ANDREI TSYGANKOV, andrei at sfsu.edu
Tsygankov is professor at the departments of political science and international relations at San Francisco State University. His books include Anti-Russian Lobby and American Foreign Policy and Russia and the West from Alexander to Putin.
He said today: “Donald Trump is wrong on many things but he is right on trying to establish an understanding and cooperation with Russia. The current effort to demonize Russia and its President Vladimir Putin has been a part of a concerted campaign to discredit Trump. So far, this campaign has produced accusations and conspiracies, yet no evidence of Trump’s collusion with Russia. It is important to stop the effort and encourage Trump in his attempt to build stronger relations with Russia. The United States and the whole world have an opportunity to benefit from such relations by gaining nuclear security, stability and predictability in international relations.” See his post: “The U.S. establishment, not the Kremlin, is undermining normalisation with Russia” at the London School of Economics and Political Science. See petition from RootsAction: “Tell Trump and Putin: Negotiate, Don’t Escalate.”
RONALD W. COX, roncox at bellsouth.net
Cox is professor in the department of politics and international relations at Florida International University. He is author or editor of numerous books including Corporate Power in American Foreign Policy. He said today that during his visit there starting on Wednesday, Trump will likely “both praise Poland’s nationalist government and the country’s relatively high levels of spending on NATO. The end result will be to promote the further spread of militarization and an arms race at home and abroad, as well as to encourage ultra-right political parties and movements as represented by the current Polish government.”
The New York Times claims in a headline of a piece written by David E. Sanger: “What Can Trump Do About North Korea? His Options Are Few and Risky.”
CHRISTINE HONG, cjhong at ucsc.edu
Hong is an associate professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an executive board member of the Korea Policy Institute.
She debunks the widely repeated notion that the Obama administration had a policy of “strategic patience” toward North Korea, noting that it launched cyber attacks and had massive military exercises targeting North Korea.
Hong recently wrote the piece “The Long, Dirty History of U.S. Warmongering against North Korea” for The Progressive, which states: “Unsurprisingly, few media outlets have reported on North Korea’s overtures to the United States, even as these, if pursued, might result in meaningful de-escalation on both sides. To be clear: peaceful alternatives are at hand. Far from being an intractable foe, North Korea has repeatedly asked the United States to sign a peace treaty that would bring the unresolved Korean War to a long-overdue end.
“It has also proposed that the United States cease its annual war games with South Korea — games, we must recognize, that involve the simulated invasion and occupation of North Korea, the ‘decapitation’ of its leadership, and rehearsals of a … nuclear strike. In return, North Korea will cap its nuclear weapons testing. China has reiterated this proposal. The United States maintains that its joint war games with South Korea are simply business as usual and has not seen fit to respond.”
