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Monthly Archives: February 2015
Rouhani Cabinet Has More US PhD’s Than Obama’s!
Yesterday’s post, Empowering the Moderates in Iran, attracted a comment from SocialInform, which mentioned another blog’s post, Iran’s president has more cabinet members with Ph.D. degrees from U.S. universities than Barack Obama does. Be sure to check out the picture, showing who they are and where they studied. The post mentioned a December 2013 article in The Atlantic which gave more details and is summarized below my signature line. Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged critical thinking, iran, martin hellman, needless wars, nuclear risk, Rouhani, stanford, war and peace
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Empowering the Moderates in Iran
Today’s New York Times had a long OpEd by David Brooks that argued it is naive to negotiate with Iran. Brooks warns that, “It could be that Iranian leaders are as apocalyptically motivated, paranoid and dogmatically anti-American as their pronouncements suggest they are.” There certainly are “apocalyptically motivated, paranoid and dogmatically anti-American” individuals within the Iranian power structure. But no nation is a monolith, and Iran is no exception. Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Ali Yunesi, critical thinking, David Brooks, human rights, iran, martin hellman, Pearl Harbor, Rouhani, stanford, war and peace, Yamamoto
5 Comments
Germany, France, and Most US Experts Against Arming Ukraine
With our nation edging closer to sending lethal aid to Ukraine, it would be well to consider why Angela Merkel, François Hollande, and two-thirds of the US experts surveyed by Foreign Affairs magazine think that’s a mistake. Continue reading
Ambassador Matlock Sees the Nuclear Dimension to Ukraine
In a post earlier this month, I decried that the news coverage of the Ukrainian crisis was largely overlooking the nuclear dimension to the risk, and thereby increasing that risk. As I listened today to the Q&A following Ambassador Jack Matlock’s February 11 speech, I was pleased to see him repeatedly highlight that concern. I therefore began to transcribe the Q&A, and share what I’ve done thus far under my signature line. If anyone has the time to continue the process, please post it as a comment. Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged cold war, critical thinking, Jack Matlock, martin hellman, nuclear risk, nuclear war, putin, russia, stanford, ukraine, war and peace
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Reagan’s Ambassador to Moscow Says US Suffers from Autistic Foreign Policy
Three days ago, I posted excerpts I had found in news articles from an important speech, but overlooked speech by Ambassador Jack Matlock, our Ambassador to Moscow under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. Today I found both a full transcript of his speech and its YouTube video. Continue reading
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Tagged Ambassador Jack Matlock, autistic foreign policy, cold war, martin hellman, nuclear risk, putin, russia, stanford, ukraine, war and peace
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A Tale of Two Insurgencies
What’s this? A comparison between Ronald Reagan and Vladimir Putin by a respected international expert on Harvard’s faculty! Prof. Stephen Walt does not say that the two men are moral equivalents or that Putin deserves our sympathy – in fact he says the opposite – but Walt does draw a surprising parallel between Reagan’s actions in Nicaragua in the 1980s and Putin’s in Ukraine today. Continue reading
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Tagged Contras, critical thinking, Harvard, martin hellman, Nicaragua, nuclear risk, putin, reagan, russia, Sandinistas, stanford, Stephen Walt
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Reagan’s Ambassador to Moscow Speaks on Ukraine
Over the last year, this blog has presented significant evidence that the prevailing Western view of the Ukrainian crisis has major blind spots which are prolonging the human suffering in that nation, and which also increase the risk of a nuclear … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged critical thinking, Jack Matlock, martin hellman, nuclear risk, nuclear war, nuclear weapons, putin, russia, stanford, ukraine, war and peace
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A Dangerous Trend Line
For a number of years I have advocated a risk framework for reducing the danger of a Russian-American crisis escalating out of control to nuclear threats. One tool in that approach is to highlight early steps in accident chains which could lead to catastrophe and, instead of ignoring them, to treat them as early warning signs needing remedial action. Doing that is one goal of this blog, but a recent Gallup poll shows how miserably I (and others) are succeeding. Gallup’s accompanying news release starts out: Continue reading
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Tagged critical thinking, martin hellman, nuclear risk, putin, russia, stanford, ukraine, war and peace
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A Voice of Caution Not Heard in the West
My last three posts have been about the risk of the Ukrainian crisis escalating out of control, and the lack of coverage of that possibility in the West. Today, as I went through a slew of articles about Ukraine, a number echoed my concern, but none of them received coverage in our mainstream media. (I did web searches on The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post.) One article, “Arming Ukraine will put the West in danger,” on the Reuters web site stood out for its clarity of thought and fairness. It says in part: Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged critical thinking, international relations, martin hellman, needless wars, nuclear risk, nuclear war, russia, stanford, war and peace
4 Comments
Gorbachev Fears Cold War Could Turn Hot
Mikhail Gorbachev, who let the Soviet union break up rather than shed blood, warned in an interview last week that we are already in a new Cold War and expressed fears that it could turn hot:
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Tagged cold war, critical thinking, gorbachev, martin hellman, nuclear risk, russia, stanford, ukraine, war and peace
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Defusing the Nuclear Threat 