Russia

The administration of President Donald J. Trump has consistently used fear of China to undermine nearly five decades of bipartisan consensus on US–Russian nuclear arms control. The negative consequences of these actions may last far beyond the Trump presidency. If generations of agreement between Democrats and Republicans on bilateral nuclear treaties with Russia erode, it will pose a significant setback to US national security and global stability. Future leaders may ultimately need to consider new approaches to nuclear risk reduction that preserve the benefits of the arms control regime.

When and why do rising states prey upon or support declining powers? A state’s choice of policy toward a declining power depends on two factors: whether that power is useful against challengers to the rising state, and the declining state’s military strength.

As nationalism spreads worldwide, some countries have tried to convince others to adopt their models. But it is time to revisit a classic idea that has gone out of fashion: sovereignty, Stephen M. Walt writes.

Calder Walton writes that autocratic regimes — China, Russia and Iran — have been using social media to try to influence U.S. public opinion. History reveals how and why a one-party regime used disinformation to salvage its reputation following a disaster — the Soviet Union's 1986 Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe, whose history also reveals how such disinformation can be countered.

The KGB was the notorious strong arm of the Kremlin. Run afoul and you died. Learn all about them in a podcast featuring a discussion of Calder Walton's article, "Spies, Election Meddling, and Disinformation: Past and Present," which appeared in the Brown Journal of World Affairs.

If Joe Biden defeats Donald Trump in November, the question he will face is not whether to restore the liberal international order. It is whether the United States can work with an inner core of allies to promote democracy and human rights while cooperating with a broader set of states to manage the rules-based international institutions needed to face transnational threats.

Joseph Nye, Jr.'s Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump skillfully examines modern American presidents and ethics.

The intelligence finding that Russia was most likely paying a bounty for the lives of American soldiers in Afghanistan has evoked a strange silence from President Trump and his top national security officials on the question of what to do about the Kremlin’s wave of aggression.

Mr. Trump insists he never saw the intelligence, though it was part of the President’s Daily Brief just days before a peace deal was signed with the Taliban in February.

On May 13, 2020, the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security hosted a strategy consortium with a small group of experts and officials to discuss the evolution of the Russia-China relationship and how the United States and its allies should navigate it. This paper summarizes many of the points made during this meeting.

As economies begin to orient themselves towards recovery and growth in a post-COVID-19 era, they will first need to disentangle themselves from their prior bedfellows, the state, whose courtship was necessary for survival during the pandemic.  Such bedfellow relationships have become increasingly common as government intervention is urgently needed for economic stabilization. Governments have also embraced their new role with vigor. According to the IMF, as of April 2020, countries have committed around $8 trillion to combat the pandemic and to remedy its ill effects on economies and societies. Decisions about how this money will be spent will undoubtedly recalibrate the logic of capitalism for years to come.