Abstract
The question whether Russia is part of the Western world has plagued Russian intellectuals and Western observers alike for the past two centuries. The question matters because where Russia “belongs” is part of a larger debate about how one differentiates between “the West” and “the Rest” given changes in the Western family of nations, and because of larger questions of geopolitical alignment. The Slavophile vs. Westernizer paradigm, which suggests that throughout Russia there are two opposing camps engaged in a struggle to determine the course of the country is too simple to reflect the true complexity of post-Soviet Russia. Moreover, an equilibrium may have been reached where not answering the question of Russia’s relationship to the West is desirable for all parties concerned.
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Country or Region: Russia
Gvosdev, Nikolas K
Summary
A review of America’s post-Soviet strategy toward Russia is long overdue. The illusions that once guided policy are now at an end. What is needed is a dispassionate approach to Russia, wherein Americans would neither magnify nor excuse the virtues and vices of the Russian Federation but would accept the following realities:
Russia is unlikely to become integrated into the Euro-Atlantic community and is unwilling to adjust its foreign policy priorities accordingly;
There is broad-based support within Russia for the direction in which Vladimir Putin has taken the country;
Russia has undergone a genuine—if limited— recovery from the collapse of the 1990s;
Washington lacks sufficient leverage to compel Russian acquiescence to its policy preferences; and
On a number of critical foreign policy issues, there is no clear community of interests that allows for concepts of “selective partnership” to be effective.
Any approach to Russia must be based on realistic expectations about the choices confronting Washington. The United States has two options. It can forgo the possibility of Russian assistance in achieving its key foreign policy priorities in an effort to retain complete freedom of action vis-à-vis Moscow. Or it can prioritize its objectives and negotiate a series of quid pro quos with Russia. The latter choice, however, cannot be indefinitely postponed.
Seeking an accommodation with Russia is more likely to guarantee American success in promoting its core national interests while minimizing costs—but will require U.S. policymakers to accept limits on what can be demanded of Russia.
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Gaddy, Clifford G., and Andrew C. Kuchins
Abstract
The roots of Putin’s Plan lie not in Marxism-Leninism, but in Western business theory. True to these roots, Putin is orchestrating the election of someone to succeed him as strategic planner, the CEO of “Russia Inc.,” who will continue to seek domestic and international stability.
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Clunan, Anne L
Summary
Once again, it appears that Russia is marching to the forefront of the international stage. Anne L. Clunan’s analysis of Russia’s resurgence convincingly argues that traditional security concerns, historical aspirations, and human agency are coalescing around a new national identity and reconfigured national interests in the post-Soviet nation. Her work moves beyond balance-of-power and realist politics to posit a new, interdisciplinary theory: aspirational constructivism.
This groundbreaking theory draws on international relations research and social psychology. Clunan argues that the need for collective self-esteem creates aspirations—often based in a nation’s past—that directly shape its national and security interests. In applying this theory to Russia, she points to the nation’s continuing efforts to exert influence over former Soviet satellite states and relates the desire for international status found in five broad Russian national self-images—Western, statist, Slavophile, neocommunist, and nationalist—to Russia’s definition of its security interests with respect to Europe, Eurasia, and nuclear weapons.
Clunan’s examination of how sociology, social psychology, and traditional international politics affect post-Soviet Russian identity and security concerns is truly cross-disciplinary. A concluding chapter discusses the policy implications of aspirational constructivism for Russia and other nations and a methodological appendix lays out a framework for testing the theory.
Åslund, Anders
Summary
Russia projects a sense of renewed power and prominence on the world stage; by 2020 it’s expected to emerge as the fifth-largest economy in the world. Going forward, how the United States and Russia deal with each and with issues of mutual interest will have a significant impact around the globe. The Russia Balance Sheet sets forth a primer on Russia’s current governmental and political infrastructure as well as its opportunity for growth. This important new book provides comprehensive, balanced, and accurate information on all key aspects of Russia and discusses what its status means for the US and other nations. To that end, the authors develop a cohesive, overarching framework that analyzes the nexus point of such areas as economic reforms and integration, domestic politics and society, foreign business partnerships, and energy demands. Based upon this foundation, the book capably suggests constructive policies for Russia and the next US administration that will take office in 2009.
