Russia’s five day war with Georgia in 2008 was victorious, but brought to light a number of inadequacies in Russia’s military forces and capabilities. As a result, the conflict was followed by sweeping reforms and a streak of big-budget military procurements. Since 2015, Russian operations in Syria have served as a public testing ground for the resulting, reformed Russian military. What does Russia’s performance in Syria tell us about the advances that have been made? What specific capabilities has Russia acquired? Which branches of the armed services have benefited the most from reforms and procurement, and where has progress lagged? Can Syria tell us which reforms have been more or less successful? And what does all of this mean for Russia’s strategic balance with NATO? Anton Lavrov, visiting fellow with the Russia and Eurasia Program, will present his assessment of Syria as a scorecard for the Russian military and its reforms.

This event is made possible by the generous support of Carnegie Corporation of New York.

The Russian Armed Forces in Syria: Assessing Russian Reforms

Major areas of focus include regional security, domestic politics, economic development, trade and transit, defense technology, and energy, among others. CSIS also analyzes the political and economic relationships between the states of the former Soviet Union and other critical geopolitical actors, including the United States, the European Union, and the states of Northeast Asia, South Asia, and the Greater Middle East. This work is anchored by the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program and supplemented by the Burke Chair in Strategy, the International Security Program, and others.

Find the latest research from our scholars and CSIS events on this region below.

Disputes over the regional order in post-Soviet Europe and Eurasia are at the core of the breakdown in Russia-West relations, and have created major security and economic challenges for the states caught in between: first and foremost Ukraine, but also Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Current policy approaches toward the regional order—i.e., the set of rules, norms, and institutions that govern the region—have exacerbated today’s disorder and instability. The authors of a new report offer a comprehensive proposal for revising the regional order. The proposal, which addresses the security architecture, economic integration, and regional conflicts, was devised by four groups of experts convened by the RAND Corporation and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung’s Regional Office for Cooperation and Peace in Europe. Each group included representatives from the West, Russia, and the states in between.
This event is made possible by the generous support of the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

A Consensus Proposal for a Revised Regional Order

Russian natural gas exports are once again high on the agenda. Russia is completing two new pipelines to Europe, just inaugurated a new gas pipeline to China, and is boosting its presence in the liquefied natural gas (LNG) market. All this is happening as the outlook for gas in Europe is being upended by new supplies and routes, by new rules and regulations, and by an ambitious decarbonization agenda that will reshape the role of gas in the European energy system, and thus the relationship with Russia.
 The Europe-Russia relationship has always had a political and geopolitical dimension, ever since the Soviet Union first supplied gas to Western Europe in the late 1960s. “Yet to boil down the subject of Russian-European gas relations to geopolitics is to miss a large part of the story,” writes Thane Gustafson, a professor of government at Georgetown University and a Senior Director at IHS Markit, in his new book The Bridge: Natural Gas in a Redivided Europe (Harvard University Press, 2020). He continues to say: “The gas revolution in Europe has deep roots, which originated quite independently of Russia, and are only distantly related to geopolitics.”
 This event is made possible through general support to CSIS.

The Bridge: Natural Gas in a Redivided Europe

 Three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, many in Washington foresee a new Cold War between the United States and China. The comparison to the U.S.-Soviet confrontation enjoys remarkable currency and durability in contemporary debate. For those who fear worsening relations and an insecurity spiral, the Cold War is a warning. For those more concerned about China’s rising economic and military power, authoritarian system, and global ambitions, it is a rallying cry and textbook for lessons. All acknowledge that the world will not replay the Cold War in all of its specifics, but perhaps the United States is facing a cold war.   Rarely does policy debate include careful historical analysis before deploying history. Is the comparison between the Cold War and today’s US-China competition the right historical prism? What are the similarities between then and now that might yield usable lessons for today’s competition? If it is a bad analogy, then how much damage is it doing to U.S. statecraft? Does the comparison inhibit our ability to understand current dynamics and stymie efforts to develop a better strategy? Are we trapped by the analogy merely because it is familiar? Can we find better historical comparisons that could shed light on today’s U.S.-China dynamics?   What would a Cold War historian say to policymakers if asked to answer these questions? CSIS invites you to join the Project on History and Strategy for a discussion with Dr. Melvyn Leffler, a leading historian of the Cold War, Dr. Francis Gavin, leading historian of nuclear policy and Director of the Henry Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, and Jude Blanchette, Freeman Chair in China Studies at CSIS. Drawing on decades of scholarship, they will analyze the merits and pitfalls of using the Cold War comparison for China from the historian’s perspective.  
This event is made possible through general support from CSIS.

China, the United States, and the Cold War: How Much Damage Can One Historical Analogy Do?

Tatiana Mitrova (Director of the SKOLKOVO Energy Center in Moscow) joins Nikos Tsafos (CSIS Energy Program) to discuss the outlook for the Russian energy sector. They talk about the outlook for oil and gas, the impact of oil prices and of sanctions on the Russian energy economy, and touch on Russia’s perception of climate change.

Outlook for Russian Energy & Geopolitics

In this episode of Russian Roulette, Jeff sits down with Anthony Bowyer, Programmatic and Research Advisor, Europe and Eurasia at the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES). They discuss President Mirziyoyev’s reform program in Uzbekistan and how the country has changed, including its parties and elections, and what has remained constant.
 You can find Anthony Bowyer’s bio here: https://www.ifes.org/people/anthony-bowyer. You can read his paper “Political Reform in Mirziyoyev's Uzbekistan: Elections, Political Parties and Civil Society” here: https://www.silkroadstudies.org/publications/silkroad-papers-and-monographs/item/13284-political-reform-in-mirziyoyevs-uzbekistan-elections-political-parties-and-civil-society.html
 We want more mail! If you would like to have your question answered on the podcast, send it to us! Email rep@csis.org and put “Russian Roulette” in the subject line. And, if you have one, include your Twitter handle, so we can notify you publicly when we answer your question (or, if you don’t want us to, tell us that). We look forward to hearing from you.  

The Russian Armed Forces in Syria: Assessing Russian Reforms

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