About This "Pro-Russian" Article.

From Atlantic Council's Emma Ashford and Matthew Borrows. Evidently their piece called:

Reality Check #4: Focus on interests, not on human rights with Russia

Which calls for a pragmatic approach to Russia created a shit-tempest in the cup of American (lack of) foreign policy "establishment" and think-tankdom. Even silly points, made by Ashford and Borrows, such as these among few others, were too much for the so called US "hawks":

1. The US-Russian relationship has too long been predicated on the fantasy that Russia could be reshaped – whether through aid or coercion – into a Western, liberal democracy. However, there is little prospect of transformation or of ending human rights abuses. Policymakers must be clear-eyed about Russia: it is not a minor power that can be punished for its transgressions, but a powerful autocracy with the capacity to undermine US interests and act as a global spoiler. 

2. US policy toward Russia has become punitive. Though sanctions are ostensibly framed as deterrence or coercion, existing frameworks offer no real way for sanctions to be removed even if Russian behavior improves. In some cases, the United States has painted itself into a corner, demanding unrealistic policy change (i.e., that Russia relinquish its hold on Crimea) in exchange for sanctions relief. 

It is really funny to read about reaction of hawks who even blame, as Sputnik reports:

Describing the anger at the Washington DC-based pro-NATO institution, Politico posed the question as to how such an unorthodox article found its way to the think tank's website. One of the report's critics pinned the blame on Charles Koch, an American billionaire and philanthropist, who donated $4.5 million over five years to the Atlantic Council. Politico's interlocutor suggested that the article is a product reflecting Koch's influence, accusing the billionaire of "destroying good institutions" and having "pretty much the same views as the Russians."

The problem, of course, with this "realist" approach, and the piece from Ashford and Burrows qualifies clearly as such, after all Koch finances, together with Soros, what openly is proclaimed to be THE realist think tank, Quincy Institute, that both allegedly "realists" and hawks, while differing in some approaches to foreign policy, are drinking the same Kool Aid and are joined at the hip by the American exceptionalism and the gross ignorance of the America's real status and role in the world. I wrote about this on many occasions, such as this four years ago. In the end, you can always get John Mearsheimer's The Great Delusion, of which I also wrote both in my books and in this blog and you will be treated, again, to a completely false narrative of America's role and her real power. 

Ashford and Burrow's piece is yet another demonstration of America's delusion about herself, now projected from the allegedly "realist" point of view. Read my lips: America HAS NOTHING to offer modern Russia. None, zero, zilch, nada. In fact, if the United States have disappeared tomorrow, very few people in Russia would have noticed, other than few minor things and the change of the tone of the informational background, which would be less tense. As Petr Akopov of Ria noted today about this Atlantic Council silly business.

Нам в России такой накал борьбы только выгоден. Потому что, когда робкие попытки голоса разума забиваются на корню, это свидетельствует только об одном. Американская глобалистская элита (а АС* — это ее важная часть) утратила адекватное восприятие реальности, а значит, и чувство самосохранения. То есть она не может различить пропаганду и геополитику, агитацию и национальные интересы.

Translation: for us in Russia such intensity of a struggle is only beneficial. Because when even timid attempts at common sense are stomped at the root it testifies only to the fact that American globalist elite (Atlantic Council--is an important part of it) lost the adequate perception of the reality and, hence, the sense of self-preservation. This elite cannot distinguish between propaganda and geopolitics, agitation and national interests. 

Hm, what this conclusion by Akopov reminds me about? Couple-three books by some guy whose name is on the tip of my tongue but I cannot still recall it. Yeah, he writes about it constantly, wink-wink. I will only add here, that if not for the weapons of mass-destruction and a complete loss of a strategic awareness which may still result in a global conflict unleashed by the US, Russians, generally, do not give a damn about America--this is a bitter pill to swallow for American exceptionalists, be them hawks or the so called "realists", because the whole notion that America's danger for the world is not in her strength, always grossly inflated, but in her weakness ranging from economy, to military to institutions and a complete loss of competence by the American "elites", is an intolerably painful thought for them to accept. So, they delude themselves. The whole affair with the article by Ashford and Burrows demonstrates this perfectly--there is nobody to talk to in the US for Russia. But I warned about it years ago.