Beyond MAD

"The temptation to escape the logic of mutually assured destruction may be too powerful to resist." Ivan Safranchuk is the director of the Moscow office of the World Security Institute

Stewardship of Test-Free Nuclear Arsenals

Maintaining nuclear arms in the current policy environment that frowns upon weapons testing coexists with a set of unresolved and disquieting issues regarding the disposition of test-free arsenals. Ivan Sanfrachuk, director of the World Security Institute's Moscow office explores the Russian perspective on international policies regarding the safety and reliability of the world's nuclear arsenals

The Conflict in Ukraine: Regional and Global Contexts: A Perspective from Russia

The political context of the current war crisis in Ukraine has at least three layers. To start from the bottom, the first layer is the crisis of the Minsk Accords.1 After the anti-Russia coup in Kyiv in February 2014, pro-Russia popular movements consolidated in several regions of Ukraine. In Crimea, this developed into separating from Ukraine and integrating into Russia. In several other regions like Odessa and Kharkov, such movements were forcefully suppressed. But in the two regions, Donetsk and Lugansk, they managed to survive as de facto, unrecognized states, fighting Kyiv. To stop that war, two Minsk accords were concluded with the mediation of Russia, France, and Germany. The accords provided ceasefire and political reform, including constitutional amendments, to give these pro-Russia regions special status within Ukraine. However, these accords were never fully implemented. Kyiv temporized because the nationalistic movements in Ukraine strongly opposed their implementation. One of the central elements of Volodymyr Zelensky’s presidential campaign in 2019 was the promise of peaceful reintegration of Donetsk and Lugansk separatist regions, which implied implementation of the Mink accords. After his election, however, President Zelensky came to the position of denying the Minsk agreements. Now Russian officials claim that Ukraine was preparing for a military assault on the separatist regions in 2022 to reintegrate them by force rather than through the implementation of the Minsk Accords. The sabotage and finally denial of the Minsk Accords logically implied the return to warfare, which these accords put an end to in 2014

Russia-India cooperation on Post-American Afghanistan

Russian foreign policy has long championed multipolarity in international relations. As relations between Russia and the West have deteriorated, Russia has sought to establish a Eurasian project involving non-Western great powers. India has been identified by Russia as one of the major pillars of this global realignment. However, India’s global reach and power have been undermined by its entanglement in regional disputes and volatile relations with some of its partners. While some minor differences exist on the regional level in Eurasia between Russia and India, a major disagreement has been the role of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which Russia views as a global organization, and India sees it as regional. Our analysis suggests that the US military presence in Afghanistan, along with its plans for geoeconomic and geopolitical dominance in Eurasia, has been a major distracting factor in Russia-India relations. The US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the decline of its influence may provide new opportunities for regional cooperation between Russia and India. Our research indicates that Afghanistan may be one such country where the interests of Russia and India can converge. Both countries are interested in a stable and secure Afghanistan, and both may be willing to accept Taliban rule, subject to certain conditions, if it helps achieve that goal. In Central Asia, Russia and India have previously pursued divergent agendas, with Russia being somewhat protective of its natural sphere of interests. However, we conclude that with the elimination of external disturbances in the form of US military occupation of Afghanistan, the interests of both countries could be reconciled in relation to Central Asia. By working in synergy, Russia and India could collaborate more effectively in this region

Obama’s Foreign Policy: Is this change we can believe in? ESF Working Paper No. 32, 4 August 2009

President Obama made the strategic choice of distancing himself unequivocally from his predecessor on the international scene. The task ahead is to convince the rest of the world, including the most hostile countries, to share his vision of international affairs and forge ahead with a new foreign policy. This new ESF Working Paper follows the 32nd ESF Forum, chaired by François Heisbourg at CEPS, June 2009, under the title: Obama’s Foreign Policy: Is this change we can believe in? Four experts: David Calleo, of the John Hopkins University, Washington, Camille Grand, Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique, Paris, Shen Dingli, Fudan University, Shanghai and Ivan Safranchuk, State Institute of International Relations, Moscow, consider President Obama’s chances of foreign policy success

