Tailored Assurance: Balancing Deterrence and Disarmament in Responding to NATO-Russia Tension
The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) called for tailoring assurance across America’s allies, including NATO, as part of an overall deterrence and assurance strategy.
Navigating the Storm: ‘OPEC+’ Producers Facing Lower Oil Prices
On 22 June 2018, “OPEC+” oil Ministers (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries members and an ad hoc alliance with several non-OPEC producers, notably with Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan) will gather in Vienna to discuss the status and future of their production limitation agreement which was initiated in November 2016 and runs until the end of December 2018.
Rival public diplomacies in the Ukrainian crisis : RT and Ukraine Today
The Ukrainian crisis has brought to light the key role played by new international networks as instruments of public diplomacy in time of war. Focusing on RT and Ukraine Today in the asymmetrical conflict between Russia and Ukraine, this article analyzes the operation and strategies of diffusion of these two media, and inquires into their antagonistic narratives and political rationales. This case study focuses on this conflict’s two dimensions of storytelling and news that several actors and observers have described as a “war of information”.
Russia’s Afghan Policy in the Regional and Russia-West Contexts
This report seeks to explain the main trends in Russia’s evolving Afghanistan policy, with the focus on its regionalization, diversification, and new emphasis on diplomacy that culminated in Moscow regional peace consultations. It argues that none of Russia’s Afghanistan-related concerns can be alleviated as long as the armed conflict there continues in full force. This makes Moscow genuinely interested in stabilization.
Macron, Diplomat: A New French Foreign Policy?
How can we define Emmanuel Macron’s foreign policy since he took office? After Nicolas Sarkozy’s brazen style of “gutsy diplomacy” and François Hollande’s “normal diplomacy”, the eighth president of the Fifth Republic seems to have opted for an agile classicism. In substance, he makes no claim to any radical break with the past, but sees his approach as being in line with historical tradition.
From Chechnya to Syria: The Evolution of Russia’s Counter-Terrorist Policy
The struggle against terrorism is supposed to be one part of security policy in which Russia has every necessary capability and know-how, and its special services can draw on vast experience without encountering the legal and institutional constraints that often interfere with Western efforts.
The Gazprom-Naftogaz Stockholm Arbitration Awards: Time for Settlements and Responsible Behaviour
The signing in January 2009 of the gas supply and transit contracts between Gazprom and Naftogaz marked a turning point in Russian-Ukrainian gas relations: yearly intergovernmental, last minute and non-transparent winter deals were replaced by a predictable, long term commercial relationship.
Putinism: A Praetorian System?
Almost 20 years after Vladimir Putin's accession to the presidency in 2000, how should the Russian political system be defined?
Russo-British Relations in the Age of Brexit
The paper examines the reasons for the poor state of relations between Russia and the United Kingdom, providing a brief historical and political account of why relations have deteriorated. The various options facing the UK after Brexit, and within this framework the ambiguity of current British foreign policy and diplomacy, are outlined.
Russia's election interference has undermined American democracy
In January 2017, U.S. intelligence agencies confirmed that Russia had indeed attempted to interfere with the 2016 U.S. election campaign. This effort took two forms: on the one hand, beginning in the Summer of 2016, the hacking and publication of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails, in order to hurt the Democratic candidacy; and on the other hand, an aggressive communication campaign aimed at disrupting the electoral process in favor of Donald Trump.
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