthrow, the world was incredulous. After all, the Russian government had, it seemed, been making all of the right moves for decades. The liberalization of the economy that had followed Russia's abolition of serfdom had led to an astonishing level of development. In the 1890s, Russia had the second fastest-growing economy in the world, after the USA. Foreign investment in the Russian economy increased nine-fold between 1880 and 1900. 

Regrouping in Belgrade N & P

Saturday, February 25, 2023

I've been away from the blog for a while, mainly because I was finishing up my book on Nâzım Hikmet. I finally did send up the final proofs a couple of weeks ago. I've been told the book will come out first in the UK (the publisher is Oxford University Press) on April 2. Apparently, it will be available in the US starting June 2. 

So, I've been holing up at the Borderlands Lodge. 

The book has been a long time coming. As I recount elsewhere, I came up with the idea of working on Nâzım in the summer of 2015, and started reading up on him in earnest in the fall and spring of 2015-2016. The years to follow took me on multiple trips to archives in Moscow, Istanbul, Amsterdam, and Washington, D.C. 

It was a great experience. I loved the research, and especially working in the archives. Researching in Moscow, especially, was thrilling, mainly because none of that material had ever appeared in books on Nâzım before. But the writing process was also quite interesting. When the pandemic began, I was in a position to shift entirely to writing. So, that's what I did every day. 

There are obviously much bigger things going on in the world right now. This is one little book in a universe of suffering that's taking place in Turkey, Syria, and Ukraine, alongside many other locations on this planet. 

On the other hand, this is what I've been doing for the past seven and a half years. I hope people enjoy it. 

Russia-Ukraine Notes: Early October Edition

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? 

Separated at birth?

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. 

The Return: Part II, Talkin' Türkiye

Thursday, June 23, 2022

What's in a name?

Some people have been asking what I think about Turkey's "name change," i.e. from just plain "Turkey" to the new and exciting "Turkey-yay!" (as "Türkiye" is pronounced, sort of). 

Who knows? Maybe they're on to something. 

"Turkey-yay! I kiss you!" 

Kumbaya and Crimea: the Biden-Putin Meeting in Geneva

Friday, June 18, 2021

Up here at the Borderlands Lodge, summer is quietly approaching. The freezing nights of winter have receded, and now we're having nice temperatures in the 70s and low 80s in the daytime. I've been spending a lot of my time on the house and buying novel items--who knew that a string trimmer is not for trimming strings?

Lava Lake, encore une fois

Moving house took up a lot of my time and energy in March-April, so I hadn't gotten outside so much--it didn't help that my bike was a shell of its former itself. But now my bike is in beautiful working order again I've been able to shake off a bit of the rust. 

With the arrival of warmer temperatures, there have also been some chances to get outside. Despite the mountains to the north, historic downtown Belgrade is a pretty flat area, good for bike riding. On the other hand, the bikeable area of Belgrade is smaller than what I had in Bozeman, so I tend to cover a lot of the same ground repeatedly. But there are lots of nice places to go outside in this part of Montana.

From Bozeman to Belgrade: Moving the Borderlands Lodge N & P

Saturday, April 10, 2021

A lot has been going on over the past couple of months. For me personally, the biggest project has been moving. Yes, after twelve years in its present location, the Borderlands Lodge is headed to Belgrade: Belgrade, MT, that is--the little Montana town with a Balkan flavor. 

I've lived in a lot of apartments over the years. There were four in Montreal when I was in college, and then another four in Istanbul when I lived there in the 90s. I won't even try to count how many places I rented when I was a graduate student/post-doc researching in Istanbul, Baku, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Ufa, Moscow, Simferopol, Batumi, and Tbilisi, not to mention Princeton, Providence, and NYC. 

When I got my job at Montana State in 2009, I was living again in Istanbul, having flown out to Turkey--for the second time in my life--on a one-way ticket and no concrete plan for return. I'd finished my PhD and was feeling somewhat invisible after two long years looking for tenure-track work in the USA as a professor. I was riding out a post-doctoral research grant I'd received and, other than applying for various jobs, no real idea of what was going to happen next. 

Moving from Istanbul to Bozeman in the summer of 2009 was an adventure. I didn't have a lot of stuff, so I shipped out what little I had stored at my parents' place in Ann Arbor, then used the remainder of the moving expenses MSU had given me to rent a car and drive out to Montana from Michigan. It was a great trip, and gave me a feel for the enormity of the distance and the land extending between my childhood home and my new adult one. 

N & P: Suburban Outdoorsman Edition

Saturday, January 30, 2021

On top of everything else these last few months, we've had relatively little snow this year in the Bozone. This is bad news for a number of reasons--we need a good snow pack, for one thing, to mitigate summer dryness and forest fires. The lack of snow, moreover, has bitten into the ski season, with Bridger Bowl, our local ski hill, starting its (socially-distanced) services quite late into the season. 

When I first moved up here twelve years ago, I did a lot of downhill skiing. I bought a Bridger ski pass and remember a number of occasions when I skied in the morning and taught in the afternoon--even teaching in my ski pants on one occasion when I didn't have enough time to go home and change. In recent years, however, I've gotten more into cross-country skiing, especially since buying my own gear 4-5 years ago. I like the fact that I can go and cross-country somewhere for an hour or two in the afternoon and then get home to do something else--it doesn't take up the whole day the way a trip to Bridger does. 

