Is Russian Studies Thriving?

Russian soldiers marching on Red Square in Moscow. Reuters

Timothy Frye, National Interest: Russian Studies is Thriving, not Dying

At least in Political Science, Russian studies is alive and well.

As U.S.-Russian relations continue to spiral downwards, popular commentators decry the lack of expertise on Russia in the United States. In a well-argued critique of popular discourse on Russia in the United States, Bloomberg’s Leonid Bershidsky recently noted: “those capable of a more nuanced approach are in increasingly short supply in the U.S. Years of low funding and poor career opportunities have thinned out the Russia expert community….only a small number of Dostoevsky nerds have been interested in a country often described as a fading regional power.” In these sentiments, Bershidsky echoes National Interest, Washington Post and the New York Times. That “Russian studies is dying” has almost become a trope in the policy making community.

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Previous Post: Where Are The Russian Experts? (September 20, 2017).

WNU Editor: So there have been a few extra academic articles on Russia in the past year that a thousand or two may have read .... whoopee-dew. But where it counts .... among government/the media/pundit class/etc. .... especially in both the U.S. and Canada .... there is an appalling ignorance on what is happening in Russia today and its culture .... and it is causing a lot of harm. Case in point .... when I see two U.S. Senators befuddled yesterday on why the author of the Russian dossier on President Trump did not want to appear in front of their committee to reveal his sources and methodology used in compiling his report .... I had to laugh because I knew why he did not want to appear. The report is fake .... he paid a few bucks here and there, and those he interviewed gave him what he wanted .... and what did these Russian sources give ....a story-line that fits into the Russian view on how people with wealth and power operate. I could write the script now .... if Mr. Steele did showed up to the U.S. intel committee to explain how he compiled his evidence .... they would have heard the following .... especially on where did he get the evidence that Donald Trump hired prostitutes to pee on the bed that President Obama and his wife slept in when they were in Moscow. Summarizing .... a receptionist at the front desk of the hotel where Donald Trump stayed a few years ago heard from the bell-hop who heard from one of the guests who heard from the cleaning woman that there was some hanky-panky in Donald Trump's suite. And who told the author all of these details .... his Russian intelligence contact who probably got a good meal and few hundred bucks. Rumors and gossip is a staple of Russian life .... and from personal experience .... always wrong. To see it now being employed in Washington to determine policy and political actions .... and to hear that the person who compiled the Russian dossier is one of the U.K.'s top intelligence experts on Russia who is now in the private sector making good money out of this .... I shudder to think that this is how policy is now being determined.