PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • Membership
      • All Members
      • Core Members
      • Collegium Members
      • Associate Members
      • About Membership
    • Ukraine Experts
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcasts
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
Contacts

Address
1957 E St NW,
Washington, DC 20052

adminponars@gwu.edu
202.994.5915

NEWSLETTER
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Podcast
PONARS Eurasia
PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • Membership
      • All Members
      • Core Members
      • Collegium Members
      • Associate Members
      • About Membership
    • Ukraine Experts
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcasts
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
DIGITAL RESOURCES
digital resources

Bookstore 📚

Knowledge Hub

Course Syllabi

Point & Counterpoint

Policy Perspectives

RECOMMENDED
  • The Russia Program at GW (IERES)

    View
  • The Evolving Concerns of Russians after the Invasion | New Voices on Eurasia with Sasha de Vogel (March 9)

    View
  • PONARS Eurasia Spring Policy Conference (March 3)

    View
  • Ukrainathon 2023 (Feb. 24-25)

    View
  • How Putin has shrugged off unprecedented economic sanctions over Russia’s war in Ukraine – for now

    View
RSS PONARS Eurasia Podcast
  • The Putin-Xi Summit: What's New In Their Joint Communique ? February 23, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman speaks with Russian China experts Vita Spivak and Alexander Gabuev about the February meeting between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and what it may tell us about where the Russian-Chinese relationship is headed.
  • Exploring the Russian Courts' Ruling to Liquidate the Memorial Society January 28, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with scholars Kelly Smith and Benjamin Nathans about the history, achievements, and impending shutdown of the Memorial Society, Russia's oldest and most venerable civic organization, and what its imminent liquidation portends for the Russian civil society.
  • Russia's 2021 census and the Kremlin's nationalities policy [Lipman Series 2021] December 9, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with social scientist Andrey Shcherbak about the quality of the data collected in the recent population census and the goals of Vladimir Putin's government's nationalities policy
  • Active citizens of any kind are under threat [Lipman Series 2021] November 5, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Alexander Verkhovsky about the Kremlin's ever expanding toolkit against political and civic activists, journalists, and other dissidents.
  • Russia's Legislative Elections followup [Lipman Series 2021] October 4, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Tanya Lokot and Nikolay Petrov about the results of Russia’s legislative elections and about what comes next.
  • Why Is the Kremlin Nervous? [Lipman Series 2021] September 14, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Ben Noble and Nikolay Petrov about Russia’s September 17-19 legislative elections, repressive measures against electoral challengers, and whether to expect anything other than preordained results.
  • Vaccine Hesitancy in Russia, France, and the United States [Lipman Series 2021] August 31, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Denis Volkov, Naira Davlashyan, and Peter Slevin about why COVID-19 vaccination rates are still so low across the globe, comparing vaccine hesitant constituencies across Russia, France, and the United States.  
  • Is Russia Becoming More Soviet? [Lipman Series 2021] July 26, 2021
      In a new PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Maxim Trudolyubov about the current tightening of the Russian political sphere, asking whether or not it’s helpful to draw comparisons to the late Soviet period.
  • The Evolution of Russia's Political Regime [Lipman Series 2021] June 21, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Grigory Golosov and Henry Hale about the evolution of Russia's political regime, and what to expect in the lead-up to September's Duma elections.
  • Volodymyr Zelensky: Year Two [Lipman Series 2021] May 24, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sergiy Kudelia and Georgiy Kasianov about Ukrainian President Zelensky's second year in office, and how he has handled the political turbulence of the past year.
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Russia Spy Swap

  • July 12, 2010
  • Joshua Tucker

 

What the Russia Spy Swap Tells Us About Russia (Originally published by Joshua Tucker on The Monkey Cage) The final chapter in the recent Russia spy scandal seems to have been written remarkably quickly: shortly after being arrested, the accused Russian agents are being expelled from the country as part of a prisoner exchange with Russia. As per the usual, the American media will undoubtedly focus on the political implications of the exchange for the Obama adminstration. But there is a potentially more interesting story here about what the very existence of the Russian agents reveals about the way Russia’s leaders think about political power. Crucially, none of the the Russia “agents” were charged with espionage, because apparently none had any US state secrets in their possession. There are two potential ways to interpret this. On the one hand, it may be that the agents collectively were fairly incompetent and accomplished little during their 10 years of surveillance. (Although, it should be noted that the job of “sleeper agents” is usually not to start collecting classified information early on in their placement, as the entire point of of a sleeper agent is not to attract attention as he or she blends into the society in which he or she has been inserted.) More intriguing, however, is the observation that these “sleeper agents” were essentially placed in US society in positions where they were thought to have access to US elites. It may very well have been assumed – probably falsely now in retrospect – that simply being in the same social and professional circles as American elites would eventually lead to the accural of valuable information, without the need to go out and procure (steal) specific types of information. Why is this interesting? Because it probably tells us something about the nature of politics in Russia, where contacts with the right people in the right positions – or, perhaps even more importantly, in the right networks – is indeed the key to power and access, and, perhaps, ultimately important information. It is also worth noting how quickly the whole question of the scandal seems to have been resolved. Say what you will about the Obama administration’s reset with Russia, but the speed with which this potentially troublesome event for US-Russian relations was addressed was certainly unexpected.

Related Topics
  • Politics
  • Russia
  • Security
  • Tucker
  • U.S.
  • U.S.-Russian Relations
Previous Article
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Defending New START

  • July 8, 2010
  • PONARS Eurasia
View
Next Article
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Framing EU Engagement with the “Eastern Neighborhood”

  • July 15, 2010
  • PONARS Eurasia
View
You May Also Like
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

The Desire to Possess: Russia’s War for Territory

  • Irina Busygina
  • February 8, 2023
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Kyiv-Washington Relations in Times of Colossal War: The Ultimate Test of a Strategic Partnership

  • Volodymyr Dubovyk
  • January 11, 2023
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Prevailing Soviet Legacies

  • Irina Busygina and Mikhail Filippov
  • December 27, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

In Russia’s Nuclear Messaging to West and Ukraine, Putin Plays Both Bad and Good Cop

  • Simon Saradzhyan
  • December 23, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Ukraine’s Asymmetric Responses to the Russian Invasion

  • Nurlan Aliyev
  • July 28, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем
  • Territorial Conflict

Dominating Ukraine’s Sky

  • Volodymyr Dubovyk
  • March 5, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Russian Anti-War Protests and the State’s Response

  • Lauren McCarthy
  • March 4, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Путин и Лукашенко

  • Konstantin Sonin
  • August 29, 2020

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PONARS Eurasia
  • About
  • Membership
  • Policy Memos
  • Recommended
  • Events
Powered by narva.io

Permissions & Citation Guidelines

Input your search keywords and press Enter.