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2012. Washington needs a policy in Libya as Turkey’s presence grows
- Author:
- Efraim Inbar
- Publication Date:
- 06-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS)
- Abstract:
- A strong Turkish foothold in Libya threatens the free flow of energy resources from the Eastern Mediterranean basin to Europe as planned by Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Italy and Israel.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Energy Policy, Hegemony, and Intervention
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Europe, Turkey, Libya, North America, and United States of America
2013. Making U.S. Foreign Policy Work Better for the Middle Class
- Author:
- Salman Ahmed, Wendy Cutler, Rozlyn Engel, David Gordon, Jennifer Harris, Douglas Lute, Daniel M. Price, Christopher Smart, Jake Sullivan, Ashley J. Tellis, and Tom Wyler
- Publication Date:
- 09-2020
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- If there ever was a truism among the U.S. foreign policy community—across parties, administrations, and ideologies—it is that the United States must be strong at home to be strong abroad. Hawks and doves and isolationists and neoconservatives alike all agree that a critical pillar of U.S. power lies in its middle class—its dynamism, its productivity, its political and economic participation, and, most importantly, its magnetic promise of progress and possibility to the rest of the world. And yet, after three decades of U.S. primacy on the world stage, America’s middle class finds itself in a precarious state. The economic challenges presented by globalization, technological change, financial imbalances, and fiscal strains have gone largely unmet. And that was before the novel coronavirus plunged the country into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, exposed and exacerbated deep inequities across American society, led long-simmering tensions over racial injustice to boil over, and launched a level of societal unrest that the United States has not seen since the height of the civil rights movement.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Economy, Class, and Trade
- Political Geography:
- North America and United States of America
2014. There Goes the Neighborhood: The Limits of Russian Integration in Eurasia
- Author:
- Paul Stronski
- Publication Date:
- 09-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- Eurasia is squeezed between a rising China and an aggressive and unpredictable Russia. The United States should remain engaged with the region to help it resist Russian advances. Since 2014, Russia has redoubled its efforts to build a sphere of influence, operating frequently under the flag of Eurasian integration. Its undeclared war in Ukraine and hardball tactics vis-à-vis other neighbors demonstrate the lengths to which it is willing to go to undermine their independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity. Moscow has pushed hard to expand the membership and functions of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), the formal vehicle for cross-regional integration of political and economic activity. However, Russia’s limited economic resources and lack of soft-power appeal; the engagement with the region by other outside powers, including the European Union, China, Turkey, and the United States; and societal change in neighboring states are creating significant long-term obstacles to the success of Russian neo-imperialist ambitions and exposing a large gap between its ends and means. Russia’s ambitions in Eurasia are buffeted by unfavorable trends that are frequently overlooked by analysts and policymakers. Russia’s own heavy-handed behavior contributes to both regional upheaval and instability as well as to the creation of diplomatic headwinds that constrain its own room for maneuver.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Geopolitics, and Regional Integration
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Eurasia, North America, and United States of America
2015. Russia’s Stony Path in the South Caucasus
- Author:
- Philip Remler
- Publication Date:
- 10-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- As the battle between Armenia and Azerbaijan heats up, Russia struggles to contend with a vastly more complicated landscape in the South Caucasus. Since shortly after the Soviet Union’s collapse, Russia’s aims and policies in the South Caucasus have been constant, but its capabilities to project power and influence have fluctuated. Russia’s engagement with the entire Caucasus region is best characterized as a tide. Its power and influence began to ebb at the start of the Karabakh conflict—with the February 1988 massacre of Armenians in the Azerbaijani city of Sumqayit being the key galvanizing event.2 After that, the tide receded rapidly, leaving even Russian possessions in the North Caucasus without effective central control. The First Chechen War marked low tide, which only began to rise with the Second Chechen War, beginning in 1999. Until about 2004, Russia was too weak and internally divided to project power and influence in the wider Caucasus region in a meaningful way. To be sure, Russian influence was never gone completely, even during the lowest ebb of the tide. Russia still marshaled greater resources than the new states of the Caucasus could muster, and it threw its weight around. But in the 1990s, Russia did not have a unified governing apparatus, but rather a mass of competing clans among which regional actors could maneuver. For example, after the Soviet collapse, Moscow left the Russian military units in the Caucasus to their own devices. Those units served as mercenaries, arms suppliers, and logistics providers to both sides in the Karabakh conflict. It took a decade for Moscow to reassert its so-called power vertical in the Caucasus, symbolized by President Vladimir Putin’s success in 2004 in finally ousting chief of the general staff Anatoliy Kvashnin.3 Russia’s assertiveness in the region grew steadily thereafter, with sharp upticks after the 2008 war with Georgia and Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, History, Territorial Disputes, Conflict, Elites, and Soviet Union
