This is a legacy website featuring a collection of work by the Carnegie Endowment’s global network of scholars on topics including Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia, and the post-Soviet states. This site is a product of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace based in Washington, D.C. For more recent work by Carnegie scholars in this field, please visit Carnegie Politika.
German protestations over recent allegations of U.S. espionage point to the fact that the Federal Republic is rediscovering its dignity. As Germany emerges as one of Eurasia's major powers, a sense of “normalcy” will return to relationships that used to be special, the United States being no exception.
If Russia wants to stay in the game of global competition, it has no choice but to work toward becoming a civic nation, a rules-based polity, and a modern economy.
This week the U.S. government has presented to Moscow the candidacy of its future envoy for customary prior approval by the host country. Then, at some point, the Russian government not objecting and the U.S. Senate willing, a small but important element of U.S.-Russian diplomatic normalcy will be restored.
The 25-year-long quest for Russia's integration with the West is off. A new normalcy is setting between Russia and the West resembles the Russo-British Great Game of the 19th century—this time between America and Russia.
Ukraine is the most important strategic issue for Russia, and Putin, who mistrusts the West, worries that NATO enlargement may concern Ukraine.
Hilary Clinton has just released her memoirs, “Hard Choices.” In it, she describes Russia as one of the hardest of those choices for the United States. But in the present circumstances of the difficult international landscape, the United States can only do so much.
The Chinese do not have to listen to the Russians to see threats to their national sovereignty and domestic stability on the horizon. Both see Western support for democracy as a tool to contain them internationally and to weaken them from within.
In mid-2014, the United States' relations with China and Russia are substantially worse than those two countries' bilateral relations. The unique position that the United States has held since the 1990s as the dominant power in Eurasia is now history.
The D-Day anniversary celebrations have marked a new quality of the West’s relations with Russia. Putin is obviously playing from a position of weakness vis-à-vis the joint forces of the West. The first round has shown it has a chance, but more difficult rounds lie ahead.
Russia’s policy toward Ukraine has nothing to do with Russian expansionism or imperial nostalgia and little with the need to win domestic political support for Putin. The Kremlin’s main strategic goal in Ukraine is to keep this country out of NATO.