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In late 1999 when Vladimir Putin was named Prime Minister, Russia was a budding democracy. Multiple parties campaigned for seats in the Duma, the nation’s parliament. The media criticized the government freely. Eight years later as Putin completes his second term as president of Russia and announces his bid for prime minister, the country is under a repressive regime. Human rights abuses are widespread. The Kremlin is openly hostile to the West. Yet the United States and Europe have been slow to confront the new reality, in effect, helping Russia win what experts are now calling the New Cold War.
Edward Lucas, former Moscow Bureau Chief for The Economist, offers a harrowing portrait from inside Russia as well as a sobering political assessment of what the New Cold War will mean for the world. In this big, hard hitting and urgently needed book, he shows how
* Russia is pursuing global energy markets* Neighboring nations are being coerced back into the former Soviet orbit* Journalists and dissidents are being silenced* Foreign investments and private enterprises are routinely defrauded* Putin is laying the groundwork for controlling industry and planning his new role as prime minister
Drawing on new and hitherto reported material, The New Cold War brilliantly anticipates what is in store for the new Russia and what the world should be doing.
Edward Lucas and The New Cold War in the news:
Edward Lucas was interviewed on NPR’s Morning Edition; March 4, 2009
The New Cold War is named one of the top 12 books of 2008 by The Wall Street Journal
THE WEEKLY STANDARD, August 25, 2008
MSNBC’S Race for the White House ; July 23, 2008
Fox News Speical Report with Brit Hume; July 18, 2008
FOREIGN AFFAIRS; May/June 2008 issue
TIME; May 7, 2008
Modesto Bee.com; April 9, 2008
Business Week; Feb. 28, 2008
Andrew Nagorski writes a review on NEWSWEEK.COM; Feb. 15, 2008 "...a meticulously constructed indictment of Putin's strong-arm tactics at home and his increasingly aggressive tone in dealing with his immediate neighbors and any other countries that try to question his behavior."
“Lucas makes a powerful case …The New Cold War is intelligent [and] thoughtful … the first comprehensive compendium of the Kremlin's crimes against Russians and non-Russians alike.”--Peter Savodnik, TIME
"Lucas is a fine writer, and his prose has all the verve and punch that the best of his magazine, The Economist, has to offer."--Foreign Affairs
“Highly informed, crisply written and alarming... Wise up and stick together is the concluding message in Lucas's outstanding book.”-- Michael Burleigh, Evening Standard
“Lucas has a vivid, highly readable style.” –George Walden, Bloomberg.com
“Whether this campaign of bullying is comparable to the Cold War is a matter of huge importance to the West. Hence it matters which experts we pay attention to….I can unreservedly recommend Edward Lucas. The New Cold War is about the fate that has yet again befallen the unfortunate region of Europe that lies on the borderlands of East and West.” -- Daniel Johnson, New York Sun
"The New Cold War powerfully argues that America and Europe's excessive focus on Iraq and Afghanistan has blinded them to a threat closer to home. Thoroughly informed, steeped in his subject's recent history, with a flinty, caustic style that usually sizes up political phenomena with exacting precision, Lucas reminds us why longtime foreign correspondents surpass rookies who parachute into a foreign hotspot....Lucas offers one of the best briefs on how Yeltsin's Wild West became Putin's chilly petrofascism, detailing the return of rigged elections, forced psychiatric medication, the use of natural resources as foreign-policy bludgeons, and the rogue nations that are once again Moscow's best friends." --Philadelphia Inquirer
"Edward Lucas offers a devastating but apt critique of Vladimir Putin’s domestic repression and increasingly aggressive foreign policy. This stark and clear-sighted book is an excellent read. It makes evident the need for a new Western policy. Russia’s political development is one of the key issues of our time."—Anders Åslund, senior fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics, Washington, D.C.
"Edward Lucas has written a brilliant and profoundly disturbing study of modern Russia. It is the history of rediscovered authoritarianism and the stunning brutality with which the KGB elite returned to power. It is also the story of how Western venality and political credulity made this possible and placed the security of Europe at risk. Above all, this is the tale of how President Putin methodically destroyed the vestiges of democracy in Russia and launched a New Cold War against the West. It is difficult to overstate the importance of Edward Lucas's latest work for US and European policymakers."—Bruce P. Jackson, President, Project on Transitional Democracies
Edward Lucas has covered Eastern Europe for The Economist for over twenty years. He witnessed the end of the last Cold War, the parting of the Iron Curtain, and, as the Moscow bureau chief, covered Boris Yeltsin's reign and Vladimir Putin's rise to power. He lives in London, England.
Introduction * Putin's Rise to Power * The Winners and Losers of the New Regime * Sinister Pretence * Russia's Greatest Strength and Our Greatest Weakness * The "New Tsarism" * Eastern Europe on the Frontline * Pipeline Politics * Sabre-rattling, or Selling Sabres * How to Win the New Cold War
Edward Lucas visits Google's Mountain View, CA headquarters to discuss his book, "The New Cold War". This event took place on May 2, 2008, as part of the Authors@google series.
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