A chilling analysis of how Western indecision and apathy made possible the return of brutal Russian expansionism with catastrophic consequences - A must-read for anyone who wants to understand what went wrong and how it can be fixed (Serhii Plokhy, Harvard University)

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, six US presidential administrations of both parties pursued policies for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia that emboldened Russia, playing into its imperialist, centuries-long mythos of regional hegemony. The result: military aggression and full-scale invasion. It was all too foreseeable.

In The Folly of Realism, leading national security expert and bestselling author Alexander Vindman argues that America's mistakes in Eastern Europe result from policymakers' fixation on immediate, short-term problem-solving and misplaced hopes and fears. He proposes a new long-term, values-based approach that insists on the fundamentals of liberal democracy and a rules-based world order.

Enlivened by firsthand accounts and behind-the-scenes interviews with leading Washington and international policymakers and culminating in the shocking brutality of Putin's invasions of Ukraine, the book exposes the follies of western foreign policymaking, sources of the dangerous return of Russian imperialism, and proscribes how it can be contained.

A leading expert on US-Russian relations reveals how the United States and its European allies set the course for the war in Ukraine--and offers a sobering indictment of American foreign policy since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 should not have taken the world by surprise. The attack escalated a war that began in 2014 with the Russian annexation of Crimea, but its origins are visible as far back as the aftermath of the Cold War, when newly independent Ukraine moved to the center of tense negotiations between Russia and the West. The United States was a leading player in this drama. In fact, Jonathan Haslam argues, it was decades of US foreign policy missteps and miscalculations, unchecked and often reinforced by European allies, that laid the groundwork for the current war.

Isolated, impoverished, and relegated to a second-order power on the world stage, Russia grew increasingly resentful of Western triumphalism in the wake of the Cold War. The United States further provoked Russian ire with a campaign to expand NATO into Eastern Europe--especially Ukraine, the most geopolitically important of the former Soviet republics. Determined to extend its global dominance, the United States repeatedly ignored signs that antagonizing Russia would bring consequences. Meanwhile, convinced that Ukraine was passing into the Western sphere of influence, Putin prepared to shift the European balance of power in Russia's favor.

Timely and incisive, Hubris reveals the assumptions, equivocations, and grievances that have defined the West's relations with Russia since the twilight of the Soviet Union--and ensured that collision was only a matter of time.

Warfare is a geopolitical tool of the first order; only wars of scale can measure the real strength of nations. For decades American claims of hegemony, and by extension that of the West, have been based on what has now proved to be a carefully constructed mythology of economic and military supremacy. This is Andrei Martyanov's fourth book addressing this issue, now as it concerns the war in Ukraine. In America's Final War, he lays out in detail the underpinning causes and extent of its self-deception.
Washington's eight years of preparing Ukraine and its armed forces for war with Russia was a mistake of historic proportions, due to its misperception of American military power based on its 1991 Gulf War victory against a minor military player. Washington believed its own propaganda about crippling sanctions on Russia, about the viability of its Ukrainian proxy army, and the economic and military weakness of Russia, spelling doom for the American empire and its rules-based order.
Martyanov lays out Washington's utter incompetence and shocking military amateurism. But then, he claims, the US doesn't do strategy; it does business plans Through 2022-2023, Russia's Special Military Operation (SMO) exposed US and NATO forces as legacy armies stuck in the 1990s, still viewing the world from that vantage point. The massive destruction of the West's high-cost weaponry ensued, annulling their vaunted superiority. Western armaments, from anti-tank Javelins to APC Bradleys to air defense complexes such as the Patriot PAC3 or NASAMS, performed dismally and proved unready for what has become the largest military conflict in Europe since WWII. By 2023 the Kiev regime could no longer exist without the West's support, both financial and in war materiel. By 2024 Russia will have not just exhausted Ukraine, but also demilitarized NATO as a whole, exposing the industrial and military impotence of the US and its European vassals.
The finance and tech-based economy is not a real economy; expeditionary warfare and doctrine is not real war. The global balance of power has shifted to Eurasia. Western Europe has become a collection of weak and fast deindustrializing economies which will increasingly become irrelevant against the background of the explosive economic, technologic, scientific and military development in Eurasia
The world has noticed what has been exposed, and because of that, life as we knew it is no more. The rule of the West of the last half-millennium is over.

