The report explores Carnegie Corporation's 50-year history of association with, first, the Soviet Union, then Russia and other successor states. The Corporation's Russia Initiative was launched in October of 1999 in the realization that, as Russia's economic, political, military and social situation deteriorated, we could not continue to conduct business as usual with respect to our grantmaking activity in that country. Further, the Russia Initiative was born in a climate of increasing Russia fatigue in the U.S., a malaise that led to a somewhat disingenuous debate over who lost Russia. As this debate continues to unfold, there is the danger that the unwarranted optimism of the post-Communist years of the early 1990s will be supplanted by an equally unjustified pessimism about Russia's future. Under the influence of this mood swing, policymakers in both Russia and the West currently appear to be at a loss about how to interact and about what kind of relationship Russia can, or should now have, with the western world.
Citation: Russia Initiative: Reports of the Four Task Forces (Carnegie Corporation of New York, 2001)
Program: International Peace and Security
