Russian Views of the International Order


Book Description

In this report, RAND researchers analyze Russian core interests and views of the international order. The authors find that Russia sees the current international order as dominated by the United States and as a threat to some of Russia’s interests. For several areas, U.S. and Russian interests overlap and cooperation is feasible. In other areas, U.S. and Russian interests conflict, and this report offers options for U.S. policy going forward.




Russia Resurrected


Book Description

An assessment of Russia that suggests that we should look beyond traditional means of power to understand its strength and capacity to disrupt international politics. Too often, we are told that Russia plays a weak hand well. But, perhaps the nation's cards are better than we know. Russia ranks significantly behind the US and China by traditional measures of power: GDP, population size and health, and military might. Yet 25 years removed from its mid-1990s nadir following the collapse of the USSR, Russia has become a supremely disruptive force in world politics. Kathryn E. Stoner assesses the resurrection of Russia and argues that we should look beyond traditional means of power to assess its strength in global affairs. Taking into account how Russian domestic politics under Vladimir Putin influence its foreign policy, Stoner explains how Russia has battled its way back to international prominence. From Russia's seizure of the Crimea from Ukraine to its military support for the Assad regime in Syria, the country has reasserted itself as a major global power. Stoner examines these developments and more in tackling the big questions about Russia's turnaround and global future. Stoner marshals data on Russia's political, economic, and social development and uncovers key insights from its domestic politics. Russian people are wealthier than the Chinese, debt is low, and fiscal policy is good despite sanctions and the volatile global economy. Vladimir Putin's autocratic regime faces virtually no organized domestic opposition. Yet, mindful of maintaining control at home, Russia under Putin also uses its varied power capacities to extend its influence abroad. While we often underestimate Russia's global influence, the consequences are evident in the disruption of politics in the US, Syria, and Venezuela, to name a few. Russia Resurrected is an eye-opening reassessment of the country, identifying the actual sources of its power in international politics and why it has been able to redefine the post-Cold War global order.




Moscow Rules


Book Description

From Moscow, the world looks different. It is through understanding how Russia sees the world—and its place in it—that the West can best meet the Russian challenge. Russia and the West are like neighbors who never seem able to understand each other. A major reason, this book argues, is that Western leaders tend to think that Russia should act as a “rational” Western nation—even though Russian leaders for centuries have thought and acted based on their country's much different history and traditions. Russia, through Western eyes, is unpredictable and irrational, when in fact its leaders from the czars to Putin almost always act in their own very predictable and rational ways. For Western leaders to try to engage with Russia without attempting to understand how Russians look at the world is a recipe for repeated disappointment and frequent crises. Keir Giles, a senior expert on Russia at Britain's prestigious Chatham House, describes how Russian leaders have used consistent doctrinal and strategic approaches to the rest of the world. These approaches may seem deeply alien in the West, but understanding them is essential for successful engagement with Moscow. Giles argues that understanding how Moscow's leaders think—not just Vladimir Putin but his predecessors and eventual successors—will help their counterparts in the West develop a less crisis-prone and more productive relationship with Russia.




Understanding the Current International Order


Book Description

In the first report of a series on the emerging international order, RAND researchers examine the liberal order in effect since World War II, including the mechanisms by which the order affects state behavior, the engines that drive states to participate, and the U.S. approach to the order since 1945.




China and Russia


Book Description

With many predicting the end of US hegemony, Russia and China's growing cooperation in a number of key strategic areas looks set to have a major impact on global power dynamics. But what lies behind this Sino-Russian rapprochement? Is it simply the result of deteriorated Russo–US and Sino–US relations or does it date back to a more fundamental alignment of interests after the Cold War? In this book Alexander Lukin answers these questions, offering a deeply informed and nuanced assessment of Russia and China’s ever-closer ties. Tracing the evolution of this partnership from the 1990s to the present day, he shows how economic and geopolitical interests drove the two countries together in spite of political and cultural differences. Key areas of cooperation and possible conflict are explored, from bilateral trade and investment to immigration and security. Ultimately, Lukin argues that China and Russia’s strategic partnership is part of a growing system of cooperation in the non-Western world, which has also seen the emergence of a new political community: Greater Eurasia. His vision of the new China–Russia rapprochement will be essential reading for anyone interested in understanding this evolving partnership and the way in which it is altering the contemporary geopolitical landscape.




