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202. Russia Reborn
- Author:
- Dmitri V. Trenin
- Publication Date:
- 11-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Two decades after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan and the fall of the Berlin Wall, and nearly 20 years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia has shed communism and lost its historical empire. But it has not yet found a new role. Instead, it sits uncomfortably on the periphery of both Europe and Asia while apprehensively rubbing shoulders with the Muslim world. Throughout the 1990s, Moscow attempted to integrate into, and then with, the West. These efforts failed, both because the West lacked the will to adopt Russia as one of its own and because Russian elites chose to embrace a corporatist and conservative policy agenda at home and abroad. As a result, in the second presidential term of Vladimir Putin, Russia abandoned its goal of joining the West and returned to its default option of behaving as an independent great power. It redefined its objectives: soft dominance in its immediate neighborhood; equality with the world's principal power centers, China, the European Union, and the United States; and membership in a global multipolar order. Half a decade later, this policy course has revealed its failures and flaws. Most are rooted in the Russian government's inability and unwillingness to reform the country's energy-dependent economy, the noncompetitive nature of Russian politics, and a trend toward nationalism and isolationism. In terms of foreign policy, Russia's leaders have failed to close the book on the lost Soviet empire. It is as if they exited the twentieth century through two doors at the same time: one leading to the globalized market of the twenty-first century and the other opening onto the Great Game of the nineteenth century. As the current global economic crisis has demonstrated, the model that Russia's contemporary leaders have chosen -- growth without development, capitalism without democracy, and great-power policies without international appeal -- cannot hold forever. Not only will Russia fail to achieve its principal foreign policy objectives, it will fall further behind in a world increasingly defined by instant communication and open borders, leading to dangers not merely to its status but also to its existence. Russia's foreign policy needs more than a reset: it requires a new strategy and new policy instruments and mechanisms to implement it.
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, Russia, United States, and Soviet Union
203. The Suicide of the East?
- Author:
- Philip D. Zelikow
- Publication Date:
- 11-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- No abstract is available.
- Topic:
- War
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Soviet Union
204. Globalization and the Role of Islam in the post-Soviet Central Asia
- Author:
- Enayatollah Yazdani
- Publication Date:
- 06-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations
- Institution:
- Center for International Conflict Resolution at Yalova University
- Abstract:
- The collapse of Communism at the turn of the twenty-first century attracted much interest in the affairs of the central Asian region, which was the Muslim area of the former Soviet Union. Since then, not only the Muslim world but also the Western world has been involved in this region. The re-emergence of Islam in the newly independent republics of Central Asia sparked the emergence of an ideological battle ground. Much debate is taking place among policy makers to discuss a return to civil society, but so far no one has come up with an acceptable variant. Yet, in addition to educational and cultural programs, the Islamic groups in the region are involved in political activities in the age of globalization.
- Political Geography:
- Central Asia and Soviet Union
205. Reducing and Regulating Tactical (Nonstrategic) Nuclear Weapons in Europe
- Author:
- Nikolai Sokov, Miles A. Pomper, and William Potter
- Publication Date:
- 12-2009
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies
- Abstract:
- Control of tractical nuclear weapons (TNW) has remained an elusive goal since the early 1990s when the United States and the Soviet Union/Russia adopted a set of unilateral parallel political obligations to reduce and store at central locations the larger part of their TNW forces. Efforts by the international community to nudge the two countries to give these unilateral statements a legally binding, verifiable character did not succeed, and one can point to little headway with respect TNW arms control in the intervening 18years.
- Topic:
- Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, Europe, and Soviet Union
206. Securing the Commons: Towards NATO's New Maritime Strategy
- Author:
- Brooke Smith-Windsor
- Publication Date:
- 09-2009
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- NATO Defense College
- Abstract:
- Reminiscent of the late Cold War period, in recent years debate in official circles surrounding the purpose of Allied naval forces in transatlantic security policy has increasingly come to the fore. While in the mid-1980s preparations for the land campaign on the European Central Front dominated NATO military planning, the Soviet Union's emergent interest in becoming a powerful ocean-going nation with global reach cast new attention on the importance of securing the Alliance's maritime flanks in the event of conflict - notable the North Atlantic and Mediterranean.
