The papers included here, except for the editor's introduction, all come from the Strategic Studies Institute's annual conference on Russia in May 2012. In one way or another, they all point to the internal pathologies that render Russian security a precarious affair, at the best of times. As the editor suggests, the very fact of this precariousness makes Russia an inherently unpredictable and even potentially dangerous actor, not necessarily because it will actively attack its neighbors, though we certainly cannot exclude that possibility, but rather because it may come apart trying to play the role of a great power in Eurasia or elsewhere. As we all know, that outcome happened in 1917 and in 1989-91, with profound implications for international security and U.S. interests.

In one way or another, the papers included in this monograph, from the Strategic Studies Institute's annual conference on Russia in May 2012, all point to the internal pathologies that render Russian security a precarious affair at the best of times. As the editor suggests, the very fact of this precariousness makes Russia an inherently unpredictable and even potentially dangerous actor, not necessarily because it will actively attack its neighbors, though we certainly cannot exclude that possibility, but rather because Russia may come apart trying to play the role of a great power in Eurasia or elsewhere. As we all know, that outcome happened in 1917 and in 1989-91, with profound implications for international security and U.S. interests.

The following three papers comprise one of the panels from a conference on U.S.-Russia relations that SSI co-sponsored with the Carnegie Council at Pocantico, NY, from June 1-3, 2011: Carnegie Council's Program on "U.S. Global Engagement: A Two-Year Retrospective." The papers offer three contrasting looks at one of the major issues in today's arms control agenda, namely the future of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE). The three papers were written by leading experts in the field from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia and provide a revealing glimpse into the very different assessments that are being made by those three governments and the difficult issues involved in attempting to regenerate the process that led to the original treaty in 1990. These three chapters also implicitly contribute to a better understanding of the intractabilities facing the major players in any effort to advance not only arms control but also European stability.

As NATO and the United States proceed to withdraw their forces from Afghanistan, the inherent and preexisting geopolitical, security, and strategic challenges in Central Asia become ever more apparent. The rivalry among the great powers: the United States, China, Russia, India, and others to a lesser degree, are all becoming increasingly more visible as a key factor that will shape this region after the allied withdrawal from Afghanistan. The papers collected here, presented at SSI's annual conference on Russia in 2012, go far to explaining what the agenda for that rivalry is and how it is likely to influence regional trends after 2013. Therefore, these papers provide a vital set of insights into an increasingly critical area of international politics and security, especially as it is clear that the United States is reducing, but not totally withdrawing, its military establishment in Afghanistan and is seeking to consolidate long-term relationships with Central Asian states. Accordingly, these papers provide assessments of Sino-Russian rivalry, the U.S.-Russian rivalry, and a neglected but critical topic-Chinese military capability for action in Central Asia. All of these issues are essential for any informed analysis of the future of Central Asian security, as well as relations among the great powers in Central Asia.

The three papers presented here are by well-known experts and were delivered at SSI's third annual conference on Russia that took place at Carlisle, PA, on September 26-27, 2011. This conference, like its predecessors, had as its goal the assemblage of Russian, European, and American experts to engage in a regular, open, and candid dialogue on critical issues in contemporary security.

The author assesses the interests of the United States in Central Asia and the challenges to them. These challenges consist of the revival of the Taliban, Russo-Chinese efforts to oust U.S. strategic presence from the area, and the possibility of internal instability generated by the regression of local regimes form democratizing and liberalizing policies. The author then recommends policies designed to meet those challenges to American policy in this increasingly more important area of the world.

These three chapters originated in an SSI conference in January 2010 and go to the heart of a question of vital significance for both Asia and Russia, namely what are Russia's prospects in Asia. The three chapters outline the challenges Russia faces in Asia, the nature of the dynamic and complex Asian security environment, and the extent to which Russia is or is not meeting those challenges. These chapters represent both Russian and U.S. views and clearly do not agree in their conclusions or analyses. For this reason, they are all the more interesting. These chapters should provoke debate, reflection, and greater awareness as to the complexities of the current international scene in Asia and of Russia's success or lack thereof in participating in that environment. In view of the extraordinary dynamism that now characterizes Asia and the fact that it is the center of the world economy, the analysis provided here goes beyond obvious issues to address questions that we believe are unjustly neglected, e.g., Russia's prospects as an Asian power and as an independent great power player in Asia. The answers to these questions are urgent for Russians, but very consequential for the U.S. because getting Asia right will be among the most critical challenges to U.S. policymakers in the coming years.

Given the stakes involved in achieving a correct understanding of Russian and Chinese defense policies and military developments, the magnitude of Mary Fitzgerald's enlightening accomplishments in this regard becomes clear. However, the problems that we have outlined in this volume were not unfamiliar to students of the Soviet Union. Indeed, they are enduring strategic issues for Russian policymakers as well as those who analyze or contribute to foreign policies toward the Russian military, despite the magnitude of the tremendous changes that have occurred since 1989 when the Soviet empire began to collapse. Even more importantly, Mary and her colleagues recognized that the issues outlined here are not just tasks relevant for the general study of Russia, but by addressing these strategic issues, and their underlying implications, policymakers will engage in the essential tasks necessary for the creation of an enduring structure of peace.

While the Cold War is long past, the importance of arms control in Russo-American relations and the related issue of nuclear weapons for Russia remain vital concerns. Indeed, without an appreciation of the multiple dimensions of the latter, progress in the former domain is inconceivable. With this in mind, following essays explore many, if not all, of the issues connected with Russia's relatively greater reliance on nuclear weapons for its security. As such, they constitute an important contribution to the analysis of the Obama administration's reset policy, Russo-American relations, Russian foreign and defense policy, and international security in both Europe and Asia. Additionally, questions concerning the approach taken by other nuclear power nations in reference to the arms control agenda provide a crucial backdrop for the progress toward curbing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, a long-standing central goal of U.S. security policy.

