April 2014 Newsletter

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April 2014 Newsletter
 
The Jamestown Foundation Leadership: Glen E. Howard, President
At a Glance

Jamestown Coverage of Ukraine

Senior Fellow Willy Lam’s Forecast

Ukrainian Analyst Maksym Bugriy

Abubakar Siddique’s New Book

Featured Publications 

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Jamestown Covers Events in Crimea and Ukraine
In the month of April, The Jamestown Foundation held two public events on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The first event centered on the Russian annexation of Crimea and featured Paul Goble, Idil Izmirli, Pavel Baev, and Stephen Blank. The second event covered actions taken in the subsequent weeks by Ukraine, Russia and Western actors and was comprised of two panels. The keynote speaker was Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States, Olexander Motsyk. The first panel featured Matthew Rojansky, Maksym Bugriy and Vladimir Socor moderated by Jamestown President Glen Howard while the second was moderated by Ambassador William Miller with remarks by Ambassador John Herbst, Ambassador Matthew Bryza, and Ambassador Žygimantas Pavilionis.
 
Flashpoint: Crimea
 
On Tuesday, April 1, The Jamestown Foundation held a panel discussion on the turbulent situation in Crimea. The event, titled “Flashpoint: Crimea,” opened with remarks by Paul Goble, who explained the far-reaching implications of the Russian annexation of Crimea for the rest of the post-Soviet space as well as discussed the impact this situation will have on the Crimean Tatars—an ethnic group indigenous to the area. While taking questions from the audience, Goble added later that no US Government–created map should show Crimea as part of the Russian Federation. His talk was followed by Idil Izmirli, who placed the March 18 annexation of Crimea in a wider historical context of the growing atmosphere of oppression the Crimean Tatars have been experiencing at the hands of xenophobic Russian nationalist forces present on the peninsula. Pavel Baev then provided his analysis of the Russian military situation on the border of Ukraine, and predicted that Moscow is more likely than not to invade Eastern Ukraine because Vladimir Putin is acting on a string of recent successes. Ending this momentum by backing down at this point, Baev argued, will be akin to failure for the Kremlin that would have deleterious consequences for the ruling regime domestically. Finally, Stephen Blank provided a series of policy recommendations for the United States and Europe, including scrapping the recently proposed US defense budget and rewriting it to reflect the new threats posed by a revanchist Russia.
 
Ukraine’s Crisis, Russia’s Policy, Western Responses
 
On Monday, April 21, The Jamestown Foundation held a half-day event on the turbulent situation in Ukraine. The event, titled “Ukraine’s Crisis, Russia’s Policy, Western Responses,” opened with remarks by Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States Olexander Motsyk, who discussed his country’s plans for dealing with the crisis and integrating into the West. His opening address was followed by the first panel, which focused on issues related to regime change and state continuity in Ukraine. Matthew Rojansky, the director of the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center, began by speaking about the Maidan revolutionary movement. Visiting Jamestown fellow Maksym Bugriy spoke next about the cross-cutting interests between the Ukrainian oligarchs, the central government and the military in eastern Ukraine. Jamestown Senior Fellow Vladimir Socor concluded the panel by discussing the dangers to Ukraine’s statehood inherent in Moscow’s plans to federalize the country. The second panel, which charted U.S. and European responses to the crisis, began with former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst’s assessment of Washington’s response to the situation. Next, Lithuania’s Ambassador to the United States Žygimantas Pavilionis detailed what Europe must do to respond to Russia’s aggression and Ukraine’s weaknesses. Finally, Ambassador Matthew Bryza, the Director of the International Centre for Defense Studies in Tallinn, Estonia, and a former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, placed the Ukraine crisis in a wider context of rethinking collective security in Europe.
Senior Fellow Willy Lam on China

Domestic security is set to take center stage following more evidence of instability in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. President Xi Jinping, who visited Xinjiang in late April, is set to come up with tougher measures to deal with quasi-terrorist activities not only in Xinjiang and Tibet but also other parts of the country.

