Author: Lucian Kim
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023156015X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in a bloody escalation of a conflict that had begun eight years earlier. What drove Vladimir Putin to launch Europe’s largest land war since World War II? Lucian Kim—an on-the-ground reporter in the region for decades—offers a gripping, definitive account of Russia’s path to war, from Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2014 Maidan uprising right up to the full-scale invasion. He examines the Kremlin’s motives, tracing Putin’s transformation from a seemingly pragmatic leader into an embittered tyrant who saw it as his historical mission to reconquer Ukraine. Kim places the war in the broader context of the Soviet Union’s collapse, arguing that it represents a clash between those who reject the Soviet past—like Volodymyr Zelensky and Alexei Navalny—and those who still identify with it. He debunks the Kremlin narrative that the West instigated the conflict, and he instead identifies the root causes of the war in the legacy of Russian imperialism and Putin’s dictatorial rule. At the same time, Kim is critical of the West’s empty promises to Ukraine, which made the country vulnerable to a revanchist Russia. Putin’s Revenge features insight from Kim’s first-hand reporting on key moments, such as Russia’s occupation of Crimea and the beginning of the Russian-backed insurgency in eastern Ukraine. This book tells the long history of the lead-up to the invasion with revelatory detail and fresh analysis, shedding new light on a conflict that has roiled the post–Cold War order.
Author: Anthony J. Gaughan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
When Congress established federal contribution limits in 1974, it also instituted a complete ban on foreign campaign contributions. In adopting the post-Watergate reforms, Congress acted on the presumption that it could create a closed campaign finance system limited exclusively to Americans. It was a reasonable conclusion to draw at the time. After all, the means of global communication in the mid-1970s were quite limited. There was no internet, no email, no cellphones, and no 24/7 news channels. Mail from Europe or Asia took a week to arrive and newspapers and magazines took even longer. Accordingly, as long as Congress prohibited Americans from accepting direct financial contributions from foreign sources, it could effectively limit campaign activity to Americans in the 1970s. But as the 2016 election demonstrated, the days of a closed system of campaign finance -- one in which campaign-related speech and expenditures come exclusively from American sources -- are long over. The internet empowered the Russian government to intervene in the American presidential election on an unprecedented scale. Russian President Vladimir Putin directed his intelligence services to use computer hacking and social media to promote Donald Trump and undermine Hillary Clinton. The success of the Russian influence campaign demonstrated in stunning fashion the extent to which foreign governments can use the internet to shape public opinion in the United States. The thesis of this article is that modern technology has created a global electronic village that empowers foreign actors to intervene in American elections like never before. In the internet age, the most significant form of foreign influence comes not in the shape of a direct cash payment to candidate campaigns, but rather in the form of less tangible but far more potent “in kind” contributions and expenditures. Computer hacking, political propaganda, staged photo opportunities, and the instantaneous global dissemination of opposition research and fake news offer foreign governments a way to advance their national interests by shaping public opinion in the United States during election campaigns. The upshot is our 1970s-era campaign finance laws have become woefully antiquated in the internet age. The growing threat of foreign interference is compounded by the fact that legislative solutions are much more elusive than is commonly understood. Laws that purport to ban foreign influence on our elections will not stop governments from posting on the internet information that advances their strategic interests. The federal “ban” on foreign campaign activity thus promises more than Congress can actually deliver. Accordingly, this article proposes a modest but significant reform to current law by focusing on one area where legislation can be effective: the regulation of communications between American candidates and foreign governments. Congress should require candidates to inform the Federal Election Commission of all foreign government contacts that their campaigns have within 48 hours of the communications. Such reports should be made immediately available to the public and posted on the FEC website. In addition, Congress should empower the FEC to alert the public to foreign efforts to influence American elections. Although we cannot prevent foreign governments from seeking to influence our election campaigns, we can ensure that the public is made aware of those efforts. In the internet age, a fully informed public is the best defense against foreign meddling.