Schools of Strategic Thoughts on Russia in the Us Expert Community

This article is devoted to the schools of strategic thought on Russia in the US expert community. The author suggests and underpins the system to classify US schools of strategic thoughts on Russia. Based o this classification the author extracts intellectuals fields, within which schools of strategic thought emerge and exist. The suggested methodology is retrospectively applied to describe the evolution of US schools of strategic thoughts on Russia in the period after the collapse of the Soviet Union and until the present. The article also dwells on the major contemporary US schools of strategic thought on Russia. Their origins are traced and basic characteristics summarized. Four such schools of thought are suggested, namely - skepticism, alarmism, realism and unconditional cooperation. The author not only describes the schools of thought as such, but also analyses the dynamics of their interactions. The schemes, summarizing the major thesis of the article, must facilitate the reading process. The suggested methodology can be applied by other authors for further analysis of US debates on Russia and US-Russian relations

The Development of Russian-Chinese Expert Contacts on International Relations

Abstract: This article is devoted to the contacts of Russian and Chinese experts on international relations and to the visit of MGIMO-University delegation to Beijing in June 2015. The article studies the major tracks of expert dialogue between Russian and Chinese experts on contemporary international affairs: the situation in the Near and Middle East, the developments in Eurasia, the major regional conflicts. The particular attention in the Russian-Chinese expert debates is devoted to the topic of Eurasia and the perspective for agreed implementation of Russia-sponsored Eurasian Economic Union and China-sponsored Economic belt of Silk Road. The article dwells upon the key issues in the Russian-Chinese dialogue on the Eurasian affairs. Additionally the article unveils the proposals by the US experts, concerning the development of Russian-Chinese dialogue on these matters. In 2015 the US experts developed new ideas on the regional issues in Eurasia, they offer to coordinate the Chinese project Economic belt of Silk Road and the US project of New Silk Road. In 2015 the historical topic gained momentum in the Russian-Chinese expert debates. Now Russia and China jointly oppose the attempts of some countries to revisit the results of World War II. However while Russia and China are both committed to the traditional interpretations of World war II and resist any revisionism of those results, still the Chinese experts argue in favor of greater appreciation of the role and contribution by China to the victory over fascism and militarism in World war II. The article also overviews interesting discussions between Russian and Chinese experts on the reform of global governance and the formation of the new world order

The Development of Russian-Chinese Expert Contacts on International Relations

Abstract: This article is devoted to the contacts of Russian and Chinese experts on international relations and to the visit of MGIMO-University delegation to Beijing in June 2015. The article studies the major tracks of expert dialogue between Russian and Chinese experts on contemporary international affairs: the situation in the Near and Middle East, the developments in Eurasia, the major regional conflicts. The particular attention in the Russian-Chinese expert debates is devoted to the topic of Eurasia and the perspective for agreed implementation of Russia-sponsored Eurasian Economic Union and China-sponsored Economic belt of Silk Road. The article dwells upon the key issues in the Russian-Chinese dialogue on the Eurasian affairs. Additionally the article unveils the proposals by the US experts, concerning the development of Russian-Chinese dialogue on these matters. In 2015 the US experts developed new ideas on the regional issues in Eurasia, they offer to coordinate the Chinese project Economic belt of Silk Road and the US project of New Silk Road. In 2015 the historical topic gained momentum in the Russian-Chinese expert debates. Now Russia and China jointly oppose the attempts of some countries to revisit the results of World War II. However while Russia and China are both committed to the traditional interpretations of World war II and resist any revisionism of those results, still the Chinese experts argue in favor of greater appreciation of the role and contribution by China to the victory over fascism and militarism in World war II. The article also overviews interesting discussions between Russian and Chinese experts on the reform of global governance and the formation of the new world order

The engagement of regional neighbors: a precondition for sustainable development in Afghanistan

Ivan Safranchuk; Akbarsho Iskandaro