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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Russia's Upper Hand Puts US-Ukraine at a Crossroads

George Beebe and Anatol Lieven January 11, 2024 Recommended Reads
Absent a compromise settlement, massive levels of aid for Kyiv would have to continue, perhaps indefinitely.
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Biden Must Heed JFK’s Lessons on Rolling Back Nuclear Dangers

Matthew Bunn June 10, 2023 Recommended Reads
On its 60th anniversary, Americans ought to remember President John F. Kennedy’s “A Strategy of Peace” speech and the positive diplomatic efforts it unleashed.
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With Putin, Biden Should Channel His Inner Realist

Stephen Wertheim February 03, 2022 Recommended Reads
A contest of ideas is hobbling U.S. policy in the standoff over Ukraine.
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When Redlines Fail

Dan Altman and Kathleen Powers February 02, 2022 Recommended Reads
Washington should create the strongest possible incentive for Putin to stand down by making clear that U.S. sanctions will be maximized if Russia invades and minimized if it does not.
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When Allies Go Nuclear: How to Prevent the Next Proliferation Threat

Chuck Hagel, Malcolm Rifkind, Kevin Rudd and Ivo Daalder February 12, 2021 Recommended Reads
The United States faces a new nucler proliferation threat, this time from its own allies.
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The US, Not Russia Is the New Spoiler in the Arctic

Elizabeth Buchanan May 15, 2019 Recommended Reads
While Pompeo delivered a doomsday sermon on the region becoming an "arena for power and for competition," Lavrov articulated the need for "deeper state-to-state cooperation."
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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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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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Dawn of a New Armageddon

Cynthia Lazaroff August 06, 2018 Partner Posts
Perhaps the world was safer during the Cold War. Today’s world has entered a new, unchecked and deadly arms race, and arms control has become hostage to political hostilities between the United States and Russia.
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A Nobel Prize for Trump and Kim Is No Joke

Leonid Bershidsky April 27, 2018
Making the world a safer place through a Korean peace deal may be enough to redeem the words and deeds of both leaders.
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From Mutually Assured Destruction to Mutually Assured Delusion (and Back?)

Simon Saradzhyan March 12, 2018 Recommended Reads
If U.S. and Russian decision-makers do not just profess but also genuinely believe in the continuing decline and pending collapse of each other’s countries, then chances are they will act more assertively against each other.
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