October 21, 2014

Don't Mistake Russia for Iran

By Elizabeth Rosenberg

With sanctions beginning to bite, Russia is starting to play a new economic game. To alleviate the pain of Western restrictions on its financial and energy sectors, Russia is turning for help to non-Western partners. Last week alone, Russia and China signed over 40 agreements that provide Russian firms with lines of credit worth billions of dollars and establish strategic partnerships in the energy sector.

The United States, in turn, is looking to step up its own game. Policymakers are considering giving global companies a choice: stop providing long-term financing and energy assistance to major Russian companies or be kicked out of the U.S. financial system. Such measures resemble the sanctions the United States placed on Iran a couple of years ago. But Iran was a different problem. And treating Russia the same way would be a mistake.

Read the full piece on Foreign Affairs.

More from CNAS

  • Podcast
    • December 6, 2019
    Celeste Wallander on Ukraine

    Celeste Wallander, President and CEO of the U.S. Russia Foundation, joins Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Jim Townsend to discuss Russian operations in Ukraine and the U.S. response...

    By Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Jim Townsend & Celeste Wallander

  • Commentary
    • Foreign Policy
    • December 5, 2019
    NATO Is Struggling Under Trans-Atlantic Tensions

    NATO leaders gathered in London this week for a brief summit marking the alliance’s 70th anniversary. The trans-Atlantic community looked on with trepidation—not because there...

    By Jim Townsend & Andrea Kendall-Taylor

  • Podcast
    • December 2, 2019
    Josh Shifrinson and Jim Goldgeier Discuss NATO Expansion

    Jim Goldgeier, Professor of International Relations at American University, and Josh Shifrinson, Professor of International Relations at Boston University, join Andrea Kendall...

    By Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Jim Townsend, James Goldgeier & Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson

  • Podcast
    • November 22, 2019
    Moscow, Beijing, and the Future of Russia-China Relations with Dmitri Trenin

    In a period of such rapid global change, how does the Kremlin view China? Dmitri Trenin, Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, joins Andrea Kendall-Taylor to discuss Russian...

    By Andrea Kendall-Taylor & Dmitri Trenin

View All Reports View All Articles & Multimedia