Author: Rob Sears
Publisher: Canongate Books
ISBN: 178689470X
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 151
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Book Description
What can the rise of this century's most feared politician teach us about life, work and love? Rob Sears satirises the machinations that enabled Putin to dominate the Kremlin and undermine the United States of America as ways to help you take control of your mundane life. Would you like to ruin your enemies by sharing compromising material about that time they didn't wash their hands? Fancy hacking democracy at the parent-teacher association to ensure you're a shoo-in for social secretary? Or serving up a cold dish called revenge in a high street restaurant? Filled with stories of Putin's extraordinary and chilling actions, with mocking ideas and illustrations to help you emulate him on a small scale, Vladimir Putin: Life Coach is the ultimate parody guide to releasing the pseudo-elected, judo black belt, 5D chess-playing autocrat inside each and every one of us.
Author: MICHAEL. THUMANN
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783838219035
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Chronicles Russia's descent into an increasingly totalitarian dictatorship and the path leading to the escalation of Putin's imperialist war in 2022.
Author: Christopher M. Smith
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815739257
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 444
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Book Description
“This firsthand account of contemporary history is key to understanding Russia's latest assault on its neighbor."—USA Today An eyewitness account by a U.S. diplomat of Russia’s brazen attempt to undo the democratic revolution in Ukraine Told from the perspective of a U.S. diplomat in Kyiv, this book is the true story of Ukraine’s anti-corruption revolution in 2013—14, Russia’s intervention and invasion of that nation, and the limited role played by the United States. It puts into a readable narrative the previously unpublished reporting by seasoned U.S. diplomatic and military professionals, a wealth of information on Ukrainian high-level and street-level politics, a broad analysis of the international context, and vivid descriptions of people and places in Ukraine during the EuroMaidan Revolution. The book also counters Russia’s disinformation narratives about the revolution and America’s role in it. While focusing on a single country during a dramatic three-year period, the book’s universal themes—among them, truth versus lies, democracy versus autocracy—possess a broader urgency for our times. That urgency burns particularly hot for the United States and all other countries that are the targets of Russia's cyber warfare and other forms of political skullduggery. From his posting in U.S. Embassy Kyiv (2012–14), the author observed and reported first-hand on the EuroMaidan Revolution that wrested power from corrupt pro-Kremlin Ukrainian autocrat Viktor Yanukovych. The book also details Russia’s attempt to abort the Ukrainian revolution through threats, economic pressure, lies, and intimidation. When all of that failed, the Kremlin exacted revenge by annexing Ukraine's territory of Crimea and fomenting and sustaining a hybrid war in eastern Ukraine that has killed more than 13,000 people and continues to this day. Ukraine's Revolt, Russia’s Revenge is based on the author’s own observations and the multitude of reports of his Embassy colleagues who were eyewitnesses to a crucial event in contemporary history.
Author: Andrei Soldatov
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1610395743
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385
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Book Description
A Library Journal Best Book of 2015 A NPR Great Read of 2015 The Internet in Russia is either the most efficient totalitarian tool or the device by which totalitarianism will be overthrown. Perhaps both. On the eighth floor of an ordinary-looking building in an otherwise residential district of southwest Moscow, in a room occupied by the Federal Security Service (FSB), is a box the size of a VHS player marked SORM. The Russian government's front line in the battle for the future of the Internet, SORM is the world's most intrusive listening device, monitoring e-mails, Internet usage, Skype, and all social networks. But for every hacker subcontracted by the FSB to interfere with Russia's antagonists abroad -- such as those who, in a massive denial-of-service attack, overwhelmed the entire Internet in neighboring Estonia -- there is a radical or an opportunist who is using the web to chip away at the power of the state at home. Drawing from scores of interviews personally conducted with numerous prominent officials in the Ministry of Communications and web-savvy activists challenging the state, Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan peel back the history of advanced surveillance systems in Russia. From research laboratories in Soviet-era labor camps, to the legalization of government monitoring of all telephone and Internet communications in the 1990s, to the present day, their incisive and alarming investigation into the Kremlin's massive online-surveillance state exposes just how easily a free global exchange can be coerced into becoming a tool of repression and geopolitical warfare. Dissidents, oligarchs, and some of the world's most dangerous hackers collide in the uniquely Russian virtual world of The Red Web.
