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12 may 2017
Mistrust Sets Low Ceiling for Russia-China Partnership: Deconstructing the Putin-Xi Jinping Relationship
No amount of propaganda can hide the fact that the Russian-Chinese partnership is not progressing well.
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18 april 2017
Defense Through Leadership: Turkey on the Eve of Its Constitutional Referendum
The April 16 referendum will focus on power distribution rather than institution building. In other words, the organizers saw it as an opportunity to expand the President’s powers and allow him to rule longer. In their turn, Turks perceived it as an institutional choice to contribute to the development of the state.
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11 april 2017
Here’s Why U.S.-Russia Military Conflict Over Syria Is Looking More And More Likely
To repair his abysmal approval rating, Trump is likely to further intervene in Syria, prompting a dangerous Russian response.
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11 april 2017
Into the Unknown: U.S.-Russian Relations Unhinged
If the larger picture defies prediction, the immediate future is scarcely more transparent. In the U.S. case, the known unknowns are numerous. They begin with the question of how much deck furniture Trump is willing to overturn in order to pursue an “America First” strategy.
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6 march 2017
Don’t hold your breath for a deal between Russia and the U.S.
The U.S. and Russia will most likely return to pragmatic relations after years of an ideologically-driven foreign policy under President Obama. However, both countries will probably harden their stance towards the other, and dramatic breakthroughs are unlikely.
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27 february 2017
Canaries in a Coal Mine. Why the United States is Experiencing an Epidemic of Indiscriminate Mass Murder
In the old days coal miners took a caged canary down into mines. If the canary suddenly dropped dead, that meant that the deadly gas, carbon monoxide, was slowly seeping into the shaft... An order of magnitude increase in killing rampages in America over the last several decades is like canaries suddenly starting to drop dead all around us. It is an early indicator of much worse troubles to come.
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22 february 2017
Anti-Elite Protests and the Future Of Democracy
The article reveals causes of the social protest and the emergence of qualitatively new components in relationship between the elite and society.
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13 february 2017
Political Cyberwar on the Doorstep
The leaders of major cyber powers have declared an intent to restrict their actions in virtual space. This new weapon looks too lucrative indeed. Major crises will be unavoidable until the main players realize that mutual restrictions and the rules of the game are crucial.
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13 february 2017
Spies, Jurists, Diplomats
The Russian political system is hard to understand, but not impossible to understand. The simplistic interpretation of a “Tsar ruling alone” shows its limits every time it is recalled to explain the Kremlin’s latest decision in foreign or domestic policy.
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13 february 2017
The Future of Democracy
If elites continue to encourage the racist demagogues of the right, they will live in societies fundamentally transformed beyond their control. Where unpredictable authoritarian leaders take power, elites can lose their liberties and ultimately even their wealth.
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13 february 2017
The Knight of Russian Realism
The current elites lack Primakov’s ability to find a balance between national and international interests, see a better future, and choose the best way to achieve it. It is this ability that has placed Primakov among the brilliant representatives of realist thought.
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6 february 2017
A view from Moscow
The victory of Donald Trump reinforced international tendencies, which had been obvious for Russians and which had been guiding Russian behavior for last few years.
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24 january 2017
Russia’s 2016-2018 Election Cycle: Popular Engagement and Protest Potential
In the wake of the For Fair Elections protest movement in Russia in 2011-2012, the Kremlin initiated a new strategy of state-society relations that was aimed at diminishing the propensity for protest in the next election cycle.
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9 january 2017
Restructuring Extractive Economies in the Caspian Basin: Too Little, Too Late?
The oil- and gas-rich states of the Caspian Sea basin—Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan—registered phenomenal growth throughout most of the 2000s. However, the heady days of resource-fueled development now appear to be over, and local governments are suddenly struggling to overcome massive budget deficits, devalued currencies, and overall economic stagnation.
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20 december 2016
Ukraine’s New Government: Possibility of Progress or Another Pre-Term Election in Sight?
Two and a half years after the Euromaidan revolution, Ukraine represents a mixed story of improvements and setbacks.
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19 december 2016
Putin Is Giving America a Taste of its Own Medicine
Aiming to spread democracy, the U.S. has meddled in foreign countries’ politics for decades. Russia just returned the favor.
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6 december 2016
Correction of Errors: How the Kremlin Re-Equilibrated Authoritarian Elections in 2016
After Russia’s wave of protest during the 2011-2012 election cycle, the country’s authorities embarked on an effort to prevent anti-regime mass mobilization during subsequent election periods.
