The New Republic
How a War Made the Great Russian Novelist “Leo Tolstoy was 26 years old when he first saw the ramparts of Sevastopol. The weather in Crimea in the early winter of 1854—subtropical, cool but not cold—was a paradise compared with the harsh snow and ice farther north. The city itself, though, was in chaos. The…
The New York Times
“WASHINGTON — The Russian military intervention in Ukraine’s autonomous republic of Crimea has brought relations between the United States and Russia to their lowest level in a quarter century. It has transgressed the sovereignty of one of the most populous countries in Europe, violated the terms of a diplomatic agreement to respect Ukraine’s borders, and…
Foreign Affairs
“The Boston Marathon bombing this month sent people scrambling for maps and encyclopedias after it was revealed that the suspects, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, were ethnic Chechens with ties to Dagestan and the North Caucasus. Although the full dimensions of the region’s role in the incident, if any, are uncertain, concerns about the area’s Islamist…
Foreign Affairs
Drawing the Wrong Conclusions About the Boston Bombing “Ever since the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing were identified as ethnic Chechens, the national conversation about the incident seems to have focused on the connection between the violence and Chechnya. The two brothers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, certainly lived in two places at once: in…
Daily Beast
What Makes the Tsarnaev Brothers Different from Other Mass Murderers “The naming of two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing and the manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was captured alive last night, have made the nightmare scenario for many American Muslims come true. The Tsarnaev brothers will forever be the poster children for a particularly…
Daily Beast
With the manhunt for the second suspect in the Boston Marathon underway, historian Charles King urges caution against tying the brothers into any Chechen movement or history. Instead, it seems we should see them as homegrown American terrorists. “The killing of one suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings and the ongoing hunt for another have…
Wall Street Journal Speakeasy Blog
The ongoing manhunt for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has turned attention to a faraway and unfamiliar place: Russia’s southern border region of the Caucasus. But so far the links between the horrors in Boston and this distant region—a land of stunning mountains, lush valleys, and upland villages—are tenuous. The operative comparison in the…
Christian Science Monitor
Scotland’s Alex Salmond and British Prime Minister David Cameron signed the ‘Edinburgh deal’ – allowing Scotland to hold a referendum vote on independence in 2014. As Europe’s bonds are tested, the push for Scottish independence sends a dangerous ‘go it alone’ message. The question of Scotland’s place in the United Kingdom is currently the single most pressing…