Strategic Studies Strategic Studies Institute

Stephen J. Blank

Politics and Economics in Putin's Russia

Strategic Studies Institute

Soon after the attacks of September 11, 2001, Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged Russian support to the U.S. campaign against terrorism. Putin's actions triggered a process that also led to a Russo-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) rapprochement and Russian membership in a newly formed NATORussia Council created by the Treaty of Rome in 2002. However, since then this partnership has been a rocky and ambivalent one. And as East-West relations deteriorate, as they have over the last four years, the stresses in this partnership bid fair to outweigh the benefits to the players involved. Accordingly, this monograph focuses on the Russian side of this relationship and seeks to uncover, as well as analyze, the reasons for Russia's growing ambivalence toward NATO and the growing sense of estrangement between these two key actors in Eurasian security. Professor Stephen J. Blank's monograph grew out of a paper prepared for a 2005 Paris conference of Franco-American diplomats.

A Marriage of Convenience Or a Troubled Relationship?

The NATO-Russia Partnership

Karl P. Magyar

Al Et Al

Five specialists examine the historical relationship of culture and conflict in various regional societies. The authors use Adda B. Bozeman's theories on conflict and culture as the basis for their analyses of the causes, nature, and conduct of war and conflict in the Soviet Union, the Middle East, Sinic Asia (China, Japan, and Vietnam), Latin America, and Africa. Drs. Blank, Lawrence Grinter, Karl P. Magyar, Lewis B. Ware, and Bynum E. Weathers conclude that non-Western cultures and societies do not reject war but look at violence and conflict as a normal and legitimate aspect of sociopolitical behavior.

Regional Dimensions

Conflict, Culture, and History

Immediately after the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, NATO members unanimously voted their support for the United States under Article V of the Washington Treaty. This unprecedented action, the first time such a vote has occurred in NATO's history, underscores the vitality of the Atlantic Alliance and its tremendous strategic value for its members. This vote conferred great legitimacy upon any response that the United States will make to those attacks and reminded us that the solidity of NATO allows the United States to defend its interests on the world stage with great confidence about European security. Nevertheless, the Alliance is not a wholly untroubled or static relationship. In the first half of 2001, there were numerous public signs of stress among the allies as they faced new challenges. Many of the issues involved in these tensions are particularly important to the future of European security and must be resolved for NATO to move forward...

A Conference Report and Analysis

The Transatlantic Security Agenda

"The chapters included in this volume all come from an international conference on the Russian military that aimed to examine the Russian military establishment as much as possible, including its domestic developments, the ability of Russia's economy, and in particular, its science and technology sectors. Given the ongoing aggressiveness of the Russian military, this effort to present an all-encompassing look at it is not only essential reading but also quite unique in the existing literature" -- Publisher's web site.

Stephen J. Blank

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