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9 november 2016
What If… the Soviet Union Had Not Collapsed?
The 13th annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club includes a special session on the theme “What if… the Soviet Union had not collapsed?”
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12 october 2016
Power-Sharing in Europe: Models for the Ukraine?
Some form of power-sharing arrangement could pave the way to reconciling the conflict in the Ukraine and in relations between the EU and Russia is a valid one.
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11 october 2016
The “Return of Stalin”: Understanding the Surge of Historical Politics in Russia
Two principal and emotional points of history have again been placed on the national stage: the Great Patriotic War (a unifying memory) and the era of Joseph Stalin (a point of contention).
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6 october 2016
Post-Western World and the Rise of a Parallel Order
In the coming weeks, observers from Moscow to Bras?lia will look towards the United States, where voters face a stark choice between two radically different presidential candidates.
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4 october 2016
More Europe!
No one would be served by cutting short the unique European experiment. It should develop and be an example for other regions to emulate.
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29 september 2016
Everyday Patriotism and Putin’s Foreign Policy
Discussions of popular support for the Kremlin’s foreign policy often invoke common international relations concepts, like the “rally around the flag” effect...
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25 september 2016
Illusion as a Necessity
Like any ideology, patriotism comes along with an illusion of being part of “a big common cause.” However, illusion here is not deception, but an objective necessity, something that has to be hidden for society to continue to exist and at the same time adequately conceived at a conscious level.
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25 september 2016
Law and National Interest
Russia should reasonably assess the need for itself to participate in old, mostly European, formats of integration, and to think of new formats that would be more consistent with modern requirements. The principles of Russia’s interaction should be revised in favor of greater pragmatism and protection of national interest.
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28 july 2016
Winter and Spring Together, Geocultural Signs of Renewal Throughout Europe
Despite its deep crisis of identity, spawned by nihilistic elites who are both unable to give a sense to existence and to act in favour of the common good, France is marked by a discreet renewal.
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16 july 2016
After Nice, a continent contemplates an ever-clearer truth
As yet another attack claims a shocking toll in innocent lives in France, political analyst Fyodor Lukyanov writes how terrorist acts and the helplessness of secret services are changing Europe before our very eyes
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15 july 2016
After Brexit, Europe’s Dueling Nostalgias
As the European Union hangs in the balance, both sides seem to be thinking of past golden ages instead of planning for the future.
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14 july 2016
The EU Looks Like the Dying Soviet Empire
The United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union—for which the majority of the British people voted in a referendum—has become an international sensation.
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17 june 2016
Betting on Legitimacy
Every legitimacy dispute revolves around a special combination of the internal and the external. International or external legitimacy is a resource for self-assertion in the global community and it is also a resource for those who wish to challenge the state system.
A new world order: A view from Russia
Since around 2017–2018, the world has been living through a period of progressive erosion, or collapse, of international orders inherited from the past. With the election of Donald Trump and the rapid increase of US containment of Russia and China—which is both a consequence of this gradual erosion and also represents deep internal and international contradictions—this process entered its apogee.
Will US pullout from Syria increase risk of conflict with Russia?
The announcement of the US pullout from Syria was received with caution in Moscow. Besides the security and political challenges it may bring about, the Trump decision could mean the end of a practical, relatively constructive US-Russian approach to conflict at flashpoints.
Intel: How Trump's 'maximum pressure' campaign is bringing Iran and Russia closer together
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif's long-planned visit to Moscow today quickly turned into a grievance-sharing session with his counterpart Sergey Lavrov about the Donald Trump administration.
A Phony Cold War
For several years now, analysts have been unable to agree on a description for the state of Russia-West relations. The terms a “new” or “second” Cold War have been used more often than others.
Intel: How Russia and Turkey are growing closer at US expense
The April 30 phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan covered a broad range of topics, including trade, military cooperation and Syria, as the two countries continue to grow closer amid US-Turkey tensions.
Battle Robots Rivalry and the Future of War
Unmanned military systems – or ‘military robots’ – are becoming more commonplace among the rising number of armies around the world and are used with increasing frequency in combat. Leading powers, their challengers as well as their non-state combat opponents have begun to design, test, and field numerous unmanned systems.
Indian Approaches to Multilateral Cooperation and Institutions in Eurasia
Relations between the US and Russia are at their worst since the end of the Cold War, China and the US have tense relations, India and China are trying to stabilize relations after a period of acrimony. The major powers appear today to be like the unhappy families in Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina: ‘Each unhappy family (major power in this case) is unhappy in its own way.’