author

 
 

Meta

Nina L. Khrushcheva
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 12, 2019
Should Russia hug China?
Engaging a far superior strategist in his drive against the West may be a gamble that Putin — and Russia — soon regret.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 12, 2019
Wagging the dictator
Russian and Chinese firms are increasingly bringing pressure to bear on policymaking.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 10, 2019
Russia's press poses a problem for Putin
Semi-authoritarian regimes don't fully control the people's behavior and Russia's media is stirring more anger than outsiders may expect.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 13, 2018
Has Trump turned the tables on Putin?
Donald Trump has dragged everyone —including Vladimir Putin — into his reality-TV world in which sensation, exaggeration and misinformation all serve his only true goal: to be the center of attention.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 18, 2018
The world's new disappeared
Those governments reviving the old and effective tactic of kidnapping to silence opponents may yet regret their decision.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 18, 2018
Has Putin's popularity bubble burst?
The strongman's approval rating is dropping as Russians worry more about their futures.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 16, 2018
Explaining Erdogan's economic quackery
What is it about authoritarians that leads them so consistently down the rabbit hole of charlatanism and conspiracy theory?
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 2, 2018
The West's crisis of ethical leadership
The behavior of some Western leaders is making Russia and China seem reasonable.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
May 29, 2018
A new keeper of Vladimir Putin's secrets
With the nomination of Alexei Kudrin to the government's central budgeting body, Putin's long-term plan for preserving his power and legacy seems to be taking shape.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 5, 2017
The return of the madman theory
America's madman doctrine is back with a vengeance, but this time it's far less clear if it's merely an act.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 17, 2017
Trump stumbles into Putin's Syrian backyard
The U.S. has stepped into a gaping power vacuum in the Middle East.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 23, 2015
United with Putin against terror?
Putin sees the Paris terrorist attacks as an opening for Russia to improve its ties with the West, and he wants to take advantage of it. The West should not shut him out.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 24, 2014
Putin nears a tipping point
By overplaying its hand in Afghanistan and lying to the world about the downing of a Korean Air Lines flight 31 years ago, the Soviet regime exposed and accelerated the rot that made its collapse inevitable. There is no reason to believe in a different fate for Vladimir Putin's effort to re-establish Russia as an imperial power.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 11, 2014
The silver fox of dictatorship and democracy
The reality of the times was that Eduard Shevardnadze was both a democrat and a despot. His death brings closer to the end the Gorbachev generation of reform communists who presented a stark contrast to the dour Brezhnev-era hard-liners, spurring (mostly inadvertently) the collapse of the Soviet empire and the long transition to democracy.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 28, 2014
Russia's Crimean shore?
Today's Crimea, the traditional playground of czars and Soviet comissars, does not want independence from Ukraine; it wants continued dependence on Russia.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 7, 2014
Russia's Potemkin Olympic village
Even if the Sochi Games pass off successfully and, despite the security restrictions and official bigotry, athletes and visitors enjoy their stay, will Russia's brief display of national pride really be worth the financial and political cost?
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 13, 2014
Power without purpose in Moscow
By suppressing opposition in Moscow, Grozny and elsewhere, Putin has only put a lid on a boiling pot. Part of the Kremlin's difficulty stems from its remarkable lack of vision — a fundamental failure to understand what Russia is, will be, or can become.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 4, 2013
Can Alexei Navalny salvage Russian democracy?
Come Sept. 8, can Moscow mayoral candidate Alexei Navalny and his supporters change Russia's political culture of fear
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 12, 2013
Spotlight on Vladimir Putin's Potemkin love life
Whether a new woman will help to soften foreigners' perception of Russian President Vladimir Putin's cynical diplomacy and brutal rule is open to question.
COMMENTARY / World
May 1, 2013
The paradox of the Boston bombing
Essentially the Boston bombers' stories are not so different from those of America's home-grown 'lone wolves' — typically white and equally disenchanted.

Longform

Traditional folk rituals like Mizudome-no-mai (dance to stop the rain) provide a sense of agency to a population that feels largely powerless in the face of the climate crisis.
As climate extremes intensify, Japan embraces ancient weather rituals