Problems of Post-Communism, July 2011 Table of Contents

Volume 58 Numbers   4-5 / July-October 2011 of Problems of Post-Communism is now available on the mesharpe.metapress.com web site at http://mesharpe.metapress.com. This issue contains:  The Surprisingly Nonviolent Aftermath of the Beslan School Hostage Taking p.3 Debra Javeline and Vanessa A. Baird Introduction: Coup de Grâce?“ p.23 Ann E. Robertson Beyond the Nationalities Question? p.35 Mark [...]

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Observations on Center-2011

The Center-2011 exercise is officially concluding today. What follows are some observations culled from the Russian newspapers, not necessarily all connected. I’ll try to put together an assessment of the exercise in a few days, once more reports from the field come in. 1. There was an interesting article in Moskovskii Komsomolets that addressed the question [...]

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Quick reaction to Putin’s announcement

Josh Tucker over at the Monkey Cage asked me to comment on yesterday’s announcement that Putin will run for President next year. My comments can be found at his blog, together with those by several other PONARS members. I focused on the potential impact of the decision on foreign policy, and particularly U.S.-Russian bilateral relations. [...]

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The death of Tupolev

To continue the aircraft theme of the last few weeks, I just read a very informative article by Ruslan Pukhov that appeared in last week’s NVO. In this article, Pukhov contrasts the state of Russian aircraft design bureaus that have successfully made the transition to the post-Soviet economic environment, such as Sukhoi and (to a lesser [...]

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Center-2011 begins today

The most important event of the Russian military’s annual training calendar begins today. Major fall exercises have a long history in the Russian military, but in recent years they have begun to attract more and more publicity. In large part, this is because top military commanders have sought to publicize them to a greater extent [...]

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An Interactive Planning Approach to Shaping U.S.-Russian Relations

The annual PONARS policy conference in Washington DC took place Friday. I usually post my memos for it a week or two in advance, but I was hiking in the wilds of Utah in late August and away from the internets, returning just in time for the conference. So here it is after the fact. [...]

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