Russia and the Question of World Order


Book Description

Russia and the Question of World Order engages with three sets of questions that cut to the heart of the ongoing debate about Russia's role in the present world order. Firstly, the book asks what are Russia's aims and objectives? Is Russia a highly revisionist power bent on overturning established rules and institutions, or is it best understood as a country with limited ambitions? Secondly, contributors ask what factors shape Russia's views on the global order and its foreign policy choices? And finally, they ask what are the consequences of Russia's actions for the existing international order? To answer these questions the book brings together scholars who analyse Russia's world order policies through the lenses of different theoretical approaches, including the English School, E.H. Carr's classical realism, social constructivism, and a long durée perspective. Examining Russia's role in the present world order, with a special focus on Moscow's relations with the US, China, and the EU, Russia and the Question of World Order will be of great interest to scholars of international relations and Russian foreign policy. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of European Politics and Society.




Russian Foreign Policy


Book Description

Introduction: the guns of August -- Contours of Russian foreign policy -- Bulldogs fighting under the rug: the making of Russian foreign policy -- Resetting expectations: Russia and the United States -- Europe: between integration and confrontation -- Rising China and Russia's Asian vector -- Playing with home field advantage? Russia and its post-Soviet neighbors -- Conclusion: dealing with Russia's foreign policy reawakening.




Europe, Russia and the Liberal World Order


Book Description

This book analyses Russia-Europe/EU relations by exploring their practical essence and conceptualizing them in terms of the main categories of international relations research. It argues that the liberal world order, established in Cold War days, whereby international relations are underpinned by a global balance of power and a highly institutionalized framework of international relations, thereby balancing power and morality, continued after the Cold War, with high hopes in the early 1990s for a new order of security and cooperation for all Europe, including Russia. It goes on to show how the liberal world order has broken down, one manifestation of this being the new conflict between Russia and Europe in recent years, a conflict resulting from the failure of European countries/the EU to acknowledge the actual balance of military, economic and political power, the lack of limits on the policy of European countries in terms of infringing on Russia’s interests, and Russia’s consequent revision, after 1999, of its policy of co-operation. Overall, the book provides huge insight into the nature of Europe-Russia relations.




National Identity and Great-Power Status in Russia and Japan


Book Description

Having suffered military defeat at the hands of advanced Western powers in the 1850s, Russia and Japan embarked upon a program of catch-up and modernization in the late-19th Century. While the two states sought in the main to replicate the successes of the advanced great powers of the West, the discourse on national identity among Russian and Japanese elite in this period evinced a considerable degree of ambivalence about Western dominance. With the onset of the crisis of power and legitimacy in the international order ushered in by the First World War, this ambivalence shifted towards more open revolt against Western dominance. The rise of communism in Russia and militarism in Japan were significantly shaped by their search for national distinctiveness and international status. This book is a comparative historical study of how the two "non-Western" great powers emerged as challengers to the prevailing international order in the interwar period, each seeking to establish an alternative order. Specifically, Anno examines the parallels and contrasts in the ways in which the Russian and Japanese elites sought to define the two countries’ national identities, and how those definitions influenced the two countries’ attitudes toward the prevailing order. At the intersection of international relations theory, comparative politics, and of historical sociology, this book offers an integrated perspective on the rise of challengers to the liberal international order in the early-twentieth century.




Russian Approaches to International Law


Book Description

Provides a detailed analysis of how Russia's understanding of international law has developed Draws on historical, theoretical, and practical perspectives to offer the reader the 'big picture' of Russia's engagement with international law Extensively uses sources and resources in the Russian language, including many which are not easily available to scholars outside of Russia