Russian Relations

Daniel Kimmage put out a fairly controversial piece out for Foreign Policy.

The problem with this piece is that its thesis and conclusions really have nothing to do with the body of the text. The article criticizes Russian and for the most part justly. Still the article goes through great lengths to criticize Russians domestic policy and fails to link or impact (to use debate terminology) to Russia and the US in international arena.

Just because the US and Russia have domestic differences doesn't mean that we can't get along at all (as his thesis says).

Finally, he writes this fairly illogical passage:

Back in those hallowed halls, much of the Washington expert community will respond with predictable howls of outrage: "We need Russia!" they will say. Really? What, exactly, has Russia done for the United States on Iran? Afghanistan? Counterterrorism? Energy security?

I'm sorry but if those things were going well you'd have a point. Unfortunately, when it comes to energy, counter-terrorism, Iran, and Afghanistan (also North Korea) things are going horribly wrong because the US and Russia are not co-operating. If we co-operated better maybe we can finally get these issues under control. The fact is Russia and the US don't co-operate enough because a Cold War mind set.