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31. Medvedev's Plan: Giving Russia a Voice but not a Veto in a New European Security System

Author:
Richard J. Krickus
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
How do we give Russia a voice but not a veto in crafting a new European security system? This question has preoccupied analysts on both sides of the Atlantic ever since Russian President Dmitry Medvedev proclaimed that the existing one was deeply flawed and had to be replaced. Vladimir Putin's protégé observed in a series of speeches last summer that the American “unipolar moment” upon which it rested was over, and the United States could no longer dominate the international agenda. At the same time, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was a relic of the Cold War and incapable of addressing existing and anticipated flash points of conflict on the Continent. How could the existing security system function when it excluded Russia—the largest country in Europe—and surrounded it with a curtain of steel on its western frontier?
Topic:
NATO, Cold War, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, and Europe

32. Russian Security Strategy under Vladimir Putin: Russian and American Perspectives

Author:
Craig Nation
Publication Date:
11-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
Increasingly, the armed forces and a vision of security as emphasizing hard rather than soft security have come to the fore in Moscow's national security policy process. Due to this institutionally-driven vision, Russia sees itself facing increasing military-political and strategic threats all along its frontiers. Recent Russian policies reflect that perception and Moscow's adaptation to it. We may think this threat perception to be misguided, even bizarrely misconceived, given our own beliefs about what American policy is and what its goals are. Nevertheless, the strongest forces in the Russian policy community have bought into that vision and have made policy accordingly.
Topic:
Security and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Moscow

33. Transformation Under Fire: A Historical Case Study with Modern Parallels

Author:
Raymond A. Kimball
Publication Date:
10-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
Rarely have an army's fortunes shifted so much in such a short period. At the end of 1917, the Imperial Russian Army, bled dry and exhausted from the twin blows of tsarist incompetence and prolonged modern warfare, essentially ceased to exist. The military situation in 1920 could scarcely have been more different. The Red Army's military supremacy over the territory of the soon-to-be Soviet Union was unchallenged and acknowledged by the world's major powers. All of this made what happened next even more shocking. Later that same year, the Soviets would find themselves utterly defeated and thrown back by the Polish Army, an organization nearly one-tenth the size of the Red Army fielded by a state that had been obliterated from existence for 120 years and reconstituted only 2 years prior. This paper illustrates the hazards inherent in transforming a military under fire, and provides some cautionary lessons for the current U.S. efforts at military transformation.
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, and Soviet Union

34. Turkmenistan and Central Asia after Niyazov

Author:
Stephen Blank
Publication Date:
09-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
Sapirmurat Niyazov ruled Turkmenistan, a small Central Asian country with enormous natural gas holdings, like a sultan or latter-day Stalin. Therefore his sudden death on December 21, 2006, opened the way not just to a domestic power struggle, but also to fears of instability in Turkmenistan and Central Asia, and to a major international struggle among the great powers—Russia, China, Iran, and the United States—for influence over the new leadership.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Islam
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, Iran, Central Asia, Asia, and Turkmenistan