Joshua Kucera

Photos from Mexico

This isn't really work-related, but I was on vacation in Mexico a couple months ago, and have some photos. And the site needs a little more color now, so check them out:

Merida

Merida

Valladolid

 

Campeche

Blogging again

Since I ended my last long trip in 2007, I haven't been blogging. But I'm back in the saddle and blogging at a new startup, True/Slant. It's just started up, and kinks are still being worked out, but you can get in on the ground floor now.

My blog is called New World Order, and once I start traveling again it will become a travel blog somewhat like what I had here before. But for now it is my thoughts on international affairs, geopolitics and America's future in the world, focused somewhat on a project I'm working on involving Russia, China, Iran and Venezuela. Check it out, and send feedback.

This site, however, will still be the place to look for new stories I'm publishing.

And finally, check out the inspiration for the name of the new blog, Ministry's classic 1993 song, New World Order (crappy ad in the beginning):

Watch more Cool World (Original Soundtrack) videos on AOL Video

How to build a new energy economy, and still hunt caribou - The Boston Globe

I have a Q&A with the foreign minister of Greenland in the Ideas section of the Boston Globe today:

GREENLAND, A SPARSELY populated, ice-covered island in the Arctic Ocean, has for most of its history been a place where events move at a glacial pace. But lately things in Greenland have been heating up, literally and figuratively: Its traditional economy of subsistence hunting and fishing has become one of the first casualties of global warming, which has disrupted animal migrations and melted the ice needed for dog sledding. And the same climate change is also opening up exploration of potential oil and mineral reserves that many expect will make its 56,000 people vastly wealthy. The world's largest island, almost a synonym for sleepy remoteness, is facing a transformation that could make it one of the biggest geopolitical hot spots of the 21st century, the Kuwait of the Arctic.

Read the rest here.

Crimean Tatars Are the Wild Card of the Region - Slate

The third installment in the Slate Ukraine series is out:

BAKHCHISARAY, Ukraine—The stone minarets of the 15^th-century Khan's Palace that dominate the skyline here, a city of about 50,000 a 30-minute bus ride south from Simferopol, are a reminder that while today Ukraine and Russia are jousting over Crimea, for most of the past millennium, another group ruled the peninsula: the Crimean Tatars. Muslims and speakers of a language closely related to Turkish, the Crimean Tatars are the descendants of the Mongol armies of Genghis Khan who settled here in the 13^th century. Their historical legacy is nearly invisible today, systematically destroyed first by the czars and then the Soviets.

But the Tatars, improbably, have revived themselves and are once again political players in Crimea. They are no longer the rulers, but as a politically active minority, they could act as the wild card in an eventual conflict over Crimea.

The whole thing is here.

Simferopol Is the Conspiracy-Theory Capital of Crimea - Slate

The second installment of the Slate series on Ukraine is out:

SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine—Listening to Russians can be a lot like listening to Ron Paul. Much of what they say is refreshing, speaking truth to power. The hypocrisy inherent in the U.S. foreign policy of cloaking realpolitik in the rhetoric of "nation building" and "democracy promotion"? The Russians get it. But just when you're starting to see their side of things, they drop a conspiracy theory to rival the secret plan to adopt the Amero.

Read the whole thing here.

Crimea Scene Investigation - Slate

The first installment of my series from Ukraine is up on Slate now:

KIEV, Ukraine—At the end of Kiev's main street, Khreschatyk, with its advertisements for mail-order-bride agencies and posh boutiques selling $3,000 opossum-fur duffel bags, stands a monument to an older Ukraine. Two burly 20-foot-tall members of the proletariat—one Russian, one Ukrainian—stand manfully, chests thrust forward, together holding up a five-pointed star inscribed with the hammer and sickle and the words "Friendship of Nations." The formerly exalted spot is now somewhat cheapened by the presence of a few rickety attractions, like bumper cars and a shooting range where you can plink empty beer cans with a Kalashnikov-shaped air rifle.

Monuments like this are usually a good barometer for how a former Soviet republic feels about its relationship with Russia. Lithuania, which sprinted as fast as possible from Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, has moved its Soviet-era statues to a museum park, and Estonia even went so far as to remove a World War II memorial from the center of its capital city. On the other end of the spectrum, Lenin still stands tall in the central square of Minsk, the capital of Belarus, a country that regularly entertains proposals to reunite with Russia.

Ukraine is a bit more ambivalent. The Friendship of Nations monument stands next to a panoramic lookout spot over the Dnieper River, and most people who come to the monument barely pay it any attention; it's just something they pass by to get to the view. The base's inscription (a relief text that read "In Commemoration of the Reunification of Ukraine with Russia") has been removed, though the outline of the letters is still visible because decades of pollution discolored the background around them. The statue now sports a little Ukrainian nationalist graffiti. But the Russian and Ukrainian workers still stand side by side.

The friendship between Russia and Ukraine is on the rocks these days...

Read the whole thing here.

The Guardian Comment is Free - Kyrgyzstan shows US the door

I have a piece on the closing of the US air base in Kyrgyzstan on the Comment is Free page of The Guardian today:

The war between Russia and Georgia last summer has claimed another victim: the US airbase in Kyrgyzstan.

The details of the US's apparent ejection from its only remaining base in ex-Soviet Central Asia remain murky, but initial reports suggest that the US was simply outbid by Russia. Russia offered a $2bn aid package to Kyrgyzstan, and the US's $150m annual payments to Kyrgyzstan suddenly looked pretty paltry. Underscoring the point, the president of Kyrgyzstan made the announcement not at home, but while on a trip to Moscow.

Read the whole thing here.

The Big Thaw - The Wilson Quarterly

I have a story in The Wilson Quarterly from my trip to Greenland last year.

Nuuk, Greenland, is a poky little place. Its fanciest hotel shares a building with a grocery store. A town of brightly painted wooden houses against a dramatic mountain backdrop, Nuuk looks like a western ski resort with some European-style public housing thrown in. But in this sleepy setting, where a population of 15,000 lives a mere 150 miles south of the Arctic Circle, a revolution is brewing. Very slowly.

For decades, Greenlanders have gently agitated for greater freedom from Denmark, the nation that colonized them centuries ago. In 1979, they attained home ­rule—­which produced, among other changes, a new, Inuit name for the capital, Nuuk (pronounced     “nuke”), formerly known by the Danish name Godthåb. On November 25, Greenlanders will go to the polls to take another major step out of Denmark’s shadow: They are likely to approve a law that will formally give Greenland the right to declare ­independence and make Green­landic—­which is closely related to the Inuit languages spoken in ­Canada—­rather than Danish, the official language.

In an age of violent independence movements such as those of Kosovo and East Timor, this is national liberation in slow motion. The impulse toward self-determination is the same as in liberation movements elsewhere across the globe: Greenland’s 56,000     people are mainly Inuits who have little in common with Danes. But Greenland’s independence aspirations are also getting a boost from an unlikely source: global ­warming.

See the whole thing here.

Détente over Nato - The Guardian/Comment is Free

I have a piece on NATO expansion today on The Guardian's Comment is Free site. See it here.

Spooked - The Atlantic

I have a story in this month's The Atlantic about my experiences here in Washington with a Russian spy and the FBI. Check it out here.