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.
article

Russian Studies Is Thriving, Not Dying

Timothy Frye October 03, 2017 Recommended Reads
“Russian studies is dying” has become a common assertion. However, in the field of political science, this doesn't seem to be the case.
article

The US Sanctions Bill Is a Win for Russia

Angela Stent July 28, 2017 Recommended Reads
The EU may rethink its own sanctions regime if the U.S. sanctions bill moves forward. This, of course, would be good news for the Kremlin.
article

Is NATO Getting Too Big to Succeed?

Charles Kupchan May 25, 2017 Recommended Reads
The alliance's practice of anchoring new democracies to the Atlantic community by absorbing them into NATO has backfired.
article

Donald Trump’s Plan to Play Russia Against China Is a Fool’s Errand

Alexander Gabuev May 24, 2017 Recommended Reads
While the Trump administration may be trying out triangular diplomacy, a grand bargain with the U.S. on China is unlikely to sway Putin.
article

New Allies for a New World

Stephen Kinzer May 14, 2017 Recommended Reads
In a world of three great powers, a future U.S.-Russia partnership against China is possible.
policy brief

Russia’s New Conventional Capability: Implications for Eurasia and Beyond

Nikolai Sokov May 01, 2017 Recommended Reads
Russia’s new conventional-strike capability is significant for the West, whether or not the West wants to acknowledge it.
article

Russia and China’s Enduring Alliance

Jacob Stokes February 22, 2017 Recommended Reads
For Russia to turn against China, Moscow may seek anything from lifted sanctions to the abolition of NATO.
article

Why Trump Is Right on Russia

Anatol Lieven February 14, 2017 Recommended Reads
Recent policy failures suggest that cooperation with Russia is unavoidable.
article

America's Awesome Military

Michael O'Hanlon and David Petraeus September 30, 2016 Recommended Reads
U.S. defense experts call to maintain, if not increase, U.S. military budget while diverting funding to areas with most need.
research paper

Wargaming NATO's Defense of the Baltics

David A. Shlapak and Michael Johnson August 23, 2016 Recommended Reads
The games’ findings are unambiguous: At present NATO cannot successfully defend the territory of its most exposed members; fortunately, changing that will not require Herculean effort.
article

Why Russia Values a Non-Nuclear Iran More Than Higher Oil Prices

Simon Saradzhyan August 11, 2016 Recommended Reads
Although it could have benefited from the failure of nuclear talks with Iran, Russia still chose to support the July 2015 deal. The possible reasons why Moscow chose to support the deal provide a lesson for world leaders looking to build a constructive relationship with Russia on the basis of shared interest.
article

False Alert: Is Russia Beefing Up Forces on NATO’s Border?

Ulrich Kühn July 08, 2016 Recommended Reads
While Russia has done an about-face on military reforms meant to switch from large divisions to smaller, more mobile brigades, Moscow is not (yet) creating additional armed forces.
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