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221. Russia-U.S.: Resetting Relations

Author:
Nikolai Sofinsky
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Affairs: A Russian Journal of World Politics, Diplomacy and International Relations
Institution:
East View Information Services
Abstract:
“THE STATUE OF LIBERTY as a symbol for America was replaced with Guantanamo” – this is how Zbigniew Brzezinski described his country in a recent interview with the Der Spiegel magazine. The former U.S. presidential national security advisor, now a respectable political expert and foreign policy consultant for the B. Obama administration, made such a grim assessment of the eight-year performance by George W. Bush, the 43rd U.S. president.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, and America

222. Beyond Zero Enrichment: Suggestions for an Iranian Nuclear Deal

Author:
Matthew Bunn
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
The United States and the other members of the P5+1 are struggling to launch the first in-depth negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program in which the United States has participated. The United States comes to the table with few good options. Sanctions have failed to change Iran's decisions about its nuclear program, and no feasible set of sanctions (given the limits of what China, Russia, and others will agree to) is likely to convince Iran to give up its enrichment program. Military strikes against Iran would probably not set back Iran's program for longer than a brief period and would greatly increase Iran's incentive to go straight to the bomb at covert sites (as Iraq did after Israel destroyed its facilities at Osiraq).
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Nuclear Weapons, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, and Middle East

223. Russia in Central Asia: Old History, New Challenges?

Author:
Marlène Laruelle
Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
Russia is a power unlike others in Central Asia, given its role as the region's former coloniser, which started in the 19th century and even in the 18th for some of the northern parts of Kazakhstan. This legacy has its positive and negative aspects: it has been positive insofar as it has involved a long period of Russo–Central Asian cohabitation that has given rise to a common feeling of belonging to the same 'civilisation'; it has been negative insofar as it has accrued all the political resentment and cultural misinterpretations of the coloniser–colonised relationship. Russian–Central Asian relations are therefore complex, with each of the actors having a highly emotional perception of its relation to the other.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Post Colonialism
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Central Asia, Kazakhstan, and Asia

224. Rebranding Russia: Norms, Politics and Power

Author:
Andrey Makarychev
Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
This working paper argues that Russia is in the process of re-branding itself internationally, with a variety of normative arguments increasingly creeping into its wider international discourse. By appealing to norms, Russia tries to reformulate the key messages it sends to the world and implant the concept of its power worldwide. Yet given that Russia's normative messages are often met with scarce enthusiasm in Europe, it is of utmost importance to uncover how the normative segment in Russian foreign policy is perceived, evaluated and debated both inside Russia and elsewhere. Within this framework, this paper focuses on a set of case studies highlighting the normative and non-normative dimensions of Russian foreign policy. These include Russia-EU transborder cooperation, Moscow's policies towards Estonia, Poland, Ukraine/Georgia and the UK, Russian strategies in the 'war on terror' and energy issues.
Topic:
International Relations and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Russia, United Kingdom, Europe, Ukraine, Asia, Poland, Moscow, Estonia, and Georgia

225. The European Union as a Normative Foreign Policy Actor

Author:
Nathalie Tocci
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
This is the second in a series of papers from a new project entitled “Who is a normative foreign policy actor? The European Union and its Global Partners”. The first paper – entitled Profiling Normative Foreign Policy: The European Union and its Global Partners, by Nathalie Tocci, CEPS Working Document No. 279, December 2007 – set out the conceptual framework for exploring this question. The present paper constitutes one of several case studies applying this framework to the behaviour of the European Union, whereas the others to follow concern China, India, Russia and the United States. A normative foreign policy is rigorously defined as one that is normative according to the goals set, the means employed and the results obtained. Each of these studies explores eight actual case examples of foreign policy behaviour, selected in order to illustrate four alternative paradigms of foreign policy behaviour – the normative, the realpolitik, the imperialistic and the status quo. For each of these four paradigms, there are two examples of EU foreign policy, one demonstrating intended consequences and the other, unintended effects. The fact that examples can be found that fit all of these different types shows the importance of 'conditioning factors', which relate to the internal interests and capabilities of the EU as a foreign policy actor as well as the external context in which other major actors may be at work.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, Europe, and India

