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1. Russia’s Cultural Heritage Can Be a Bridge to the Future

Author:
Robert Cox
Publication Date:
02-2023
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
Russia has become Europe’s ogre. Beyond the brutality of Moscow’s onslaught on Ukraine looms a harsher ideological backdrop. Too many Russian citizens have been enticed into seeing this invasion as a defence of Russia’s security, national pride and identity, history, Weltanschauung, international standing, and imperial stature. They eulogise Russia’s national church as a defensive shield despite its abuse of spiritual humanity, its soldiers as crusaders. Europeans, in response to this baggage respond with a mixture of fear or unease. Anger, too, along with frustration and ultimately something akin to hatred. With all this comes an inclination in the western world to reject everything Russian. This rejection of a rich culture risks tarnishing our mindset and that of our children. Russian orchestras, dancers and sopranos have been banned from western stages—largely on the pretext that they have not condemned Putin and his acolytes. Ultimately Russian culture risks being airbrushed out of western European mentalities. It is worth pausing for a moment and just looking at what we are rejecting, perhaps unconsciously. Hitherto—and for many Europeans still —Russian culture has had an important place in our education and upbringing. Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Rimsky Korsakov, Shostakovich and the sublime Prokofiev have delighted our concert audiences for decades. Marc Chagall’s imagination has stimulated ours. Ballet in Europe—or the US, for that matter—would not be what it is without the great influence of the ballet russe. Nor, in a related world, would we be so intellectually rich without the heritage of Russian scientists, physicists and mathematicians.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Culture, Literature, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Eurasia

2. Public Diplomacy Challenges in Reaching Russian Audiences

Author:
Mark G. Pomar
Publication Date:
02-2023
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
U.S. government broadcasters—Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)—have always faced challenges in reaching Russian audiences, both during the Cold War and today. Just as we did during the Cold War, today’s VOA and RFE/RL must give exiled Russians the opportunity to speak directly to their compatriots and to challenge the lies and distortions in Russian media. Shortly after joining RFE/RL in 1982 as the Assistant Director of the Russian Service, I met with senior RL editors and visiting former dissidents to discuss the most effective ways of reaching Soviet citizens during the coldest years of the Cold War. I began by laying out several key points of the Reagan administration’s approach to public diplomacy, primarily the need to treat Russians as victims of Soviet communism and encourage them to take pride in the major accomplishments of Russian culture, philosophy, and religious traditions that had been ignored or distorted by the Soviet regime. As I cited examples of Soviet suppression of religion, the banning of conservative philosophers, and the exiling of nationalist writers such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, I could tell by the quizzical expressions on the faces of my interlocutors that my passionate advocacy for a new form of public diplomacy was falling on deaf ears. Finally, one of the older editors who had spent time in the gulag said: “Look, we understand the need to present Russian culture that has been suppressed by the Soviet authorities and, yes, we know that Russians have suffered under Soviet repression, but Russians cannot be seen strictly as victims nor can their political culture be treated in the same way that we would treat Ukrainian, Georgian, Baltic or other national cultures of the USSR.” He stressed that Communism was a dying ideology, but an aggressive form of Russian nationalism was rapidly gaining strength, especially in the KGB and miliary services, and the West would rue the day when that surging Russian imperialism would merge with brutal Soviet practice. Quite presciently, he predicted an evolving Russian State that would assert its dominance over the other nationalities of the USSR in the name of imperial greatness, and not communism.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Ideology, Soft Power, and Public Diplomacy
Political Geography:
Russia and Eurasia

3. Vladimir Putin’s Mistrust of the West Runs Deep

Author:
Andrew Goodman
Publication Date:
02-2023
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
While most Western analysts and commentators place responsibility for the war in Ukraine squarely on Vladimir Putin, a few contend that NATO’s enlargement provoked the Russian invasion. Based on my personal interactions with Putin while serving as a U.S. diplomat in St Petersburg in the 1990s, I would argue that a collision between the West and a revisionist Russia led by Putin was virtually inevitable.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, NATO, Diplomacy, Vladimir Putin, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Ukraine

4. Ending Wars: When Does Diplomacy Have a Role?

Author:
Raymond F. Smith
Publication Date:
11-2023
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
When, whether and under what conditions to enter into negotiations to end the war in Ukraine is one of the thorniest international issues of the moment. My objective in this article is to look briefly at the role diplomacy has played, or not played, in ending several of the most destructive wars in European history and then to explore what role it might play in ending the war in Ukraine.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, NATO, Diplomacy, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Ukraine