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and South Caucasus
2016. A Feminist Foreign Policy to Deal with Iran? Assessing the EU’s Options
- Author:
- Cornelius Adebahr and Barbara Mittelhammer
- Publication Date:
- 11-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- Applying a feminist approach enables a comprehensive, inclusive, and human-centered EU policy toward Iran that reflects international power structures and focuses on all groups of people. Disputed nuclear activities, regional proxy wars, and a regime built on discrimination against women and other marginalized groups: Iran hardly seems like a policy field that would be amenable to a feminist approach. Yet this is precisely what the European Union (EU) needs today: fresh thinking to help develop a new strategy toward Iran. Feminist foreign policy critically reflects international power structures, focuses on the needs of all groups of people, and puts human security and human rights at the center of the discussion. Applying a feminist lens to the EU policy toward Iran and the Persian Gulf region can improve foreign policy thinking and practice.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, European Union, and Feminism
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Iran, and Middle East
2017. U.S.-Russian Relations in 2030
- Author:
- Richard Sokolsky and Eugene Rumer
- Publication Date:
- 06-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- U.S.-Russia relations will remain frosty for years, but even Cold Wars eventually thaw. The United States should prepare now to act decisively when this one finally does, even if it takes a decade. U.S.-Russian relations are at the lowest point since the Cold War. Almost all high-level dialogue between the two countries has been suspended. There are no signs that the relationship will improve in the near future. However, this situation is unlikely to last forever—even during the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union maintained a limited but meaningful dialogue; the two countries eventually will reengage, even if mostly to disagree, and new U.S. and Russian leaders could pursue less confrontational policies. What is the agenda that they will need to tackle then—perhaps as far in the future as 2030?
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Eurasia, North America, and United States of America
2018. Russia in the Asia-Pacific: Less Than Meets the Eye
- Author:
- Eugene Rumer, Richard Sokolsky, and Aleksandar Vladicic
- Publication Date:
- 09-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- Russian foreign policy remains focused primarily on Europe. That said, Moscow’s diplomatic foray into Asia hinges on its burgeoning strategic partnership with China. Much has been written about Russia’s so-called pivot to the Asia-Pacific since its 2014 invasion of Ukraine and break with the West, but there is less to this supposed strategic shift than meets the eye. The country is and will remain a European—rather than an Asian—power by virtue of its history, strategic culture, demographics, and principal economic relationships.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Demographics, Diplomacy, History, Partnerships, and Strategic Interests
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Ukraine, and Asia-Pacific
2019. Etched in Stone: Russian Strategic Culture and the Future of Transatlantic Security
- Author:
- Eugene Rumer and Richard Sokolsky
- Publication Date:
- 09-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- Russia will remain a formidable adversary for the United States, yet they have a shared interest in avoiding outright war. Time and patience will be needed to rebuild the relationship. Russian strategic culture is a product of several key factors: a long history of wars and adversarial relations with other European powers; an open geographic landscape that puts a premium on strategic depth; and an elite given to embracing a narrative of implacable Western hostility toward Russia. Historically, Europe has been by far the most important geographic theater for Russia, and it remains so to the present day. The national narrative of Vladimir Putin’s Russia emphasizes the legacy of World War II in Europe and the critical role Russia played in the defeat of Germany. Both support the Kremlin’s claim to special rights in the affairs of the continent.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, Culture, and Transatlantic Relations
- Political Geography:
- Russia and Europe
2020. Nigeria and the Great Powers: The Impacts of
- Author:
- Sunday Omotuyi and Modesola Vic. Omotuyi
- Publication Date:
- 01-2020
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
- Institution:
- Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
- Abstract:
- This paper argues that two incidents in the terrorism of Boko Haram primarily attracted the attention of the international community. First, the mass abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls by the group and secondly, the pledge of allegiance by Islamist sect to the Islamic State group in the Middle East. It is against this background that this study examines the interventions of the United States, France and Russia in the counterterrorism operation in Nigeria. It contends that while their responses have only had a slight impact on the war against terrorism in the country, they have had ramifications for Nigerian foreign relations. The paper shows that the wavering attitude of the United States to the war based on human rights issues, strained US- Nigerian diplomatic relations, while France’s participation further helped to improve Franco-Nigerian relations.The involvement ofRussia, which primarily revolved around economic imperative, reignited the largely lukewarm Russo-Nigerian relations.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, International Cooperation, Terrorism, and Counter-terrorism
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Nigeria