There are a bunch of places to cross-country around Bozeman, but I just usually go to the golf course up the street from me. The more remote trails are definitely more interesting, but frankly I shy away from wandering off too deeply into the woods on my own. So, in a time of social distancing, suburban outdoorsmanship rules the day. 

The snow has been pretty crunchy on the golf course these past few days--and not only when you inadvertently ski over deer droppings. This morning, however, we got a nice dumping of snow. Nothing clears the mind of screen-time like an hour or so gliding through snow. 

Now that we've covered the Bozeman ski report, what's going on in the Eurasian Borderlands? Well, I'm glad that you asked...

N & P: İmparatorluklar Arası Türkler Edition

 Saturday, January 23, 2021

This has been a pretty busy week up here at the Borderlands Lodge. School started last week, so there has been plenty to do. Still, things are slowing down a little bit. Whereas I fielded probably 20-25 email messages from students last week, this week was a bit calmer, but still there were a lot of questions. It's always like that in the spring, which is when I teach a big 100-level class.

One kind of cool thing that happened was receiving notice that my first book, Turks Across Empires, has been translated into Turkish. 

News & Propaganda: Brand New Year Edition

Saturday, January 2, 2021

Well, 2020 has come to an end, and many are no doubt celebrating. Not me. I'm happy to have time on this earth no matter what, pretty much, so you won't find me wishing for a year to be over prematurely. 

I wonder what would have happened if, one year ago, we had all been told ahead of time about what 2020 would be like. How would we have responded? I think a lot of us would have freaked out, myself included. But once you're actually in the middle of a situation, you find ways of managing. 

Not that my situation has been especially difficult. I've been alone, which for some people would be torture, but I happen to mostly enjoy my own company. I'm also still able to work. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see how destructive this past year has been to the lives of others, so I don't feel particularly put out by my own rather trifling inconveniences. Mostly, I've been reading a lot and trying to finish the book I've been writing on Nazım Hikmet. Actually, the book is pretty finished-looking at this point. What I need now is a publisher.   

And what about in the Turkic-Russian borderlands, what's going on over there? Well, let's take a look...

N & P: End of Summer Edition

Friday, September 25, 2020

Summer is over. And what a summer it's been! Actually, I can't complain. Bozeman is a beautiful place, and I always felt like I had plenty to do. Luckily, I was at a stage in my book project in which just staying at home and writing was probably the best thing for me. 

Now the weather is getting colder. It's not crispy--the way it gets in New England around these times--but rather more like a big deep wind that brings darker and colder climes. 

N & P: Leonine Woes Edition

Friday, September 18, 2020

I'm having a difficult time masking my disappointment in the 2020 version of the Detroit Lions. Honestly, I figured that with the way this year has been going, it would kind of make sense for an historically inept franchise like the Lions to finally pull through. 

But no--and I should have known. Once again, this team would find ways to lose in some crazy way, as happened again versus Chicago in their season opener. And it seems like these collapses always happens against the Bears. Even the Lions' best player, kicker Matt Prater, had a bad day. 

Before Detroit's loss on Sunday, over the past 15 years NFL teams leading by 17 or more in the fourth quarter had been a combined 779-3. 

So, nothing has appeared to have changed with this team. But at least the Lions have managed to bring back some consistency--a sense of normalcy, you might even say--to our confused world. 

News & Propaganda: Back to School Edition

Friday, August 21, 2020

School started up again this week, bringing an end to a weird summer. Actually, were it not for the conditions surrounding my summer, I could say that it has been a good one. There are worse things one could be stuck doing than hiking, biking, and writing in Montana. 

Beautiful days in Montana

Erdoğan vs. Putin: The Streetfighter and the Agent Face Off

Saturday, November 28, 2015

Man, I woke up feeling stuffed this morning. For the third straight year, I cooked my own turkey this Thanksgiving. It was good fun, with good company, but with lots of food left over, course. 

Erdoğan and Putin have been cooking up conflict, but we've got bird at the BL. 

Slowly, I've been making my way through at least some of the leftovers. For example, today and yesterday I started my day off with the Borderlands Breakfast of Champions: coffee, croissants, and stuffing.  

All in all, it's been an easy and relaxing holiday. 

Post-election Ukraine: Staying focused on Kyiv

Monday, May 26, 2014 Now that the presidential election has been held in Ukraine and the so-called 'Chocolate King' has apparently won in a cakewalk, the news regarding Ukraine seems--at first glance--to be getting somewhat better. After all, it appears that Russian President Vladimir Putin has pulled back forces from the Ukrainian border. Has Russia indeed 'lost' in eastern Ukraine? That seems to be the conclusion of some observers. In a recent article in Forbes, one Paul Roderick Gregory writes glowingly on this topic, and even seems to be encouraging the Ukrainian government to try to re-take Crimea. Gregory writes that 'there is growing consensus that Vladimir Putin has abandoned his campaign to take control of east Ukraine."  All not sweet for the 'Chocolate King'

Referenda Day

Sunday, May 11, 2014 Today, separatists in eastern Ukraine are holding referenda in a number of cities asking about something... “Do you support the People’s Republic of Donetsk?” You mean financially? Are you asking for money? It seems pretty understandable that people would be confused.