Vladislav Zubok was a witness to the end of the Soviet Union, and with this impressive book, Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union, he has become one of, if not the, leading historians of its downfall. His distinguished academic career began at Moscow State University and the prestigious Institute for the USA and Canada…
Tag: Russia/Soviet Union
H-Diplo|RJISSF Roundtable 14-26 on Sarotte, Not One Inch
Not One Inch, Mary E. Sarotte’s excellent study of the origins of the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) could not be timelier. Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine brings to a head the debate over NATO enlargement that has been roiling since the end of the Cold War.
H-Diplo|RJISSF Policy Roundtable II-4: NATO’s Northern Enlargement: How Did It Happen, Where Will It Lead?
Since Russia launched its threat diplomacy towards Ukraine and the West, most clearly in December 2021 with the presentation of an ultimatum in the form of “draft agreements” between Russia on the one hand and NATO and the United States respectively on the other, this author was far from the only one to have predicted…
H-Diplo|ISSF Commentary “Fear and the Logic of Othering: Decoding the Biden Administration’s 2022 National Security Strategy”
As result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration delayed the release of the new National Security Strategy (NSS) until October 2022.[1] At first glance, it is impossible to avoid noting that the entire NSS—which analysts have described as a disappointing document and “a laundry list of challenges, threats, and responses”[2] —revolves around…
Policy Series 2021-60: Trump and Russia—Less than Meets the Eye
After all the controversy, accusations, angry tweets, impeachment hearings, and conspiracy theories, how is the Trump administration’s Russia policy to be assessed? Russia consumed an unprecedented amount of domestic energy during Trump’s presidency, casting a shadow over the White House during the four years Trump lived there. And yet there has been scant systematic analysis…
Policy Series 2021-30: The Biden Administration and Russia: Digging Out of a Deep Hole
After President Donald Trump’s four years in office the U.S.-Russian relationship ended where it began: hostile, recriminatory, unproductive, and disengaged. Thus, the Biden administration starts from where roughly the Obama administration left off, only the hole is deeper, because Russia’s cyber intrusions have added a paralyzing dimension to the mix of problems. But where precisely…
Policy Series 3-1- Reviewing the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 2020
The 2020 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the tenth such event, will be held from 27 April to 22 May in New York. One of the most important and controversial pillars of the global nuclear order will be evaluated there. The NPT was opened for…
Article Review 130 on “Partner Politics: Russia, China, and the Challenge of Extending US Hegemony after the Cold War.”
There are good reasons to study Russia, China, and U.S. hegemony now. Facing common threats from the West, Russia and China have been moving closer since the 2010s. Are they going to finally form an alliance against the United States.? Will these rising powers seriously challenge or shake up the liberal world order that is…
H-Diplo Roundtable XX-14 on When the World Seemed New: George H.W. Bush and the End of the Cold War
More time has transpired between the fall of the Berlin Wall and today than the entire duration of that iconic Cold War barrier. Meanwhile, George H.W. Bush, the main subject of Jeffrey Engel’s When the World Seemed New, became the longest-living U.S. president, while there are undergraduates this semester who were born during the presidency…
Policy Series: U.S.-Russian Relations in the Trump Era
In the first half year of the new Trump administration, United States-Russian relations sped through a series of phases only to end suspended basically where they were on Election Day, 8 November 2016—badly damaged, friction-laden, and immobile. Whatever muddled hopes Russian President Vladimir Putin and his entourage may have had for better times with Trump…