Russian-American Relations in the Post-Cold War Environment
Five years into the brave new world ushered in by the collapse of the Communist system and the dramatic reshuffle of global geopolitics there has emerged a novel paradigm of…
Options for Resolution of the Conflict in Abkhazia
Current prospects for resolving the conflict in the Abkhazia region of Georgia are poor. Framework agreements have been reached, but these merely paper over differences on the central issues at…
International Institutions and Russian Security Cooperation
Traditional approaches to international relations lead us to expect that with the loss of the Cold War's stable bipolar system, insecurity and uncertainty will prompt the great powers–Russia among them–to…
The Economization, Rationalization, and Normalization of Russian Foreign Policy
Russian foreign policy is increasingly driven by economic factors which rationalize and make it more like that of "normal" countries. Russian foreign and security policy is being "economized" in that…
The New Tribalism and America’s Russia Policy
Since the end of the Cold War, analysts have been grasping for a way to characterize and understand the new security situation–both in Europe and in the rest of the…
Russia’s Financial Meltdown: Causes and Policy Responses
We have to recognize that the Russian financial meltdown is a product of two factors: (A) a policy of accumulating debt to cover huge Russian fiscal deficits, which had been…
The Political Costs of Western Investment in Russian Spin-off Companies
In recent years many American investors have targeted direct investments in Russia toward small start-up companies that are spin-offs from old Soviet enterprises. These investments have been encouraged by several…
The Russian Military Outside Politics: a Historical Perspective
Pavel Grachev, the disgraced and widely despised former Russian defense minister, was fond of asserting that the Russian army is "outside politics." Many Russian and Western observers dismissed Grachev's claim…
The Coming Unemployment Crisis in Russia
There can be little doubt that open unemployment in the Russian Federation is going to rise dramatically over the next few years. Currently, approximately 10% of the Russian population is…
Why Military Dissatisfaction Is Not a Threat to the Russian State
It is a well known fact that the Russian military today is in terrible shape. Funding shortfalls are so severe that basic needs go unmet. Neither officers nor troops get…
The US Second Line of Defense: Preventing Nuclear Smuggling Across Russia’s Borders
Preventing the theft of weapons-usable highly enriched uranium and plutonium in Russia is one of the central security concerns facing the US today. The dissolution of the highly centralized USSR…
Main Problems for Civilian Control of Military Budgets in Russia
To some extent, one can say that in Russia now there is no control over military expenditures, neither by civilians nor the military. For five years the government has followed…