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

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.
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.
article

Reviving Arms Control in Europe

Frank-Walter Steinmeier August 26, 2016 Recommended Reads
With geopolitical tensions rising across Europe, European security needs to become a top priority once more.
article

Why Putin Prefers Trump

Mikhail Zygar July 27, 2016 Recommended Reads
Putin supports leaders whose motivations he understands. With his cynicism and overt power-seeking, Trump fits the bill.
article

Warsaw: NATO's Theater of the Absurd

Harvey M. Sapolsky and Elizabeth S. Barnes July 08, 2016 Recommended Reads
Russia is not about to invade a NATO country and risk war with an alliance that possesses a combined population of nearly nine hundred million, is built around the vastly superior military power of the United States, and has access to the industrial capabilities of both Europe and North America.
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.
article

Quite Possibly the Dumbest Military Concept Ever: A 'Limited' Nuclear War

Geoff Wilson and Will Saetren May 27, 2016 Recommended Reads
Thinking we can use nuclear weapons in a “limited” way without inviting nuclear catastrophe is a dangerous fantasy.
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.
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.
article

Russia and the Menace of Unreality

Peter Pomerantsev September 09, 2014 Recommended Reads
Russian state information apparatuses achieve their goals not by constructing a widely accepted version of the "truth", but instead by disrupting Western narratives at home and abroad.
article

How to Solve the Ukraine Crisis

Graham Allison June 06, 2014 Recommended Reads
Given the complex realities contributing to the war in Ukraine, Graham Allison outlines six recommendations that could help stop the ongoing conflict.
article

Why Russian Natural Gas Will Dominate European Markets

Tim Boersma and Geert Greving February 24, 2014 Recommended Reads
Russia’s Gazprom announced that in 2013, its share of European natural supplies rose to a historical high of 30%, provoking the question: is this an incident or a trend?
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