5. Don’t Leave the Russian People Behind

Author:
Renee M. Earle
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
When McDonald’s opened its restaurant on Moscow’s Pushkinskaya Square in 1990, a line of thousands of Russians eager to have a taste of the West snaked around several blocks. The company’s recent decision to suspend its operations in Russia is a sad symbol of the rapid deterioration of Russia’s links to the West caused by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. As we watch the increasingly horrific spectacle of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians dying in a senseless war, it may be difficult to think also of the Russian people. Nevertheless, in our support for Ukraine’s fight against its aggressor, we should not overlook their plight. Putin undoubtedly has supporters at home even as he engages in a war proving disastrous for his own country, but even more Russians are victims of a ruthless and relentless dictatorship. In the short term, they are unavoidably suffering as the global community levies harsh sanctions against the Putin regime. In the longer term, that same community should be prepared to offer the Russian people a way back. As a public diplomacy officer at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow during the early 1990s, I saw how many Russians welcomed the prospect of living as people in much of the rest of the world. In those years, a diplomatic tit-for-tat barred Russian nationals from working inside the embassy. American officers consequently not only carried out normal diplomatic functions, but also cleaned offices and cars. One great benefit of the do-everything-yourself period was answering all the phones ourselves, as it put us in direct contact with scores of average Russians. In the public affairs offices, we fielded calls from artists, writers, broadcasters, and educators proposing joint ventures with American counterparts. These budding entrepreneurs had mastered the term “joint venture” but not always the modalities required for a successful business partnership. Sadly, many of these ventures never materialized, but the ideas and enthusiasm were everywhere.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia and United States of America

6. Was NATO Expansion Really the Cause of Putin’s Invasion?

Author:
Ken Moskowitz
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
In March, 1999, while serving as the press attache at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, I hosted a full-day international conference to mark the 50 years since NATO was established. Speakers included the Secretary of the Ukrainian National Security Council Volodymyr Horbulin, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer, U.S. Principal Deputy to the Ambassador at Large for the New Independent States Ross Wilson, the chairman of the British parliamentary committee on national security, and Sergei Karaganov, a leading Russian expert on foreign policy and now a close advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin. One could argue that the goal of such a conference sponsored by the American Embassy was to promote NATO expansion, particularly to urge Ukraine to join the Western alliance. But that is not how I remember it. Typically, U.S. government public diplomacy like this does not bluntly advocate, but rather presents information or views that would be new to our local audiences. A more forceful NATO appeal for membership for eastern European countries, including Ukraine, emerged from the NATO summit in Bucharest in April 2008.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, NATO, Diplomacy, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Ukraine, and United States of America

7. Europe at War

Author:
Robert Cox
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
For the moment as western Europeans watch the nightly media display of Russian brutality in Ukraine, many instinctively feel it’s a long way away. An echo of British Premier Neville Chamberlain’s dismissal of Hitler’s threats to Czechoslovakia in 1938 as a “quarrel in a faraway country, between people of whom we know nothing.” One Czech emigrée saw the fatuousness of Chamberlain’s stance—Madeleine Albright. Balts and Poles, their memories fresh of Russian occupation, are clearly nervous. At greater distance, Portuguese, Greeks and Italians feel less threatened. French people show more concern with cost-of-living hikes—albeit driven by Russia’s actions. Yet the violence is happening on all Europeans’ doorstep. One false move, deliberate or careless, and NATO’s Article 5 activates. Perhaps. Let us look at the complexities of the context in which this war has come to pass.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, NATO, Conflict, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia and Europe

8. Putin’s Challenge to NATO and to the Global Enterprise

Author:
Thomas E. McNamara
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is the most powerful and destructive example in generations of a nation-state attempting to recreate its lost imperial history. This is not a defense of empire. It is Russia’s rejection of nationhood as a legitimate basis for sovereign existence in the world order. That this is being done by a major power with a long history of imperial ambition, expansion, and domination makes it a serious global issue. Putin’s actions are his rejection of the 20th century decline and extinction of empires and a challenge to the international order founded on and by nation-states.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, NATO, International Order, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Ukraine

9. Remembering Mikhail Gorbachev and the 1991 Coup

Author:
Renee M. Earle
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
Monday, August 19, 1991. The morning started like most of my days as a press officer at Embassy Moscow. I rose early, made coffee, and turned on the TV to check the news. The similarity of routine quickly vanished. Instead of the news, Soviet state TV was broadcasting the Swan Lake ballet, often a sign in the Soviet Union that something was amiss. Through the open window, I heard a strange, rumbling noise coming from the direction of the Ostankino TV tower, located just a few minutes from my apartment complex. I thought they might be having technical difficulties. Thirty-one years ago, there were no home computers or cell phones to help me unravel what was going on. I went to my car in the outside parking lot and started the half-hour drive south to the embassy. It was only then that I saw the Soviet military tanks, which rolled alongside the busy morning traffic past the embassy in central Moscow to their nearby destinations, including the “White House,” the Russian Parliament building, not far from the back of the embassy.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Coup, Memoir, and Soviet Union
Political Geography:
Russia, Soviet Union, and United States of America

