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  "authors": [
    "Julia Gurganus"
  ],
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  "centers": [
    "Carnegie Endowment for International Peace"
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  "programAffiliation": "russia",
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Source: Getty

In The Media

Russia’s Afghanistan Strategy

Over the last couple of years, the gap between the Russian and U.S. strategies in Afghanistan has grown. Russia increasingly believes that the U.S. approach isn’t working and is convinced that it must be prepared to deal with an unstable Afghanistan on its own.

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By Julia Gurganus
Published on Jan 2, 2018
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Project

The Return of Global Russia: A Reassessment of the Kremlin’s International Agenda

The Kremlin’s activist foreign policy is expanding Russian global influence at a time when the United States and other Western countries are increasingly divided or consumed by domestic problems.  The Return of Global Russia project will examine the Kremlin’s ambitions to become a player in far-flung parts of the world where its influence has long been written off, the tools it is relying upon to challenge the liberal international order, and practical Western policy options for how and when to respond to this new challenge.

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Source: Foreign Affairs

For the last decade and a half, Russia and the United States have had largely similar aims in Afghanistan: preventing chaos and the reemergence of a safe haven for terrorists. That convergence has allowed the two countries to work together. But beneath the surface, there are important differences. Although both want stability, they define it in very different ways. The U.S. approach is founded on creating a strong central government in Kabul and a well-equipped and well-trained national security force; Russia, meanwhile, works with a wide range of actors, some of which compete directly with the government in Kabul. Moscow has even reached out to the Taliban, legitimizing a group that continues to threaten the security of both the Afghan government and U.S. and NATO forces.

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This article was originally published in Foreign Affairs.

About the Author

Julia Gurganus

Former Nonresident Scholar, Russia and Eurasia Program

Julia Gurganus was a nonresident scholar with the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Her research focus is on trends in Russian foreign policy and Russia-U.S. relations.

    Recent Work

  • Paper
    Russia’s Global Ambitions in Perspective
      • Eugene Rumer

      Julia Gurganus, Eugene Rumer

  • Article
    Russia: Playing a Geopolitical Game in Latin America

      Julia Gurganus

Julia Gurganus
Former Nonresident Scholar, Russia and Eurasia Program
Foreign PolicyUnited StatesAfghanistanRussia

Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.

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