War weighs heavily on the soul of even the most hardened observer, and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is no exception.

Often, when called upon to address such complex conflict-related situations, analysts endure a kind of weary cynicism, having repeatedly provided the same narrative-based facts to the same audience without seeming to have moved the needle of public perception. One of the reasons for this melancholy is that both the interviewer and the interviewee have often gone over the same ground in what seems like a never-ending cycle of gloom and doom.

Then, out of the blue, something changes! You are called upon to lay out the same old set of facts to someone who is new to the story, to someone whose spirit hasn't been dulled by the repetitive ravages brought on by covering the death and destruction of never-ending conflict. To someone for whom the insanity and horror of war, and the complexity and hypocrisy of the politics that serve as its intellectual foundation is a new, terrifying and confusing experience.

At that moment, the old analyst inside you reawakens. You are reminded why you got into this business to begin with. You are challenged by questions so innocent and pure that you are compelled to reexamine the assumptions that had calcified your own assessments, past and present.

I am that old analyst, and Ania K is my welcomed fellow traveler. In this book we take you on a journey of discovery and rediscovery, borne from the probing questions of someone new to the intricacies and duplicities of war and yearning to understand. Here you will find the answers of someone whose dulling senses have been galvanized by the challenge of putting into perspective problems for which there once had seemed to be no solution, and yet, upon this reexamination, now become comprehensible--and even solvable.

Covering Ukraine: The Scott Ritter interviews through the Eyes Of Ania K. is a unique and timely addition to the literature on the conflict in Ukraine. It offers a fresh look at complex problems that will empower and entertain the reader with new insights and sharp analysis of a war few understand--which as such is doomed to continue in perpetuity, the living manifestation of the age-old adage, You can't solve a problem if you do not first properly define what the problem is.

In this book, Ania K. and I embark on a journey to properly define the problems manifest in the Ukraine conflict, and together, we struggle to find a solution.

Das westliche Narrativ zeichnet Wladimir Putin als unersättlichen, mit Hitler vergleichbaren Expansionisten, der grundlos in die Ukraine eindrang, um Land einzunehmen. Diese Darstellung ist jedoch falsch. In Wirklichkeit tragen die Vereinigten Staaten und die NATO eine erhebliche Verantwortung für die Ukraine-Krise. Durch eine fehlgeleitete Politik brachten Washington und seine europäischen Verbündeten Russland in eine unhaltbare Situation, in der Krieg für Wladimir Putin und seine Militärstrategen die einzige sinnvolle Lösung zu sein schien. Dieses kurze Buch legt die ma geblichen Entwicklungen dar und erklärt, wie der Westen einen unnötigen Konflikt geschaffen hat und nun unter einer existenziellen Bedrohung leidet, die er selbst verursacht hat.

Sehr gut gelungen ... Behandelt Material, das viel bekannter sein sollte.

- Noam Chomsky

Eine hervorragende, bemerkenswert prägnante Erklärung der Gefahr, welche die militärische Beteiligung der USA und der NATO in der Ukraine geschaffen hat. Dieses Buch muss von allen gelesen und beachtet werden, die in der Lage sind, rational und verantwortungsbewusst über die amerikanische und europäische Sicherheit nachzudenken.

- Jack F. Matlock, Jr., US-Botschafter in der Sowjetunion, 1987-1991, Autor des Buchs Superpower Illusions

Für alle, die daran interessiert sind, die wahren Ursachen der Katastrophe in der Ukraine zu verstehen, ist Wie der Westen den Krieg in die Ukraine brachte eine Pflichtlektüre. Abelow argumentiert klar und überzeugend, dass die Vereinigten Staaten und ihre NATO-Verbündeten - nicht Wladimir Putin - die Hauptschuldigen sind.

