Protecting Falsehoods with a Bodyguard of Lies: Putin´s Use of Information Warfare

(ETH Zürich) For many decades, Soviet and Russian propagandists put a premium on “controlling the message.” With the ascension of Vladimir Putin, however, we’ve seen a qualitatively different approach to information warfare…

Will Russian Scientists Go Rogue? A Survey on the Threat and the Impact of Western Assistance

The collapse of the Soviet Union sparked fears throughout the world that rogue nations and terrorist organizations would gain access to weapons of mass destruction (WMD). One specific concern has…

Russia’s Views on Cruise Missiles in the Context

The abysmal state of Russia's conventional forces has caused Moscow to rely on nuclear weapons to ensure its security. This reliance was formalized in Russia's military doctrine, which states that…

Accessing the Inaccessible: The Case for Opening Up Russia’s Closed Cities

The selling of weapons-related nuclear knowledge by Russian scientists for economic gain constitutes a threat to US national security. Some estimate that the number of Russian scientists seeking permanent employment…

How Kosovo Empowers the Russian Military

The Russian military is gaining influence within Russia as a result of NATO involvement in Kosovo. The crisis is providing a pretext for the military to increase its leverage over politicians and…

The Security of Russia’s Nuclear Arsenal: The Human Factor

Assertions by the Russian military that all of their nuclear weapons are secure against theft and that nuclear units within the military are somehow insulated from the problems plaguing the Russian military…

The Pending Crisis in Russian Civil-Military Relations

A key issue in the study of civil-military relations has been how to create a military sufficiently strong to ensure security from external threats while simultaneously preventing the military from…

Russia’s Strategic View: Diminished Threats and Diminished Capabilities

A recent Congressional Research Service report states that Russia is a "nuclear superpower" intent on "maintaining rough parity with the United States." In fact, Russians no longer view their state…

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…

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