Carnegie Moscow Center
Even though tensions over Ukraine will inevitably cast a shadow over the bilateral relationship, Russia and Turkey—a NATO member—continue to share a range of important interests.
Russia has stepped forward in Ukraine to protect its vital interests—which the West saw as aggression by a revisionist power. The ensuing conflict will last long and have an impact far beyond Europe.
The Eastern Partnership states and the EU have to acknowledge their own failures instead of playing a “blame game” and work together to make the partnership a success.
With revolutions across the Arab world, Russia’s chances for strengthening its position in the region look increasingly slim. The Kremlin must change course and ensure that its approach to the Middle East and Islamists reflects post–Arab Spring realities.
Joseph Stalin, the Soviet leader responsible for the deaths of millions, still commands worryingly high levels of admiration in some post-Soviet countries.
To forge an effective partnership with Moscow, the EU must first understand Russia’s political, economic, and security designs, and how best to deal with another round of Putin.
As a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a nuclear power, Russia has substantial leverage in the post-Soviet space and is the EU's most important neighbor. However, in the coming decades Russia will face serious internal and international challenges.
Turkey is a particularly critical key actor for building a Euro-Atlantic Security Community, with a growing influence within the Euro-Atlantic region.
Today, unprecedented challenges from without and within threaten to reverse the progress toward the safe, secure, undivided Euro-Atlantic world hoped for in the wake of the Cold War. To overcome that future, a twenty-first-century problem demands a twenty-first-century solution.
One of the fundamental impediments to molding the Euro-Atlantic nations into a more unified and workable security community is the lingering distrust that poisons too many of the region’s key relationships.