Russia's Asia Strategy: Bolstering the Eagle's Eastern Wing
Among Russia’s strategic priorities, Asia traditionally played a secondary role compared to the West. In the mid-1990s, then Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov initiated a rapprochement with China and India. Then, in 2014, deteriorating relations between Russia and the West prompted Moscow to begin its “great pivot to the East”.
Russia’s “new” Asian policy must avoid two pitfalls: focusing excessively on China, and managing relations with the countries of the region in a strictly bilateral way. Bilateral relations, even with China, need to be parts of a whole, and closely coordinated with other parts. As part of a broader Asian-Pacific strategy, Moscow should seek to build a “Great Eurasia”. This requires an integrated approach to the region as a whole, and an overall approach that embraces geopolitical, geo-economic, military, informational and cultural dimensions.
Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, has been with the center since its inception. He chairs the center’s Research Council and its
Foreign and Security Policy Program. From 1993–1997, he was a senior research fellow at the Institute of Europe in Moscow. In 1993, he was a senior research fellow at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Defense College in Rome. He served in the Soviet and Russian armed forces from 1972 to 1993, including experience working as a liaison officer in the external relations branch of the Group of Soviet Forces (stationed in Potsdam) and as a staff member of the delegation to the United States (US)-Soviet nuclear arms talks in Geneva from 1985 to 1991. He also taught at the War Studies Department of the Military Institute of Moscow from 1986 to 1993.
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Russia's Asia Strategy: Bolstering the Eagle's Eastern Wing
Russia/Eurasia Center
Founded in 2005 within Ifri, the Russia/Eurasia Center conducts research and organizes debates on Russia, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the South Caucasus. Its goal is to understand and anticipate the evolution of this complex and rapidly changing geographical area in order to enrich public discourse in France and Europe and to assist in strategic, political, and economic decision-making.
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