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| 1 |
ID:
144605
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| Summary/Abstract |
In February, Moscow and Washington issued a joint statement announcing the terms of a “cessation of hostilities” in Syria [1]—a truce agreed to by major world powers, regional players, and most of the participants in the Syrian civil war [2]. Given the fierce mutual recriminations that have become typical of U.S.-Russian relations [3] in recent years, the tone of the statement suggested a surprising degree of common cause. “The United States of America and the Russian Federation . . . [are] seeking to achieve a peaceful settlement of the Syrian crisis with full respect for the fundamental role of the United Nations,” the statement began. It went on to declare that the two countries are “fully determined to provide their strongest support to end the Syrian conflict.”
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| 2 |
ID:
144600
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| Summary/Abstract |
Between 1996 and 2011, I served as a consultant to the Kremlin [1], advising Russian Presidents Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin, and Dmitry Medvedev [2]. And yet even I can hardly claim to understand the real mechanisms of power in today’s Russia [3]. In the past few years, the country has reached a level of dysfunction that has pushed it to the brink, threatening its very existence. Ill-conceived military adventures, poor decision-making, and political skullduggery—sometimes of the lethal variety—have wreaked havoc on Russia’s economy and led to international isolation.
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| 3 |
ID:
144599
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| Summary/Abstract |
For half a millennium, Russian foreign policy [1] has been characterized by soaring ambitions that have exceeded the country’s capabilities. Beginning with the reign of Ivan the Terrible in the sixteenth century, Russia managed to expand at an average rate of 50 square miles per day for hundreds of years, eventually covering one-sixth of the earth’s landmass. By 1900, it was the world’s fourth- or fifth-largest industrial power and the largest agricultural producer in Europe. But its per capita GDP reached only 20 percent of the United Kingdom’s and 40 percent of Germany’s. Imperial Russia’s average life span at birth was just 30 years—higher than British India’s (23) but the same as Qing China’s and far below the United Kingdom’s (52), Japan’s (51), and Germany’s (49). Russian literacy in the early twentieth century remained below 33 percent—lower than that of Great Britain in the eighteenth century. These comparisons were all well known by the Russian political establishment [2], because its members traveled to Europe frequently and measured their country against the world’s leaders (something that is true today, as well).
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