By Peter Fragiskatos, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: Peter Fragiskatos teaches at Western University in London, Canada. You can follow him @pfragiskatos. The views expressed are his own.
Amidst the horror that continues to plague Syria, a glimmer of hope emerged last week as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced they will try to bring together the Syrian state and its opponents by convening an international peace conference.
In principle, negotiations are the right way to go. Had talks taken place earlier, the bloodshed, which has now claimed the lives of more than 70,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands more, could have been vastly reduced. The only way it can be stopped is if there are some compromises, and this will only happen when the warring sides start talking in earnest. Yet reports that Russia is sending advanced anti-ship cruise missiles to Syria are a reminder that Moscow's commitment to the process remains an unpredictable wild card.
In preparing for the discussions, a division of labor appears to have been set – the Americans are trying to persuade the rebels to take part, while Russia is pressing the al-Assad regime. And there are some promising signs on both fronts. According to Kerry, Salim Idriss – chief of staff for the main opposition Free Syrian Army – has expressed strong interest in negotiations, while reports suggest Lavrov has received a list of negotiators from the Syrian government.
By Robert Schaefer, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: Robert Schaefer is a Special Forces (Green Beret) and Eurasian Foreign Area Officer and author of The Insurgency in Chechnya and the North Caucasus, From Gazavat to Jihad. The views expressed are his own.
As we all struggle to make sense of the Boston bombings, and the revelation that the two suspects are ethnic Chechens, there has been a rush to reacquaint ourselves with the troubled North Caucasus region in the hope that we might be able to answer questions like “why did this happen,” or “are we under attack again?” And as the airwaves and the blogospheres are swarmed with facts and opinions, it’s worth taking a step back to put this deluge of information in some context.
It’s not as though we haven’t heard of Chechnya before, it’s just that it’s one of those places that is only occasionally in the news before fading again as our attention is pulled elsewhere. Yet it isn’t actually all that long ago that we were hearing about the two wars of independence that Chechnya fought against Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. And although we may remember President Bill Clinton drawing comparisons between Boris Yeltsin’s efforts to quell the Chechen independence movement with the U.S. Civil War, many may not be aware that the same law that Yeltsin used to declare Russia’s independence from the Soviet Union gave Chechnya (and many other Russian regions) the legal basis to do the same. It was this that created a constitutional crisis that almost destroyed Russia in the mid-1990’s, and created the conditions that resulted in a de-facto independent Chechen republic from 1996-1999.
By Global Public Square staff
It's not every day you see Russia's Vladimir Putin receiving a bear hug from a Frenchman, but the actor, Gerard Depardieu is no ordinary Frenchman. In fact, he may not even remain French for very long in some sense.
You see, Depardieu has been threatening to give up his French passport, especially now that Putin has handed him a brand new Russian one. But why on Earth would he or anyone, for that matter, want to leave France? Think of the food, the wine, Paris, the countryside. Well, for Depardieu, it comes down to taxes.
Under President Francois Hollande, France has been weighing a proposal for a 70 percent marginal tax rate on millionaires. Russia, on the other hand, offers a flat, 13 percent tax.
By William Pomeranz, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: William Pomeranz is the acting director of the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington D.C. The views expressed are his own.
The European financial crisis has reared its ugly head – this time in Cyprus. The tiny nation’s lawmakers have rejected a confiscatory tax on bank deposits that would have allowed the nation to receive a 10 billion euro bailout from the EU. Cypriot citizens angrily took to the streets to express their disapproval of the plan, but it turns out that they were not the only aggrieved party. The Russian government also joined in the chorus of protests, calling the Cypriot government’s actions “unjust, unprofessional, and dangerous.” Much of the money to be expropriated, it turns out, is held by Russian individuals and businesses (or, to put it in slightly less flattering terms, oligarchs and shell companies). But Russia’s public outrage masked a more fundamental dispute with Cyprus concerning the island’s status as a major offshore financial center.
By Rachel Denber, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: Rachel Denber is deputy Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. You can follow her @Rachel_Denber. The views expressed are her own.
The countdown to the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi is officially under way. Exactly one year from today a colossal project few thought possible in 2007 – building a state-of-the-art winter sports venue in the Caucasus mountains and the on the subtropical Black Sea coast – will become reality. If past Olympic Games are any guide, just about every week in the coming year will bring a new reminder of what lies ahead. I’m a winter sports nut, an Olympics true believer, and besotted Russophile who’s been working on Russia for more than 20 years, so for me personally it’s a very exciting countdown.
But for these two decades my work on Russia has been to monitor human rights developments – and the past year has been singularly horrid in terms of human rights here, with each month bringing a new, restrictive law or political smear campaign against government critics, or absurd trial or shocking arrest, or depraved threat against colleagues in the human rights movement. It’s been a countdown not to something new and exciting, but to the grim Soviet past.
By Lucian Kim, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: Lucian Kim has chronicled the Moscow protest movement on his blog at luciankim.com. The views expressed are his own.
U.S.-Russian relations took a new hit in the last days of 2012 when President Vladimir Putin signed a law prohibiting Americans from adopting Russian children. The ban was the Kremlin’s promised “asymmetrical response” to a U.S. blacklist of alleged Russian human rights violators. Given the dismal condition of Russian orphanages and the willingness of Americans to adopt sick or disabled children, the measure ended up looking not just disproportionate, but cruel and spiteful.
