Russia and Eurasia

October 2010
The Enigma of Russian Mortality
by Nicholas Eberstadt
“How could a literate European country with a traditionally strong technical and scientific base gradually but inexorably retrogress toward a Third World mortality profile?”

October 2010
Eastern Europe’s Balancing Act
by Andrew Wilson
“The Eastern European states are best understood as balancers rather than joiners. Freedom of maneuver is their priority—not hitching their fate to either the EU and NATO or Russia.”

October 2010
Kyrgyzstan on the Brink
by Alexander Cooley
“Intensified geopolitical competition . . . could further destabilize the country and change it from a collapsing state into a bona fide failed state.”

October 2010
Perspective: How to Bury the Cold War
by Dmitri Trenin
Building a stable European security architecture requires that the use of force between Russia and its neighbors or NATO be removed from the strategic equation.

October 2010
Books: The Not So Wise Men
by William W. Finan Jr.
A recent book on the development of Soviet studies in America highlights the hazards of mixing politics with scholarship.

October 2010
The Month in Review
by the editors of Current History
An international chronology of events in August 2010, country by country, day by day.

October 2010
Map of Russia and Eurasia
by the editors of Current History
Map of Russia and Eurasia

October 2009
NATO and Russia: Partnership or Peril?
by Dmitri Trenin
“The Western alliance has no reason to fear its members’ ‘defecting’ to Moscow, and it has every reason to engage with the Russians on common security concerns.”

October 2009
After START: Hurdles Ahead
by Steven Pifer
“The Obama administration regards a post-START treaty as the first step in a continuing process of nuclear arms reductions. But this will prove the last ‘easy’ nuclear arms control agreement between Washington and Moscow.”

October 2009
Will Moscow Help with Trouble Spots?
by Yury E. Fedorov
“Russia is content to play a parasitic role regarding the world’s trouble spots and Western—above all, American—involvement in them.”

October 2009
Why Russia Is So Russian
by Andrew C. Kuchins
“Since Vladimir Putin became president in 2000, the more traditional themes that marked the continuity between Russian czarist and Soviet foreign policy have gradually come to predominate.”

October 2009
Behind the Central Asian Curtain: the Limits of Russia’s Resurgence
by Alexander Cooley
“Recent events have made Moscow’s attempts to preserve its exclusive regional control seem no longer feasible or cost-effective.”

October 2009
No Obituaries Yet for Capitalism in Russia
by Samuel Charap
“The unique form of capitalism that developed following the Yukos affair seems likely to survive the current economic upheaval.”

October 2009
Perspective: Rule of Law, Russian-Style
by Kathryn Hendley
Russian courts have become more reliable in cases that do not involve influential persons. But amid official corruption and public passivity, the rule of law cannot take hold.

October 2009
Book Reviews: Seeing Russia Clearly
by William W. Finan Jr.
Stephen F. Cohen in a new book argues that the Soviet Union was not necessarily doomed to fail, but the US response to the Soviet collapse was.

October 2009
The Month in Review
by The Editors of Current History
An international chronology of events in August 2009, country by country, day by day.

October 2009
Map of Russia and Eurasia
by The Editors of Current History
Map of Russia and Eurasia

October 2008
War in Georgia, Jitters All Around
by Svante E. Cornell
"Moscow's ambitions… directly undermine the entire European project of peace, freedom, and prosperity."

October 2008
It Is Still Putin’s Russia
by Kathryn Stoner-Weiss
Clearly Medvedev either cannot or will not diverge significantly from the path on which Putin set his country in 2000."

October 2008
Moscow’s New Economic Imperialism
by Marshall I. Goldman
"Russia's wealth has catapulted it into new power relationships not only with its energy customers, but also with what is still its main rival, the United States."