In this piece from Michael Allen's Democracy Digest, it's hard to think what or who he left out ... a real parade of names and ideas from the Kremlin critic community.

The ruling elite's "schizophrenic behavior" reflects a contradictory duality in its regression to a traditional political paradigm based on restoring superpower status and fabricating external enemies while aspiring to be integrated into Western business and culture.

Engagement with Russia should be multidimensional, integrating the values-based and pragmatic approach advocated in the 2006 Council on Foreign Relations report prepared by Steve Sestanovich and Francis Fukuyama's realistic Wilsonianism, while also cautiously reflecting Robert Kagan's imperative to resist the new authoritarian offensive and David Kramer's understandable skepticism about the Kremlin's willingness to engage.

Russia is struggling to retain its great power status and, lacking any meaningful political model or ideology to

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We often hear from U.S. observers all about the mutual interests that Washington and the Kremlin share in curbing Iran's march toward nuclear proliferation and other indications of growing hostility, yet it's funny how we usually see nothing but obstruction.  We've speculated in the past that Russia benefits most from preserving the status quo, and want to maintain their swing position.  This opinion from David Kramer is also interesting:  for one, Russia may indeed be interested in seeing U.S. diplomacy succeed in Iran (indeed they are more directly threatened), but they want to see other countries do the heavy lifting.  Secondly, they just don't have all that much influence over Tehran.  From Voice of America:But other analysts, including David Kramer, a former senior U.S. State Department official in the Bush administration (now with the German Marshall Fund ...

I came across this translation from the Latvian press on TOL about whether or not the global financial crisis is changing Russia's foreign policy ambitions in its near abroad.  The short answer: no.You would think that given this increasingly complex domestic situation, Russia's rulers would not have the time or money to continue the aggressive foreign policies which they have pursued in recent years - those which culminated in August 2008 with the war against Georgia. But let us not fool ourselves. There are two reasons why the crisis is strengthening, not weakening Russia's desire to continue on its way with its decided foreign policy course. First there was something that was stressed at the Tallinn conference by many long-term ...