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Covid-19: Getting Indian citizens back home

       




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Podcast | Comparative politics & international relations: Lessons for Indian foreign policy

       




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Can Trump count on Manila to put pressure on North Korea? 3 points to know.

       




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Terrorism in the Philippines and U.S.-Philippine security cooperation

Events of the past few months—in particular, the prolonged standoff in Marawi, Mindanao—have significantly increased concerns about terrorist activity in the southern Philippines, and in Southeast Asia more broadly. The shape and focus of the U.S.-Philippine alliance has already been somewhat in flux with the ascension of relatively new leadership in both countries—Rodrigo Duterte having…

       




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North Korea’s activities in Southeast Asia and the implications for the region

Since the Trump administration took office in January 2017, North Korea has occupied a central place in the administration’s foreign policy. Acting Assistant Secretary of State Susan Thornton said publicly in late April that the administration considers North Korea its “number one national security priority.”1 Although the administration’s response has included a number of components—military signaling…

       




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Counterterrorism and Preventive Repression: China’s Changing Strategy in Xinjiang

       




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Examining Xinjiang: Past, present, and future

In recent months, media reports have described in detail the systematic nature of Chinese government directives to clamp down on ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang. China’s actions in Xinjiang have generated international criticism from dozens of countries. The Chinese government has defended its policy, saying that it is necessary for ensuring social stability. What are the…

       




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Understanding China’s ‘preventive repression’ in Xinjiang

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) crackdown on Uighur and other Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) has attracted intense scrutiny and polarized the international community. At least 1 million people, maybe as many as 1.5 million, have been detained in a large network of recently constructed camps, where they undergo forced reeducation and political indoctrination.…

       




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Dealing with demand for China’s global surveillance exports

Executive summary Countries and cities worldwide now employ public security and surveillance technology platforms from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The drivers of this trend are complex, stemming from expansion of China’s geopolitical interests, increasing market power of its technology companies, and conditions in recipient states that make Chinese technology an attractive choice despite…

       




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Impact of U.S.-Russia Relations on the G20, Syria and Arms Control


In August, the White House announced the cancellation of the Moscow summit between Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin, while still saying that U.S. relations with Russia remain a priority. By all accounts, the Snowden case appears to have further complicated already strained U.S.-Russia relations. With President Obama headed to St. Petersburg, Russia for the G20 summit on September 6 and 7, the likelihood of an Obama-Putin bilateral meeting remains unanswered and unlikely.

With an eye toward a possible bilateral meeting in St. Petersburg, Brookings experts Steven Pifer, Clifford Gaddy and Angela Stent address these developments and future prospects for the U.S.-Russia cooperation on issues like Syria and arms control.

Steven Pifer:

“I think people now see the reset as a failure. I actually think the reset succeeded, because the goal was not to get us to Nirvana with Russia, but to lift us out of the hole that we found ourselves in in 2008.”

Clifford Gaddy:

“Steve has said that the relations are not as bad, are at their worst since, you know, the fall of communism. I would probably say they probably are as bad.”

Angela Stent:

“It's not clear what the U.S.-Russian agenda is going forward. The things we would like to accomplish — more arms control, an agreement on missile defense, even, you know, more U.S. investment in Russia — the Russians don't seem to be interesting in responding. We do need to work together — and we will, still, on post-2014 Afghanistan, on Iran — but it's really unclear what an agenda would be going forward.”

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Image Source: © Grigory Dukor / Reuters
      
 
 




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The Future of Russia: Observations from the Tenth Annual Valdai Conference


The tenth anniversary meeting of the “Valdai International Discussion Club” –a forum that brings together foreign Russia experts with top Russian officials, politicians, journalists and academics—conveyed two strong messages from the Kremlin: Russia is fully back on the world stage seeking a leadership role; and Russia offers the world an alternative value system to that of the West, which has lost its moral compass. No one made these points more vigorously than Vladimir Putin himself, who has dined with the group for the past decade. He was in top form, exuding self-confidence and decisiveness. Yet the forum itself, though Kremlin-sponsored, also had discordant voices, including several vocal critics of the way Putin’s Russia is run.

