Registration REQUIRED by 4pm on October 14, 2025 in order to attend this event.
Please join the Program on U.S.-Russia Relations at the Harriman Institute and the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies for a lecture by Peter Clement. Moderated by Elise Giuliano.
This talk revolves around two questions: Were there clear turning points in the hardening of Putin’s policy toward the US and the West more broadly since he became Russia’s president in 2000? What factors led Putin to eschew largely successful foreign policy pragmatism in favor of his fateful decision to reinvade Ukraine?
A longtime Russia watcher at CIA, Peter Clement served as Deputy Assistant Director of CIA for Europe and Eurasia before joining SIPA in 2018. Other senior CIA posts included Deputy Director for Intelligence for Analytic Programs, Director of the Office of Russian and Eurasian Analysis, and Russia Issue Manager. He served as the PDB daily briefer for Vice-President Cheney, NSC Adviser Rice and Deputy NSC Adviser Hadley, and briefly served as Director for Russia at the National Security Council. ed as the senior CIA representative to the US Mission to the United Nations. He has published journal articles and book chapters on Soviet and Russian foreign policy, the Cuban missile crisis, and US intelligence reform. Recent publications include a Foreign Affairs online article on Putin’s risk calculus in Ukraine and a book chapter assessing Putin’s foreign policy record since 2000. He is currently finishing a book on CIA analysts and their career trajectories. Clement holds a Ph.D. in Russian history and an M.A. in Modern European history from Michigan State University, and a B.A. in liberal arts from SUNY-Oswego.