Putin gave his justification for the adoption ban during his annual press conference in December. It was the indifference of American officials toward the fate of abused adopted Russian children, he explained, as well as the attempt by the U.S. to spread its legal jurisdiction around the globe.
By William Pomeranz, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: William Pomeranz is the acting director of the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington D.C. The views expressed are his own.
U.S. President Barack Obama famously told then-President Dmitry Medvedev in March that he would have more “flexibility” to deal with Russia once he got through his re-election campaign. Well, Obama has now emerged victorious, but U.S.-Russian relations have taken on a static, even retrograde look. Indeed, as the United States formulates a foreign policy for the 21st century, the United States and Russia appear stuck in the 20th century, re-hashing old disputes and consistently missing opportunities to change the terms of engagement.
One of the most prominent legacy issues between the two countries is arms control. No one underestimates the importance of nuclear weapons reduction, and clearly, both countries would benefit from a further decrease. Yet the broader impact of such discussions appears limited. The 2010 START treaty did not serve as a catalyst to greater mutual trust and understanding, and it is unlikely that further arms control negotiations will be able to jump-start the U.S.-Russian relationship.
By Lucian Kim, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: Lucian Kim is a journalist who has chronicled the Moscow protest movement on his blog at luciankim.com. The views expressed are his own.
One year ago this month, the impossible happened. Tens of thousands of Russians took to the streets of Moscow in the largest anti-government demonstrations since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
Conventional wisdom held that Russians, enjoying the windfall from a decade-long oil boom, prized economic well-being over political enfranchisement. But when last December’s parliamentary elections were marred by reports of widespread fraud, Muscovites had enough. The target of their rage was Vladimir Putin, who showed no intention of stepping aside after 12 years in power.
By Dimitar Bechev, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: Dimitar Bechev is a senior policy fellow and head of the Sofia office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. The views expressed are his own.
Are Turkey and Russia still friends? This is the question analysts are mulling as Russian President Vladimir Putin completes his visit to Ankara. Critics of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan are often heard fretting about “Putinization” in Turkey, but is the Russian leader a welcome guest in a country that is now the principal supporter of the Syrian opposition?
The answer, I would argue, is a cautious yes.
By Daniel Vajdic, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: Daniel Vajdic is a researcher in foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. The views expressed are his own.
At least as far as foreign policy went, Russia received an unexpected amount of attention in this year’s U.S. presidential election campaign. Whether it was the Romney team’s dismissing the so-called reset, its claim that Russia is America’s “number one geopolitical foe,” or President Obama’s infamous open mic moment, in which he promised his Russian counterpart “flexibility” on missile defense if reelected, ties with Moscow kept cropping up.
It is, of course, true that the Cold War world no longer exists, and that Russia occupies a far less significant space in American foreign policy. And the U.S.-Russia relationship simply is not as overtly antagonistic as it was in the Soviet era. But it is also clear that Russia continues to pose serious challenges for the United States.
By Global Public Square
For more What in the World watch "Fareed Zakaria GPS" this Sunday at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET.
Imagine a country on election day where you know the results the instant the polls close. The votes are counted electronically, every district and state has the same rules and the same organized voting procedure. It is managed by a non-partisan independent body. Sounds like the greatest democracy in the world, right? Try Mexico. Or France, Germany, Brazil. Certainly not the United States of America.
America has one of the world’s most antique, politicized and dysfunctional procedures for its elections. A crazy quilt patchwork of state and local laws with partisan officials making key decisions and ancient technology that often breaks down. There are no national standards. American voters in more than a dozen states, for example, don’t need ID. But even India, with a GDP just 12 percent that of ours, is implementing a national biometric database for 1.2 billion voters. The nascent democracy in Iraq famously dipped voters’ fingers in purple to ensure they didn't vote again. Why are we so behind the curve?
By Ravi Agrawal, CNN
Editor’s note: Ravi Agrawal is a senior producer on Fareed Zakaria’s Global Public Square. The views expressed are his own. You can follow him on Twitter @RaviAgrawalCNN
At the start of the year, GPS billed 2012 as “the year of elections.” It was to be a rare alignment of the electoral stars: the year China, Russia, France, and the U.S. would elect new leaders. Together, these four countries represent 80 percent of the U.N. Security Council and account for 40 percent of global GDP. There were also elections scheduled in Venezuela, Mexico, and Egypt. Unlike 2011 – which unleashed the sudden churn of the Arab Spring – 2012 was meant to bring a different kind of people power: planned change.
Democracy at its core is about the rule of the people; it is about free and fair elections. Yet democratic countries fall under a fairly broad spectrum – some proudly enshrine a range of freedoms, others impose restrictions. One would think the world is moving inexorably towards the freer end of this spectrum, but the data shows the opposite. Freedom House’s annual Freedom in the World survey scores countries on the political rights and civil liberties they offer. In each of the last six years, more countries have seen declines in their ratings than gains. On average, for every two countries that see an improvement, three fall back. Why is this happening? In part, it is because of the disproportionate importance we ascribe to elections. Fareed Zakaria predicted this trend in a 1997 Foreign Affairs essay, when he described illiberal democracy as a growth industry. “In the end,” he wrote, “elections trump everything. If a country holds elections, Washington and the world will tolerate a great deal from the resulting government … Elections are an important virtue of governance, but they are not the only virtue.”
© 2012 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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