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Today, integration with the West is no longer a goal of Russian foreign policy. Putin instead seeks to balance his and other nations' power against that of the West and the United States in particular, reflecting a fundamental shift in Kremlin thinking about global politics and constituting new potential threats to U.S. influence.
This book sheds new light on our understanding of contemporary Russia, providing Western audiences with an insider’s explanation of how the country has arrived at its current position and how the United States and Europe can deal with it more productively.
On August 28, the Carnegie Moscow Center and the Center for Policy Studies-Russia held a roundtable celebrating fifteen years of the Nunn-Lugar Program.
This month marks 70 years since the drastic surge of Stalin's terror: In 1937 the Kremlin butcher scrapped even the faintest appearance of court procedures. The infamous "troika trials" -- a system of justice by rubber-stamped death sentences -- killed more than 436,000 in one year. The anniversary observances were intended to honor the victims. But the ceremony held earlier this month at Butovo, the site of mass killings on the outskirts of Moscow, revealed the government's desire to keep the public's mind off reflections about terror and its perpetrators.
Vladimir Putin's open attempts to reassert Russia's position as a world power have been met with trepidation from the international community. Further, Russia faces domestic constraints, both economic and military, that will complicate Putin's efforts.
The Russian political elite has long dreamed of finding a national idea capable of rallying the people. Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev tried to consolidate the country with his idea of socialism "with a human face." Former President Boris Yeltsin roused the people around anti-communism. Putin's motto is: "Russia is back!"
The U.S. plan to sell over $20 billion worth of weaponry to Arab allies, to counter Iran's ascendance, attempts to contain Iran and force it to spend money on an arms race instead of developing its economy, intimidating it into bankruptcy. One major flaw in this plan is its failure recognize that Iran's growing influence is not due to hard power but to its use of soft power and militias.
For decades NATO-related issues were a key focus of Russian foreign policy. After years of setbacks and stalled progress, the NATO-Russia relationship may have finally reached a turning point. Current developments indicate that despite major difficulties during the 1990s, icy relations are beginning to thaw.
The US and its European allies continue to insist that Kosovo cannot be held indefinitely in the protectorate limbo and must be given independence. Russia maintains that for the solution to be viable, it must rest on the consent of both parties to the conflict. It is difficult to see how a few more rounds of shuttle diplomacy between Belgrade and Pristina – and slightly heavier lobbying in both places – would break the current impasse. The situation does not bode well for Kosovo and Serbia, the Balkans more broadly and the ‘frozen conflicts' in Transdniestria, Abkhazia or South Ossetia.
There were smiles and sunshine and seacoast, but what exactly did the Bush-Putin summit succeed at, and fail at? RFE/RL correspondent Heather Maher asks James Collins -- the U.S. ambassador to Russia from 1997-2001, and now the director of the Russian and Eurasian program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington -- to tally the wins and losses.
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