Analysis

This listing contains all the analytical materials posted on the Russia Matters website. These include: RM Exclusives, commissioned by Russia Matters exclusively for this website; Recommended Reads, deemed particularly noteworthy by our editorial team; Partner Posts, originally published by our partners elsewhere; and Future Policy Leaders, pieces by promising young scholars and policy thinkers. Content can be filtered by genre and subject-specific criteria and is updated often. Gradually we will be adding older Recommended Reads and Partner Posts dating back as far as 2011.
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The Open World

Mira Rapp-Hooper and Rebecca Friedman Lissner April 16, 2019 Recommended Reads
While the U.S. has had no major geopolitical rivals in the last 30 years, it now has two: Russia and China.
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The Folly of ‘Russiagate’

Stephen Kinzer April 04, 2019 Recommended Reads
The election of U.S. President Donald Trump was not, we now learn, the result of a conspiracy directed from Moscow. But this finding by special prosecutor Robert Mueller will change few minds: once again, as in the 1950s, everything is Russia’s fault—no matter what Mueller says.
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Not All Is Quiet On the Arctic Front

Elizabeth Buchanan March 25, 2019 Recommended Reads
2019 presents four clear windows for increased competition in the Arctic.
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How Not to Compete in the Arctic: The Blurry Lines Between Friend and Foe

Stephanie Pezard February 27, 2019 Recommended Reads
Recent U.S. strategic documents portray Russia as a competitor of the United States and an unambiguous rival. Yet in the Arctic, Russia is also a neighbor with whom trivial matters need to be discussed and de-conflicted before they become nontrivial.
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Ukraine: Looking Forward, Five Years After the Maidan Revolution

Steven Pifer February 22, 2019 Partner Posts
Ukraine has made significant progress on domestic reform and agreed on the goal of becoming a normal European state. But it has more to do, including pursuing more reforms while engaged in a low-intensity but real war with Russia.
book review

‘No Place for Russia’: How Much Are Old US Ambitions in Europe to Blame for Russia-West Tensions Today?

Joshua Shifrinson January 03, 2019 RM Exclusives
In the 1990s, preserving NATO and, with it, U.S. preeminence in Europe became the sine qua non of U.S. European policy. Is this why Russia was left out of Europe’s post-Cold War security structure?
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John Mearsheimer on International Relations, Great Power Politics and the Age of Trump

Michael Lind December 15, 2018 Partner Posts
John J. Mearsheimer’s "The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities" argues that the United States’ pursuit of a “liberal hegemony” has been a failure with sizeable costs.
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China and Russia: A Strategic Alliance in the Making

Graham T. Allison December 14, 2018 Recommended Reads
Defying the long-held convictions of Western analysts, and against huge structural differences, Beijing and Moscow are drawing closer together to meet what each sees as the "American threat."
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US Security and Russia: Choices and Consequences

Jill Dougherty and Thomas Zamostny December 07, 2018 Partner Posts
America’s current strategy toward Russia, simply put, is not working; instead, it’s tying our hands. It’s making Russia more aggressive externally and less democratic internally. The dangers are escalating.
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Russian Sanctions: Why ‘Isolation Is Impossible'

Henry Foy November 12, 2018 Recommended Reads
Countries throughout Asia, the Middle East and even Europe continue to do business with Russia despite U.S. efforts to isolate Moscow.
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US Sanctions Against Russia: What You Need to Know

Cyrus Newlin and Jeffrey Mankoff October 31, 2018 Recommended Reads
While Washington clearly intends to continue using sanctions as a primary means of confronting Russia, it is less apparent what the various sanctions imposed since 2012 have done to change Russian behavior.
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Stumbling Toward Armageddon

Sergei Radchenko October 09, 2018 Recommended Reads
What the U.S. had thought was a Soviet attempt to subvert American influence during the Yom Kippur War in 1973 was actually a case of bad crisis management, newly declassified documents suggest.
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