The meeting this year took place in a picturesque resort on Lake Valdai, 250 miles from Moscow. It was the largest ever, with more than 200 participants. The official theme was “Russia’s Diversity for the Modern World” and focused on how Russia should define its national identity. In some ways, every Valdai meeting—and I have attended all ten—has had as its underlying theme the “whither Russia question”, even at the session in Siberia when we were discussing whether Russia was indeed an energy superpower. But this year the question of Russia’s uniqueness and its place in the world was the main focus.

Sergei Karaganov, one of the meeting’s co-organizers, was hardly upbeat. He began the forum on a cautionary note, saying that Russia had wasted the last twenty years and that the only idea that still unites Russians is their victory in World War Two.

Unlike in previous years, both the liberal and moderate nationalist political opposition was represented. Two of the most notable interventions were by Yevgeny Roizman, the controversial newly-elected major of Yekaterinburg and Ksenia Sobchak, daughter of Anatoly Sobchak, the liberal mayor of St. Petersburg who gave Putin his post-Soviet political start in the early 1990s. Roizman gave a spirited defense of the importance of ending politics as usual in the corrupt provinces. Sobchak made an impassioned plea for her generation of urban, educated 30 –somethings. Her message: we reject the traditional Russian political patronage model, we don’t want a president who addresses us as a father talks to his children, we want to be treated as independent adults responsible for the decisions they make and we don’t want to rely on the state. And, she added, we didn’t grow up in the USSR, we have no nostalgia for the Soviet Union, we don’t care about Russia being a great power and we reject anti-Americanism. Indeed, we like the West.

One of the eternal questions about Russia’s identity—whether Russia is European, Asian or Eurasian—was addressed in a day-long session at the Iversky monastery, founded in 1653 and elegantly restored in recent years. In a panel highlighting Russia’s role as a multi-ethnic, multi-confessional state whose inhabitants have for centuries included Orthodox Christians, Jews, Moslems and Buddhists, Metropolitan Hilarion delivered a strong message. Russian Orthodox Christians, he said, are the true harbingers of traditional Christian values, while Western Protestants have embraced liberal values on issues such as abortion, homosexual rights and gay marriage that undermine Christian morality. These views were reflected in President Putin’s prepared speech, when he reiterated that Russia supports traditional Christian morality and opposes same-sex marriage. Moreover, both Putin and the Russian clergy emphasized that Orthodox Christians and Moslems share a commitment to traditional morality, highlighting their common bonds – and differentiating them on common grounds from the West.

One of Putin’s main foreign policy projects for his third term is his proposed Eurasian Union, a topic that provoked some lively discussion. Russian speakers argued that the Kremlin had “left the imperial paradigm behind”, and that this union would be an organization of equals akin to the European Union. Moldovan and Ukrainian speakers, by contrast, discussed the growing economic and political pressure that Russia is putting on them to reject the EU in the run-up to the Vilnius summit in November. Brussels is poised to offer Ukraine and Moldova Association Agreements that Russia claims would adversely impact both countries’ continuing economic ties to Moscow. Without Ukraine, the Eurasian Union will not fulfill the Kremlin’s ambition to create a grouping of post-Soviet states as a counterbalance to the European Union.

Russia’s growing global role in the wake of its Syria initiative was the main focus of discussions with the top officials who came to Valdai—Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and head of the Presidential Administration Sergei Ivanov. They were clearly buoyed by the fact that Russia had taken the initiative in organizing the agreement to rid Syria of its chemical weapons, and stressed that, they favor a strong, secular Syria. The Opposition, they claimed, was up to 75% controlled by Al Qaeda. There seemed to be agreement that not all of the chemical weapons would be found and destroyed, but that enough could be destroyed to accomplish Russian and American goals. And they repeated Russia’s claim that chemical weapons were used only by the Opposition and not by Assad’s own forces.

Shoigu addressed the question of military reform by quoting Russia’s pre-revolutionary Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin who said “Give us money and time, and you won’t recognize our armed forces.” He expressed concern about the situation in Afghanistan after NATO’s withdrawal next year, and questioned who would form the next generation of leaders in Kabul. He reiterated that U.S. missile defense programs were ultimately aimed at Russia, not Iran or North Korea, but also suggested developing joint U.S-Russian ABM systems. NATO, he said, is a threat to Russia. What else was NATO enlargement, if not directed against Russia? His message to the group-no more new entrants to NATO.

