In a fascinating article in World Affairs, Alexander J. Motyl chronicles how political divisions in Ukraine are producing battles over the nation’s historical memory. Since assuming the presidency of Ukraine in February 2010, Viktor Yanukovich has launched a systematic attack on the historical memory of the devastating Stalin-inspired famine of 1932-33. Just how far will Russia’s revanchism in her so-called “near abroad” go?

It is ordinary to associate the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 as the dawn of American unipolarity — an era in which the United States’ relative power was so great that it had no significant rivals. Some have even claimed that no state in history was as powerful as the United States in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War. But declinism is again en vogue in America, and with China’s meteoric rise and the United States’ recent troubles it is difficult to call the international system strictly and unequivocally “unipolar” any longer. In today’s Moscow Times, Russian-American Alexei Bayer makes the case that, in retrospect, the collapse of the Soviet Union is actually the source of America’s decline. Bring on the revisionists!

The New York Times has recently called for the United States to continue pressuring China to loosen its reins on the renminbi. It is hard not to be struck by the feeling that too many Americans have forgotten why international primacy matters (if you need a refresher on this, check out Samuel Huntington’s article from 1993 — note the parallels between today’s rhetoric on China and Huntington’s concerns with Japan). Leave it to Yale’s own Paul Kennedy to restore some sensibility to the discussion.

Those of you who attended our panel on Russia in November probably remember the discussion between Keith Darden and Maxim Trudolyubov about the relationship between Putin and Medvedev. The two panelists disagreed about whether or not Putin would challenge the incumbent Medvedev for the presidency in 2012. This article, at least, provides good evidence that Putin will run in 2012, lending credence to the theory that there exists a degree of rivalry and tension between the Russian president and the prime minister.

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