To negotiate a trade deal with the President of the United States, the Swiss government arrived with a "special Rolex desktop clock" and "a 1-kilogram personalized gold bar" www.axios.com/2025/11/14/t...

@ilkokowalczuk.bsky.social Hier die hörenswerte Festrede des Historikers Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk vor dem Landtag in Thüringen: www.deutschlandfunk.de/ddr-regime-w...

Keine Ahnung wie oft ich das schon sagte: AfD und BSW sind zwei Seiten einer Medaille - beide sind Kreml-Außenposten, beide vertreten Putins Interessen in Deutschland www.t-online.de/nachrichten/...

Should be a great event for those interested in researching Cold War intelligence. Speakers are @deselv.bsky.social of the Institute for Historical Scholarship at Humboldt University in Berlin; Gary Keeley former historian at CIA; and Mark Kramer, director of the Cold War Studies Project at Harvard.

Someone please kill me right now.

We’re getting tons of retrospective analysis of COVID policies: masks, closures, comms failures,etc. But the other side of the “loss of trust in institutions” was a *deliberate effort* — by antivaxxers & right-wing influencers — to intentionally erode confidence in public health. No reckoning there.

Yes, as a Soviet historian who has written an article on AIDS, I obviously already know this. Also, @deselv.bsky.social has published two articles dealing with this topic: direct.mit.edu/jcws/article... and direct.mit.edu/jcws/article...

Christo Grozev from Bellingcat: ““Let’s hire an ISIS suicide bomber to blow him up in the street!”: Europe’s most wanted man plotted my murder — and that of my colleague” theins.ru/en/inv/279034

Also, at an interpersonal level, what is going on if you think it’s amusing to crack wise about the takeover of someone’s home country? What reaction are you expecting? A light, polite chuckle because I’m a stereotypical Canadian?

This story makes a really powerful (and tragically depressing) point: that there is no evidence strong enough to counter a world view anchored in conspiracy theory and reinforced by a multitide of motivated "influencers" — even the death of one's own child.

The stories within this story are haunting: a woman on a domestic road trip who forgot her passport. A mother who undergoes annual background checks to renew her work authorization, and this year ICE decided she had to do that while in custody. A student who overstayed her visa by three days.

Ein französischer Wissenschaftler wurde kürzlich an der Einreise in die USA gehindert. Grund waren Trump-kritische Chats. DAS ist wirklich gemeint, wenn „MAGA“ von ihrem Kampf für Meinungsfreiheit spricht.

Not exactly. The “new era” of govt censorship of research started 2 yrs ago. The censorship EO was originally written to target academic institutions that’d pointed out that the Big Lie was a lie and the 2020 election was free and fair. What you’re seeing now is it coming for everyone else.

Trump is also trying to kill the Wilson Center, where I spent four years at the Kennan Institute and Science and Technology Innovation Program.

My first internship in Washington was at the Wilson Center in its Cold War history program. It was a great place to learn about DC and get exposed to a cross section of the city.

Nicht nur in Belgrad gibt es heute Massenproteste. Auch in Ungarn sind die Menschen in Massen auf die Straße gegangen, um gegen den prorussischen Präsidenten Orbán zu demonstrieren. Auch in Georgien gibt es weiter Massenproteste.

Take a moment today to read about a few of the young children whom Trump and Musk killed by shutting down USAID. The blame for these deaths falls on them. There will be hundreds of thousands more dead kids before their lethal crusade against foreign aid ends. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

It seems I've also been placed on leave, just like the rest of my VOA colleagues. Truth is, I can't know for sure, because when I woke up this morning in Seoul, I'd already been locked out of all VOA-related systems and accounts.

Every part of this story is enraging and insane

I spent a lot of time in my book breaking down WHY this is happening — it’s *content meets community* - A lot of people don’t want “politics” or “news”, they want to be entertained…comedy, culture - They want to feel like they’re listening to someone relatable, who talks like them, is like them.

I struggle to express just how *weird* Vance’s #MSC2025 speech was. This is a transatlantic security conference, happening while there is a war in Europe, and the US is announcing a partial withdrawal from European security. And the US VP speaks about (alleged) threats to free speech in Europe??

Should have frozen the conflict in May 1775 with both sides keeping the land they held to avoid further bloodshed.

AUSA Hagan Scotten, former clerk for John Roberts, really put some mustard on his resignation letter.

Not exaggerating when I say that the path back is going to be built on people in positions of influence regaining their sense of self-respect. www.nytimes.com/live/2025/02...

Great news!

Scientists and journalists need to figure out right quick how to explain to the average person how a massive change in research indirects will impact the medical care they and their children get (eg at the local children’s hospital), the education their children will get, the price of tuition, etc.

Research Fellow (109856-0225) University of Warwick - Department of History #skystorians 🗃️www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DLS649/r...

