Russia

The recent actions of the indelicately named female punk band “Pussy Riot,” whose members on March 3 entered the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow and sang a song on the altar that included an appeal to the Virgin...

The rise of the democratic opposition to the Putin regime is being shadowed by the appearance of a more ominous type of opposition, that of extreme nationalists. At the first protest against falsified elections in Moscow’s Bolotnaya Square on...

A U.S. initiative treating Russia as a serious East Asian partner, engaging in a real dialogue on security threats there, and a strong public expression of U.S. willingness to invest in the Russian Far East (RFE) in return for...

By June 2011, the Arab revolutions had evolved into a series of disconnected but increasingly violent civil wars—particularly in Libya and Syria. The international community has certainly not been spared the effects of these wars. As a long-time patron—if...

On May 20, 2010, General Stanley McChrystal, then the American commander in Afghanistan, referred to the operation in Marjah, Helmand—an operation earlier touted as a potential turning point for U.S. Afghan counterinsurgency (COIN)—as a “bleeding ulcer.” Immediately, we...

Abstract On a number of recent occasions, the top Russian leadership has expressed its special interest in the affairs of former Soviet republics, including the assertion that Russia has a “privileged” relationship with these now independent states. Is this a...

Abstract Despite the manifold problems in Russian Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov’s radical reform agenda, there is clear evidence that such a program is being implemented regardless of opposition from those in uniform, especially on the General Staff. It is...

Vladislav Surkov. Texts 97-07 (Moscow: Evropa, 2008). 190 pp. Russian Political Culture. A View from Utopia. Ed. Konstantin Remchukov (Moscow: Nezavisimaia Gazeta Press, 2007). 96 pp. Read the full article here....

The Taiwan Strait: Hottest The possibility of tension escalating over the Taiwan issue was by far the most contested issue at the conference. Speakers painted pictures of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) alternatively as a military threat, an...