Election 2016: Russia and the Next US President

Beyond the campaign, a new US President will need to deal with Vladimir Putin’s Russia with more than rhetoric. Kennan Institute Director Matt Rojanksy frames the challenge facing the next administration.

Guest
Matthew Rojansky is an expert on U.S. relations with the states of the former Soviet Union, especially Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. He has advised governments, intergovernmental organizations, and major private actors on conflict resolution and efforts to enhance shared security throughout the Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian region. From 2010 to 2013, he was Deputy Director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. There, he founded Carnegie's Ukraine Program, led a multi-year project to support U.S.-Russia health cooperation, and created a track-two task force to promote resolution of the Moldova-Transnistria conflict. From 2007 to 2010, Rojansky served as executive director of the Partnership for a Secure America (PSA). Founded by former congressman Lee Hamilton (D-IN) and former senator Warren Rudman (R-NH) with a group of two dozen former senior leaders from both political parties, PSA seeks to rebuild bipartisan dialogue and productive debate on U.S. national security and foreign policy challenges. While at PSA, Rojansky orchestrated high-level bipartisan initiatives aimed at repairing the U.S.-Russian relationship, strengthening the U.S. commitment to nuclear arms control and nonproliferation, and leveraging global science engagement for diplomacy. Rojansky is an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS, and serves as U.S. Executive Secretary for the Dartmouth Conference, a track-two U.S.-Russian conflict resolution initiative begun in 1960. He has lectured at colleges and universities throughout the United States, Russia and Europe. He is frequently interviewed on TV and radio, and his writing has appeared in the International Herald Tribune, the Washington Post, and Foreign Policy.