The authors argue that Vladimir Putin and his advisors are committed to re-establishing Russia as a great power and that the existence of nuclear weapons and the revival of the Russian economy have provided the foundations for an expanded Russian role in global affairs.

Autorentext
JOHN BERRYMAN Lecturer in International Relations, Birkbeck, University of London, UK ROBERT O. FREEDMAN Peggy Meyerhoff Pearlstone Professor of Political Science and President Emeritus, Baltimore Hebrew University, USA GRAEME P. HERD Resident Faculty Member, Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), Switzerland LARISA HOMARAC Graduate Student, Department of International Studies, University of Miami, USA NIKITA A. LOMAGIN Associate Professor, School of Economics, St. Petersburg State University and the European University, St. Petersburg, Russia SUSANNE NIES Research Director, Institute for International and Strategic Relations (IRIS), Paris, France BERTIL NYGREN Associate Professor of Political Science, Swedish National Defence College and Department of Political Science, Stockholm University, Sweden INGMAR OLDBERG Associate Director of Research, Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI), Sweden VLADIMIR RUKAVISHNIKOV Professor, Department of Global Politics and International Relations, State University-Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia

Inhalt
Introduction: The Consolidation of Russia's Role in World Affairs; R.E.Kanet PART I: RUSSIAN STRATEGY UNDER PUTIN Russia's Great Power Ambitions and Policy under Putin; I.Oldberg Forming a New Security Identity under Vladimir Putin; N.Lomagin Choices for Russia: Preserving Inherited Geopolitics through Emergent Global and European Realities; V.Rukavishnikov PART II: RUSSIA, THE CIS AND THE WORLD BEYOND Russia's Transnistria Policy: Means, Ends and Great Power Trajectories; G.P.Herd Putin's Attempts to Subjugate Georgia: From Sabre-Rattling to the Power of the Purse; B.Nygren Governance and Diplomacy as Attributes of a Great Power: Russia and the Three Enclaves Kaliningrad, Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhchivan; S.Nies Russia and China in the New Central Asia: The Security Agenda; J.Berryman The U.S. Challenge to Russian Influence in Central Asia and the Caucasus; R.E.Kanet & L.Homarac Russia, Iran and the Nuclear Question: The Putin Record; R.O.Freedman Conclusion: Russia as a Re-emerging Great Power; R.E.Kanet