RFE/RL: Europe Grapples With Geopolitical Strategies
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posted by circassiankama on September, 2009 as ANALYSIS / OPINION
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Europe grapples with geopolitical strategies
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Seeks to counteract Russia's attempts to expand its influence in the region
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| Tuesday, September 15, 2009 |
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RFE/RL
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There
was an element of deja vu in the EU ministers' discussion of the South
Caucasus. The bloc's current Swedish presidency had prepared a new
strategy paper on the region.
The strategy review is largely a
symbolic exercise, since the three countries all have existing
engagements with the EU. Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia have all
signed up to the bloc's European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) and have
agreed to ENP action plans. Earlier this year, they also joined the
EU's Eastern Partnership together with Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus.
The
EU's Swedish presidency is keen to keep the spotlight specifically ... | |
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European Voice: Moving beyond strained relations
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posted by circassiankama on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
Moving beyond strained relations (II)
By Dmitry Trenin
17.09.2009 / 06:00 CET
NATO and Russia need to move into the future together.
When Anders Fogh Rasmussen,
NATO's secretary-general, addresses an audience at Carnegie Europe in
Brussels on Friday (18 September), he will speak about its changed role
in the 21st century and the possibility of a new beginning between the
two former foes – NATO and Russia.
And a new beginning is needed. The Berlin Wall may
have fallen two decades ago and NATO may be fighting in Afghanistan;
but east of Berlin – in Moscow and Minsk, Tallinn and Tbilisi – NATO
continues to be perceived as an alliance focused on Russia. While the
organisation has evolved, alongside the EU, into a principal pillar of
European security, it has never managed to incorporate former Soviet
lands, or Russia itself, into a European security framework. This has
consequences for Russia's neighbours. The war in the Caucasus last
year, which produced considerable ... >> full
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PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo: Will The Financial Crisis Lead To Political Change In Russia?
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posted by eagle on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo No. 81Will the Financial Crisis Lead to Political Change in Russia? PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo No. 81 Vadim Volkov
The European University at St. Petersburg
September 2009
It is widely accepted that the stability of Russia’s political regime and Vladimir Putin’s high approval ratings, first as president and then prime minister, have depended mainly upon a steady increase in Russians’ real incomes. Between 2000 and 2007, Russia’s gross domestic product grew 72 percent, while real incomes grew 141 percent. Combined with the accessibility of cheap credit, rising incomes produced a consumption boom. Consumerist values displaced concerns for democracy and freedom and made the nature of the political system irrelevant to a depoliticized population. In the private sector, high profits allowed entrepreneurs to bear the costs of corruption and undercut incentives for collective action to combat it. At the start of 2009, however, it became clear that major economic trends had reversed. Recession hit most sectors of the economy, industrial regions, and (especially) company towns, causing a corresponding ... >> full
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PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo: Russia’s “Over-Managed Democracy” In Crisis
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posted by eagle on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo No. 80Russia’s “Over-Managed Democracy” in Crisis PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo No. 80 Nikolay Petrov
Carnegie Moscow Center
September 2009
Two years ago, when evaluating the hybrid regime of “over-managed democracy” (OMD) that Vladimir Putin constructed during his two presidential terms, I concluded that this regime was transitory; it had to develop toward either democracy or authoritarianism. Since then, Russia’s OMD has survived not only a presidential succession, but a year of economic crisis that has exacerbated the system’s shortcomings. Its survival raises the question of whether I underestimated OMD’s sustainability or whether an unforeseen political evolution took place that provided a new stability to the system. The short answer is neither; the political system has undergone slight modifications, but with no increase in managerial effectiveness. The respite has been bought at the expense of huge financial resources, accumulated at a time of high oil prices. The Putin-Medvedev Administration: Variation on a Theme
The term “over-managed democracy” does not imply that Russia is democratic. The over-managed democracy built in ... >> full
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PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo: Russia’s Place In The World
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posted by eagle on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo No. 79Russia’s Place in the World An Exit Option? PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo No. 79 Ted Hopf
The Ohio State University
September 2009
In 1992, Russia’s new leadership, led by Boris Yeltsin, explicitly committed to making Russia part of the Western hegemonic system. By the following year, and for the decade after, Russia under President Yeltsin and, from 2000, under Vladimir Putin increasingly identified itself in opposition to U.S. hegemony, but remained agreeable to participation in some kind of multipolar collective hegemony led by the West. Since 2003, however, a “new” Russia has emerged, interested neither in participating in Western hegemony nor in actively balancing against or undermining it. Instead, the new Russia, committed to being authentically Russian and not a kind of Western or Eurasian hybrid, has chosen the exit option, a strategy of selective disengagement from the West and non-participation in its hegemonic order. Two conclusions emerge from an analysis of Russia’s material circumstances and the emergent new Russian identity. The first is that Russia is ... >> full
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