Dear CCI Followers,

Please scan the New York Times article below. Dmitri Trenin has long been the director of the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank, a position that likely has encouraged him, a former Soviet military officer, to see Russia from the American perspective. However, he’s done a great job of straddling the divide.

Trenin’s also done a service to the existing truth of today in writing this article, “Russia’s Comeback Isn’t Stopping with Syria.”  One wonders if this isn’t being printed now to offset the NYT American University article on November 6 which brought much distain from readers.

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Historically and even today, Russia has much in common with Ukraine—the United States, almost nothing.

The Nation
November 14, 2019
By Stephen F. Cohen

For centuries and still today, Russia and large parts of Ukraine have had much in common—a long territorial border; a shared history; ethnic, linguistic, and other cultural affinities; intimate personal relations; substantial economic trade; and more. Even after the years of escalating conflict between Kiev and Moscow since 2014, many Russians and Ukrainians still think of themselves in familial ways. The United States has almost none of these commonalities with Ukraine.

Which is also to say that Ukraine is not “a vital US national interest,” as most leaders of both parties, Republican and Democrat alike, and much of the US media now declare. On the other hand, Ukraine is a vital Russian interest by any geopolitical or simply human reckoning.

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Dear CCI Friends,

We Americans are told we need new supersonic missiles that are 5 times faster than the speed of sound in order to ward off an attack from Russia or China.

We who keep up with Russia closely are absolutely certain that Russia has no intention to start a war with us, nor would China. Why would these countries risk a war after renovating their major cities with new 40-story buildings, concentrating on consumer production throughout the world and re-establishing their classical cultures? A war to demolish all that they are working so hard to rebuild in the past 20 years???  Come on now!

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Dear CCI Friends,

I don’t know whether you get as much information on these topics as I get, but I can’t avoid choosing to spend 2020 doing everything I can do to reject war-making and war continuation. We comfortable people here in America MUST come to grips with what is going on in our name and with our tax dollars. Please help with educating the American public in 2020 — so many are blithely unaware of these facts below.

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