Adamsky, Dima
Summary
This book studies the impact of cultural factors on the course of military innovations. One would expect that countries accustomed to similar technologies would undergo analogous changes in their perception of and approach to warfare. However, the intellectual history of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) in Russia, the US, and Israel indicates the opposite. The US developed technology and weaponry for about a decade without reconceptualizing the existing paradigm about the nature of warfare. Soviet ‘new theory of victory’ represented a conceptualization which chronologically preceded technological procurement. Israel was the first to utilize the weaponry on the battlefield, but was the last to develop a conceptual framework that acknowledged its revolutionary implications.
Utilizing primary sources that had previously been completely inaccessible, and borrowing methods of analysis from political science, history, anthropology, and cognitive psychology, this book suggests a cultural explanation for this puzzling transformation in warfare.
The Culture of Military Innovation offers a systematic, thorough, and unique analytical approach that may well be applicable in other perplexing strategic situations. Though framed in the context of specific historical experience, the insights of this book reveal important implications related to conventional, subconventional, and nonconventional security issues. It is therefore an ideal reference work for practitioners, scholars, teachers, and students of security studies.
Nau, Henry R., and Deepa M. Ollapally
Summary
Worldviews of Aspiring Powers provides a serious study of the domestic foreign policy debates in five world powers who have gained more influence as the US’s has waned: China, Japan, India, Russia and Iran. Featuring a leading regional scholar for each essay, each essay identifies the most important domestic schools of thought–nationalists, realists, globalists, idealists/exceptionalists–and connects them to the historical and institutional sources that fuel each nation’s foreign policy experience. While scholars have applied this approach to US foreign policy, this book is the first to track the competing schools of foreign policy thought within five of the world’s most important rising powers. Concise and systematic, Worldviews of Aspiring Powers will serve as both an essential resource for foreign policy scholars trying to understand international power transitions and as a text for courses that focus on the same.
Furukawa, Katsuhisa, Michael J. Green, James J. Wirtz, Yuri Fedorov, Avner Cohen, Peter R. Lavoy, Kang Choi, Tan See Seng, and Rod Lyon
Summary
The Long Shadow is the first comprehensive, systematic examination of the roles and implications of nuclear weapons in the dramatically different post–Cold War security environment. Leading experts investigate the roles and salience of nuclear weapons in the national security strategies of twelve countries and the ASEAN states, and their implications for security and stability in a broadly defined Asian security region that includes the Middle East. The study also investigates the prospects for nuclear terrorism in Asia.
A chief conclusion of the study is that nuclear weapons influence national security strategies in fundamental ways and that deterrence continues to be the dominant role and strategy for the employment of nuclear weapons. Offensive and defensive strategies may increase in salience but will not surpass the deterrence function. Another major conclusion is that although there could be destabilizing situations, on balance, nuclear weapons have reinforced security and stability in the Asian security region by assuaging national security concerns, strengthening deterrence and the status quo, and preventing the outbreak and escalation of major hostilities.
As nuclear weapons will persist and cast a long shadow on security in Asia and the world, it is important to reexamine and redefine “old” ideas, concepts, and strategies as well as develop “new” ones relevant to the contemporary era. In line with this, the global nuclear order should be constructed anew based on present realities.