In previous years, President Putin has met with foreign participants only in a private setting, but for this tenth anniversary the format of the Putin meeting changed. He sat on the stage with four discussants—former German Defense Minister Volker Ruehe, former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, former French Prime Minister Francois Fillon and President of the U.S-based Center for the National Interest Dimitri Simes. They addressed foreign and Russian participants and the four-hour meeting was televised.

Putin gave a vigorous defense of Russia as the standard-bearer of traditional Christian morality, arguing that the United States and Europe had rejected the Christian roots that form the basis of Western civilization. Criticizing “excessive political correctness” he declared that the European multicultural project had failed. He also warned that attempts by un-named powers to revive the model of a unipolar world had also failed. Stressing Russia’s right to have a seat at the table on all decisions of major international importance, he invoked the times when Russia had made an important contribution to world peace—the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and the Yalta Conference in 1945. He warned that when Russia was excluded—for instance from the 1919 Treaty of Versailles—this led to war. His message on Syria was clear—Russia took the initiative and had helped the United States by proposing an agreement to rid Syria of its chemical weapons stockpiles. And it expects to continue to be respected as an indispensable global player.

For anyone who has followed the Kremlin’s fraught relationship with the Opposition since the December 2011 Bolotnaya demonstrations protesting the results of the Duma elections, Putin’s interactions with representatives of the Opposition appeared to represent a shift in policy. He answered their questions about the need for political reform and more individual freedom by suggesting that these issues will be examined in the future—without committing himself to any particular course of action. The fact that these exchanges were televised live gave the impression that the Kremlin feels confident enough that the Opposition represents no real threat that it can engage in a dialogue with its more mainstream representatives. After all, there were no extreme nationalists or hard-core socialists there. Opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who won 27% of the vote in the recent Moscow mayoral elections, was also absent, having apparently turned down an invitation to participate.

Putin was evasive about his future plans. When asked if he would run for office again in 2018, he did not rule it out. He noted approvingly that Angela Merkel was about to win a third term, as he had last year. He certainly gave the impression of being fully engaged, with ambitious—albeit undefined-- plans for Russia. The Russian economy may be experiencing low growth rates, but the main Valdai message was that Putin’s Russia is eager to engage the world, offering an alternative to a troubled West that has rejected major tenets of its own civilizational heritage.

Authors

Image Source: © POOL New / Reuters
      
 
 




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U.S.-Russian Relations in the 21st Century


Event Information

February 18, 2014
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM EST

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036

Register for the Event

Russia remains a priority for the United States because of its nuclear weapons arsenal, its strategic location bordering Europe and Asia and its ability to support—or thwart—American interests on issues such as the Syrian conflict. Recent U.S. presidents have attempted repeatedly to forge a strong and productive partnership with Russia only to be held hostage to the deep mistrust born of the Cold War. Why has it been so difficult to move the relationship forward and is there any prospect for change in the future?

In her new book, The Limits of Partnership: U.S.-Russian Relations in the Twenty-First Century (Princeton University Press, 2014), Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow and Georgetown University Professor Angela Stent calls for a fundamental reassessment of the principles and practices that drive U.S.-Russian relations and offers a path forward to meet the urgent challenges facing both countries.

On February 18, the Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) at Brookings hosted a discussion featuring Stent that explored U.S.-Russian relations since the Soviet collapse and the challenges ahead. CUSE Director Fiona Hill, co-author of Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin (Brookings Press, 2013), and Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for The New York Times and author of Days of Fire (Doubleday, 2013), also joined the panel.

Brookings President Strobe Talbott, who previously served as U.S. deputy secretary of State and U.S. ambassador-at-large for the former Soviet Union, provided introductory remarks.