- John J. Mearsheimer, Autor von The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, ist R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor für Politikwissenschaften an der University of Chicago

Dies ist ein gro artiges und präzises Buch, logisch strukturiert, leicht zu lesen und überzeugend, aber mit der nötigen Vorsicht formuliert. Es bietet einen wertvollen Überblick zu den Entwicklungen und Ereignissen, die zur Eskalation des Krieges in der Ukraine geführt haben. Ohne die in diesem Buch dokumentierte Geschichte zu verstehen, wird es keine Deeskalation der amerikanisch-russischen Konfrontation an den östlichen Grenzen Europas geben.

- Chas Freeman, ehemaliger Staatssekretär für Internationale Sicherheitsfragen im US-Verteidigungsministerium, Autor von Arts of Power: Statecraft and Diplomacy

Für diejenigen, die sich um die nationale Sicherheit der USA und den Frieden in Europa sorgen, ist dieses Buch eine unverzichtbare Lektüre.

- Douglas Macgregor, Oberst (a. D.) der US-Armee, Autor von Margin of Victory, ausgezeichnet für besondere Verdienste bei den Kampfhandlungen von 73 Easting im Irak, ehemaliger Direktor des Joint Operations Center der NATO in den Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), dem Oberkommando der Alliierten Streitkräfte in Europa

Ein kompakter, aber umfassender und zugänglicher Überblick. Von unschätzbarem Wert, um zu verstehen, wie der Krieg wieder nach Europa zurückgekehrt ist. Benjamin Abelow zeigt, dass die Krise in der Ukraine vorhersehbar war, vorhergesehen wurde - und vermeidbar gewesen wäre.

- Richard Sakwa, Autor von Frontline Ukraine und The Putin Paradox, ist Professor für russische und europäische Politik an der University of Kent

Ben Abelow führt uns von den falschen Narrativen weg und hin zur Wahrheit über die Ukraine-Krise.

- Krishen Mehta, Senior Global Justice Fellow an der Yale University und Leiter des American Committee for US-Russia Accord

Russia is rarely out of the news. This has been particularly true since it launched the largest war in Europe since World War II when it invaded Ukraine in 2022. Yet Russian politics can be difficult to understand. It is powerfully shaped by large, impersonal forces such as geography, and Russia's place in the international political and economic system. At the same time, Russia's formal political institutions, such as the Constitution and electoral procedures, are relatively weak and manipulable compared to those of stable, established democracies. Under these circumstances, powerful leaders such as Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, and Vladimir Putin represent a source of potential dynamism and change.

This Very Short Introduction provides a guide to understanding Russian Politics that goes beyond the headlines, offering a vivid account of the key forces driving Russian politics. It places Russia in a global context while explaining its internal political development. Several major themes run through the book, including the primacy of the state over society, the role of the so-called West, which has represented a source of inspiration, of threat, and of competition for generations of Russians, and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Soviet collapse brought about dramatic change across multiple spheres, from the nature of the political and economic system to the country's borders and who counted as a citizen. To this day, Russia is still working its way through the consequences of these transformations.

A New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
Named a best book of the year by The Economist Financial Times New Statesman The Telegraph

[Putin's People] will surely now become the definitive account of the rise of Putin and Putinism. --Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic

This riveting, immaculately researched book is arguably the best single volume written about Putin, the people around him and perhaps even about contemporary Russia itself in the past three decades. --Peter Frankopan, Financial Times

Interference in American elections. The sponsorship of extremist politics in Europe. War in Ukraine. In recent years, Vladimir Putin's Russia has waged a concerted campaign to expand its influence and undermine Western institutions. But how and why did all this come about, and who has orchestrated it?

In Putin's People, the investigative journalist and former Moscow correspondent Catherine Belton reveals the untold story of how Vladimir Putin and the small group of KGB men surrounding him rose to power and looted their country. Delving deep into the workings of Putin's Kremlin, Belton accesses key inside players to reveal how Putin replaced the freewheeling tycoons of the Yeltsin era with a new generation of loyal oligarchs, who in turn subverted Russia's economy and legal system and extended the Kremlin's reach into the United States and Europe. The result is a chilling and revelatory exposé of the KGB's revanche--a story that begins in the murk of the Soviet collapse, when networks of operatives were able to siphon billions of dollars out of state enterprises and move their spoils into the West. Putin and his allies subsequently completed the agenda, reasserting Russian power while taking control of the economy for themselves, suppressing independent voices, and launching covert influence operations abroad.

