Russia and Eurasia

October 2008
Seeds of Discontent: Russia’s Food Woes
by Jessica Allina-Pisano
“The Russian government . . . risks losing some of its legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry if food prices continue to rise and citizens begin to feel their daily existence slide into insecurity"

October 2008
The Health Crisis in Russia’s Ranks
by Murray Feshbach
"Russia is a country with a huge military arsenal and major ambitions—but very low human potential to realize these ambitions."

October 2008
Perspectives: How the West Failed Georgia... And... The Fate of Gerorgian Democracy
by Alexander Cooley, Julie A. George and Christoph H. Stefes
Perspectives

October 2008
Book Review: Yeltsin's Uncertain Legacy
by William W. Finan Jr.
A new book argues that the former Russian president deserves a place among the world's great democrats. If only he had not been so reckless with executive authority and the economy.

October 2008
The Month In Review
by The Editors of Current History
August 2008

May 2008
Where US and Russian Interests Overlap
by Dmitri Trenin
"Why is it that all recent Russian leaders have started out as friends of the United States, wishing to be embraced as allies, but after a while have become disillusioned. . . ?"

October 2007
After Putin, the Deluge?
by Leon Aron
"The Kremlin's nervousness over the upcoming presidential succession, although camouflaged by oil wealth and passed over in silence by the renationalized or intimidated mass media, is plain to see."

October 2007
Russia and the West: Mutually Assured Distrust
by Marshall I. Goldman
"In their determination to validate their recovery and return to world leadership, the Russians sometimes overreact, even if in the process this means straining relations with the West."

October 2007
Russia and China: The Ambivalent Embrace
by Andrew Kuchins
"Despite deep-seated wariness toward China on the part of the Russian leadership and people, ties with Beijing have significantly advanced under the leadership of both Yeltsin and Putin."

October 2007
Russia and Iran: An Anti-Western Alliance
by Abbas Milani
"Putin's desire to dismantle what remains of democracy and replace it with a jingoist, messianic, Slavic concoction . . . makes him and his Russia an ideal ally, and role model, for Iran's pseudo-totalitarian antimodern regime."

October 2007
The Shrinking US Footprint in Central Asia
by Martha Brill Olcott
"The belief that the United States was behind the 'color revolutions' has helped both Russia and China strengthen their positions in the region."

October 2007
The Kremlin’s Religion Temptation
by James W. Warhola
"The government could be enticed into taking the bait of religion by enlisting religious points of reference and symbols, and even the Orthodox Church itself, to advance the aims and interests of the state."

October 2007
The Legacy of Vladimir Putin
by Dmitri Trenin
The Legacy of Vladimir Putin

October 2006
Russia’s Ersatz Democracy
by LILIA SHEVTSOVA
What will it take for Russia's political class and society to realize that the current paradigm of development leads to a dead end?"

October 2006
Suspended Animation: The US and Russia after the G-8
by CELESTE A. WALLANDER
"The two countries seem to be . . . simultaneously reaching out in cooperation with one hand while raising the other for a sharp blow, with neither the embrace nor the strike ever quite reaching its mark."

October 2006
Russia’s Middle Class Muddle
by MARSHALL I. GOLDMAN
"More and more Russians are coming to question whether their country will be able to create a viable and independent constituency of the sort that plays such an important role in Western democracies."

October 2006
Conservative Vanguard? The Politics of New Russia’s Youth
by THOMAS J. GARZA
The pro-Kremlin youth movement has all the trappings of the old Young Communist League, including the creation of a cult of personality—with Putin in place of Lenin."

October 2006
Russia Confronts Radical Islam
by DMITRY GORENBURG
"Policies undertaken by both Moscow and regional governments are only making an already volatile situation worse, especially in the North Caucasus."

October 2006
Moscow Discovers Soft Power
by FIONA HILL
"Its vast energy resources . . . have the potential to make Russia a different kind of power in the twenty-first century from what it was in the twentieth. . . ."

October 2006
The Ukrainian Gas Crisis Revisited
by NIKOLAI SOKOV
"Russia's gas price policy, however badly and arrogantly executed, was perhaps not unreasonable. In fact, it may serve the long-term interests of the international community, and even Ukraine."