10. Ukrainians to Putin’s Empire: Hell No!

Author:
Dick Virden
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
Watching Ukrainians bravely risk life and limb for their country, I’m reminded of what I saw during assignments as a diplomat in Poland and Romania. For more than four decades after World War II, those countries—and the others of Eastern Europe—were governed mainly by Soviet puppets. I recall friends tapping their shoulders to mock the epaulettes of collaborators playing for the other side. These were oppressed lands then. Political rights were scant, and stagnant economies made regime claims of a socialist paradise transparent nonsense. The government had long since lost the respect of the governed, what Chinese call the mandate of the people. U.S. policy in those days was to try to keep hope alive by quietly encouraging those opposed to the communist regime and using the leverage we had to help them gain greater space to operate. For example, our diplomats sought to identify independent-minded leaders to include in our Fulbright, International Visitor, and other exchange programs. We chipped away at the regime’s information monopoly through short-wave radio, personal contact, and distribution of uncensored material such as bootleg copies of Newsweek. And we appeared at events like the annual opening of the academic year at the Catholic University of Lublin, then the only independent institution of higher learning in Eastern Europe.
Topic:
Diplomacy, History, Memoir, Vladimir Putin, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, Soviet Union, and United States of America

11. On American Diplomacy and the Disorderly Oscillation of World Orders

Author:
Chas W. Freeman Jr.
Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
Editor’s Note: American Diplomacy Journal asked several foreign policy commentators to address the significance of growing chaos in many parts of the world, as failed and failing states are increasingly unable to perform the fundamental functions of the sovereign nation-state. This is one of five articles looking at those concerns. As the final decade of the 20th century began, the Soviet Union gave up its effort to become the global hegemon and dissolved into its constituent republics.[1] This ended the Cold War and the bipolar world order it had created. The USSR and the Soviet bloc were no more. The consequences of this vindication of George Kennan’s grand strategy of “containment” were both immediate and long term. A new and unfamiliar international reality began to emerge. Those who had grown up in the Cold War had come to consider the international system it created normal, but in historical terms it was sui generis.
Topic:
Cold War, National Security, Strategic Competition, Rivalry, and Soviet Union
Political Geography:
Russia and United States of America

12. When the KGB Sends Its B Team

Author:
Jonathan B. Rickert
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
During my foreign service tour in Moscow 1966-1968, embassy security regulations prohibited employees from traveling alone within the Soviet Union. We were warned that we risked being targeted by the KGB, whose operatives might attempt to compromise us in any number of ways. Among those often needing a travel companion to comply with this regulation were the embassy’s Publications Procurement Officers (PPOs), who traveled extensively within the country buying all sorts of books and other publications for various U.S. government organizations. And that is how I came to be invited to join PPO Bill Pryce on a book-buying trip to Ufa and Kazan in early December 1966.
Topic:
Cold War, Diplomacy, Memoir, and KGB
Political Geography:
Russia, Soviet Union, and United States of America

13. Red Tape in Russia

Author:
Peter Bridges
Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
Russia is famous for red tape, with paperwork required for just about any activity. I had my own first-hand experiences with this obstructive bureaucracy during my assignment to the USSR 1962-1964. As assistant general services officer during my first year in Moscow, I ordered forms and furniture, supervised the motor pool, got broken toilets fixed, and tried to keep in operation our creaky Soviet elevators, which liked to break down late on Friday afternoons. While this was not glamorous diplomacy, it probably taught me more about Russia than what I gained as a political officer during my second year in the post.
Topic:
Diplomacy and Memoir
Political Geography:
Russia, Eurasia, Soviet Union, and United States of America

14. Jack F. Matlock and American Diplomacy with Russia

Author:
Olga Krasnyak
Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
Editor’s note: Dr. Krasnyak’s research was supported by the Matlock Archives Short-term Fellows in Residence Grant. The grant was provided by the Center of Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies (CSEEES) of Duke University. US-Russia relations are currently at a low point without promise for improvement in the short term. Russia and the US once again seem more likely to be talking about each other than with each other. Research into the career of Jack F. Matlock, a long-term diplomat and an Ambassador to the Soviet Union, offers insights into ways to conduct diplomacy to advance American interests with Russia. Ambassador Matlock’s contributions to diplomacy are important for understanding the history of US diplomacy with Russia; the Matlock archive collection at Duke University is a rich source for researching and teaching diplomacy.
Topic:
Cold War, Diplomacy, History, and Literature
Political Geography:
Russia, Soviet Union, and United States of America

