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.
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.
multimedia

Video: Guiding Principles for U.S. Policy Toward Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. February 07, 2017 Partner Posts
Join the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs for the launch of a report on the findings of a high-level bipartisan task force on U.S. policy toward Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia. The discussion identifies the guiding principles for a sustainable U.S. policy approach.
multimedia

25 Years After the Collapse of the Soviet Union: What Comes Next?

RM staff December 08, 2016 RM Exclusives
Graham Allison, Niall Ferguson, Mary Elise Sarotte and Arne Westad consider the fall of the USSR as “applied history,” pondering what went right, what went wrong and what policymakers can learn.
policy brief

Managing Hazardous Incidents in the Euro-Atlantic Area: A New Plan of Action

Łukasz Kulesa, Thomas Frear, Denitsa Raynova November 02, 2016 Partner Posts
Dangerous military-military and military-civilian incidents involving ships or aircraft of Russia, NATO member states and third parties continue to pose a serious threat to Euro-Atlantic security. This new report offers the most comprehensive public study of the problem to date.
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.
report

NATO's Northeastern Flank—Emerging Opportunities for Engagement

Christopher S. Chivvis, Raphael S. Cohen, Bryan Frederick, Daniel S. Hamilton, F. Stephen Larrabee and Bonny Lin July 07, 2016 Partner Posts
Renewed tensions between Russia and the West have important implications for U.S. Air Force strategy, posture and regional engagement in Europe, requiring a new assessment of opportunities for Air Force partnerships in the region.
report

Russia's Military: Assessment, Strategy and Threat

Alexander Golts and Michael Kofman June 24, 2016 Partner Posts
A report providing a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the Russian armed forces in the context of Russia’s reemergence on the geopolitical stage.
research paper

Deal or No Deal: Did the US Promise Russia No NATO Expansion?

Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson May 05, 2016 Recommended Reads
New archival materials show that U.S. officials did indeed offer the Soviets informal assurances of NATO's non-expansion in 1990, while keeping open the possibility of expansion and seeking to maximize U.S. power in post-Cold War Europe.
column

What Would a Realist World Have Looked Like?

Stephen M. Walt January 18, 2016 Recommended Reads
Expanding NATO didn’t strengthen the alliance; it just committed the U.S. to protect a group of weak and hard-to-defend places that were far from home but right next door to Russia.
column

Why Arming Kiev is a Really, Really Bad Idea

Stephen M. Walt February 09, 2015
Arming Ukraine will simply intensify the conflict and add to the suffering of the Ukrainian people.
policy brief

Dangerous Brinkmanship

Thomas Frear, Łukasz Kulesa, Ian Kearns November 10, 2014 Partner Posts
Since the Russian annexation of Crimea, the intensity and gravity of incidents involving Russian and Western militaries and security agencies has visibly increased.
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