Speaking of Russia, my Winter 2006 issue of Orbis: A Journal of World Affairs arrived in the mail yesterday, and it looks pretty intresting. Amitai Etzioni on the issue of national sovereignty, James Kurth on the future of humanitarian intervention, Jan Ting on immigration, William Anthony Hay on Democracy, Andrei Tsygankov on Putin's foreign policy, and yours truly on cultural challenges to democratization in Russia. An excerpt:
Just as France continues to exert influence in its former colonies, Russia
will play its role in the post-Soviet space. Like France, Russia sponsored a
revolution with universal pretensions; won extensive international conquests;
had its ideas affect the course of world history; has a strongly centralized state,
its own form of dirigisme; and has lost its empire. In this sense, U.S.-French
relations might prove the model for future U.S.-Russian relations. Just as
Charles de Gaulle expelled NATO troops in the 1960s and Jacques Chirac
opposed American intervention in Iraq prior to the March 2003 invasion,
Russia under Vladimir Putin may prove to be a difficult friend. But that is no
reason to make Russia an enemy.