13 reasons to expand the Russia probes

Ample evidence exists of illicit and/or damaging Russian efforts involving the Kremlin’s interference in American governmental operations, domestic politics, the U.S. economy and often to the detriment of America’s national security. Dr Waller explains in this Center for Security Policy memo (download PDF: Broadening Russia probe) Whatever activities Vladimir Putin’s regime undertook in this regard with … Read more

Fox News: Talking about US weaknesses toward Russia

US policy toward Putin’s Russia is one of provocative weakness that plays into Russian pretensions of great power status and will diminish the power of the United States. That’s what Dr. Waller said in a Fox News interview with Bill O’Reilly on “The O’Reilly Factor.” The program aired September 13. American waffling on Syria provided Putin with … Read more

Spy hunter: WikiLeaks should be handled as espionage case

by J Michael Waller, BigPeace/Breitbart.com – One of the nation’s highest-ranking former spy hunters says that the individuals responsible for the theft and publication of tens of thousands of secret military documents should be prosecuted under federal espionage laws. The Obama Administration is pursuing the disclosure of more than 90,000 secret documents to WikiLeaks.org as merely the mishandling … Read more

Our Wall Street Journal team won the Russia debate on NPR

A team consisting of a former Moscow correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, a current Wall Street Journal columnist and editorial board member, and Dr. J Michael Waller won an Oxford-style debate in New York on National Public Radio. An audience of 300 people voted on the winner. The debate topic was, “Russia Is Becoming Our Enemy Again.” … Read more

Standing in for National Intelligence Officer at academic conference on Putin

Introduced by the moderator as “the only panelist who can say, ‘I told you so,’” Professor J. Michael Waller took part in a panel discussion on Russian politics as part of the annual convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS, pronounced “triple-A, double-S”). The question put forth before the November 18 panel was, “Is the … Read more

Waller discusses Putin with Bill O’Reilly on Fox News

(Institute of World Politics news release)  Professor J. Michael Waller was Bill O’Reilly’s guest on “The O’Reilly Factor” show February 24, discussing the conduct of Russian President Vladimir Putin on the occasion of the Bush-Putin summit in Bratislava. The program is on the Fox News Channel. Citing the Russian leader’s murky KGB career, which involved allegedly corrupt dealings with … Read more

Introduction to dismantling a secret police state

Ilan Berman of the American Foreign Policy Council and J. Michael Waller edited a series of articles on the legacies of totalitarian secret police systems. Those articles were published in August, 2004, in Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization. Berman and Waller co-wrote the following introduction to the series: When a totalitarian group seizes power, whether by parliamentary maneuver or … Read more

Portrait of Putin’s past

by J Michael Waller, Perspective (Boston University), Vol. X, No. 3, February 25, 2000. Why is so little known about the KGB career of Russia’s acting President Vladimir Putin? Most reporting on both sides of the Atlantic is thinly sourced, if sourced at all, and often conflicting. Was Putin a professional foreign intelligence cadre officer whose … Read more

Yeltsin keeps it all in the family (on the rise of Putin)

by J Michael Waller, Insight, September 6, 1999 Download PDF: IM Rise of Putin 1999.09.06 Boris Yeltsin has named the head of the secret police, Vladimir Putin, as his latest prime minister, raising fundamental concerns about the direction Russia is taking. As a KGB officer he oversaw the Stasi secret police in Communist East Germany. He led … Read more