Attention to the Unseen

Anne Applebaum writes: “Londongrad” is the nickname, not entirely affectionate, that wealthy Russians have bestowed upon Britain’s capital. The term doesn’t just designate a physical place, though many Russians do indeed live here. Londongrad is more properly a state of mind — encompassing not only the nonresident owners of large houses in Kensington, but also the British institutions, banks, law firms, accountants, private schools, art galleries, and even the Conservative Party fundraisers that have gone out of their way to…

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Rory Smith writes: Both Britain’s prime minister, Theresa May, and her foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, have raised the possibility of striking back at Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, by targeting the assets of oligarchs living in London. Alexei Navalny, the most prominent opposition figure in Moscow, has suggested such a move would win public approval in Russia. Send a message by punishing those close to Putin, those who benefit from his power, goes the logic. But any move against the…

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Timothy Snyder writes: Americans and Europeans have been guided through our new century by what I will call the politics of inevitability – a sense that the future is just more of the present, that the laws of progress are known, that there are no alternatives, and therefore nothing really to be done. In the American, capitalist version of this story, nature brought the market, which brought democracy, which brought happiness. In the European version, history brought the nation, which…

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Luke Harding writes: In recent months Nikolai Glushkov had been in good spirits. True, he had to go into hospital in December from an operation on his foot but remained characteristically cheerful, returning to his home in Kingston, south-west London, and hobbling round on crutches. Charming, with impeccable English, and debonair, Glushkov was well liked. He gave large parties attended by his friends and their children and chatted to his neighbours. His death last weekend was entirely unexpected. But his…

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The Guardian reports: The Russian chemist who revealed the existence of the novichok family of chemical agents to the world has dismissed the notion that a non-state actor could be behind the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, England, earlier this month. Vil Mirzayanov, 83, said the chemical was too dangerous for anyone but a “high-level senior scientist” to handle and that even he – who worked for 30 years inside the secret military installation…

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Alberto Mora, a former general counsel of the Department of the Navy during the Bush administration, writes: Regardless of the other good a person may have done in the course of her career, the act of having tortured indelibly and forever defines the character and identity of that person. Is [Gina] Haspel [Trump’s nominee to become the CIA’s next director] a torturer? Yes, inescapably. The Justice Department may have approved the RDI program in concept, but its lawyers were not…

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Nicholas Farrell writes: We are in a hotel suite at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Zurich when Stephen K. Bannon tells me he adores the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. But let’s be clear. Bannon — as far as I can tell — is not a fascist. He is, however, fascinated by fascism, which is understandable, as its founder Benito Mussolini, a revolutionary socialist, was the first populist of the modern era and the first tabloid newspaper journalist. Il Duce, realising…

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Simon Tisdall writes: Putin has been crossing red lines, at home and abroad, with growing impunity since he first gained national prominence in 1999. He made his name with a brutal pacification campaign in Chechnya justified by a series of suspicious apartment bombings. Alexander Litvinenko, later murdered in London, blamed the bombings on the FSB and, by implication, Putin. Justified perceptions of western weakness, ambivalence and division have since encouraged Putin in a pattern of escalating, aggressive behaviour. Its main…

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The New York Times reports: The British authorities once devoted abundant resources to tracking the movement of Soviet agents here. But in recent years terrorist threats have become the clear priority, and MI5 has fewer resources to keep pace with Russia’s expanding operations, said John Bayliss, who retired from the Government Communications Headquarters, Britain’s electronic intelligence agency, in 2010 and now lectures on security threats. “I think it’s sort of accepted that there are more spies in London now than…

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On Tuesday, Trump named Mike Pompeo as his choice to replace Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State. Last November, Peter Beinart wrote: Pompeo embraces anti-Muslim bigots, and defames Muslims, with almost as much gusto as Trump himself. Among Fransen’s closest American analogues are Brigitte Gabriel and Frank Gaffney. Gabriel, who has said a “practicing Muslim, who believes in the teachings of the Koran, cannot be a loyal citizen to the United States of America,” runs ACT for America, an organization…

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