Russia and the World Trade Organization
Since 1993 Russia has been negotiating to join the World Trade Organization (WTO), which with 144 members is one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing clubs. With the successful conclusion…
Russia and U.S. Policy Toward Iraq Conflict of Interests and Limits of Dissent
Throughout much of the 1990s, the United States could not rely on the support of any ally except the United Kingdon (UK) for its unilateralist military strikes against Iraq. In view…
The Soviet Military Experience in Afghanistan: A Precedent of Dubious Relevance
The Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980s had been largely forgotten until last month, but it is now back in the news. The attacks on New York and Washington,…
The ABM Treaty: The End of One Saga and the Start of Another
The November 2001 summit between Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin marked the end of the lengthy saga of the ABM Treaty. After years of intense conflict, the situation…
Pension Reform In Russia: From the Politics of Implementation to the Politics of Lawmaking?
Under President Boris Yeltsin, the politics of economic transformation was a politics of implementation, not of lawmaking. The decisions of bureaucrats, whether motivated by corruption or public spirit, counted for…
Chechnya: 9/11, the Moscow Hostage Crisis, and Opportunity for Political Settlement
Having enlisted Putin’s support in the global war on terrorism, the White House has not publicly protested the continuing zachistki (cleansing raids) and other systematic abuses of Chechen civilians by the…
From Afghanistan To Ingushetia
Recently, I have been receiving many calls from journalists who want me to discuss what lessons, if any, the United States can learn from the Soviet experience in Afghanistan. It…
The Russia-NATO Relationship: Is It Worth Another Try?
Russia and NATO are discussing how to implement the decision taken at the North Atlantic Council (NAC) ministerial meeting on December 6, 2001 to develop new mechanisms in order to…
International Assistance and Human Rights in Post-Soviet Ukraine
A decade into its independent, post-Soviet existence, words or phrases like laggard, diminished expectations or basket case typically capture the headline story about Ukraine. In the humanrights policy area, the…
Toward a U.S. Policy on Chechnya
Co-author: Scott Lindsay U.S. policy on Chechnya must bridge three objectives: cooperating with Russia on counterterrorism, stopping abuses in the conduct of the war in Chechnya, and finding a political…
From Crisis to Transition: The State of Russian Science Based on Focus Groups with Nuclear Physicists
Conventional wisdom holds that Russian science is in a state of crisis. Russian scientists themselves claim that “it would be more accurate to describe its current condition as comatose.” The…
Ukraine on the Eve of Parliamentary Elections: Internal trends and Security Implications
Co-author: Rostyslav Pavlenko Ukraine’s upcoming parliamentary elections in March 2002 will determine not only the new composition of the Ukrainian parliament (Verkhovna Rada). They will also define the correlation of…