These papers represent the first in a series of papers taken from the Strategic Studies Institute's (SSI) fourth annual Russia conference that took place at SSI's headquarters in Carlisle, PA, on September 26-27, 2011. As such, they also are part of our on-going effort to make sense of and clarify developments in Russia. The three papers presented here offer attempts to characterize first of all, the nature of the state; second, the prospects for economic reform within that state-perhaps the most pressing domestic issue and one with considerable spillover into defense and security agendas as well-in contemporary Russia; and third, the nature and lasting effects of the defense reform that began in 2008. The papers are forthright and pull no punches, though we certainly do not claim that they provide the last or definitive word on these subjects.

Immediately after the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, NATO members unanimously voted their support for the United States under Article V of the Washington Treaty. This unprecedented action, the first time such a vote has occurred in NATO's history, underscores the vitality of the Atlantic Alliance and its tremendous strategic value for its members. This vote conferred great legitimacy upon any response that the United States will make to those attacks and reminded us that the solidity of NATO allows the United States to defend its interests on the world stage with great confidence about European security. Nevertheless, the Alliance is not a wholly untroubled or static relationship. In the first half of 2001, there were numerous public signs of stress among the allies as they faced new challenges. Many of the issues involved in these tensions are particularly important to the future of European security and must be resolved for NATO to move forward...

Although Russian observers believe that Washington imposed sanctions in Russian arms sellers and producers because of these firms' arms sales to Venezuela. Sales to such dangerous states oblige us to analyze the Russian defense export program and the structure of its defense industry. Until now, that industry would have collapsed without arms sales. Arms sales thus have become the main source of its reveneue until the present and will play a key role in Russia's ongoing attempt to regenerate its armed forces while winning friends and influence abroad.

It is obvious that U.S.-Russian relations and East-West relations more broadly have recently deteriorated. Yet analyses of why this is the case have often been confined to American policy. The author examines some of the key strategic issues at stake in this relationship and traces that decline to Russian factors which have been overlooked or neglected. At the same time, he has devoted considerable time to recording some of the shortcomings of U.S. policy and recommending a way out of the growing impasse confronting both sides.

The best recent scholarship on Russian civil-military relations explicitly addresses this issue's importance for both domestic and external security. An inquiry into the present state of those relations under conditions of defense reform and the current international situation is of immense analytical and policy relevance for both domestic and external security in Russia. While the Russian regime is serious about military reform, it is encountering severe objections from the uniformed military, and the military has successfully persuaded the government to accept its expansive concept of the threats to Russia, i.e., its threat assessment. Therefore, we must closely follow those developments to understand more clearly current tendencies in Russian politics and policy as a whole. Specifically, this chapter examines issues pertaining to civil-military relations in several areas of Russian national security policies that suggest some disturbing trends for the future.

The war in Afghanistan has added considerably to the strategic significance of Central Asia due to its proximity to the conflict. Moreover, the continuation of the war increasingly involves the vital interests of many other actors other than the U.S. and NATO forces currently there. This monograph, taken from SSI's conference with European and Russian scholars in 2010, provides a comprehensive analysis of the means and objectives of Russia's involvement in Central Asia. It also provides Russian perspectives concerning the other actors in Central Asia and how Moscow views the policy significance of those efforts.

These three papers represent the third monograph to come out of the SSI-U.S. State Department conference "Contemporary issues in International Security," that took place at the Finnish Embassy in Washington, DC, on January 25-26, 2010. This monograph consists of three deeply probing essays into the genesis of Russia's 2010 defense doctrine, the political struggle behind it, and the actual content of the doctrine. They reveal a highly politicized minefield of struggle comprising leading actors in the military, the government, and in Russian security policy as a whole. They duly illuminate the ongoing struggles between and among these sets of military and civilian elites and therefore cast a shining light on critical aspects of Russian policy that all too often are left in darkness. They are essential to any understanding of Russian defense and security policy as well as the nature of the relationship between the Russian military and the government and the way in which these actors formulate key policy statements and resolve pressing political issues.

Assessment of the threat environment is a critical element in the formulation of any state's strategy and defense doctrine. It also should be an inherently critical process that seeks to free policymakers from incorrect, antiquated, or misconceived perceptions about the threat. Consequently, the nature of the threat(s) the United States or any other government faces is the subject of a never-ending debate. For several years U.S. policymakers, officials, and writers on defense have employed the terms "asymmetric" or "asymmetry" to characterize everything from the nature of the threats we face to the nature of war and beyond. This monograph challenges the utility of using those terms to characterize the threats we face, one element of the broader debate over the nature of war, U.S. strategy, and the threats confronting us. As a work of critique, it aims to make an important contribution to the threat debate.

The new agreements between NATO and Russia and between the United States and Russia create opportunities for strengthening bilateral and multilateral military activities throughout the former Soviet Union. These could embrace all the militaries of the former Soviet Union and not only enhance military security in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), but also foster military-political integration with the West and possibly defense reform in all or at least some of the CIS regimes. Most importantly, Russia is pledged to cooperate in these activities. This monograph explores the unprecedented opportunities that are now before the United States and recommends actions that the Government and armed forces, especially, but not only the U.S. Army, should undertake to consolidate and extend the newly emerging military partnership and cooperative security regime that are now developing.