When Russia and the West Built Something Shared

Security

The La Manga spit on the Mar Menor, Murcia, 2013. Photo: Øyvind Holmstad, CC BY-SA 3.0

From Confrontation to Synergy

The illusion of order and the reality of force: why Europe is looking east again

· 6 min read

The crew leaves the AS-28 Priz after surfacing off Kamchatka, 7 August 2005. Photo: U.S. Navy, public domain

Seventy-Six Hours: How a British Scorpio Saved Russian Submariners

August 2005, off Kamchatka: for the first time in history the navy of a NATO country saved the crew of a Russian Navy vehicle — at Moscow’s first call, in a restricted area, with seven lives on the clock.

· 5 min read

Obama and Medvedev after signing New START, the heir of the 2002 treaty. Prague, 2010. Photo: kremlin.ru, CC BY

A Treaty on Two Pages: How Moscow and Washington Cut Their Arsenals in 2002

Five short articles instead of five hundred pages: the Moscow Treaty of 2002 cut the two largest nuclear arsenals of the planet by roughly two-thirds — and fit on two pages.

· 5 min read

The entrance sign of the Karshi-Khanabad air base — “Camp Stronghold Freedom” (photograph from 2003). Photo: U.S. Air Force. Licence: public domain. Source: Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Welcome_To_K2_Sign.JPG

The Unthinkable Consent: How Russia Opened Central Asia to America

In the autumn of 2001, American bases appeared in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan — with Moscow’s direct approval. A summer earlier, this would have been called fantasy.

· 4 min read