What do you know about Russia's colonization of Alaska? What do you know of what Russian colonizers did to Alaska Natives?

And why is it still so ignored by so many Americans?

My essay in @POLITICOMag on this ongoing blank spot, and Russian colonialism: politico.com/news/magazine/… Spending decades ignoring Russian brutality against Alaska Natives is bad enough.

But overlooking the topic meant Americans missed an opportunity to understand more about Russian colonialism—and the outright imperialism still driving Russia.
politico.com/news/magazine/…

I'd forgotten that Jim Mattis was a military advisor to the UAE *before* he was appointed Defense Secretary—and never publicly disclosed that relationship.

Wild that that wasn't a bigger scandal.

cnn.com/2017/08/02/pol… 'The most prominent American cheerleader of the Emirati armed forces is former defense secretary Jim Mattis... [Mattis] again extolled Sheikh Mohamed and downplayed concerns about human rights in the UAE' washingtonpost.com/investigations…

We're starting to see the contours of how the Russian elite is going to pin this (ongoing, eventual) loss in Ukraine on Putin. (See: ft.com/content/800025…)

It is, to pick a term, bullshit. They were all fully on board with Russia's initial invasion, and moves to carve Ukraine. The only reason gullible Westerners may buy this line—"It was Putin, it wasn't us!"—is because there's still a failure to recognize this invasion began not a year ago, but in 2014.

Russia's invasion began when troops rolled into southern Ukraine, and first stole Ukrainian land.

A year into this war, Western policymakers are finally realizing one thing: for Ukraine—and Europe—to be at peace, Kyiv must regain control of Crimea.

My latest for @POLITICOMag on how things have shifted, and why Crimea is now in play.

politico.com/news/magazine/… There are three major reasons Western views have shifted on Ukraine retaking Crimea:

1) Military necessity. So long as Russia retains Crimea, it will be a forward operating base for Russian troops to rest and resupply—a dagger aimed directly at the rest of Ukraine.

This sure reads like Navalny has, for the first time, come out and said Crimea must be returned to Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/navalny/status/1627632114366652417

For more context on how Navalny’s views on Crimea have evolved: newrepublic.com/article/167944…

All of these concerns about Putin being replaced by someone “more hawkish” are faintly ridiculous. If Putin goes because of this war, it will come after rolling military defeats, accelerating economic stagnation, spiraling internal divisions, etc.

Any successor will be immediately inundated in domestic crises. Do people really think they’ll, what, invade NATO? Launch a nuke?

As Putin continues flailing in Ukraine, the likelihood of some kind of Russian disintegration—propelled especially by the nations still colonized by the Kremlin—only grows.

Unlike in 1991, the West has to be ready.

My latest for @FT: ft.com/content/d66c61… These numbers are remarkable:

—Nearly half of experts surveyed expect Russia to become a failed state or break up within ten years
—Fully half of European experts surveyed think Russia will break up (as opposed to one-third of American experts surveyed)

atlanticcouncil.org/content-series…

Read a bunch of books in 2022! Here are my top-10 (non-fiction) reads: 1. "Living on the Wind: Across the Hemisphere With Migratory Birds," by Scott Weidensaul. If birds are poetry, Weidensaul is the poet. Blending science and stories, weaving a tapestry as incredible as the feat of migration itself.

Some of these views are far too optimistic about what's coming to Russia post-Putin. wsj.com/articles/after… There's plenty of reason to be optimistic(ish) about Russia in the long-, *long-*term—just as there's been with every European state after the collapse of empire.

But there's such a long road between now and then. And so many questions about what Russia would even look like.

Yet another piece that does absolutely nothing to wrestle with the precedent this nuclear blackmail would set—and that treats Putin as someone who’s somehow willing to end the war without turning Ukraine into a vassal. nytimes.com/2022/11/02/opi… These pieces treat Putin as someone who’s been chastened, and who’s willing to settle for less than effective control of Ukraine’s trajectory. There’s zero evidence of either.

It’s all just warmed-over realism, rather than seeing Putin’s Kremlin for what it is.

Calling for a ceasefire is obviously the wrong move (as it will gut Ukrainian progress and give Moscow time to regroup), while the rest of this letter reads like a blueprint for something that could be achieved only *after* Putin leaves power.

https://twitter.com/yabutaleb7/status/1584600236671967233

Yes, there should absolutely be diplomacy. But no, there’s absolutely nothing to indicate that Putin would abide by a “free and sovereign” Ukraine, or any kind of enforcement of a ceasefire.

Right now, it’s all about Ukraine reclaiming *all* territory from Russian occupiers.

