All Policy Analysis by Anna Borshchevskaya

Years of U.S. involvement visibly advanced the dignity and prospects of Afghan women, but wholly abandoning them now would risk undoing much of this progress.

Leading scholars examine the origins and current trends of Russian involvement in the Middle East, as well as implications for U.S. strategy in the region.

A former U.S. ambassador to Russia joins two experts for a discussion on what the six-year intervention can tell us about Moscow’s broader foreign policy.

The Russian leader defied expectations of a quixotic, costly outcome for his country’s 2015 intervention in Syria. As it actually played out, explains Anna Borshchevskaya in her recently published book, Russia leveraged the conflict and U.S. inaction to position itself as a leading power in the Middle East.

Putin has a long list of achievements in the Middle East and is not leaving the stage anytime soon, so Washington must respond to the hardnosed realism that drives him to undermine U.S. influence.

The coming violence could spill over into Russia, perhaps emboldening terrorist groups to recruit radicalized Muslims there.

Although Biden may not see Russia as his top priority, Moscow’s proxy military activities in the Mediterranean are directly aimed at diluting Washington’s leverage in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe.

Whether or not Russian leaders genuinely believe the Taliban will turn into a responsible stakeholder, they will likely be rewarded with more international and regional clout at Washington’s expense.

Institute scholars share their insights into how the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the rapid fall of the country to the Taliban will affect the American strategic position across the Middle East and our relationships with allies, partners, and adversaries

Moscow has repeatedly played actors off each other to secure its own interests and keep the Assad regime in power.

Despite its consistent rhetoric toward Moscow, the administration has not yet demonstrated its strategic understanding that ceding too much operating space to Russia will hurt U.S. efforts to confront China.

Moscow would have the world believe that the best route to stability is legitimizing a dictator who plunged his country into war and destabilized the entire Middle East.

If Washington continues to deprioritize the Middle East, Russia will accelerate its convergence with Iran and essentially determine Syria’s future, which could result in a more explicit and dangerous nexus between these actors.

Moscow is using calibrated military power and complex diplomacy to persuade Turkey, Qatar, and other countries to back its solutions.

Wishful thinking aside, Moscow will continue to push solely for its own interests in these discussions, which for the foreseeable future means empowering Assad.

Moscow has intensified its military deployments in sensitive areas and continued its counterproductive diplomatic track, exhibiting a long-game mindset that Washington needs to match.

To expand its strategic influence on the Mediterranean, Moscow is exploiting Beirut and Hezbollah’s crisis at a time when the West seems uncertain about how much to intervene.

Simply waiting for Russia to decline has not prevented the Kremlin's aggressive and destabilizing behavior in various regions, and may even have encouraged it.

Washington has prioritized counterterrorism for years and is only now shifting to great-power competition, but Moscow has never lost sight of geopolitics, and its actions in the region should be seen through that lens.

The omissions in Moscow’s statements on the U.S. operation are as revealing as the predictable hyperbole and hypocrisy.