Don’t Laugh, But Trump May Be Right on Russia

Foreign Policy Elites Are Still Invested in a Cold War With Moscow That No Longer Makes Sense

Donald Trump’s views on U.S.-Russia relations bring to mind something that Shakespeare points out in King Lear—that sometimes the court fool is the only person telling the truth.

Washington’s foreign policy establishment is an imperial court of a particularly Byzantine kind, and when it comes to Russia and certain other areas of policy, the court’s insular, conformist, and bipartisan consensus has so crushed free discussion, essential critiques have been banished to the fringes. No Washington analyst or commentator who values his or her career, and wants to be recognized …

By Anatol Lieven | September 26, 2016

I Could Blame Peter the Great or Warren Beatty, But Either Way The Soviets Got to Me

I'd Better Brush up on My Russian Declensions as Our Cold War Nostalgia Gives Way to the Real Thing … Again

By Andrés Martinez | September 26, 2016

I never stood a chance. Of course Russia would seduce me.

It was the early 1980s and Robert Massie had just published his riveting Peter the Great biography (I devoured …

I Tried Writing This in the Time It Would Take a Russian Missile to Hit Washington—I Didn’t Finish

Measuring an Unfathomable Nuclear Menace in Minutes and Decades

By J. Peter Scoblic | September 26, 2016

Zócalo asked J. Peter Scoblic to write about the Cold War’s threat of nuclear annihilation for no more than 30 minutes, roughly the amount of time it would have taken …

The ’90s Were an Exuberant Interlude Between the Cold War and Sept. 11

As We Contemplate Sending the Clintons Back to the White House, It’s Time to Reassess a Pivotal Decade

By Andrés Martinez | May 2, 2016

Welcome back, ’90s; I’ve missed you.

The last decade of the previous millennium is suddenly all the rage, claiming a growing slice of our cultural mindshare. Monica Lewinsky is on …

Is Treason Now Just a Punch Line?

National Betrayal Can Be a Joke at the Oscars or the Plot of a Bestseller, But That’s Because We’re Living in a Golden Age of American Loyalty

by Andrés Martinez | March 2, 2015

When I was hired last year by Arizona State University, I faced the customary blizzard of new employee paperwork. You know the drill—those forms that ask you to select your …

A Nuclear Warhead in Suburban Orange County?

In the Hills Above Brea Lies a Spot That Could Have Started World War III

by Tyler Spicer | January 10, 2015

From here, atop a concrete tower in the Brea Hills, I have a commanding view of Southern California. Behind me, I can see, faintly, the top of the monumental skyscrapers …

Russia Goes for Gold in Hooliganism

The Future World Cup Host’s Latest International Sporting Event Antics Only Deepen the Kremlin’s Sense of Isolation

From Russia with Mistrust

Exasperating, Mischievous, Sometimes Constructive: What Do We Do About Vladimir?

How Literature Became a Weapon in Russia’s Culture Wars

It’s a Battle of Tolstoys as Protestors Face off Against Putin’s Propaganda Machine

Russia Has Been Many Things to Americans, Except an Ordinary Country

Love ‘Em or Hate ‘Em, My Feeling Was We Should Study Those Elusive Soviets

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