Russia, NATO, and The Yugoslav Wars

06/22/2013
by Richard Weitz In March 1999 NATO bombed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. NATO claimed that the Yugoslav Security Forces were responsible for crimes against humanity and human rights abuse and cited these as their reasons for intervention. The bombing shocked Russia since it devalued Russia’s veto right as NATO…

NATO-Russia Relations: The Beginning

06/20/2013
2013-06-20 by Richard Weitz The end of the Cold War confrontation between Moscow and the West simultaneously created an environment favorable for improved Russian-Western relations and established conditions that made conflict likely. On the one hand, the July 1991 dissolution of the integrated Warsaw Pact, held together by the Soviet…

China and the G-8: The Way Ahead

06/16/2013
2013-06-15 by Richard Weitz Why is the People’s Republic of China not a member of the Group of Eight (G-8) industrial countries, who are holding their 39th annual heads-of-state summit in Northern Ireland on June 17? China has the world’s largest population and second-largest national economy. The PRC belongs to…

Moscow’s Missile Defense Misgivings

06/02/2013
2013-06-02 By Richard Weitz Russian-NATO differences over ballistic missile defense (BMD) were unsurprisingly a major source of disagreement at the International Conference on “Military and Political Aspects of European Security,” hosted in a major Moscow hotel by the Russian Ministry of Defense (MOD), on May 23. Notwithstanding all the changes…