It is incredible how these guys who just parachuted into Ukrainian foreign policy suddenly think they have all the answers.

And how easily these guys give in to nuclear blackmail.

https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/1583136555102703616

“Elon Musk is transmitting a message for Putin.” —Fiona Hill, earlier this week

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1583149077792858112?s=20&t=CkoUMZfFvL3b21kxrYxNJQ

In no way, shape, or form do we know Russia “will choose the latter.”

Crimea is no different than any other chunk of Ukraine that Russia claims is “Russian.” (That ship sailed after the recent “annexations.”)

This is just giving in to nuclear blackmail.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1581989915491172353

At this point, Musk is just regurgitating Russian propaganda points circa 2014-15.

Crimea is not “special.” It’s just the first chunk of Ukraine that Russia “annexed.” And it wasn’t the last.

(Or is Kherson, I dunno, Iowa? Or Zaporizhzhia Oregon?)

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1581997742821298176?s=20&t=WNGzZCFqw80p-_YflPonyw

For years, Alexei Navalny has danced around the issue of who he thinks should control Crimea.

And the longer he goes without declaring that Crimea is unequivocally Ukrainian, the more conspicuous—and concerning—it becomes.

newrepublic.com/article/167944… Navalny has condemned Russia’s annexation, over and over. But (unlike other Russian opposition) he’s stopped short of saying that Crimea is Ukraine.

Even as president, he said he wouldn’t return Crimea to Ukraine.

Finally finished off Doug Swanson’s “Cult of Glory,” on the history of the Texas Rangers. Clear that the Texas Rangers were, for decades, little more than death squads aimed at ethnic cleansing in Texas—all on behalf of the wealthiest Texans.

penguinrandomhouse.com/books/530134/c… But two other points the book makes:

1) The Republic of Texas was even more ramshackle than you think. A disbanded army. A scuttled navy. Completely broke, with only American annexation to save it.

A complete facade of a country.

Over 150 years after the US first seized Indigenous lands in Alaska. Finally.

https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1565132819319357441

I spent the day writing about the bribery and illicit finance behind the Russian sale of Alaska to the U.S.—a giant colonial land-swap, with zero input or consent from Alaska Native populations.

One continental colonizer selling entire nations to another continental colonizer.

Gorbachev is remembered by some as a hero.

But year after year, his regime oversaw massacres of Soviet citizens protesting his government—and he remained an autocrat who couldn’t handle that others weren’t coming along with his project.

newrepublic.com/article/167602… Just a year into his leadership, Gorbachev tried to force an ethnic Russian as a new leader in Kazakhstan.

When Kazakhs protested the move, Gorbachev's forces cracked down, reportedly leaving hundreds dead.

This week, Biden signed into law legislation that will effectively save the IRS—and take a huge step forward in the fight against wealthy tax cheats.

My latest for @CNNOpinion: cnn.com/2022/08/17/opi… Between resuscitating the IRS and reclaiming American leadership in the counter-kleptocracy fight, the Biden administration has arguably done more to dismantle the world of offshore finance than any previous administration.

And there’s more to come.

Some highlights from Michael Khodarkovsky’s “Russia’s Steppe Frontier,” which has a sudden relevance in highlighting the sources and crimes of Russia’s colonialism: Bigoted descriptions of Russia’s colonized steppe-based nations—Kazakhs, Nogays, Kalmyks, etc—are indistinguishable from other European empires (or even American officials in the 18th/19th century, to an extent):

Few things seem to generate more responses out of Russia than highlighting the colonial crimes of Russian imperialism, and Russia's (ongoing) history as a European colonizer.

And the responses tend to fall into two buckets:

https://twitter.com/cjcmichel/status/1557344213301354502

1. That Russia expanded through purely benign mechanisms. That Russia was somehow "different" or "better" than other European empires. That Tatars, Bashkirs, Kalmyks, etc all welcomed Russian dominance with open arms.

And that this wasn't colonization.

https://twitter.com/cjcmichel/status/1557354997997879300

Last month, the Russian foreign minister claimed Russia had never "stained itself with the bloody crimes of colonialism."

The claim is ridiculous—but it provides a chance to revisit the actual (and ongoing) crimes of Russian colonization.

Me for @WSJ:

wsj.com/articles/russi… This “imperial innocence” that @BotakozKassymb1 and @EricaMarat describe is obviously still the dominant discourse in Russia.

But it’s long past time for Russians (and the West) to familiarize themselves with the colonialist crimes of the country’s past.

thediplomat.com/2022/06/botako…