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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Would Putin’s Russia Really Nuke Ukraine?

Graham Allison April 22, 2022 Recommended Reads
If a nuclear strike killed 10,000 or 20,000 innocent Ukrainians, how would the United States or NATO respond?
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The Cyber-Escalation Fallacy

Erica D. Lonergan April 15, 2022 Recommended Reads
For all its potential to disrupt companies, hospitals and utility grids during peacetime, cyberpower is much harder to use against targets of strategic significance or to achieve outcomes with decisive impacts on the battlefield or during crises short of war.
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A Greener Russia? Moscow’s Agenda at the COP26 Climate Summit

Anastasia Likhacheva November 09, 2021 Recommended Reads
Russia managed to formulate three climate principles ahead of COP26 that its delegation is promoting in Glasgow and, most likely, will continue to long after the summit ends.
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What Did Biden Achieve in Geneva?

Joseph S. Nye, Jr. July 08, 2021 Recommended Reads
Even if formal cybersecurity treaties are unworkable, it may still be possible to set limits on certain types of civilian targets, and to negotiate rough rules of the road.
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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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Treaties, Numbers and Norms

Michael Krepon February 03, 2021 Recommended Reads
We can succeed at reducing nuclear danger by extending key norms even when a treaty- and numbers-centric approach to arms control faces serious obstacles.
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SolarWinds Hack: Why We Need Defense, Not Retaliation

William Akoto January 31, 2021 Recommended Reads
There may be no way to prevent systems from being breached, but the right cyber defenses could limit the damage and speed the recovery when they are broken into.
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Should U.S. Missile Defenses Be a Part of Arms Control Negotiations With Russia?

Steven Pifer January 26, 2021 Recommended Reads
The Biden administration should consider whether the benefits to United States and allied security of limiting all nuclear weapons, including non-strategic nuclear arms, would justify accepting some constraints on missile defense.
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The U.S. Failed to Execute Its Cyberstrategy—and Russia Pounced

Rob Knake January 06, 2021 Recommended Reads
To address U.S. cyber vulnerabilities now requires not a new grand cyberstrategy but the discipline and resources to implement the current one.
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With Hacking, the United States Needs to Stop Playing the Victim

Paul Kolbe December 23, 2020 Recommended Reads
Instead of acting surprised after a cyberattack, the United States must better defend its digital homeland and learn how to better operate in a state of constant cyberconflict.
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3 lessons from Russia's cyberhack into U.S. agencies

Erica Borghard and Jacquelyn Schneider December 16, 2020 Recommended Reads
The cyber-intrusion that breached the IT systems of several U.S. government organizations contains a number of important lessons for analysts and policymakers.
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How Russia Wins the Climate Crisis

Abrahm Lustgarten December 16, 2020 Recommended Reads
While the consequences of climate change could be catastrophic for much of the world, for Russia, they could be just the opposite.
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