Program on U.S.-Russian Relations
The Nixon Center's Program on U.S.-Russian Relations is directed by Nixon Center President Dimitri K. Simes and Director Paul J. Saunders.
Mr. Simes is the author of After the Collapse: Russia Seeks Its Place As a Great Power, released in March 1999. The book, published by Simon & Schuster, traces the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of the new, independent and assertive Russia. It draws on Richard Nixon's personal insights into Russia's transition taken from Mr. Simes' four trips to the USSR and Russia with the former President.
Mr. Saunders has done extensive work on the links between organized crime, business, and government in Russia and their implications for the country's internal evolution and foreign policy, with a particular emphasis on their impact on U.S. political and economic interests.
The Program on U.S.-Russian Relations also organizes regular seminars with visiting officials and political leaders from Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union. Past speakers have included Minister without Portfolio Aleksandr Livshits, Economics Minister Yevgeny Yasin, Duma International Affairs Committee Chairman Dmitry Rogozin, leader of the pro-government Duma faction Sergei Belyaev, Yeltsin foreign policy advisor Dmitri Ryurikov, and Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Mamedov. Several key opposition leaders have also appeared at the Center, such as nationalist politician General Aleksandr Lebed, Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, pro-reform Yabloko party head Grigory Yavlinsky, and former Vice President Aleksandr Rutskoi.
Currently, the Center is jointly sponsoring a U.S.-Russian Dialogue with the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, led by Duma International Affairs Committee Chairman Dmitry Rogozin. American participants in the dialogue have included Center Board members James Schlesinger, Brent Scowcroft, Charles G. Boyd, Eugene K. Lawson, and Lionel H. Olmer. The first two sessions of the dialogue were held in April and October of 2001, in Moscow and Washington respectively. The next will take place in Moscow in Spring 2002. The dialogue is made possible by the support of the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