Auschwitz was at the end of a long process. It did not start from gas chambers. This hatred was gradually developed by humans. From ideas, words, stereotypes & prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanization & escalating violence... to systematic and industrial murder. Auschwitz took time.

Did you ask about their policy on random breathalyzer testing?

Sind russische Gefängnisse mit dem sowjetischen Gulag vergleichbar? Das Onlinemedium Verstka beschreibt die Entstehungsgeschichte des sowjetischen Lagersystems, die Überschneidungen mit modernen Strafkolonien – und die Besonderheiten des Strafvollzugs im System Putin: www.dekoder.org/de/article/s...

Extremely timely #ZOiS_Spotlight on #protests in #Serbia by my colleague @ivodinev.bsky.social. A typical case of a protest that starts with students and then mobilises the middle of society? In my view not getting enough attention yet. ⬇️

On Wednesday, February 5, at 6:00 p.m., Professor Norman Naimark from Stanford University will hold a keynote address, "The Meanings of Internal Security in the Communist Police State," to open the conference "Staats-Sicherheiten im Sozialismus" at the Stasi Records Archive in Berlin.

On Wednesday, February 5, at 6:00 p.m., Professor Norman Naimark from Stanford University will hold a keynote address, "The Meanings of Internal Security in the Communist Police State," to open the conference "Staats-Sicherheiten im Sozialismus" at the Stasi Records Archive in Berlin.

I've also encountered a big issue with the consistency of definitions of disinformation and misinformation, which are used interchangeably, which has allowed bad actors to exploit the confusion for their own ends. I've been using the definitions as per Claire Wardle's work:

Could 2024 be considered the golden year of #intelligence studies? Based on @intelarchive.io data, the answer is yes. A mini thread about publications on intelligence studies in 2024. +

The University of Greifswald has posted online a video of my presentation: ""KGB Helpers": The Federal German Office for Constitutional Protection (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, BfV) and the Problem of KGB Networks in Eastern Germany." www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0Ol...

Save the date! Our conference “Staats-Sicherheiten im Sozialismus will take place from February 5-7, 2025, in Berlin.

After the fall of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, emergency investigators are making horrific discoveries. Tens of thousands of Syrians were being secretly held and tortured in Assad’s vast network of prisons. Thousands were murdered by the Assad regime. Now that Syria has been…

"If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years on this planet, it’s that the happiest and most fulfilled people are those who devoted themselves to something bigger and more profound than merely their own self-interest." -- John Glenn, who died #OTD 2016

In Teheran wurde eine »Klinik zur Überwindung der Kopftuchlosigkeit« eröffnet. Das Regime versucht, zivilen Ungehorsam von Frauen zu pathologisieren: taz.de/!6048941/ Golineh Atai versammelt in ihrem »Blätter«-Text verschiedene Stimmen des Widerstands: www.blaetter.de/ausgabe/2023...

Svalbard, Norway 🇳🇴

The “normalization” of the Taliban has begun. wapo.st/3V8epNa

From the International Intelligence History Association. At IPN in Warsaw, I presented on “Active Measures in Service of Empire: The KGB, its Fraternal Organs, and the Intermarium, 1966- 1989.” As I argued, “antizionism” (and antisemitism) played a key role. www.linkedin.com/posts/thomas...

The new issue of Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian is out featuring articles by Lewis Siegelbaum, Ann Komaromi; @faithhillis.bsky.social and @vhtroyansky.bsky.social; reviews by @bryangigantino.bsky.social and others. muse.jhu.edu/issue/53729

Trump said to be considering appointing Richard Grenell as "special envoy" for the Russia-Ukraine conflict. His previous stance was somewhat pro-Russian - having advocated for the creation of nonsensical "autonomous zones" in Ukraine & being against Ukraine joining #NATO. reuters.com/world/us/tru...

US Treasury sanctioned Gazprombank today - this could really hurt (or at least complicate) the Russian economy. I wish they would've done it 1000 days ago, but better late than never.

Moscow's goal now that Ukraine is using Western munitions to strike targets in Russia is to stoke Western panic and paranoia about three things: 1. What it can do, 2. What it will do, 3. What it just did. Embassy alerts, nuke doctrine revision, and now the "ICBM" hit.

Russia gave the RS-26 a range /just/ inside the technical definition of an ICBM so they could claim it didn't infringe the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. It is effectively, however, an Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missile, or IRBM. Russia just calls it an ICBM because it's more scary.

Well, well, well. And I'd forgotten that a Chinese ship damaged a submarine gas pipeline in the Baltic last year. Unclear to me why China might do such a thing. Maybe they didn't? Maybe they are exchanging favors with Russia? ?

On my way to #ASEEES2024. I look forward to seeing friends and colleagues there! convention2.allacademic.com/one/aseees/a...