Ranging from Moscow and London to Switzerland and Brooklyn's Brighton Beach--and assembling a colorful cast of characters to match--Putin's People is the definitive account of how hopes for the new Russia went astray, with stark consequences for its inhabitants and, increasingly, the world.

Looking beyond Putin to understand how today's Russia actually works

Media and public discussion tends to understand Russian politics as a direct reflection of Vladimir Putin's seeming omnipotence or Russia's unique history and culture. Yet Russia is remarkably similar to other autocracies--and recognizing this illuminates the inherent limits to Putin's power. Weak Strongman challenges the conventional wisdom about Putin's Russia, highlighting the difficult trade-offs that confront the Kremlin on issues ranging from election fraud and repression to propaganda and foreign policy.

Drawing on three decades of his own on-the-ground experience and research as well as insights from a new generation of social scientists that have received little attention outside academia, Timothy Frye reveals how much we overlook about today's Russia when we focus solely on Putin or Russian exceptionalism. Frye brings a new understanding to a host of crucial questions: How popular is Putin? Is Russian propaganda effective? Why are relations with the West so fraught? Can Russian cyber warriors really swing foreign elections? In answering these and other questions, Frye offers a highly accessible reassessment of Russian politics that highlights the challenges of governing Russia and the nature of modern autocracy.

Rich in personal anecdotes and cutting-edge social science, Weak Strongman offers the best evidence available about how Russia actually works.

One war: three collisions--in this vividly written, narrative history of the war in Ukraine, Michael Kimmage puts together the pieces of a complicated international puzzle to understand the origins of the current conflict that has brought the world to the brink of a new Cold War.

In Collisions, Michael Kimmage, a historian and former State Department official who focused on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, offers a wide-angle, historically informed account of the origins of the current Russia-Ukraine war. Tracing the development of Ukraine and Russia's fractious relationship back to the end of the Cold War, Kimmage takes readers through the central events that led to Vladimir Putin seizing a large portion of Ukraine--the Crimea--in 2014 and, eight years later, initiating arguably the most intensive military conflict of the entire post-World War II era.

From the halls of power in Washington, Kyiv, and Moscow to the battlefields of Ukraine, Kimmage chronicles Putin's ascendancy to the Russian presidency, delves into multiple American presidencies and their dealings with Russia and Europe, and recounts Europe's efforts to bring Ukraine closer to the European Union. He tells the story of how Ukraine went from an embattled country on the edge of Europe to a formidable military power capable of pushing back the Russian military. Just as importantly, Kimmage captures how the current war has transformed multiple centers of power--from China to the United States--and dramatically altered the path of globalization itself. He makes the case that the war in Ukraine has shifted the direction of major macro-trends in world politics, contributing to the fragmentation of international politics, higher inflation, greater food insecurity, and the general collapse of arms control. These intersecting dangers amount to a new age of global instability, born in war and in the collision between Russia and the United States that has brought the world to the brink of a new Cold War.

An authoritative interpretation of possibly the most important geopolitical event of the post-Cold War era, Collisions is essential reading for anyone interested in the origins of this epochal conflict and its ripple effects across the globe.

Much has been written to try to understand the ideological characteristics of the current Russian government, as well as what is happening inside the mind of Vladimir Putin. Refusing pundits' clichés that depict the Russian regime as either a cynical kleptocracy or the product of Putin's grand Machiavellian designs, Ideology and Meaning-Making under the Putin Regime offers a critical genealogy of ideology in Russia today. Marlene Laruelle provides an innovative, multi-method analysis of the Russian regime's ideological production process and the ways it is operationalized in both domestic and foreign policies. Ideology and Meaning-Making under the Putin Regime reclaims the study of ideology as an unavoidable component of the tools we use to render the world intelligible and represents a significant contribution to the scholarly debate on the interaction between ideas and policy decisions. By placing the current Russian regime into a broader context of different strains of strategic culture, ideological interest groups, and intellectual history, this book gives readers key insights into how the Russo-Ukrainian War became possible and the role ideology played in enabling it.

