The Foreign Service Journal, March 2020

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH 2020 35 U .S. diplomats dealing with Russia need, above all, to have a firm grasp of the main trend lines in Russia’s his- tory. Spanning 1,250 years frommid- ninth-century Viking Prince Ryurik to President Vladimir Putin, in power for the last two decades, this history matters immensely. They also need to appreciate the unique advantages and attendant vulnerabilities of Russia’s geography, stretching as it does across 11 time zones from Norway in the northwest to North Korea in the southeast, and covering much of northern Eurasia in between. Equipped with a basic understanding of Russia’s roots and its physical position, they then need to be able to look at the world, including the United States, fromMoscow’s perspective. Dmitri Trenin has been director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, part of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a global think-tank, since 2008. Before joining the center in 1994, he served in the Soviet and Russian Army (1972-1993). His foreign postings included Iraq (with the military assistance group), East Germany and West Berlin (liaison with Western allies), Switzerland (INF/START talks) and Italy (NATO Defense College). He is the author of Russia (Polity, 2019), What Is Russia Up To in the Middle East? (Polity, 2017), Should We Fear Russia? (Polity, 2016), Post-Imperium: A Eurasian Story (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2011) and several other books. To fathom the Ukraine dispute, a Russian scholar and head of the Carnegie Moscow Center shares what he thinks U.S. diplomats need to know about Russia. BY DM I TR I TREN I N FOCUS ON DEALING WITH RUSSIA & UKRAINE Moscow’s Eyes AClassic Russian Perspective TheWorldThrough