International Security

"Only the EU with its significant economic leverage can match the soft power rivalry with Russia. Unlike other revolutions such as the Arab Spring, the events in Ukraine are highly sensitive to external competition between foreign powers with stakes in the political course the country is taking."

"...[T]he joining of the two continents would increase trade and employment. It would facilitate Mr. Obama's goal of doubling American exports and increasing investment and consumption. Ms. Merkel would smile as German cars and medical equipment poured into American markets, and Washington would return the favor with microprocessors, biotechnical devices and liquid natural gas. If the deal is concluded next year as planned, economists estimate the creation at least one million jobs over 10 years, and a 0.5 percent increase in G.D.P., on both sides of the Atlantic. The new pact would draw together 259 of the Fortune 500 companies. Investment flows and tourism would bubble to new heights."

"...[T]he biggest challenge the United States faces today is not a looming great-power rival; it is the triple whammy of accumulated debt, eroding infrastructure and a sluggish economy. The only way to have the world's most capable military forces both now and into the future is to have the world's most advanced economy, and that means having better schools, the best universities, a scientific establishment that is second to none, and a national infrastructure that enhances productivity and dazzles those who visit from abroad. These things all cost money, of course, but they would do far more to safeguard our long-term security than spending a lot of blood and treasure determining who should run Afghanistan, Kosovo, South Sudan, Libya, Yemen or any number of other strategic backwaters."

The Winter 2010/11 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This issue highlights a major Belfer Center conference on technology and governance, the Center's involvement in the nuclear threat documentary Countdown to Zero, and a celebration of Belfer Center founder Paul Doty.

"Ultimately the deepest causes of Soviet collapse were the decline of communist ideology and the failure of the Soviet economy. This would have happened even without Gorbachev. In the early Cold War, communism and the Soviet Union had a good deal of soft power. Many communists had led the resistance against fascism in Europe, and many people believed that communism was the wave of the future....Although in theory communism aimed to instill a system of class justice, Lenin's heirs maintained domestic power through a brutal state security system involving lethal purges, gulags, broad censorship, and the use of informants. The net effect of these repressive measures was a general loss of faith in the system."

"Globalization has the effect of incapacitating states as autonomous units."

THIS WEEK, Russia assumed the presidency of the most prestigious club of the world's leading industrial democracies. But many are questioning not only Russia's fitness to serve as chair but even its qualification for membership in the Group of 8.

FOURTEEN YEARS ago yesterday, the Soviet Union disappeared. Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as president of the USSR on Christmas Day 1991. Boris Yeltsin became independent Russia's first president. The Supreme Soviet, the highest governmental body of the Soviet Union, dissolved itself. The iconic hammer and sickle flag that had flown over the Kremlin for seven decades came down. What Ronald Reagan rightly called the "evil empire" was erased from the map. In its place emerged Russia and 14 other newly independent states.