With the U.S.-Russian relationship badly frayed, what are the biggest risks for escalation, deterioration and miscalculation? What, if any, opportunities exist for halting a continued downward slide?
With an eye toward informing the conversation about key issues in U.S.-Russian relations, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has commissioned a series of analytical papers by leading U.S., Russian, and European experts and practitioners to take a cold-eyed look at these challenges.
Building on the work of the Carnegie Endowment-Chicago Council on Global Affairs Task Force on U.S. Policy Toward Russian, Ukraine, and Eurasia, these papers seek to better inform the conversation about U.S.-Russian relations and to expand the range of perspectives beyond the relatively narrow confines of the current discussion in Washington and other capitals. The papers highlight the glaring differences between Russian and Western approaches to and perspectives on trans-Atlantic, European, and Eurasian security.
The search for mutual understanding and dialogue is all the more challenging at a time when many of the long-established communication channels between Moscow and the West have been suspended as a result of what is increasingly described as a new Cold War. Many of the perspectives in this collection differ, at times fundamentally, from the consensus view held by Western policymakers and analysts. Nevertheless, it is all the more vital for policymakers, analysts, and opinion-makers in the West to be informed about views held by their Russian counterparts, as these views inform and shape Russian policy.
The Russia and Eurasia Program continues Carnegie’s long tradition of independent research on major political, societal, and security trends in and U.S. policy toward a region that has been upended by Russia’s war against Ukraine. Leaders regularly turn to our work for clear-eyed, relevant analyses on the region to inform their policy decisions.
During both Obama’s and Trump’s time in office, the Kremlin has demonstrated a remarkable knack for filling the vacuums created by U.S. policymakers in the Middle East and beyond, usually on the cheap.
The Trump-Putin summit is unlikely to resolve long-standing disputes, but an earnest dialogue on the root causes of the two countries’ differences could set a necessary foundation.
The change in administration resulting from the 2016 U.S. election has brought an unprecedented element of uncertainty into U.S.-Russian relations and world politics.
The breakdown in Moscow’s relations with the West has resulted in its major geopolitical pivot to Asia and the pursuit of an even closer relationship with China.
In the past, arms control has served as a continuation of politics. Yet amid the U.S.-Russian standoff today, there is no guarantee that logic will continue to apply.
The jury is still out on U.S.-Russian relations with the Trump administration in power. Both sides made mistakes in 2017; but there were some positives, too.
U.S.-Russia relations are unlikely to improve soon, yet they need to avoid future clashes. The years since the Cold War provide some lessons on how to do that.
The Russia-U.S. relationship will likely be worse tomorrow than it is today. Any resolution will require either or both of them to change long-held views.
Since February 2014, the Russian leadership has been in a de facto war mode with regard to the United States.
Despite the extraordinary level of Western media and analytical interest in September 2017’s Russian-Belarusian Zapad military exercise before it began, key lessons and implications from it have only become clear after it ended.
