From Megan Stack’s article in the Los Angeles Times:

“There’s no future in Russia for pro-American policy,” said Nikolai
Zlobin, director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the World
Security Institute in Washington. “You can build your whole career
based on anti-American policy — build a political career, become a
famous journalist or public figure. But if you promote the idea of
friendship with America, you’ll be denounced immediately.”

The
Cold War is a faded relic in American memory. Now there are Iran and
North Korea to worry about; a few years ago, there was Saddam Hussein.
And so it is perhaps easy to forget that, in Russia, the Cold War
remains a poignant and powerful idea.

Talk of current events
often conveys the distinct sense that Russia is clinging to the idea of
an American threat. If there is no hostility with the United States,
the thinking runs, it can only mean that Russia is no longer important
enough to merit it. And that’s unpalatable to Russia’s political elite.

Last 5 posts by Robert Amsterdam

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