Russia & FSU
Technological Surprise and Normalization Through Use: The Tactical and Discursive Effects of New Precision-Strike Weapons in the Russo-Ukrainian War
Expectations of the performance of military technologies are marked by hopes that one’s own systems perform well while those of adversaries perform poorly, and fears of the inverse. These expectations shape states’ preparation for war and their conduct in…
The Influence of Psychological Factors in the Search for Strategic Stability
Many of the leaders of new nuclear powers sit atop regimes that are personalistic in nature, and thus less constrained by institutions or public opinion than more democratic regimes. Such authoritarian leaders have more freedom to allow their psychological…
Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Strategic Stability
How will advances in artificial intelligence impact strategic stability? A growing number of studies and reports assessing the ways that advances in AI could influence global politics focus on the potential risks to strategic stability from integration of AI…
Strategic Stability and Its Limits: Reflections on Schelling
Emerging technologies possess the potential to transform military competition and the international system in an uncertain, potentially destabilizing fashion. Are there ways to capture the benefits of these new technologies without unleashing catastrophic…
Introduction: Emerging Technologies and the Future of Strategic Stability
Emerging technologies developed since the end of the Cold War—and their proliferation to new actors—call into question the prospects for strategic stability in the twenty-first century. Strategic stability exists when rivals are mutually deterred and lack…
Wars of the Greater Middle East, 1945–92
This article examines the history of war and society during the Cold War in the Middle East and parts of South Asia—two regions linked by geography, history, and culture. Few other regions have been so touched by war, or so fixed the attention of world…
Negotiating Primacy: Strategic Stability, Superpower Arms Control, and the End of the Cold War
The United States successfully used the concept of strategic stability to tip the nuclear balance against the Soviet Union during the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) of the 1980s and early 1990s. Both superpowers sought to employ strategic stability to…
Book Review Roundtable: Russian Ways of Thinking About Deterrence
In this roundtable review, Michael Kofman, Dara Massicot, Cynthia Roberts, and Michael Petersen discuss Dima Adamsky's new book, "The Russian Way of Deterrence: Strategic Culture, Coercion, and War."
What’s Old Is New Again: Cold War Lessons for Countering Disinformation
Hostile foreign states are using weaponized information to attack the United States. Russia and China are disseminating disinformation about domestic U.S. race relations and COVID-19 to undermine and discredit the U.S. government. These information warfare…
Why Cyber Dogs Have Yet to Bark Loudly in Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine
Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, pundits agreed that the ongoing crisis was likely to involve extensive cyber conflict. Some argued that cyber war would accompany traditional forms of warfare. Others claimed that cyber conflict would substitute for a…
Book Review Roundtable: Russian Nuclear Orthodoxy
In this roundtable, we asked a group of experts to discuss Dmitry (Dima) Adamsky's latest book, "Russian Nuclear Orthodoxy," about the nexus of the Russian Orthodox Church and Russia's nuclear complex.
Rubles, Dollars, and Power: U.S. Intelligence on the Soviet Economy and Long-Term Competition
This response essay explores some of the key areas of agreement and disagreement between two recent articles on Cold War-era assessments of the Soviet economy.