Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.) Cohen chose this subject for tonight’s discussion for several reasons. This year marks the 30th anniversary both of Gorbachev’s formal introduction of his democratization policies in... Read More

Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussion of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.) Cohen and Batchelor have a spirited discussion of Cohen’s thesis that the political legacies of American slavery and of Stalin’s Great Terror, which engulfed the Soviet... Read More

Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.) Pointless and recklessly irresponsible new sanctions recently adopted almost unanimously by Congress against Russia are, as Cohen has long argued, evidence that the new Cold War... Read More

Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War.(Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.) Cohen argues that the mainstream (or Beltway) media narrative of the new Cold War, and of “Russiagate,” which has become a constituent part of US-Russian relations in... Read More

Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.) Cohen argues that a new détente—cooperation in place of conflict—with Russia is imperative due to the unprecedented dangers of the new Cold War, with conflicts from... Read More

Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.) Cohen is increasingly alarmed that, as Washington and Moscow drift toward military conflict, the US political-media establishment remains obsessed with “Russiagate”—allegations that Russian President Putin ordered... Read More

Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. Previous installments (now in their fourth year) are at TheNation.com. Cohen thinks three moments of truth about the current state of American-Russian relations were recently revealed, but so little covered in the mainstream media that he... Read More

Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions, now in their fourth year, of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments are at TheNation.com.) This installment is, however, different. Batchelor and Cohen are joined by renowned filmmaker Oliver Stone, and their discussion focuses on Stone’s four hours of interviews with... Read More

Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor resume—after a two-week recess—their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.) Cohen begins by reiterating his argument that international terrorism—a modern-day phenomenon that controls territory, has aspects of statehood, commands sizable fighting forces, has agents... Read More

Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.) Cohen emphasizes that while V-E (Victory in Europe) Day—a major American holiday, on May 8, when he was growing up in Kentucky—is no longer observed, Victory... Read More

Nation contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen and radio-show host John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, can be found here.) Cohen reiterates a general theme he has developed in recent years: The exceedingly dangerous nature of the new Cold War makes détente—that is,... Read More

Nation contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com). This installment expands upon last week’s, which focused on several highly questionable Washington narratives that imply the necessity of war with Russia. When later asked which... Read More

Nation contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen and radio-show host John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US–Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, can be found here.) Cohen recalls that in 2014, when the Ukrainian crisis erupted, he warned that the new Cold War might be more dangerous than was... Read More

Nation contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russia Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.) Cohen argues that the American political-media establishment has embraced two fraught narratives for which there is still no public evidence, only “intel” allegations. One, “Kremlingate,” as... Read More

Nation contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen and radio host John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US–Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, may be found here.) Cohen begins by reflecting on the public life of Yevtushenko, whom he knew well for many years—so well that the poet was the... Read More

Nation contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.) Batchelor begins by recalling the early 1950s, when President Eisenhower finally ended Senator Joseph McCarthy’s hunt for Communists in the US government. Cohen remarks that this... Read More

Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.) This installment focuses on the House’s hearings on what Democratic Representative Adam Schiff termed “the Russian attack on our democracy”—that is, the Kremlin’s alleged hacking of... Read More

Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Now in their fourth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com.) Cohen deeply regrets that the discussion must begin again with neo-McCarthyism, but it has become perhaps the most important factor in today’s American political-media establishment, and... Read More

Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions about the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.) As Cohen explained to Batchelor last week—and as he further explains in a Nation article this week—there are no actual facts to support the six different... Read More

The bipartisan, nearly full-political-spectrum tsunami of factually unverified allegations that President Trump has been sedi
tiously “compromised” by the Kremlin, with scarcely any nonpartisan pushback from influential political or media sources, is deeply alarming. Begun by the Clinton campaign in mid-2016, and exemplified now by New York Timescolumnists (who write of a “Trump-Putin regime” in Washington),... Read More

Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.) Cohen regrets the subject of tonight’s discussion. He prefers to focus his decades of scholarly study and personal experience on loftier developments in Russia and issues... Read More

Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Now in their fourth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com). With fighting having escalated between the US-backed Kiev government and Russian-backed rebels in Donbass, this week’s discussion focuses again on Ukraine’s role in the new Cold... Read More

Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Now in their fourth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com.) Cohen begins by reiterating his historical generalization that 20th-century episodes of détente—under Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan—encountered ferocious opposition, even sabotage, on the part of enemies... Read More

Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Now in their fourth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com.) Cohen worries that unrelenting allegations that President Trump is a willing or unwilling agent of Putin’s Kremlin—charges made thus far without any factual evidence—could limit or... Read More

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, there was a brief opportunity to usher in an era of peace and cooperation between the United States and Russia. Instead, tensions between the two countries have only gotten worse over the intervening years. Listen to Stephen F. Cohen speak with... Read More