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COMMENTARY & ANALYSIS

The Power Vertical

The Power Vertical is a blog and podcast for Russia wonks and Kremlin watchers by Brian Whitmore. It covers emerging and developing trends in Russian politics, shining a spotlight on the high-stakes power struggles, machinations, and clashing interests that shape Kremlin policy today.

Host and Eurasia Center Senior Fellow Brian Whitmore invites guest experts to deliver their insights and analysis in this weekly podcast. The Atlantic Council and the Charles T. McDowell Center for Global Studies at the University of Texas at Arlington co-sponsor this production.

The Russia Tomorrow series

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The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Content

UkraineAlert

Aug 25, 2015

How the West Can Stop Russia’s Escalating War in Ukraine

By Maksym Khylko

This month, Russia stepped up military pressure on Ukraine, concentrating about fifty thousand troops along its border with Ukraine, using its proxy militias to shell Ukrainian government positions in the Donbas, and threatening Kyiv with “a big war.” The current escalation indicates Russian discontent with Ukraine’s refusal to make unilateral concessions such as allowing the […]

Russia Ukraine
Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, June 25, 2015

NATOSource

Aug 24, 2015

Secretary of Defense Carter on Russia and NATO

By Ash Carter, Foreign Affairs

[W]e continue to have the magnetic power to attract everyone around the world. As I travel around the world, I see that they all want more—more association with us, more contribution from us.

NATO Russia

New Atlanticist

Aug 24, 2015

Ukraine Has Every Right to Play Hardball With Its Creditors

By Josh Cohen

As Ukraine fights Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas, the government is simultaneously engaged in a battle with its foreign creditors for the debt relief it desperately needs to prevent a full-scale economic collapse. Private investors hold about $19 billion of Ukrainian debt. To stave off disaster, the International Monetary Fund and other western donors agreed […]

Russia Ukraine
Swedish Marines participating in BALTOPS exercise with NATO units, June 17, 2015

NATOSource

Aug 21, 2015

A Powerful Case for Swedish Membership in NATO

By Tomas Bertelman, Johan Molander, and Sven-Olof Peterson

This image of a Russia encircled by hostile forces, including an aggressive and growing NATO and European Union, was created to legitimize the regime’s actions.

European Union International Organizations

UkraineAlert

Aug 20, 2015

Russia, Not Ukraine, is the Questionable Partner

By Melinda Haring

In its August 12 editorial, “Shaky Ukraine: Economics and Corruption Complicate Its War,” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette calls Ukraine a “questionable partner” because of “resistance to economic reform and use of Islamist Chechen forces.” Too bad neither charge is true.

Russia Ukraine

New Atlanticist

Aug 20, 2015

Hacks and Attacks: How Do You React When China Conducts a Cyber Attack?

By Ashish Kumar Sen

World had similar feeling of being violated after Snowden’s revelations, says Atlantic Council’s Jason Healey When the news broke earlier this summer that hackers had breached the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and accessed the records of more than twenty million current and former federal employees, it prompted calls to punish China, which was believed […]

China Cybersecurity

In the News

Aug 20, 2015

Herbst on Military Implications of the Ukraine Conflict

By John Herbst

The World Post quotes Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center Director John E. Herbst on Russia’s gradual incursion into Ukraine:

Russia Ukraine
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, May 2, 2013

NATOSource

Aug 19, 2015

Kissinger on Germany’s Role in New European Security Environment

By Jacob Heilbrunn and Henry Kissinger

Excerpts from interview of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger by Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of the National Interest.

Germany Russia
NATO headquarters in Brussels

NATOSource

Aug 19, 2015

NATO Warns Russia, Concerned about Escalation in Ukraine

By NATO

Today, NATO Allies discussed the situation in eastern Ukraine. Allies expressed their serious concern about the recent sharp escalation of violence.

NATO Russia

UkraineAlert

Aug 19, 2015

The Soviet Playbook in Ukraine

By Aaron Korwea

It appears that Russian President Vladimir Putin is losing the war in Ukraine. Gone are the talks about seizing so-called Novorossiya—the strip of land from Kharkiv to Odesa—and establishing a land bridge to occupied Crimea. Even though recent developments suggest a possible offensive to expand the territory Russia and its proxies now hold, perhaps with […]

Russia Ukraine

Experts

Events