- Topic:
- NATO, International Security, Military Strategy, and Maritime Commerce
- Political Geography:
- North Atlantic and Soviet Union
207. After the "Socialist Spring': Collectivisation and Economic Transformation in the GDR
- Author:
- George Last
- Publication Date:
- 03-2009
- Content Type:
- Book
- Institution:
- Berghahn Books
- Abstract:
- Historical analysis of the German Democratic Republic has tended to adopt a top-down model of the transmission of authority. However, developments were more complicated than the standard state/society dichotomy that has dominated the debate among GDR historians. Drawing on a broad range of archival material from state and SED party sources as well as Stasi files and individual farm records along with some oral history interviews, this book provides a thorough investigation of the transformation of the rural sector from a range of perspectives. Focusing on the region of Bezirk Erfurt, the author examines on the one hand how East Germans responded to the end of private farming by resisting, manipulating but also participating in the new system of rural organization. However, he also shows how the regime sought via its representatives to implement its aims with a combination of compromise and material incentive as well as administrative pressure and other more draconian measures. The reader thus gains valuable insight into the processes by which the SED regime attained stability in the 1970s and yet was increasingly vulnerable to growing popular dissatisfaction and economic stagnation and decline in the 1980s, leading to its eventual collapse.
- Topic:
- Cold War, Economics, Socialism/Marxism, Authoritarianism, and Rural
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, Soviet Union, West Germany, and East Germany
208. Defense Institution Building in Ukraine
- Author:
- Leonid I. Polyakov
- Publication Date:
- 06-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Connections
- Institution:
- Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
- Abstract:
- It took over sixteen years—from late 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, to early 2008 (when this article was written)—for an independent Ukraine to make the transition from the virtual absence of national defense institutions to its current defense establishment, which in many respects is already quite close to modern European and Euroatlantic standards. The purpose of this article is to provide a brief overview and generic analysis of how this happened. That is, it will discuss the defense institution building process in Ukraine, a mid-level European power, which in accordance with national legislation and the declarations of the country's leadership aims to join both the European Union and NATO.
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Ukraine, and Soviet Union
209. Beyond the RMA: Survival Strategies for Small Defense Economies
- Author:
- Ron Matthews and Curie Maharani
- Publication Date:
- 06-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Connections
- Institution:
- Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
- Abstract:
- Life was straightforward during the Cold War. There were the big guys in the bi-polar strategic stand-off—the United States and the Soviet Union—and there were the little guys: the Eastern European countries, such as Poland, Hungary, and Yugoslavia; Chile in Latin America; Spain in Southern Europe; Sweden in Scandinavia; Israel in the Middle East; and Singapore in the Far East. All these countries, big or small, capitalist or communist, possessed comprehensive and diversified defense industrial bases. However, times have changed, and in some senses they have changed dramatically. More than anything else, economics does not favor small countries. Previously, Cold War doctrine was premised on mass formations of artillery, main battle groups of tanks and combat aircraft located on the Central European front. In the twenty-first century, these formations have disappeared. Militaries have been transformed by the need to respond to new, emerging, asymmetrical threats arising anywhere across the globe, a shift that is captured under the umbrella term of the “Revolution in Military Affairs” (RMA). Contemporary doctrine focuses on high-intensity warfare, characterized by sophisticated defense systems, such as telemetry and cruise missiles, fiber optic technologies, sensors, modern telecommunication systems, “stealth” coatings of modern weapon platforms, light-weight composite materials, and the miniaturization of technologies in, for instance, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
- Political Geography:
- United States, Middle East, Israel, Poland, Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Latin America, Spain, Sweden, Singapore, Chile, and Scandinavia
210. The Starlink Program: Training for Security Sector Reform in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine
- Author:
- Sami Faltas and Merijn Hartog
- Publication Date:
- 06-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Connections
- Institution:
- Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
- Abstract:
- For the last two years the Center for European Security Studies (CESS) has demonstrated that training can serve as a useful tool to actively stimulate democratic governance in the security sectors of transitional countries in the former Soviet Union. Between 2006 and February 2008, CESS implemented a program called Starlink in five PfP countries in Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. The Starlink program (which is short for Security, Transparency, Accountability and Reform: Linking the Security Sectors of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine to the European Mainstream) was designed to help connect the beneficiary countries to the wider European security community by promoting reforms and democratic governance of the security sector. More specifically, the focus is the development and delivery of training materials and courses for key groups in the countries concerned. While Starlink pays specific and separate attention to various communities within the security sector—such as military, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies—it adopts a comprehensive, or “whole government” approach, emphasizing the need for close cooperation and coordination between these communities. The Starlink program was subsidized by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs; in Armenia and Azerbaijan, the local OSCE missions kindly cofinanced Starlink.
- Political Geography:
- Ukraine, Moldova, Eastern Europe, Soviet Union, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Netherlands, and South Caucasus