Selected among Foreign Affairs's Best of Books 2024

From a globally renowned expert on Russian military strategy and national security, The Russian Way of Deterrence investigates Russia's approach to coercion (both deterrence and compellence), comparing and contrasting it with the Western conceptualization of this strategy. Strategic deterrence, or what Dmitry (Dima) Adamsky calls deterrence à la Russe, is one of the main tools of Russian statecraft. Adamsky deftly describes the genealogy of the Russian approach to coercion and highlights the cultural, ideational, and historical factors that have shaped it in the nuclear, conventional, and informational domains. Drawing on extensive research on Russian strategic culture, Adamsky highlights several empirical and theoretical peculiarities of the Russian coercion strategy, including how this strategy relates to the war in Ukraine. Exploring the evolution of strategic deterrence, along with its sources and prospective avenues of development, Adamsky provides a comprehensive intellectual history that makes it possible to understand the deep mechanics of this Russian stratagem, the current and prospective patterns of the Kremlin's coercive conduct, and the implications for policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic.

The tenth edition of this go-to text offers critical discussion of contemporary Russian politics and its fundamental principles. It covers established topics such as executive leadership, parties, and elections as well as newer issues of national identity, protest, and Russia and Greater Eurasia. Taking a bottom-up approach, Developments in Russian Politics 10 analyzes the political system in which Putin's influence can be understood and covers frequently overlooked topics like the informal economy, climate change, and gender. The book is organized around the informal politics of hybrid regimes and authoritarianism and accounts for how Russian history impacts contemporary politics in counterintuitive ways, addressing notions of hybrid warfare, disinformation, and election meddling. The chapters have a modular quality and are designed to correspond to course teaching. Compiled by an international team of specialists and offering key questions, further reading suggestions, and a list of up-to-date repositories of video material, the edition will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students from across the world.

Now updated in paperback with a new foreword and never-before-seen photographs, The War Came to Us is Christopher Miller's journalist breathtaking exploration of Ukraine's past, present, and future, and a heartbreaking account of the war against Russia.

A beautiful blend of memoir, reportage and history... The War Came To Us is an important book, and a testament to the importance of quality journalism.--Irish Times

When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine just before dawn on 24 February 2022, it marked his latest and most overt attempt to brutally conquer the country, and reshaped the world order. Christopher Miller, the Ukraine correspondent for the Financial Times and a foremost journalist covering the country, was there on the ground when the first Russian missiles struck and troops stormed over the border. But the seeds of Russia's war against Ukraine and the West were sown more than a decade earlier.

This is the definitive, inside story of its long fight for freedom. Told through Miller's personal experiences, vivid front-line dispatches and illuminating interviews with unforgettable characters, The War Came To Us takes readers on a riveting journey through the key locales and pivotal events of Ukraine's modern history. From the coal-dusted, sunflower-covered steppe of the Donbas in the far east to the heart of the Euromaidan revolution camp in Kyiv; from the Black Sea shores of Crimea, where Russian troops stealthily annexed Ukraine's peninsula, to the bloody battlefields where Cossacks roamed before the Kremlin's warlords ruled with iron fists; and through the horror and destruction wrought by Russian forces in Bucha, Bakhmut, Mariupol, and beyond.

With candor, wit and sensitivity, Miller captures Ukraine in all its glory: vast, defiant, resilient, and full of wonder. A breathtaking narrative that is at times both poignant and inspiring, The War Came To Us is the story of an American who fell in love with a foreign place and its people - and witnessed them do extraordinary things to escape the long shadow of their former imperial ruler and preserve their independence. This updated paperback edition features a new foreword from the author reflecting on the conflict and never-before-seen photographs.

The astonishing inside story of the Wagner Group, the world's deadliest militia.

In June 2023, the Wagner Group assembled an armed convoy that included tanks and rocket launchers and set out on what seemed like a journey to take control of Moscow. The last person to attempt such a venture was Adolf Hitler.

