Editor's Column - International Affairs

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The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Modernization

15:00 15.07.2010 Armen Oganesyan

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Modernization

IN ANTICIPATION OF the President's visit, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Smolensky Square was spruced up fit for a king. The marble was polished until it shone, and all the cars were removed from the parking lot. The pompous conference hall, which has seen more auspicious occasions and guests …

To some shock is hell, to others a kindly mother. Part Four

22:33 01.07.2010 Armen Oganesyan

To some shock is hell, to others a kindly mother. Part Four

"Are you are looking for investments that could bring in 2,000% in three years? “ The "Wall Street Journal" in 1995 teased its readers. “Only one stock market promises such a result ... Russia.” Yet, as noted in her book "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein, Yeltsin "deviated" from the …

For some shock is hell, for others it is a kindly mother. Part Three

22:30 26.06.2010 Armen Oganesyan

For some shock is hell, for others it is a kindly mother. Part Three

"Spread this truth - the laws of economics are like the laws of engineering. The same set of laws works everywhere." This postulate is worthy of an inhabitant of a lunatic asylum, but belongs to a completely sane person named Lawrence Summers: Chief Economist of the World Bank in 1991. …

To some shock is hell, to others a kindly mother. Part Two

22:29 17.06.2010 Armen Oganesyan

To some shock is hell, to others a kindly mother. Part Two

Naomi Klein's book "The Shock Doctrine" argues that instead of a "spineless" Gorbachev, for a radical reform of the Soviet Union, the West sought a Russian Pinochet and found him in the person of Boris Yeltsin. Of course, in political terms, this comparison is "lame." Yeltsin built a concentration camp …

To some shock is hell, to others a kindly mother. Part one

22:27 10.06.2010 Armen Oganesyan

To some shock is hell, to others a kindly mother. Part one

Not so long ago in Moscow bookstores, Naomi Klein's book "The Shock Doctrine. The rise of disaster capitalism" appeared. Its author is a well known Canadian journalist, who has been published in major journals, such as: "New York Times", "The Guardian," "Harper's Magazine" and the Canadian "Globe and Mail". However, …

Who is Actually Subjecting Others to Finlandization?

15:46 03.06.2010 Armen Oganesyan

Who is Actually Subjecting Others to Finlandization?

The future is bleak if the present is burdened with a legacy that still awaits rational analysis... Skimming through the Western media, it is hard to take seriously occasional complaints that today's Russia is subjecting its neighbors to what used to be known as Finlandization in the Cold War era. …

The war is over ... prepare for war

23:33 24.05.2010 Armen Oganesyan

The war is over ... prepare for war

More than one generation of historians will ask themselves the question, "when did the Cold War begin?" The complexity of the matter is that it slid into place gradually and secretly. However, it seems clear that each of the former allies moved to their own Rubicon and this transition did …

What will happen when the war of the giants ends...?

16:28 17.05.2010 Armen Oganesyan

What will happen when the war of the giants ends...?

In 1972, Molotov could not stop wondering: "Churchill is one of the victorious leaders, and I still can’t explain to myself how it could happen that he failed in the 1945 elections." In fact it is indeed extraordinary and inexplicable. Some romantically-minded historians even believed that with the departure of …

The Temptation of Winston Churchill

15:00 17.05.2010 Armen Oganesyan

The Temptation of Winston Churchill

HUMAN MEMORY recoils from the vast or even boundless expanse of the last war; it breaks it into events, periods and stages to better cope with its tragic grandeur. Thousands of those drawn in its whirlpool were aware of this yet not all of them proved equal to the task …

When it became hot under the Ardennes

23:35 13.05.2010 Armen Oganesyan

When it became hot under the Ardennes

In February 1945 at an airport in the Crimea, Churchill arrived at the Yalta conference and started to behave extravagantly. Passing by the guard of honor, instead of observing the usual protocol he started to closely scrutinize the faces of the officers and soldiers standing frozen "at attention," as if …

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