13 Items

An entrance of the Lefortovo prison, in Moscow, Russia

AP/Alexander Zemlianichenko

Analysis & Opinions - The Cipher Brief

Russia's State-Sponsored Hostage Taking Reaps Rewards for the Kremlin

| Apr. 10, 2023

Paul Kolbe and Calder Walton analyze Russia’s arrest of Wall Street Journal journalist and US citizen, Evan Gershkovich, on espionage charges. This is the latest example of the Russian Federal Security Service's long practice of state-sponsored hostage taking and repression of the press. 

Anti Brexit campaigner Steve Bray holds up a banner outside Parliament

AP/Kirsty Wigglesworth

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Policy

Britain Is Botching This Cold War Just Like the Last One

| July 29, 2020

Calder Walton recounts the history of World War II which shows that Britain and the United States were in a Cold War with the Soviet Union before they knew it. The same is true today: Britain and the United States are in a Cold War with Russia whether policymakers in London and Washington like it or not.

bleached radiation warning sign

Wikimedia CC/ArticCynda

Analysis & Opinions - The Washington Post

The Deadly Fallout of Disinformation

| July 08, 2020

Calder Walton writes that autocratic regimes — China, Russia and Iran — have been using social media to try to influence U.S. public opinion. History reveals how and why a one-party regime used disinformation to salvage its reputation following a disaster — the Soviet Union's 1986 Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe, whose history also reveals how such disinformation can be countered.

Archibald Cox is surrounded by newsmen outside D.C. District Court

AP

Analysis & Opinions - Prospect

Has Trump Just Experienced the Beginning of Watergate 2.0?

| Nov. 01, 2017

"...[T]he Trump-Russia scandal has the potential to spark an even more damaging US constitutional crisis than Watergate. Unlike Watergate, it involves a hostile foreign power and its intelligence services. At the same time that Mueller's opening indictments were unveiled yesterday, it was revealed that Russian-backed fake election content had reached a staggering 126 million Americans on Facebook during the 2016 election campaign. The Russia-Trump scandal, Watergate 2.0, is just beginning."

White House

AP

Analysis & Opinions - Prospect

“Lies, Plain and Simple”: How James Comey Became Trump’s Meddlesome Priest

| June 09, 2017

"The issues at stake in this reality TV series of presidential politics can be easily ridiculed—will Trump tweet?—but they are profound. Comey's Congressional testimony goes to the heart of the proper functioning of US democracy, being concerned with checks and balances on the executive branch, and, crucially, whether President Trump obstructed justice by exerting pressure on America's senior law enforcement officer."

Analysis & Opinions - The Huffington Post

Trump Risks Making Stalin's Disastrous Mistake On Intelligence Analysis

| May 04, 2017

"A leader who accesses raw intelligence risks short-circuiting this entire enterprise, bypassing agencies that are supposed to prevent partial assessments. An inevitable risk is that a decision-maker with access to raw data that has not been professionally assessed will look for information that confirms his or her preexisting beliefs. Far from intelligence agencies telling leaders what they do not want to hear, in these circumstances, intelligence risks becoming self-fulfilling sycophancy."