Understanding Moscow’s Foreign Policy: Historical Perspectives and Contemporary Dilemmas

In this talk, Sergey Radchenko will explore the underlying motivations of Soviet and Russian foreign policies. Drawing on recently declassified documents, he will explain the relationship between Soviet foreign policy and domestic legitimacy, and trace continuities in Moscow’s policymaking between the Cold War and the present day

Sergey Radchenko is the Wilson E. Schmidt Distinguished Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He has written extensively on the Cold War, nuclear history, and on Russian and Chinese foreign and security policies. He has served as a Global Fellow and a Public Policy Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Centre and as the Zi Jiang Distinguished Professor at East China Normal University (Shanghai). Professor Radchenko’s books include Two Suns in the Heavens: the Sino-Soviet Struggle for Supremacy (Wilson Center Press & Stanford UP, 2009) and Unwanted Visionaries: the Soviet Failure in Asia (Oxford UP, 2014). Professor Radchenko is a native of Sakhalin Island, Russia, was educated in the US, Hong Kong, and the UK, where he received his PhD in 2005 (LSE). Before he joined SAIS, Professor Radchenko worked and lived in Mongolia, China, and Wales.

This event will be held virtually as a Zoom meeting.