Russia and the West

What explains Russia’s foreign and security policy choices and its terrible relationship with the West today? We will discuss and debate the motivations behind Moscow’s actions, asking whether they have been driven by realist great power considerations; by Russia’s domestic patronage system and Russian President Putin’s desire to stay in power; by an ideology of ethnic Orthodox nationalism or neo-Eurasianism; or by decision-making factors that are either unique to Putin or common across human psychology. In turn we will examine how choices made by the United States and the European Union have affected Russia, and evaluate what all of this means for concrete recent and current Russian and Western foreign and security policy choices. Students will be encouraged to come up with their own answers to these riddles in class discussions and written assignments, and the course concludes with a rigorous negotiation simulation where students will apply the knowledge gained in this course in a practical exercise. This course has no prerequisites, and no background knowledge is expected