Events

Past Event

Is the Russia-Europe Confrontation Reversible?

April 21, 2016
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
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International Affairs Building, Columbia University - Harriman Institute, Marshall D. Shulman Seminar Room 1219

 

Please join the Program on U.S.-Russia Relations at the Harriman Institute and Alliance for a talk with Dr. Marie Mendras, Senior Fellow at the Transatlantic Academy, Washington, and Professor at PSIA-Sciences Po, Paris.

By resorting to force in Ukraine, the Russian leadership has endangered European security and changed the geopolitical map of the continent. It has diminished its capacity to influence the proclaimed sphere of “privileged interests”. It has lost Ukraine, Georgia, probably Moldova, and has damaged relations with most western states, which have demonstrated unprecedented solidarity against interventionist policies. The economic and political partnership with the EU is unlikely to be renewed in the near future. Moscow’s confrontational foreign policy unsettles Russian elites and, more broadly, society. Vladimir Putin is facing an unstable situation at home, even if his grip on power and resources remains strong.

Dr. Marie Mendras teaches Russian politics and foreign policy at the Paris School of International Affairs, Sciences Po University. She is a Research Fellow with the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and heads the Observatoire de la Russie at CERI - Sciences Po. Dr Mendras is an Associate Fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House, London. From 2008 to 2010, she was a professor in the Government Department of the London School of Economics and Political Science. In earlier years, she also consulted for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defence. Her latest book is Russian Politics. The Paradox of a Weak State, (Hurst, London, 2012, and Oxford University Press, New York, 2014). This year, she is a visiting scholar at Georgetown University and Senior Fellow at the Transatlantic Academy.