Foreign Policy Blogs

Tag Archives: Russia

Russian education improves in rankings, but gets more politicized

Russian education improves in rankings, but gets more politicized

Although education in Russia remains a politicized area that is  subjected tocovert and never-ending ideological skirmishes, some state policies turned out to be efficient. The stable rate of improvements throughout international rankings, however, might not stay for long, as the sphere still requires drastic reforms that are not coming at any time soon. According to […]

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Op-Ed: Unreality in Thinking about the Unthinkable

Op-Ed: Unreality in Thinking about the Unthinkable

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, George Schultz, William Perry and Sam Nunn argued for “a world without nuclear weapons, [as] dangers continue to mount.” Lamenting “a dangerous policy paralysis” among the US, its allies and Russia, they write that the road to denuclearization is through “re-engagement” with Russia, a “joint declaration,” and “dialogue,” […]

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The Dangers of a Future Mission

The Dangers of a Future Mission

A few short weeks ago, a shipment of S-400 missiles from Russia to China were lost at sea. While the shipment was replaced and likely covered by some type of insurance, the notable issue should be that S-400 missiles are now being exported outside of Russia. The export of the older S-300 system was always […]

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How to Make Eastern Europe’s Gray Zone less Gray?

How to Make Eastern Europe’s Gray Zone less Gray?

The US’s Baltic and Adriatic Charters could become templates for embedding Ukraine and Georgia as well as, perhaps, Moldova and Azerbaijan into a provisional multilateral security structure.   By Iryna Vereshchuk and Andreas Umland It is remarkable how strongly some international organizations’ coverage of the East-Central European and South Caucasian post-Soviet space has come to […]

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Ukraine’s South as a New Geopolitical Flashpoint

Ukraine’s South as a New Geopolitical Flashpoint

  Four factors make further tensions between Russia and Ukraine along the shores of the Crimean peninsula and Azov Sea probable.   On 25 November 2018, at the Kerch Strait, Russia attacked as well as captured three Ukrainian navy vessels, and arrested their 24 sailors. The maritime clash indicates that the focal point of the […]

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Repurposing the Human Brain: Lessons in Russian- and our own- reality reversal

Repurposing the Human Brain: Lessons in Russian- and our own- reality reversal

     At the “Valdai Discussion Club” in February 2012, Putin accused the West of employing “a matrix of tools and methods to reach foreign policy goals without the use of arms but by exerting information and other levers of influence . . . to develop and provoke extremist, separatist and nationalistic attitudes, to manipulate […]

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Russia, Ukraine, and the Sea of Azov

Russia, Ukraine, and the Sea of Azov

On November 25, three Ukrainian naval vessels, two 54-ton gunboats (technically, Gyurza-M-class armored artillery cutters) and a tug, were traveling from Odessa around the Crimean Peninsula and toward the Sea of Azov, en route to the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol. As they approached the Kerch Strait, the access route from the Black Sea to […]

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How to Talk about Ukrainian Politics in the West?

How to Talk about Ukrainian Politics in the West?

Hyperbolic warnings about allegedly disastrous consequences of a Tymoshenko presidency are demobilizing Western support for Ukrainian reforms and defense My recent article “What Would a Tymoshenko Presidency Mean?” for the Ukraine Alert of Washington’s Atlantic Council has caused indignation among numerous Ukrainian experts and journalists – some of them hitherto close colleagues and professional friends. […]

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As Good as It Gets: Why the West Should Start Preparing Itself to a Ukraine under President Tymoshenko

As Good as It Gets: Why the West Should Start Preparing Itself to a Ukraine under President Tymoshenko

The prominent Western commentator of post-Soviet affairs Taras Kuzio has recently come forward with a barrel of English-language attacks on Ukrainian opposition politician Yulia Tymoshenko – so far, the clear front-runner in Ukraine’s upcoming presidential elections in March 2019. Kuzio has placed several critical and partly denigrating texts about Tymoshenko in reputed analytical outlets, such […]

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The Legal Option to Stop Nord Stream 2

The Legal Option to Stop Nord Stream 2

In Soviet mythology, the health of a country’s economy, national power, and influence in the world are directly linked to the performance of its oil and gas industries. The famous Russian gas project, Nord Stream 2, threatens to disturb the European Union family, emphasizing the contrasting interests of various EU nations. The Castro 10 vessel […]

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Anti-Aircraft Missile Diplomacy Comes to Syria

Anti-Aircraft Missile Diplomacy Comes to Syria

The 1973 Sinai War was likely the most precarious conflict in the Arab-Israeli Wars. Much of the battle was supplemented by American and Soviet Cold War technology that matured in the Vietnam War and was used to brutal effect over the deserts of Sinai. Weapons systems like the stationary SA-2 missile and SA-3 missile kept […]

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Post-Soviet Neo-Eurasianism, the Putin System, and the Contemporary European Extreme Right

Post-Soviet Neo-Eurasianism, the Putin System, and the Contemporary European Extreme Right

Black Wind, White Snow: The Rise of Russia’s New Nationalism. By Charles Clover. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016.   The Gumilev Mystique: Biopolitics, Eurasianism, and the Construction of Community in Modern Russia. By Mark Bassin. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2016.   Eurasianism and the European Far Right: Reshaping the Europe-Russia Relationship. Edited […]

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Why and How a New Democratization of Russia Can Happen and Be Supported: The West Should Get Ready for and Promote a Different Post-Soviet Future

Why and How a New Democratization of Russia Can Happen and Be Supported: The West Should Get Ready for and Promote a Different Post-Soviet Future

Western comments on Russian domestic and foreign affairs have, during the last years, become more and more gloomy. Among other topics, this pessimistic discourse (to which I too have contributed) features Putin’s neo-imperial plans for the post-Soviet area, the many varieties of post-Soviet Russian ultra-nationalism, the fragility of the geopolitical grey zone between the Kremlin-dominated […]

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Syrian Missile Downs Russian Plane in Error

Syrian Missile Downs Russian Plane in Error

A Russian four engine IL-20 naval reconnaissance aircraft was shot down seemingly by accident over Syria by Syrian air defense. While initial reports lack significant details, early information seem to point out that due to a possible Israeli missile attack, Syrian air defense was targeting incoming missiles or planes and locked on the IL-20 by […]

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The Glazyev Tapes, Origins of the Donbas Conflict, and Minsk Agreements

The Glazyev Tapes, Origins of the Donbas Conflict, and Minsk Agreements

What are the origins of the armed conflict that has been raging in eastern Ukraine since 2014? Which role did Russia play in the emergence and escalation of the originally unarmed confrontation, in the Donets Basin (Donbas), after the victory of the Euromaidan revolution? When, how and to what degree exactly did Moscow get involved? […]

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