Analysis

This listing contains all the analytical materials posted on the Russia Matters website. These include: RM Exclusives, commissioned by Russia Matters exclusively for this website; Recommended Reads, deemed particularly noteworthy by our editorial team; Partner Posts, originally published by our partners elsewhere; and Future Policy Leaders, pieces by promising young scholars and policy thinkers. Content can be filtered by genre and subject-specific criteria and is updated often. Gradually we will be adding older Recommended Reads and Partner Posts dating back as far as 2011.
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US-Russian Cyber Stability Needs ‘Drunken Party’ Approach: Limits, Deterrence and Communication

Joseph S. Nye October 06, 2021 RM Exclusives
Even though a cyber treaty would be unverifiable, it may be possible to set limits on certain types of behavior and to negotiate rough rules of the road by combining deterrence and norms and appealing to the self-interest of the states involved.
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Russia’s Response to US Withdrawal From Afghanistan: Criticism of US, Concerns About Security Environment

Mary Chesnut and Julian G. Waller September 14, 2021 RM Exclusives
While schadenfreude and strategic anti-U.S. messaging is the most visible aspect of Russia’s immediate response, Moscow’s more material concerns—including regional instability and the spread of radical Islamic terrorism—should not be understated.
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Twenty Years After: How Terrorism and the World have Changed Since 9/11

Center for the National Interest September 09, 2021 Partner Posts
Graham T. Allison, Paul Pillar and Jessica Stern discuss how the United States should deal with terrorism in the aftermath of its military withdrawal from Afghanistan and with friends and rivals abroad to secure vital security interests today.
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Why Russia Is Unlikely to Use Zapad-2021 to Intervene Militarily in European Countries

Simon Saradzhyan August 31, 2021 Partner Posts
As Russia prepares to hold exercises in its western regions again, we hear warnings that Moscow will use the wargames as cover for aggression against another country; however, the conditions necessary for a Russian military intervention are absent.
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Biden's Moscow Outreach Exposes Europe's Disarray

Philip Stephens July 07, 2021 RM Exclusives
In the aftermath of the Geneva summit, the Biden administration is likely to be at once dismayed by the European Union's public display of disunity and privately relieved that its own efforts to set the terms of a different relationship with Putin will not be complicated by a parallel Franco-German initiative.
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Russia’s Competing Policy Interests in Syria and the Middle East

Mark N. Katz May 25, 2021 RM Exclusives
Amid its ongoing military intervention in Syria, Russia’s role is complicated by conflicting policy goals pursued other actors in the country.
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The Prospects for US-Russia Climate Engagement Under Moscow’s Chairing of the Arctic Council

Katarina Kertysova May 19, 2021 RM Exclusives
Russia will take over the Arctic Council's rotating chairmanship at a time when the organization grapples with multiple challenges and Russia-West relations have hit another historic low.
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Will Russia Invade Ukraine (Again)?

Simon Saradzhyan April 14, 2021 Recommended Reads
Not a day goes by without dire warnings of an imminent Russian military invasion of Ukraine, but Putin is unlikely to order an offensive against Ukraine unless Zelensky makes the first military move on the Donbass chessboard.
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Russia’s Impact on US National Interests: Preventing Terrorist Attacks on US Homeland and Assets Abroad

George Beebe April 13, 2021 RM Exclusives
Russia has shown it can help the U.S. on counterterrorism a great deal. Adversarial relations notwithstanding, there is more the two sides can do in terms of sharing both intelligence and expertise.
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Russia-Ukraine War Alert: What’s Behind It and What Lies Ahead?

Dmitri Trenin April 13, 2021 Recommended Reads
Going overkill in terms of military maneuvers on the Ukrainian border now may avoid the need to do terrible things at a later point.
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In the Wake of SolarWinds: Making and Breaking a Rules-Based Global Cyber Order

Anatol Lieven April 07, 2021 RM Exclusives
Few things have been more damaging to U.S. and European hopes of a “rules-based global order” than the perception that the U.S. both makes the rules and breaks them whenever it sees fit, including in cyberspace.
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Russia's Military Buildup Near Ukraine Is an Intimidation Tactic

Michael Kofman April 03, 2021 Recommended Reads
Russia's military posturing appears to be primarily coercive and demonstrative in nature.
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