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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Russia and Collective Security: Why CSTO Is No Match for Warsaw Pact

Dmitry Gorenburg May 27, 2020 RM Exclusives
The CSTO is too organizationally weak and insufficiently integrated to serve as a capability multiplier for its members, and the weakness of other member states' military forces make them of limited value to Russia as military allies.
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Alternative History: Would Russia in NATO and EU Be Game Changer in West’s Rivalry With China?

Simon Saradzhyan November 20, 2019 RM Exclusives
Quantitative measurements show that while Russia’s decision to align with the West rather than with China might not have been a game changer, it would have diminished the latter’s might vis-à-vis the West.
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The Lessons of World War I Still Haunt Russia Today

Nikolas K. Gvosdev November 10, 2018 Recommended Reads
The current Russian political and strategic establishment sees in World War I and the Revolution a cautionary tale of what the Russian leadership at the beginning of this century must do to avoid repeating those disasters.
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.
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.
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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.
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The Russian World in Moscow’s Strategy

Igor Zevelev August 22, 2016 Recommended Reads
The concepts of "compatriots" and "the Russian World" were created as tools to allow Moscow to honor post-Soviet borders and address the concerns of those who did not perceive them as fully legitimate. However, in 2014, these ideas were put to different purposes.
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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?