The new report applies this concept to today’s Russia. If this shift could be made successfully, the report concluded, the United States could prompt the Soviet Union to shift its limited resources into areas that posed less of a threat. A seminal 1972 RAND report posited that the United States needed to shift its strategic thinking away from trying to stay ahead of the Soviet Union in all dimensions and toward trying to control the competition and channel it into areas of U.S. The work builds on the concept of long-term strategic competition developed during the Cold War, some of which originated at RAND. Such cost-imposing options could place new burdens on Russia, ideally heavier burdens than would be imposed on the United States for pursuing those options. Recognizing that some level of competition with Russia is inevitable, RAND researchers conducted a qualitative assessment of “cost-imposing options” that could unbalance and overextend Russia. Such vulnerabilities are coupled with deep-seated (if exaggerated) anxieties about the possibility of Western-inspired regime change, loss of great power status, and even military attack.ĭespite these vulnerabilities and anxieties, Russia remains a powerful country that still manages to be a U.S. Today’s Russia suffers from many vulnerabilities-oil and gas prices well below peak that have caused a drop in living standards, economic sanctions that have furthered that decline, an aging and soon-to-be-declining population, and increasing authoritarianism under Vladimir Putin’s now-continued rule. The maxim that “Russia is never so strong nor so weak as it appears” remains as true in the current century as it was in the 19th and 20th. strategy for dealing with Russia, which neither the report nor this brief has attempted to do. Some of the options examined are clearly more promising than others, but any would need to be evaluated in terms of the overall U.S. This brief summarizes a report that comprehensively examines nonviolent, cost-imposing options that the United States and its allies could pursue across economic, political, and military areas to stress-overextend and unbalance-Russia’s economy and armed forces and the regime's political standing at home and abroad. However, because Russian state media entities and individuals sympathetic to Putin's decision to invade Ukraine have mischaracterized this research in recent weeks, we also encourage you to explore this helpful resource on Russia's “firehose of falsehood” approach to propaganda and our research on “Truth Decay,” which is a phenomenon that is driven in part by the spread of disinformation. Editor's Note, April 2022: We encourage you to explore this research brief and the full report that it is based on.
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