Carnegie Moscow Center
If Japan’s quiet military revolution is indeed aimed against a specific threat, then that threat issues not from Russia but from China.
“Repression is spreading like gas in a room: as long as there’s space there, it’s going to expand.” What do the latest developments in Belarus mean for the country’s future?
It was not so long ago that the United States had military bases in the region. But now much depends on whether the advantages would outweigh the inevitable losses that Central Asian countries would sustain as a result of Moscow and Beijing’s displeasure.
Chinese and Russian online propagandists share broadly similar goals and tactics, but they still tend to work separately. Any efforts at greater coordination would have to surmount considerable barriers.
Seven years after threats were first made to cut Russia off from SWIFT, how well is Russia prepared to cope with disconnection from Western payment systems?
Russia is the only country that can truly influence the behavior of the Belarusian regime, so it’s only a matter of time before Western pressure is transferred from Minsk to Moscow.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sees his growing popularity as proof that he chose the right course when he gave up trying to please all the disparate groups that voted for him in 2019. He is likely to continue his anti-Russian rhetoric and sanctions against domestic enemies.
Declaring all opposition figures enemies of the state and illegal entities precludes any chance of dialogue: there might have been a place at the table for a non-system opposition activist, but not for an extremist.
The Belarusian regime has backed itself into a corner, and is now scared to ease up the pressure, fearing that if angry people are given more freedom, there could be a repetition of last August’s sweeping protests.
The recent escalation did not resemble a local dispute that got out of hand. Dark clouds have been gathering over the region for a long time, and the decision to embark on military action was taken at the highest level.
The Biden administration does not want conflict in the Arctic, but the potential for tension in the region depends not only on the U.S. administration, but on the actions of Russia (and China) too.
Belarus’s weakened position has not altered its traditional interests—or Minsk’s readiness to defend them. This is becoming increasingly obvious as the Belarusian regime regains control over the situation at home.
The experience of the Soviet-American-British wartime coalition was unique and inimitable. Pulling the U.S.-Russian relationship back from the brink of confrontation to less antagonistic rivalry will only be possible in the event of major changes in the domestic politics of one or both countries.
Podcast host Alex Gabuev is joined by Andrey Movchan, a nonresident scholar in the Economic Policy Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center, and Maria Shagina, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Eastern European Studies at the University of Zurich, to discuss the impact of Western sanctions on the Russian economy.
Washington’s recognition of the Armenian genocide is far from the main problem in U.S.-Turkish relations, which have been in crisis now for several years.
The deliberate stoking of tensions to enable a show of strength followed by an equally deliberate retreat could become an everyday tool used in foreign policy: a regular swing of the pendulum between escalation and de-escalation.
The communication channels between the president and society are shrinking. Some events are apparently too important for the president to discuss seriously with the public, while others are uninteresting or unpleasant for him, so they aren’t discussed either, no matter how big those issues might be.
Russia will likely watch how the Armenian election campaign unfolds, helping first one side and then the other. It has many levers of influence there, but not enough to assume complete control.
Biden’s call to Putin confirmed that unchecked escalation is not part of the new U.S. administration’s plans. Tough rhetoric, preemptive escalation, and the announcement of new sanctions were necessary for Biden to start the inevitable conversation with Russia.
With the weekend’s developments in the Czech Republic and Belarus, the new border between Russia and the West is calcifying, eliminating not only movement from one side to the other, but also the freedom not to choose a side.