Sagan, Scott D., and Kenneth N. Waltz
Summary
In The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed, professors Waltz and Sagan resume their well-known dialogue concerning nuclear proliferation and the threat of nuclear war. Kenneth Waltz, Dean of Realist Theory in international relations at Columbia University, expands on his argument that “more may be better,” contending that new nuclear states will use their acquired nuclear capabilities to deter threats and preserve peace. Scott Sagan, the leading proponent of organizational theories in international politics, continues to make the counterpoint that “more will be worse”: novice nuclear states lack adequate organizational controls over their new weapons, resulting in a higher risk of either deliberate of accidental nuclear war. Treating issues from the ’long peace’ between the United States and Soviet Union made possible by the nuclear balance of the Cold War to more modern topics such as global terrorism, missile defense, and the Indian-Pakistani conflict, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed is an invaluable addition to any international relations course.
Sagan, Scott D., and Kenneth N. Waltz
Summary
A long-time staple of International Relations courses, this new edition continues the important discussion of nuclear proliferation, while looking at the regions and issues now at the forefront of the nuclear question. Over the past fifteen years, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons has been a staple in International Relations courses because of its brevity and crystal-clear explanations. The new edition, An Enduring Debate, continues the important discussion of nuclear proliferation and the dangers of a nuclear-armed world. With new chapters on the questions surrounding a nuclear North Korea, Iran, and Iraq and the potential for a world free of nuclear weapons, this Third Edition will continue to generate a lively classroom experience.
Sagan, Scott D
Abstract
Scott D. Sagan notes that the question of why states seek to build nuclear weapons has scarcely been examined, although it is crucial to efforts at preventing proliferation. He challenges the traditional realist assumption, accepted uncritically by many scholars and policymakers, that states seek to acquire or develop nuclear weapons primarily for military and strategic reasons. Sagan examines alternate explanations for the demand for nuclear weapons.
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Rhodes, Richard
Summary
The final volume in Richard Rhodes’s prizewinning history of nuclear weapons offers the first comprehensive narrative of the challenges faced in the post-Cold War age. The past twenty years have transformed our relationship with nuclear weapons drastically. With extraordinary depth of knowledge and understanding, Richard Rhodes makes clear how the five original nuclear powers–Russia, Great Britain, France, China, and especially the United States–have struggled with new realities. He reveals the real reasons George W. Bush chose to fight a second war in Iraq, assesses the emerging threat of nuclear terrorism, and offers advice on how our complicated relationships with North Korea and South Asia should evolve. Finally, he imagines what a post-nuclear world might look like, as only he can.
Rhodes, Richard
Summary
In rich, human, political, and scientific detail, here is the complete story of the nuclear bomb. Few great discoveries have evolved so swiftly–or have been so misunderstood. From the theoretical discussions of nuclear energy to the bright glare of Trinity there was a span of hardly more than twenty-five years. What began merely as an interesting speculative problem in physics grew into the Manhattan Project, and then into the Bomb with frightening rapidity, while scientists known only to their peers–Szilard, Teller, Oppenheimer, Bohr, Meitner, Fermi, Lawrence, and von Neumann–stepped from their ivory towers into the limelight.
Richard Rhodes takes us on that journey step-by-step, minute by minute, and gives us the definitive story of man’s most awesome discovery and invention. “The Making of the Atomic Bomb” is at once a narrative tour de force and a document as powerful as its subject.
Rhodes, Richard
Summary
Here, for the first time, in a brilliant, panoramic portrait by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, is the definitive, often shocking story of the politics and the science behind the development of the hydrogen bomb and the birth of the Cold War. Based on secret files in the United States and the former Soviet Union, this monumental work of history discloses how and why the United States decided to create the bomb that would dominate world politics for more than forty years.
Rhodes, Richard
Summary
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes delivers a riveting account of the nuclear arms race and the Cold War. In the Reagan-Gorbachev era, the United States and the Soviet Union came within minutes of nuclear war, until Gorbachev boldly launched a campaign to eliminate nuclear weapons, setting the stage for the 1986 Reykjavik summit and the incredible events that followed. In this thrilling, authoritative narrative, Richard Rhodes draws on personal interviews with both Soviet and U.S. participants and a wealth of new documentation to unravel the compelling, shocking story behind this monumental time in human history—its beginnings, its nearly chilling consequences, and its effects on global politics today.