226. False Premises, Sound Principles: The Way Forward in EU-Russia Relations

Author:
Hiski Haukkala
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The post-Cold War EU–Russia relationship has been based on erroneous premises: Russia has not been willing to live up to its original aims of pursuing a western democratic and liberal path; nor have the European Union and its member states been able to develop a coherent policy line that would have consistently nudged Russia in that direction. The lack of a genuinely shared understanding concerning the relationship has resulted in chronic and growing political problems and crises between the parties. The increasingly fraught nature of the EU–Russia relationship has also played to Russia's strengths. It has enabled Russia to re-assert its sovereignty and walk away from the commonly agreed principles and objectives already codified in the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement of 1994. The erosion of the original central aims of the partnership has not resulted in an atmosphere of working relations. Although Russia has been able to get its own way in most of the issues, a relationship worthy of the name “strategic partnership” is currently more elusive than ever. Instead of toning down its relations with Russia, the EU should seek to re-invigorate its approach to the country. It should also acknowledge that despite the current problems the EU's policy on Russia has, by and large, been based on sound principles. Democracy, the rule of law, good governance, respect for human and minority rights, and liberal market principles are all factors that are badly needed in order to ensure a stable and prosperous future for Russia. The EU should, through its own actions, also make it clear to Russia that it deserves respect and needs to be taken seriously. It would be prudent to proceed from the sector that seems to be the key to the current relationship: energy. By pursuing a unified internal energy market and subsequent common external energy policy, the EU might be able to make Russia take the Union level more seriously again. It would also deprive some of the main culprits – Russia and certain key member states alike – of the chance of exploiting the economic and political deals cut at the bilateral level to the detriment of the common EU approach to Russia.
Topic:
International Relations and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

227. Putin-3

Author:
Leon Aron
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
In the past nine years, Russian foreign policy has been examined several times in these pages. At no other time, however, has its direction been as troubling as it is today. To understand the causes of this disturbing evolution and to gauge its future course, the changes have to be examined in the context of the regime's ideological and political transformation since 2000, when Vladimir Putin was elected president.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, International Relations, Security, and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

228. Putinism

Author:
Leon Aron
Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Throughout Russia's history, the weakness of institutions and laws has ensured that the successor regimes rarely, if ever, turn out as intended by the previous ruler. Instead of continuity, the national tradition of highly personalized government often produces a very different political organism ostensibly from the same institutional framework. Yet with former president Vladimir Putin's staying on as a kind of regent–prime minister to the dauphin-president Dmitri Medvedev, at least for the next few years, the ideology, priorities, and policies of the Putin Kremlin—what might be called Putinism—are almost certain to inform and guide the Medvedev administration. Part I of this Outlook discusses the components of the new Russian authoritarianism, and parts II and III examine the elements of “Russia, Inc.”—the corporatist state that Putin has built—and the factors that may affect Russia's economic performance, stability, and foreign policy in the future.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

229. New Man in the Kremlin: What Future for Russian Foreign Policy?

Author:
Nazrin Mehdiyeva
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
The landslide victory of Dmitry Medvedev in the presidential election of 2 March was accompanied by discussions, particularly in Western analytical and media circles, of whether Vladimir Putin's successor is a democrat or nationalist, aWesterniser or a Slavophile. His pre-electoral policy statements and family life came under scrutiny and were weighed against Putin's warnings that for the West, Medvedev would be ''no easier'' to do business with than himself. While some did not hesitate to dub Medvedev a ''liberal'', others revelled in reports that suggested that the president-elect had been taking coaching lessons to imitate Putin's speech and gait, concluding with enviable confidence that he was ''less a pope than a popelet''.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Russia

230. Russia's Search for International Identity Through the Sovereign Democracy Concept

Author:
Andrey S. Makarychev
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
The search for common language has become a demanding issues in the Russia-EU relationship. One of the strongest messages contained in Russia's "sovereign democracy" concept is its desire to be regarded as a "normal" country, a full-fledged member of the international community. The concept embodies a search for its own subjectivity, which is ultimately felt to be a pre-condition for its self-assertion vis-agrave-vis Europe. Russia does not question any of the basic European norms; instead it seeks to offer an alternative version of each of them. For the Western audience, analysis of these concepts is essential for a better comprehension of Russia's foreign policy arguments.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Russia and Europe