Audio

Transcript

Event Materials

      
 
 




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Peace with justice: The Colombian experience with transitional justice

Executive summaryTo wind down a 50-year war, the Colombian state and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército Popular (FARC-EP) agreed in November 2016 to stop the fighting and start addressing the underlying causes of the conflict—rural poverty, marginalization, insecurity, and lawlessness. Central to their pact is an ambitious effort to address the conflict’s nearly 8…

       




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Colombia’s search for peace and justice

In June 2016, the government of Colombia signed a historic peace agreement with the armed rebel group known as FARC-EP to end a conflict that over five decades had taken the lives of at least 260,000 Colombians and displaced over 7 million. Three years later, the peace accord—a complex effort to not only stop the…

       




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Trans-Atlantic Scorecard – October 2019

Welcome to the fifth edition of the Trans-Atlantic Scorecard, a quarterly evaluation of U.S.-European relations produced by Brookings’s Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE), as part of the Brookings – Robert Bosch Foundation Transatlantic Initiative. To produce the Scorecard, we poll Brookings scholars and other experts on the present state of U.S. relations…

       




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Economic sanctions: Assessing their use and implications for U.S. foreign policy

On January 27, Foreign Policy at Brookings hosted a panel discussion on economic sanctions and their implications for advancing U.S. foreign policy objectives. Moderated by Robert Bosch Senior Visiting Fellow Jim Goldgeier, the panel included experts with a combined background on the use of sanctions in the Middle East, Latin America, and North Korea: Brookings…

       




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Trans-Atlantic Scorecard – April 2020

Welcome to the seventh edition of the Trans-Atlantic Scorecard, a quarterly evaluation of U.S.-European relations produced by Brookings’s Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE), as part of the Brookings – Robert Bosch Foundation Transatlantic Initiative. To produce the Scorecard, we poll Brookings scholars and other experts on the present state of U.S. relations…

       




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If you can’t keep hackers out, find and remove them faster

In the wake of recent intrusions into government systems, it is difficult to identify anyone who believes defenders have the advantage in cyberspace. Digital adversaries seem to achieve their objectives at will, spending months inside target networks before someone, usually a third party, discovers the breach. Following the announcement, managers and stakeholders commit to improving…

       




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New cybersecurity mantra: “If you can’t protect it, don’t collect it”

In early August I attended my 11th Black Hat USA conference in sunny Las Vegas, Nevada. Black Hat is the somewhat more corporate sibling of the annual DEF CON hacker convention, which follows Black Hat. Since my first visit to both conferences in 2002, I’ve kept tabs on the themes expressed by computer security practitioners.…

       




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Does America want China arresting hackers?

On October 9, Ellen Nakashima and Adam Goldman of The Washington Post reported very significant news. “The Chinese government has quietly arrested a handful of hackers at the urging of the U.S. government … It is not clear if the hackers arrested were with the Chinese military, but they were accused of carrying out state-sponsored…

       




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Cyber Grand Challenge contrasts today’s cybersecurity risks

Cade Metz’s article for Wired titled “Hackers Don’t Have to Be Human Anymore. This Bot Battle Proves It” described a curious event that took place in Las Vegas on August 4, 2016. The first Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Cyber Grand Challenge witnessed seven teams compete for cyber security supremacy. Unlike traditional hacking contests,…

       




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The World Bank Group’s Mission to End Extreme Poverty: A conversation with President Jim Yong Kim

Ahead of the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund annual meetings being held in Washington, DC from October 7 to 9, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim set out his vision for ending extreme poverty by 2030 and boosting shared prosperity. He spoke about the links between growth, poverty and inequality, the changing face of […]

      
 
 




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Reykjavik and arms control in U.S.-Soviet/Russian relations

Watch the archived video on CSPAN.org » Thirty years ago, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev met in Reykjavik, Iceland for a summit devoted to arms control. While a potential agreement—possibly including elimination of all U.S. and Soviet nuclear weapons—collapsed over differences regarding ballistic missile defense, the meeting set in motion moves that produced significant reductions in nuclear […]

      
 
 




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The American presidential election and implications for U.S.-R.O.K. relations

My thanks for the hosts and organizers of this conference. Many of you have heard other American speakers talk about our election this morning—Vice President Cheney, Wendy Sherman, and David Rubenstein. As we open our afternoon session, let me offer some historical perspective. American presidential campaigns are, in a sense, like the Olympics: they happen […]

      
 
 




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An accident of geography: Compassion, innovation, and the fight against poverty—A conversation with Richard C. Blum

Over the past 20 years, the proportion of the world population living in extreme poverty has decreased by over 60 percent, a remarkable achievement. Yet further progress requires expanded development finance and more innovative solutions for raising shared prosperity and ending extreme poverty. In his new book, “An Accident of Geography: Compassion, Innovation and the […]

      
 
 




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The decline of the West, and how to stop it

      
 
 




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India-Pakistan: The Next Critical Steps

In his first major address on the Administration’s on-going efforts to end nuclear proliferation in South Asia, Deputy Secretary Talbott will give an on-the-record report on the status of the negotiations with India and Pakistan as well as outline U.S. government goals for the next critical steps.

