Remembering Stephen Cohen

If anything exemplified the death of expertise in the US, it was Cohen’s near-banishment from the mainstream airwaves as he declined to partake in the contemporary ‘Putin is evil, Russia is our enemy’ consensus. He refused to bend & displayed tremendous intellectual honesty.

— Bryan MacDonald (@27khv) September 19, 2020

Consortium News: Stephen Cohen Has Died; Remember His Urgent Warnings Against The New Cold War

Stephen F Cohen, the renowned American scholar on Russia and leading authority on US-Russian relations, has died of lung cancer at the age of 81.

As one of the precious few western voices of sanity on the subject of Russia while everyone else has been frantically flushing their brains down the toilet, this is a real loss. I myself have cited Cohen’s expert analysis many times in my own work, and his perspective has played a formative role in my understanding of what’s really going on with the monolithic cross-partisan manufacturing of consent for increased western aggressions against Moscow.

In a world that is increasingly confusing and awash with propaganda, Cohen’s death is a blow to humanity’s desperate quest for clarity and understanding.

Read more ....

Update #1: Stephen F. Cohen, Influential Historian of Russia, Dies at 81 (New York Times)
Update #2: Stephen F. Cohen: In Memoriam (Antiwar.com)
Update #3: Stephen F. Cohen, pre-eminent contemporary American scholar of Russia & USSR, friend of Gorbachev & advisor to Bush, dies at 81 (RT)

WNU Editor: I met first met him at a mutual friend's house when he was living in Moscow years ago. I always disagreed with him, but found myself agreeing with him in the past few years. I have posted a few of his podcasts on this blog during this time. I was wondering only last month on what happened .... why was he no longer on cable news? Now I know why. His passing away will be missed by everyone. Myself included. Below are two posts by/on Stephen Cohen that are still relevant today:

Is Vladimir Putin The 21st Century’s Greatest Statesman? (May 14, 2016)
Is President Trump's Impeachment Escalating The New US-Russian Cold War? (December 29, 2019)