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.
book review

Thomas Graham on Why and How America Should Start Getting Russia Right

Simon Saradzhyan October 19, 2023 RM Exclusives
The U.S. needs to get Russia right, which requires America to see Russia “plainly and without sentiment,” Graham writes in his new book.
report

Strategic Posture Commission Report Calls For Broad Nuclear Buildup

Hans Kristensen, Matt Korda, Eliana Johns and Mackenzie Knight October 12, 2023 Recommended Reads
On Oct. 12, the Strategic Posture Commission released its long-awaited report on U.S. nuclear policy and strategic stability. The 12-member Commission was hand-picked by Congress in 2022 to conduct a threat assessment, consider alterations to U.S. force posture and provide recommendations.
explainer

The Origins and Efficacy of the Price Cap on Russian Oil

Benjamin H. Harris September 14, 2023 RM Exclusives
The price cap on Russian oil is achieving its goals of lowering Russian revenue while preserving global supply.
report

The Impact of the War in Ukraine on Global Trade and Investment

World Bank May 01, 2022 Recommended Reads
The war has direct effects on the firms operating in Russia and Ukraine and on firms relying on suppliers from those markets. But the shock caused by the war goes well beyond these two countries, as geopolitical risks have increased globally.
book review

Negotiators, Take Heed: Whether You’re Talking With Russia or Others, New Book Is Master Class on Working Your Way to a Deal

Olga Oliker April 06, 2022 RM Exclusives
A striking aspect of Rose Gottemoeller’s story of New START is that she and her team faced as many challenges from the U.S. as from their Russian counterparts.
article

US-Russia Strategic Stability Dialogue: Purpose, Progress, Challenges and Opportunities

Leonor Tomero December 15, 2021 RM Exclusives
A serious and good-faith dialogue with Russia about the risks to strategic stability is necessary to understand the changing nature of those risks and the direction new arms races may take and to reduce the risk of unintended escalation.
book review

Stoner’s Quantitative and Qualitative Assessment of Russia’s New Strength

Paul Saunders May 05, 2021 RM Exclusives
Kathryn E. Stoner's effort to measure Russia’s power comprises the bulk of her new book and provides a generally helpful overview of the country’s capabilities despite some limitations.
book review

Robert Gates’ Insights on How to Employ Instruments of US National Power

Simon Saradzhyan November 18, 2020 RM Exclusives
Robert Gates’ new book constitutes the most coherent of recent attempts to catalogue the key instruments of modern America’s national power and then discern how their use has evolved following the end of the Cold War and to what effect.
book review

The Honest Spy

William Tobey October 07, 2020 RM Exclusives
Rolf Mowatt-Larssen’s “A State of Mind: Faith and the CIA” offers an engaging, if eccentric, memoir from a man who battled some of America’s greatest post-World War II enemies, from the Soviet Union to al-Qaida.
book review

The Role of Russian Espionage in Re-Shaping the West

Arthur Martirosyan August 26, 2020 RM Exclusives
Luke Harding scrupulously presents every bit of data behind the hypothesis that Vladimir Putin controls Donald Trump and Boris Johnson in a book that can be extolled by one political camp and dismissed as a “fake” conspiracy theory by another.
article

Where US Sees Democracy Promotion, Russia Sees Regime Change

Benjamin Denison July 29, 2020 RM Exclusives
If U.S. officials were to critically assess the track record of American regime change, they might see that Russian statements against U.S. democracy promotion reflect genuine anxiety about regime security.
article

Unplugging the Baltic States: Why Russia’s Economic Approach May Be Shifting

Emily Ferris July 01, 2020 RM Exclusives
The probability of Russia resorting to a Crimea-style intervention in the Baltics remains low. As a key energy supplier and major trading partner for the region, Russia has more to gain by using economic levers as opposed to military ones to retain influence.
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