Author: Arkady Ostrovsky
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0399564187
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 400
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Book Description
WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE WINNER OF THE CORNELIUS RYAN AWARD FINALIST FOR THE LIONEL GELBER PRIZE FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR “Fast-paced and excellently written…much needed, dispassionate and eminently readable.” —New York Times “Filled with sparkling prose and deep analysis.” –The Wall Street Journal The breakup of the Soviet Union was a time of optimism around the world, but Russia today is actively involved in subversive information warfare, manipulating the media to destabilize its enemies. How did a country that embraced freedom and market reform 25 years ago end up as an autocratic police state bent once again on confrontation with America? A winner of the Orwell Prize, The Invention of Russia reaches back to the darkest days of the cold war to tell the story of Russia's stealthy and largely unchronicled counter revolution. A highly regarded Moscow correspondent for the Economist, Arkady Ostrovsky comes to this story both as a participant and a foreign correspondent. His knowledge of many of the key players allows him to explain the phenomenon of Valdimir Putin - his rise and astonishing longevity, his use of hybrid warfare and the alarming crescendo of his military interventions. One of Putin's first acts was to reverse Gorbachev's decision to end media censorship and Ostrovsky argues that the Russian media has done more to shape the fate of the country than its politicians. Putin pioneered a new form of demagogic populism --oblivious to facts and aggressively nationalistic - that has now been embraced by Donald Trump.
Author: Hal Lindsey
Publisher: Zondervan
ISBN: 0310531063
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 170
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Book Description
The impact of The Late Great Planet Earth cannot be overstated. The New York Times called it the "no. 1 non-fiction bestseller of the decade." For Christians and non-Christians of the 1970s, Hal Lindsey's blockbuster served as a wake-up call on events soon to come and events already unfolding -- all leading up to the greatest event of all: the return of Jesus Christ. The years since have confirmed Lindsey's insights into what biblical prophecy says about the times we live in. Whether you're a church-going believer or someone who wouldn't darken the door of a Christian institution, the Bible has much to tell you about the imminent future of this planet. In the midst of an out-of-control generation, it reveals a grand design that's unfolding exactly according to plan. The rebirth of Israel. The threat of war in the Middle East. An increase in natural catastrophes. The revival of Satanism and witchcraft. These and other signs, foreseen by prophets from Moses to Jesus, portend the coming of an antichrist . . . of a war which will bring humanity to the brink of destruction . . . and of incredible deliverance for a desperate, dying planet.
Author: Mark Bowden
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
ISBN: 0802159966
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 235
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Book Description
“A gripping ground-level narrative…a marvel of reporting: tightly wound… but also panoramic.”—Washington Post “A lean, fast-paced and important account of the chaotic final weeks.”—New York Times In The Steal, veteran journalists Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague offer a week-by-week, state-by-state account of the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. In the sixty-four days between November 3 and January 6, President Donald Trump and his allies fought to reverse the outcome of the vote. Focusing on six states—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—Trump’s supporters claimed widespread voter fraud. Caught up in this effort were scores of activists, lawyers, judges, and state and local officials. Working with a team of researchers and reporters, Bowden and Teague uncover never-before-told accounts from the election officials fighting to do their jobs amid outlandish claims and threats to themselves, their colleagues, and their families. The Steal is an engaging, in-depth report on what happened during those crucial nine weeks and a portrait of the dedicated individuals who did their duty and stood firm against the unprecedented, sustained attack on our election system and ensured that every legal vote was counted and that the will of the people prevailed.
Author: James H. Billington
Publisher: Woodrow Wilson Center Press
ISBN: 0801879760
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 252
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Book Description
Billington describes the contentious discussion occurring all over Russia and across the political spectrum. He finds conflicts raging among individuals as much as between organized groups and finds a deep underlying tension between the Russians' attempts to legitimize their new, nominally democratic identity, and their efforts to craft a new version of their old authoritarian tradition. After showing how the problem of Russian identity was framed in the past, Billington asks whether Russians will now look more to the West for a place in the common European home, or to the East for a new, Eurasian identity.