Wagner's power began from patronage, then grew from international theft and extortion, until it was so great it exposed the weakness of Russia's conventional military and became a threat to the Russian state, one that was not demonstrably eliminated until a private jet containing Wagner's core commanders was blown up in midair.

That Yevgeny Prigozhin, a local criminal thug, was able to build a private army that was on the threshold of overwhelming the world's second largest country seems incredible. In fact, it was inevitable following the hollowing out of the Russian military, the creeping use of contract groups for murky foreign missions, power struggles inside the Kremlin, and the ability of the new militias to corner and exploit the black economy.

Told with unique inside sourcing and expertise, Putin's Sledgehammer is a gripping and terrifying account of a superpower that contracted its soul to a pitiless militia.

Fiona Hill and other U.S. public servants have been recognized as Guardians of the Year in TIME's 2019 Person of the Year issue.

From the KGB to the Kremlin: a multidimensional portrait of the man at war with the West.

Where do Vladimir Putin's ideas come from? How does he look at the outside world? What does he want, and how far is he willing to go?

The great lesson of the outbreak of World War I in 1914 was the danger of misreading the statements, actions, and intentions of the adversary. Today, Vladimir Putin has become the greatest challenge to European security and the global world order in decades. Russia's 8,000 nuclear weapons underscore the huge risks of not understanding who Putin is.

Featuring five new chapters, this new edition dispels potentially dangerous misconceptions about Putin and offers a clear-eyed look at his objectives. It presents Putin as a reflection of deeply ingrained Russian ways of thinking as well as his unique personal background and experience.

Praise for the first edition:

If you want to begin to understand Russia today, read this book.--Sir John Scarlett, former chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6)

For anyone wishing to understand Russia's evolution since the breakup of the Soviet Union and its trajectory since then, the book you hold in your hand is an essential guide.--John McLaughlin, former deputy director of U.S. Central Intelligence

Of the many biographies of Vladimir Putin that have appeared in recent years, this one is the most useful.--Foreign Affairs

This is not just another Putin biography. It is a psychological portrait.--The Financial Times

Q: Do you have time to read books? If so, which ones would you recommend? My goodness, let's see. There's Mr. Putin, by Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy. Insightful.--Vice President Joseph Biden in Joe Biden: The Rolling Stone Interview.

The end of the Cold War was an opportunity--our inability to seize it has led to today's renewed era of great power competition

An eloquent and persuasive argument about how the world squandered the promise of the end of the Cold War.--Maria Lipman, Foreign Affairs

The year 1989 heralded a unique prospect for an enduring global peace as harsh ideological divisions and conflicts began to be resolved. Now, three decades on, that peace has been lost. With war in Ukraine and increasing tensions between China, Russia, and the West, great power politics once again dominates the world stage. But could it have been different?

Richard Sakwa shows how the years before the first mass invasion of Ukraine represented a hiatus in conflict rather than a lasting accord--and how, since then, we have been in a Second Cold War. Tracing the mistakes on both sides that led to the current crisis, Sakwa considers the resurgence of China and Russia and the disruptions and ambitions of the liberal order that opened up catastrophic new lines of conflict.

This is a vital, strongly argued account of how the world lost its chance at peace, and instead saw the return of war in Europe, global rivalries, and nuclear brinksmanship.

The raging question in the world today is who is the real Vladimir Putin and what are his intentions. Karen Dawisha's brilliant Putin's Kleptocracy provides an answer, describing how Putin got to power, the cabal he brought with him, the billions they have looted, and his plan to restore the Greater Russia.

Russian scholar Dawisha describes and exposes the origins of Putin's kleptocratic regime. She presents extensive new evidence about the Putin circle's use of public positions for personal gain even before Putin became president in 2000. She documents the establishment of Bank Rossiya, now sanctioned by the US; the rise of the Ozero cooperative, founded by Putin and others who are now subject to visa bans and asset freezes; the links between Putin, Petromed, and Putin's Palace near Sochi; and the role of security officials from Putin's KGB days in Leningrad and Dresden, many of whom have maintained their contacts with Russian organized crime.