      
 
 




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A homage to my Brookings colleague and former professor Hal Sonnenfeldt

Hal Sonnenfeldt was a tough, direct, exceedingly knowledgeable professor whose classes students wanted to attend. But in 1961, it wasn’t easy to get into his Soviet foreign policy class at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Students were first expected to take his earlier course on the domestic Soviet Union, which I…

       




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A systematic review of systems dynamics and agent-based obesity models: Evaluating obesity as part of the global syndemic

       




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The Advantages of an Assertive China: Responding to Beijing’s Abrasive Diplomacy

Over the past two years, in a departure from the policy of reassurance it adopted in the late 1990s, China has managed to damage relations with most of its neighbors and with the United States. Mistrust of Beijing throughout the region and in Washington is palpable. Observers claim that China has become more assertive, revising…

       




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Obama in China: Preserving the Rebalance

This November, after focusing on foreign policy concerns around the globe and congressional midterm elections at home, President Barack Obama will travel to Beijing to attend the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in hopes of preserving and enhancing one of his key foreign policy achievements—the rebalance to Asia. Obama’s trip to China will be his first…

       




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A modern tragedy? COVID-19 and US-China relations

Executive Summary This policy brief invokes the standards of ancient Greek drama to analyze the COVID-19 pandemic as a potential tragedy in U.S.-China relations and a potential tragedy for the world. The nature of the two countries’ political realities in 2020 have led to initial mismanagement of the crisis on both sides of the Pacific.…

       




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Want empowered cities? Start by understanding city power

In this brave new world, expectations for city leadership are rising by the day. Home to the majority of U.S. residents who did not vote for Donald Trump, cities are a natural center of resistance to the new administration’s agenda. Already leading on policies to raise the minimum wage and combat climate change, cities are…

       




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Power and problem solving top the agenda at Global Parliament of Mayors

When more than 40 mayors from cities around the world gathered in the fjordside city of Stavanger, Norway for the second Global Parliament of Mayors, two topics dominated the discussions: power and problem solving. The agenda included the usual sweep through the most pressing issues cities face today -- refugee resettlement, safety and security, resilience…

       




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Are affluent Americans willing to pay a little for a fairer society? A test case in Chicago

There are many reasons to be concerned about the wide and growing inequalities in U.S. society, not least between the upper middle class and the rest. There are fewer clear solutions. In Richard’s book Dream Hoarders, he argues that those at the top - the “favored fifth” – can and should take some personal responsibility…

       




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Urban growth and access to opportunities in Latin America

Many social scientists view urbanization as the distinctive hallmark of economic development. Urban growth, however, is also associated with congestion costs such as traffic jams, higher levels of pollution, housing costs, and crime rates. Further, migration of low-income rural families in search of better opportunities increases poverty and inequality within cities. The well-being of a…

       




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Neighborhoods and opportunity in America

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Trans-Atlantic Scorecard – September 2018

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Trans-Atlantic Scorecard – January 2019

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Trans-Atlantic Scorecard – April 2019

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Trans-Atlantic Scorecard – July 2019

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Boris Johnson and the politics of neo-poodleism

       




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Trans-Atlantic Scorecard – October 2019

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Trans-Atlantic Scorecard – January 2020

Welcome to the sixth edition of the Trans-Atlantic Scorecard, a quarterly evaluation of U.S.-European relations produced by Brookings’s Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE), as part of the Brookings – Robert Bosch Foundation Transatlantic Initiative. To produce the Scorecard, we poll Brookings scholars and other experts on the present state of U.S. relations…

       




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Trans-Atlantic Scorecard – April 2020

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What does a new UN report reveal about global hunger and obesity?

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Classifying Sustainable Development Goal trajectories: A country-level methodology for identifying which issues and people are getting left behind

       




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Building the SDG economy: Needs, spending, and financing for universal achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals

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Bye-bye, billions to trillions – Financing the UN Development System

       




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A social distancing reading list from Brookings Global Economy and Development

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