Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- September 1, 2017

Appearances can be deceiving. Photographer: Mikhail Klimentyev, TASS

Eli Lake, Bloomberg: State Department Had a Deal for Russia. It Was Spurned.

Before expelling hundreds of diplomats, Russia had a chance to reclaim its U.S. compounds.

President Donald Trump has publicly praised President Vladimir Putin, and slammed a Congress-led deal to punish Russia with more sanctions. He even agreed, at a meeting with Putin this summer, to a U.S.-Russia dialogue on cyber issues, even though four U.S. intelligence agencies assessed that Russian military intelligence hacked leading Democrats and probed state voting systems.

Yet in spite of the president, the U.S. government has appeared to take a tough line on Russia. The latest example came Thursday, when the State Department announced it was closing three Russian diplomatic facilities in New York City, San Francisco and Washington, DC, in response to the Kremlin’s dramatic decision last month to expel hundreds of American diplomatic workers.

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Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- September 1, 2017

Russia and America's Tit For Tat Continues -- Nikolas K. Gvosdev, National Interest

North Korea Tests Again: What Did Pyongyang Achieve? -- Jonathan Pollack, Brookings

North Korea and Deterrence in the Twenty-first Century -- Nathaniel Davis, Modern War Institute

North Korea and US Leadership -- Christopher Hill, Project Syndicate

Spin, lies and social media obscure crisis in Myanmar -- David Scott Mathieson, Asia Times

India-Vietnam point potent projectile at China -- Helen Clark, Asia Times

Date set for China’s most important political event: the Communist Party congress -- Jun Mai & Viola Zhou, SCMP

Trump keeps world guessing on Iran deal’s future -- Laura Rozen, Al-Monitor

Iran Nuclear Deal Falls Short on Missiles -- Bennett Seftel, The Cipher Brief

Kenya's Top Court Gives Democracy a Second Chance -- Bloomberg editorial

Preventing disaster in Donbas -- Sebastian Kurz, Politico

Can Europe Stop a Venezuelan Civil War? -- Dina Chararanzova, RCW

Travel Barriers Are the Worst of the New Cold War -- Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg

It Takes a Village to Raze an Insurgency -- Daniel R. Green, Defense One

Are Think Tanks Doomed? -- Dan Drezner, Politico