More officials connected with the corruption ring that is allegedly headed by former Politburo Standing Committee member Zhou Yongkang may be arrested or face public prosecution. This is despite the fact that Xi has encountered tough resistance from party elders, including ex-president Jiang Zemin, not to make a public move against Zhou, who has been under house arrest since late 2013. At the same time, Xi, who is also commander-in-chief, is pushing forward an unprecedented anti-graft operation within the People’s Liberation Army.

Diplomatically, the focus will be on Premier Li Keqiang’s visit to the four African nations of Ethiopia, Nigeria, Angola and Kenya from May 4 to 11. This will coincide with the 50th anniversary of former premier Zhou Enlai’s visit to Africa, which was hailed as a landmark event in China’s relations with the developing world. Li is expected to sign a number of deals involving energy and raw materials.

Jamestown Welcomes Maksym Bugriy

The Jamestown Foundation welcomed Ukrainian analyst Maksym Bugriy to the Washington office as a short term non-resident fellow for the month of April. Bugriy specializes in Ukraine and the CIS region, international economics and international security. Mr. Bugriy has broad career experience as an analyst and researcher with leading Ukrainian think tanks, including The Institute of Euro-Atlantic Cooperation and the Ukrainian Institute for Public Policy. During 2011, he was a public servant as the Head of the Geo-Economics Sector with the Ukrainian Presidential think tank The National Institute for Strategic Studies. Prior to working as an international affairs analyst, Mr. Bugriy spent more than ten years working as a research analyst and corporate finance associate with regional leading investment banks, including Troika Dialog (2006–2010). He graduated with an MBA from Catalica Lisbon School of Business and Economics and a Master’s of Finance from the National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv. Currently he is a PhD researcher in National Economic Security with the National Institute for Strategic Studies. 

Abubakar Siddique’s New Book
The Jamestown Foundation is proud to announce that one of our analysts, Abubakar Siddique, has recently released a new book entitled The Pashtun Question: The Unresolved Key to the Future of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The book covers the importance of the Pashtuns to both nations in their pursuit of lasting peace. To purchase the book, please click here.
Featured Publications
Conflict Zones: North Caucasus and Western Balkans Compared by Janusz Bugajski

The Jamestown Foundation is proud to announce the release of Janusz Bugajski’s landmark study of the increasingly unstable North Caucasus. Comparing the region to the war-ravaged Western Balkans of the 1990s, Mr. Bugajski argues that the North Caucasus are poised to inherit the status as the “powder keg” of Europe. In addition to reviewing the region’s recent history and making forecasts for the future, Mr. Bugajski offers suggestions and proposals for a more active approach by Western governments to defuse conflicts in the region.

 
**Conflict Zones is available for free on our website! To download your copy, please click here**
 
Janusz Bugajski is a foreign policy analyst based in the United States. His positions include non-resident Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and host of the television show “Bugajski Hour,” broadcast in the Balkans. Bugajski is the author of 18 books on Europe, Russia, and trans-Atlantic relations and is a regular contributor to various U.S. and European publications.

 
The Crimea: Europe’s Next Flashpoint?

In light of the recent events in Crimea, The Jamestown Foundation has decided to re-release its November 2010 Occasional Report: The Crimea; Europe’s Next Flashpoint.  Authored by the noted Ukrainian security expert Taras Kuzio, the report was four years ahead of its time and predicted that Russia and Ukraine would one day be locked again in a struggle over the strategic peninsula.  As the report noted back in 2010, Russia has always had a difficult time reconciling itself to accepting Ukraine as an independent state and a country. It had an even more impossible time recognizing Ukraine’s sovereignty over Crimea and the port of Sevastopol. The report remains a unique in-depth analysis of Russian-Ukraine relations and retraces the steps of Russian leaders and politicians from the 1990s to November 2010 and Moscow’s quest to regain control of Crimea.

*Click here to purchase this report*

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