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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Opposition to Nord Stream 2 Makes No Sense for America or Europe

Eugene Rumer August 12, 2018 Recommended Reads
U.S. President Donald Trump and his critics at home and in Europe have found common ground in opposing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
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Russia Has Been Meddling in Foreign Elections for Decades. Has It Made a Difference?

Lucan Ahmad Way and Adam Casey January 08, 2018 Recommended Reads
Since 1991, there have been two waves of Russian attempts at election interference around the world, but neither wave appears to have met with much success.
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Russian-Speaking’ Fighters In Syria, Iraq And At Home: Consequences And Context

Cerwyn Moore and Mark Youngman November 20, 2017 Recommended Reads
A key aspect of IS’s strategy has been the mobilization of supporters across Russia and the former Soviet Union. However, Russia’s domestic terrorism threat extends beyond both IS and returnees from Syria and Iraq, with domestic recruits and Turkic and Central Asian networks adding to a complex security picture.
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Containing Our Intelligence War with Russia

George Beebe October 31, 2017 Recommended Reads
Just as Russia should not misread U.S. support for democratization as a push for regime change, the U.S. should not conflate Moscow’s desire to change our international behavior with an intent to destroy our nation.
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Russia’s New and Unrealistic Naval Doctrine

Dmitry Gorenburg July 26, 2017 Recommended Reads
Russia's new naval doctrine reveals a wide gap “between aspiration and feasible plans.”
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How to Deter Russian Cyber Attacks

George Beebe July 12, 2017 Recommended Reads
A CIA veteran offers three practical steps the U.S. can take to deter cyberattacks from Russia and elsewhere.
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Tom Friedman Is Calling for a Partition of Syria: Trump Should Run the Other Way

Stephen M. Walt April 07, 2017 Recommended Reads
Sending U.S. troops into Syria is not a solution. After all, the U.S. does not have the best track record when it comes to intervention in the Middle East.
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The Russian Defense Budget and You

Michael Kofman March 17, 2017 Recommended Reads
Russia's 2017 defense budget is smaller than last year's, but the reduction is not quite as drastic as some interpretations indicate.
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Applying Lessons of US-Russian Space Cooperation to Revive Nuclear Security Partnership Between Moscow and Washington

Simon Saradzhyan and William Tobey March 14, 2017 Recommended Reads
The U.S. and Russia should infer lessons from their joint exploration of space to revive their nuclear security cooperation.
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Russia, Trump and a New Détente: Fixing US-Russian Relations

Robert David English March 10, 2017 Recommended Reads
Demonizing Russia only widens the gulf of U.S.-Russian misunderstanding and encourages dangerous misconceptions.
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Putin’s Great Patriotic Pseudoscience

Maria Antonova November 29, 2016 Recommended Reads
The rise of pseudoscience is connected to Russia's growing isolation and nationalism.
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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.