News Archive

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Kimberly Marten on Russia's Negotiating Style

Kimberly Marten, Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Political Science at Barnard College, outlines the continuities of Russia's negotiating style in The Washington Post's Monkey Cage Blog.

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

5 Questions on Russia with International Diplomacy Professor Stephen Sestanovich
Georgette Jasen, Columbia Communications and Public Affairs, asks Stephen Sestanovich five questions about Russia and Trump's foreign policy in Columbia News.
 
In his 2014 book, Maximalist: America in the World from Truman to Obama, Stephen Sestanovich argued that since World War II U.S. policy makers have alternated between overdoing it and “underdoing” it. Now Sestanovich is looking at foreign policy in the Trump era, especially dealings with Russia. Before he joined Columbia in 2001 as the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor for the Practice of International Diplomacy at the School of International and Public Affairs, he was ambassador-at-large and special advisor to the U.S. Secretary of State on the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union, and vice president for Russian and Eurasian affairs at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
 
Sestanovich published an article about Trump’s foreign policy in the May issue of the Atlantic.
 
 
Thursday, July 6, 2017

Alexander Cooley Weighs in on Trump and Central Asia

Alexander Cooley (Director, Harriman Institute; Claire Tow Professor of Political Science at Barnard College) weighs in on President Trump's business connections to Central Asia in McClatchyDC. 

Friday, June 30, 2017

Tanya Domi Quoted in Balkan Insight on Stigmatization of Survivors of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence
In a feature published in Balkan Insight (June 30, 2017), Tanya Domi (SIPA) is quoted in a story on the signing of a declaration by  leaders of the Orthodox, Islamic, Jewish and Catholic communities denouncing the stigmatization of survivors of conflict-related sexual violence  as Bosnia’s Inter-religious Council continues efforts to promote reconciliation:
 
“I think it's a major step forward to actually come together across religion to advance respect and dignity for people who have suffered torture. Specifically the issue of sexual violence is an issue and an egregious crime that the war in Bosnia is well known for,” Domi told BIRN.
“Many women suffered, and now we know, many men have also suffered from this crime. Many of those victims have been isolated and shunned by their own families and communities,” she said. Domi said she believes that if religious leaders speak out and embrace the victims, it could promote reconciliation.
“We would have to look at how they plan to follow up from this agreement. What are they going to do, and how are they going to meet with victims and their families and communities,” she said.
Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Stephen Sestanovich: Vladimir Putin Is Suddenly on the Defensive against Corruption

Stephen Sestanovich, Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor for the Practice of International Diplomacy, writes in the Washington Post that "dismissing the very idea of corruption has in fact become the default position of the Putin regime." 

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Expert Opinions, Episode 2: What’s the Matter with Chechnya?

All eyes turned to Chechnya in early April, after the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta exposed the kidnapping, unlawful detention, and torture of more than 100 gay men by the Chechen authorities. How did these purges start? What is missing from the prevailing media narrative? And how has Russia’s relationship with the republic affected what is going on there now?

In the second episode of our new podcast with EurasiaNet, Masha Udensiva-Brenner sits down with two experts to discuss the gay purges in Chechnya and the political context in which they occurred. 

Guests: Rachel Denber, Deputy Director, Europe and Central Asia Division, Human Rights Watch; Thomas de Waal, Senior Fellow, Carnegie Europe

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Play the episode on SoundCloud:

 
 
 
 

 

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Tanya Domi Co-Authors Opinion Piece on "Aleksandar Vucic’s Broken Promises to America"

Tanya Domi (International and Public Affairs) co-authored an opinion piece, with Praveen Madhiraju, on "Aleksandar Vucic’s Broken Promises to America" in Balkan Insight (19 June 2017): "President Vucic has repeatedly promised to resolve the murders of the Albanian-American Bytyqi brothers in Serbia in 1999, so when he visits Washington, the US must pressure him to finally deliver." 

You can read the entire piece here.

Monday, June 5, 2017

Timothy Frye Comments on Kushner-Gorkov Meeting on CBS News with Scott Pelley

In a CBS Evening News broadcast concerning former FBI Director James Comey's upcoming testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee next week, Timothy Frye, Marshall D. Shulman Professor of Post-Soviet Foreign Policy, stated that "The appearances here look really not very good for Mr. Kushner," adding that Putin likely knew about the meeting between Kushner and Gorkov.

You can read and view the episode here.

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser to Jimmy Carter, and Herbert Lehman Professor of Government at Columbia, Dies at 89

Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser to Jimmy Carter, Herbert Lehman Professor of Government at SIPA (1960-1989), Columbia University, and former Russian Institute faculty member, is dead at the age of 89. Brzezinski was honored this past spring at SIPA's Global Leadership Awards Gala, as part of the institute's 70th anniversary celebrations.

In 1961, Brzezinski was made director of the newly established Research Institute on Communist Affairs, which published his Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technetronic Era (1970). Publications of Brzezinski's work sponsored by the Russian Institute include Political Power: USA/USSR (1964).

You can read the New York Times obituary here.

 

Friday, May 19, 2017

Dmitry Dubrovsky on RTVI

Dmitry Dubrovsky, Associate Research Scholar, Harriman Institute; Fellow, Institute of International Education Scholar Rescue Fund, appeared on RTVI to discuss the 23-year-old Russian blogger, Ruslan Sokolovsky, who may face 3.5 years in prison for playing Pokémon Go in church. Watch the interview in Russian.