Putin's Kleptocracy is the result of years of research into the KGB and the various Russian crime syndicates. Dawisha's sources include Stasi archives; Russian insiders; investigative journalists in the US, Britain, Germany, Finland, France, and Italy; and Western officials who served in Moscow. Russian journalists wrote part of this story when the Russian media was still free. Many of them died for this story, and their work has largely been scrubbed from the Internet, and even from Russian libraries, Dawisha says. But some of that work remains.

Force Structure, Tactics, and Modernization of the Russian Ground Forces

The mighty Soviet Army is no more. The feckless Russian Army that stumbled into Chechnya is no more. Today's Russian Army is modern, better manned, better equipped and designed for maneuver combat under nuclear-threatened conditions. This is your source for the tactics, equipment, force structure and theoretical underpinnings of a major Eurasian power.

Here's what the experts are saying:

A superb baseline study for understanding how and why the modern Russian Army functions as it does.

Essential for specialist and generalist alike.

-Colonel (Ret) David M. Glantz, foremost Western author on the Soviet Union in World War II and Editor of The Journal of Slavic Military Studies.

Congratulations to Les Grau and Chuck Bartles on filling a gap which has yawned steadily wider since the end of the USSR. Their book addresses evolving Russian views on war, including the blurring of its nature and levels, and the consequent Russian approaches to the Ground Forces' force structuring, manning, equipping, and tactics. Confidence is conferred on the validity of their arguments and conclusions by copious footnoting, mostly from an impressive array of primary sources. It is this firm grounding in Russian military writings, coupled with the authors' understanding of war and the Russian way of thinking about it, that imparts such an authoritative tone to this impressive work.

-Charles Dick, former Director of the Combat Studies Research Centre, Senior Fellow at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, author of the 1991 British Army Field Manual, Volume 2, A Treatise on Soviet Operational Art and author of From Victory to Stalemate The Western Front, Summer 1944 and From Defeat to Victory, The Eastern Front, Summer 1944.

Dr. Lester Grau's and Chuck Bartles' professional research on the Russian Armed Forces is widely read throughout the world and especially in Russia. Russia's Armed Forces have changed much since the large-scale reforms of 2008, which brought the Russian Army to the level of the world's other leading armies. The speed of reform combined with limited information about their core mechanisms represented a difficult challenge to the authors. They have done a great job and created a book which could be called an encyclopedia of the modern armed forces of Russia. They used their wisdom and talents to explore vital elements of the Russian military machine: the system of recruitment and training, structure of units of different levels, methods and tactics in defense and offence and even such little-known fields as the Arctic forces and the latest Russian combat robotics.

-Dr. Vadim Kozyulin, Professor of Military Science and Project Director, Project on Asian Security, Emerging Technologies and Global Security Project PIR Center, Moscow.

Probably the best book on the Russian Armed Forces published in North America during the past ten years.

A must read for all analysts and professionals following Russian affairs. A reliable account of the strong and weak aspects of the Russian Army. Provides the first look on what the Russian Ministry of Defense learned from best Western practices and then applied them on Russian soil.

-Ruslan Pukhov, Director of the Moscow-based Centre for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST) and member of the Public Council of the Russian Federation Ministry of Defense. Author of Brothers Armed: Military Aspects of the Crisis in Ukraine, Russia's New Army, and The Tanks of August.

Since the October Revolution of 1917 there has been considerable debate among both socialists and enemies of socialism on the class nature of the Soviet Union. This debate waxed and waned over time in good measure as a function of the international policies of the Soviet Union and its enemies. We have seen a great revival of interest in the question among sympathizers of Cultural Revolution era of the People's Republic of China, which in 1967 had claimed that capitalism has been restored in the Soviet Union. Many of the issues and arguments raised by various branches of the Trotskyist movement in the 1930s and 1940s are once again being discussed and supported by the Maoist camp in response to this debate. On the other hand defenders of the Soviet Union continue to claim that the country was socialist, and this book expounds in detail just why socialism was indeed still prevailing in the Soviet Union at the time of it's publication in the late 1970's and early 80's.