15. A New Cold War: Personal Reflections Regarding Russia’s Missed Opportunities with NATO, Ukraine and Its Western Neighbors

Author:
Keith C. Smith
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
President Boris Yeltsin’s imperial views on the “near abroad,” and President Vladimir Putin’s regarding Russia’s alleged “sphere of influence” has left Russia considerably weaker than it would have been otherwise, and the world much more endangered.
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Cold War, Diplomacy, Economics, Politics, Armed Forces, Reform, and Gas
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Ukraine, Soviet Union, Germany, Estonia, Latvia, United States of America, and Baltic States

16. America’s Unipolar Moment of Renewal or Collapse?

Author:
Ofer Israeli
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
After a century of an American world order established by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson at the end of the First World War, we are facing a shift in Washington’s global attitude. President Trump’s approach to world affairs is different. Although Obama, and to some extent Bush before the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, was starting to withdraw from the U.S. historical position of key global superpower, President Trump’s approach to world affairs is a much more drastic acceleration of this move. Continuing in this direction means we may soon face a collapse of America’s century-long preeminence, and the creation of a new world order in which the U.S. is no longer leading the global power, but only first among sovereigns, if at all.
Topic:
International Relations, Cold War, Government, World War I, World War II, and Institutionalism
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Iran, Middle East, Israel, Soviet Union, and United States of America

17. Murder in Equatorial Guinea: A Foreign Service Urban Legend

Author:
Mark L. Asquino
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
Almost fifty years have passed since the terrible day in 1971 when one State Department officer brutally killed another in the tiny, African country of Equatorial Guinea. What took place there is a lurid story of sex, madness and murder that almost every foreign service officer has heard about at one time or another. In many ways it’s the State Department’s version of the 1984 classic film, “Nightmare on Elm Street.” However, the murder in Equatorial Guinea is a real-life tale of horror that continues to intrigue foreign service officers. Here are the basic facts of what happened.
Topic:
Cold War, Crime, Diplomacy, and Memoir
Political Geography:
Africa, Russia, North America, United States of America, and Equatorial Guinea

18. Relearning the Art of Nation State Diplomacy

Author:
Mike Anderson
Publication Date:
11-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
American foreign policy is complex, and its application by diplomats and military practitioners is challenging in the diverse nature of the current environment. Military and diplomatic advisors during the post-9/11 period have concentrated on non-state threats, conditioning them to resort quickly to military options. In the face of emerging state competitors such as the Russian Federation and People’s Republic of China, a broader range of options beyond only military force is required. This generation of policy advisors must unlearn some of what they have learned over the course of the last fifteen years of conflict, as they shift from dealing with non-state actors to addressing the resurgence of near-peer statecraft based on national security threats. These threats have been long ignored during the war on terror. The diplomatic craft represented during the Cold War must be embraced by both the military and diplomatic personnel in practice, and emphasized by the uniformed armed forces and professional diplomatic advisors to policy and decision makers.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Military Affairs, and Counter-terrorism
Political Geography:
Russia, China, North America, and United States of America

19. The Surprising Allure of Russian Soft Power

Author:
Nicolai N. Petro
Publication Date:
04-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
The six Russian national security documents issued since Putin first became president in 2000 display a remarkable conceptual consistency. A careful reading of these documents, the most authoritative statements of Russia’s worldview publicly available, challenges several common Western assumptions.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, National Security, Territorial Disputes, Ideology, and Soft Power
Political Geography:
Russia, Ukraine, North America, and United States of America

20. Russia and Turkey—Dalliance or Alliance

Author:
W. Robert Pearson
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
Russia and Turkey are dancing a complicated pas de deux—for separate and common reasons. The happy couple has captivated global attention. There are reasons today to anticipate greater collaboration between Turkey and Russia in Syria and against Europe and the United States. However, there are also significant contradictions that could weaken the prospects of cooperation between the two countries. For gains against Syrian Kurds and to fan nationalist flames domestically, Turkey may be ignoring longer term needs. Russia is the major partner in the arrangement and sees little reason to sacrifice its interests to please Turkey. One day this unequal relationship may cause Turkey to question its value.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, History, Bilateral Relations, and Military Intervention
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Turkey, Middle East, and Syria