In a scene reminiscent of the spy thriller TV series “The Americans,” Russian FSB secret police Monday night detained and then released an alleged CIA operative, Ryan Christopher Fogle, who is a Third Secretary at U.S. Embassy Moscow. The Russian government later declared him “Persona Non Grata” (PNG) and expelled …
Transparency is not one of the Obama Administration’s greatest strengths. Walter Pincus of The Washington Post mistakes congressional efforts to better understand the Administration’s nuclear weapons plans for “congressional dysfunction.” Pincus is referring to chairman Mike D. Rogers’s (R–AL) efforts to block the Administration’s request to provide $75 million in …
The fired journalists of Radio Liberty’s (RL) Moscow office are finally seeing a deep injustice reversed. Following a visit to Moscow, Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) members Susan McCue and Michael Meehan announced: Given the rapidly shrinking independent media across Russia over the past few months, we have asked the …
Cuts in President Obama’s fiscal year 2014 defense budget submission are troubling, according to Mike Rogers (R–AL), Chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, House Armed Services Committee. While the President proposes to reduce the defense budget by about $120 billion in the next 10 years, the world is not getting …
Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently released a scathing new report focused on the crackdown on Russia’s civil society. Since December 2011, the Kremlin has committed to squashing nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that promote democracy and are alleged conduits of Western influence, HRW says. The report, titled “Laws of Attrition,” focuses on …
The Boston Marathon bombers have brought greater attention to Russia’s volatile North Caucasus, their ancestral home. As painful their heinous acts are, however, the bombers’ actions are just a footnote to the history of insurgency and connections to global Islamist networks in the North Caucasus. The North Caucasus has a …
As details emerge regarding Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s 2012 trip to Dagestan and Chechnya, which his family has insisted was merely to visit with relatives, fresh questions arise as to how that trip may have influenced either his motivation or preparation for the Boston Marathon bombings. The frequency with which American-born or …
James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, recently told the Senate Armed Services Committee, “In my almost fifty years in intelligence, I do not recall a period in which we confronted a more diverse array of threats, crises, and challenges around the world.” Clapper and Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, Director of …
