Russian Empire Strikes Back

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

This course – “The Empire Strikes Back: Russia’s Complex Relations with its Former Colonies” -- will be taught by the former U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan (2022-25) and Uzbekistan (2019-22), who is now serving as a diplomatic fellow at the SFS Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. It will examine this topic through the lens of U.S. policy towards the Former Soviet Union since 1991. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia has asserted a privileged sphere of influence covering the 14 other former Soviet republics, officially labeling them not as independent foreign countries but as its “near abroad” (blizhneye zarubezh’ye). Russia’s imperial ambitions go back centuries, and its colonial legacy shapes political and economic developments in the region to this day – the most recent and blatant example being its 2022 invasion of -- and ongoing effort to control -- Ukraine. Meanwhile, the United States has repeatedly declared its support for the “sovereignty and territorial integrity” of the former Russian colonies, and made bolstering their independence a core element of its policy towards the region. This course will examine the interplay between these clashing Russian and American perspectives over the past 35 years. It will focus on the various methods Moscow has used to retain dominance in the region (from control over energy resources, export transit routes and labor markets to the direct use of intelligence networks and military power to manipulate and intimidate its neighbors), and the mixed results of those efforts. In parallel, the course will look at how these Russian actions have been viewed by U.S. policymakers, and how the U.S. responded through the use of diplomatic tools, security cooperation, private sector trade and investment, and foreign assistance, also with mixed success.