Call it a new cold war or a “hot peace,” US-Russia relations are terrible, yet within recent memory the two countries still cooperated on a range of issues. To answer which side is to blame for current tensions, Stephen Cohen debated Michael McFaul at Columbia University.
Continue reading...
On November 23, 2015, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia, in collaboration with the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, hosted a panel discussion organized by the recently established the American Committee for East-West Accord. The event, titled “U.S.-Russian Conflict From Ukraine to Syria: Did U.S. Policy Contribute to It?” featured presentations by five of the committee’s founding members: Bill Bradley, a 1964 Olympic Gold Medalist in basketball and former U.S. senator; Stephen F. Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies, History and Politics at New York University; Jack F. Matlock, Jr., U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987 to 1991; John Pepper, former Chairman and CEO of Procter & Gamble; and William J. vanden Heuvel, American ambassador to the United Nations under U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
I am a member of ASEEES, a historian of the Russian Empire and the USSR, and I direct a center that is an institutional member of ASEEES. Surely I can be trusted with the facts. One may insist that it is complicated, but I insist that it is that simple.
Continue reading...
Sept. 26, 2014, marked the first of the Distinguished Lecture series at the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia. As director Yanni Kotsonis pointed out, the lectures as well as the Center itself are meant to “protect conversations about Russia. If one wants to speak of Russia these days, you need protection; if one wants to speak against, you also need protection.” He added: “The only criterion here is intelligence.”
On Tuesday, April 9, the Jordan Center had the great honor of hosting some of the most distinguished experts of Russian-American relations, as Ambassador Jack Matlock, Senator Bill Bradley, Mr. Boris Jordan, and Professor Stephen Cohen shared perspectives on the relationship between the two countries during the last two decades. Coming from different backgrounds and disciplines, there was both optimism and pessimism to trace in each of the discussants’ approaches.
Continue reading...
