In the second of a three part series, TNI senior editor Anatol Lieven reflects on his meetings with high-level Russian officials at the Valdai Club conference last week.
The assassination of Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov on May 9 is not only a major set back for Vladimir Putin's designs to enforce peace in the war torn republic, it is also emblematic of how ill-conceived "road maps" are.
As the Second Chechen War enters its sixth year, there is a pressing need to create an international commission to look into the important unanswered question of how it began.
The capture last month of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein may have played into the hands of those members of the Russian leadership who seek, for whatever reasons, to prolong indefinitely the ongoing low-level hostilities in Chechnya.
Magazine editorials like to present a simple world of good and evil, of right and wrong.
Beyond securing national interests, idealistic crusades beckon; the temptation to use American power to reshape the world is quite potent.
Today, we face a complex and dangerous situation.
Washington cannot expect Moscow's substantial cooperation in the war on
terrorism to endure if there is no reciprocal effort to address Russian
priorities.