In the Thick of It

A blog on the U.S.-Russia relationship
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From Foreign Policy Gambles to Gangster Geopolitics: RM's Most Popular Reads

July 02, 2019
RM Staff

Did Putin's gamble in Ukraine pay off? Is the Kremlin using gangsters as foreign-policy levers? How much did the Russian Orthodox Church help revive the country’s military and nuclear complex? How likely is an alliance between Moscow and Beijing? Find answers to these questions and many more in the latest crop of our most popular reads. Check them out below. 

Top 10 of 2019 (so far)

  1. 5 Years Since Russia’s Intervention in Ukraine: Has Putin’s Gamble Paid Off? by Simon Saradzhyan
  2. Gangster Geopolitics: The Kremlin’s Use of Criminals as Assets Abroad by Mark Galeotti 
  3. How Much Did Orthodox Church Help Revive Russia’s Military and Nuclear Complex? by Dmitry Gorenburg
  4. Russia’s National Projects: Economic Reboot or Mucky Bog? by Ben Aris
  5. How Big a Threat Is Russia? An Interview With Graham Allison by RM Staff
  6. Russian Military Buildup in the West: Fact Versus Fiction by Michael Kofman
  7. Book Review: ‘No Place for Russia’: How Much Are Old US Ambitions in Europe to Blame for Russia-West Tensions Today? by Joshua Shifrinson
  8. Lessons for Leaders: What Afghanistan Taught Russian and Soviet Strategists by Simon Saradzhyan
  9. Expert Round-Up: How Likely Is a China-Russia Military Alliance? by RM Staff
  10. Why the 'Reset' Didn't Last by Nini Arshakuni, Angelina Flood and Natasha Yefimova-Trilling

Top 10 of all time

  1. 5 Years Since Russia’s Intervention in Ukraine: Has Putin’s Gamble Paid Off? by Simon Saradzhyan
  2. Measuring National Power: Is Vladimir Putin’s Russia in Decline? by Simon Saradzhyan and Nabi Abdullaev
  3. Kissinger on Russia: Insights and Recommendations by RM Staff
  4. Russian Military Buildup in the West: Fact Versus Fiction by Michael Kofman
  5. Isolation and Reconquista: Russia’s Toolkit as a Constrained Great Power by Marlene Laruelle
  6. Russia and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election: Laying Out the Publicly Available Evidence by David Filipov, Kevin Doyle and Natasha Yefimova-Trilling
  7. Russian Nuclear Forces: Buildup or Modernization? by Hans M. Kristensen
  8. Jihadists from Ex-Soviet Central Asia: Where Are They? Why Did They Radicalize? What Next? by Edward Lemon, Vera Mironova and William Tobey
  9. When Does Vladimir Putin’s Russia Send In Troops? by Simon Saradzhyan
  10. Gangster Geopolitics: The Kremlin’s Use of Criminals as Assets Abroad by Mark Galeotti 

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