Recent Publications

Op-Ed: Developing A New Approach To Conventional Arms Control
April 8, 2013 — Dr. Jeffrey D. McCauslandIntroduction. Now that President Obama’s national security team has been confirmed, the administration can begin to consider its priorities and the policies for the second term. Many might suggest that one of the greatest foreign policy achievements of the President’s first term was the negotiation and eventual... MORE

Strategic Stability: Contending Interpretations
February 1, 2013 — Authors: Mr Elbridge A Colby, Mr Michael S Gerson What is strategic stability and why is it important? This edited collection offers the most current authoritative survey of this topic, which is central to U.S. strategy in the field of nuclear weapons and great power relations. A variety of authors and leading experts in the field of strategic... MORE

Op-Ed: The Romance of Great Powers in Northeast Asia
October 23, 2012 — Dr. David Lai The Strategic SettingNortheast Asia is a place where five of the world's most powerful nations meet: China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and the United States. Three of these countries have the world's largest economies (the U.S., China, and Japan), and three of them have the largest militaries (China, the U.S., and Russia). In... MORE

Russia’s Homegrown Insurgency: Jihad in the North Caucasus
October 1, 2012 — Author: Dr Stephen J Blank The three papers offered in this monograph provide a detailed analysis of the insurgency and counterinsurgency campaigns being conducted by Islamist rebels against Russia in the North Caucasus. This conflict is Russia’s primary security threat, but it has barely registered on Western minds and is hardly reported in the... MORE

Cover for Russia's Homegrown Insurgency: Jihad in the North Caucasus

Perspectives on Russian Foreign Policy
September 1, 2012 — Author: Dr Stephen J Blank The essays gathered here represent a panel at SSI’s annual Russia conference in 2011. They focus on the analysis of Russian foreign policy both on its material side or actual conduct as well as on the cognitive bases of Russian thinking about international affairs and Russian national security. They span much of the gamut... MORE

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Russia and the Current State of Arms Control
September 1, 2012 — Author: Dr Stephen J Blank Arms control remains the central issue in U.S.-Russian relations for many reasons, including the respective capabilities of these two states and their consequent responsibility for preventing both nuclear proliferation and the outbreak of war between them. The bilateral relationship is usually directly proportional to the... MORE

Cover for Russia and the Current State of Arms Control

Arms Control and European Security
August 1, 2012 — Author: Dr Stephen J Blank, COL Louis H Jordan Jr The following three papers comprise one of the panels from a conference on U.S.-Russia relations that SSI co-sponsored with the Carnegie Council at Pocantico, NY, from June 1-3, 2011: Carnegie Council's Program on “U.S. Global Engagement: A Two-Year Retrospective.” The papers offer three contrasting... MORE

Cover for Arms Control and European Security

The Next Arms Race
July 1, 2012 — Author: Mr Henry D Sokolski The New Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (New START) agreement was reached in 2011, and both Russia and the United States are bringing nuclear strategic warhead deployments down to roughly 1,500 on each side. In the next round of strategic arms reduction talks, though, U.S. officials hope to cut far deeper; perhaps as low... MORE

Can Russia Reform? Economic, Political, and Military Perspectives
June 1, 2012 — Author: Dr Stephen J Blank These three papers represent the first panel of papers from SSI’s annual Russia conference that took place in September 2011. They assess the nature of Russia's political system, economy, and armed forces and draw conclusions, even sharp and provocative ones, concerning the nature and trajectory of these institutions. The... MORE

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The Role of Small States in the Post-Cold War Era: The Case of Belarus
May 1, 2012 — Author: Dr Dmitry Shlapentokh The United States is no longer the only global center of power as it was in the first years of post-Cold War era. Neither are there just two superpowers — the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics — that define the course of global events. The new multipolarity implies the presence of several... MORE

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Op-Ed: Heading Toward the NATO Summit
April 9, 2012 — Dr. Jeffrey D. McCausland From the perspective of the Obama administration, the last NATO Summit that was held in Lisbon in November 2010 was critically important and was described as a great success in its aftermath. President Obama arrived in office with the goal of rebuilding American alliances, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)... MORE

Organizational Change in the Russian Airborne Forces: The Lessons of the Georgian Conflict
December 1, 2011 — Author: Dr Rod Thornton This monograph considers the recent history of organizational change in the Russian Airborne Forces (VDV). In particular, it looks at how the VDV has changed since the end of Russia’s conflict with Georgia in 2008. The VDV, a force much admired in Russian media and society has, in fact, escaped fairly lightly during the... MORE