This collection of 22 essays analyses the Russian military in its social, political, economic, cultural and ideological contexts from 1450 to 1917.The essays are synthetic, and often based on new archival research.

"Integrating military history into the broader themes of Russian history, and drawing comparisons to developments in Europe, Stone traces Russia's fascinating military history, and its long struggle to master Western military technology without Western social and political institutions. Starting with the military dimensions of the emergence of Muscovy and the disastrous reign of Ivan the Terrible, he traces Russia's emergence as a great power under Peter the Great, and her mixed record following her triumph in the Napoleonic wars. The Russian Revolution created a new Soviet Russia, but this book shows how the Soviet Union's harrowing experience in World War II owed much to Imperial Russian precedents."--BOOK JACKET.

"The chapters included in this volume all come from an international conference on the Russian military that aimed to examine the Russian military establishment as much as possible, including its domestic developments, the ability of Russia's economy, and in particular, its science and technology sectors. Given the ongoing aggressiveness of the Russian military, this effort to present an all-encompassing look at it is not only essential reading but also quite unique in the existing literature" -- Publisher's web site.

Is America in a new Cold War with Russia? How does a new Cold War affect the safety and security of the United States? Does Vladimir Putin really want to destabilize the West? What should Donald Trump and America’s allies do? America is in a new Cold War with Russia even more dangerous than the one the world barely survived in the twentieth century. The Soviet Union is gone, but the two nuclear superpowers are again locked in political and military confrontations, now from Ukraine to Syria. All of this is exacerbated by Washington’s war-like demonizing of the Kremlin leadership and by Russiagate’s unprecedented allegations. US mainstream media accounts are highly selective and seriously misleading. American “disinformation,” not only Russian, is a growing peril. In War With Russia?, Stephen F. Cohen—the widely acclaimed historian of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia—gives readers a very different, dissenting narrative of this more dangerous new Cold War from its origins in the 1990s, the actual role of Vladimir Putin, and the 2014 Ukrainian crisis to Donald Trump’s election and today’s unprecedented Russiagate allegations. Topics include: Distorting Russia US Follies and Media Malpractices 2016 The Obama Administration Escalates Military Confrontation With Russia Was Putin’s Syria Withdrawal Really A “Surprise”? Trump vs. Triumphalism Has Washington Gone Rogue? Blaming Brexit on Putin and Voters Washington Warmongers, Moscow Prepares Trump Could End the New Cold War The Real Enemies of US Security Kremlin-Baiting President Trump Neo-McCarthyism Is Now Politically Correct Terrorism and Russiagate Cold-War News Not “Fit to Print” Has NATO Expansion Made Anyone Safer? Why Russians Think America Is Attacking Them How Washington Provoked—and Perhaps Lost—a New Nuclear-Arms Race Russia Endorses Putin, The US and UK Condemn Him (Again) Russophobia Sanction Mania Cohen’s views have made him, it is said, “America’s most controversial Russia expert.” Some say this to denounce him, others to laud him as a bold, highly informed critic of US policies and the dangers they have helped to create. War With Russia? gives readers a chance to decide for themselves who is right: are we living, as Cohen argues, in a time of unprecedented perils at home and abroad?

A detailed and carefully structured study of Soviet/Russian attitudes and responses to military interventions. It explores cases from the Gulf War in 1990 to the intervention led by Western states in Libya in 2011.

No nation is a stranger to war, but for Russians war is a central part of who they are. Their “motherland” has been the battlefield where some of the largest armies have clashed, the most savage battles have been fought, the highest death tolls paid. Having prevailed over Mongol hordes and vanquished Napoleon and Hitler, many Russians believe no other nation has sacrificed so much for the world. In Russia: The Story of War Gregory Carleton explores how this belief has produced a myth of exceptionalism that pervades Russian culture and politics and has helped forge a national identity rooted in war. While outsiders view Russia as an aggressor, Russians themselves see a country surrounded by enemies, poised in a permanent defensive crouch as it fights one invader after another. Time and again, history has called upon Russia to play the savior—of Europe, of Christianity, of civilization itself—and its victories, especially over the Nazis in World War II, have come at immense cost. In this telling, even defeats lose their sting. Isolation becomes a virtuous destiny and the whole of its bloody history a point of pride. War is the unifying thread of Russia’s national epic, one that transcends its wrenching ideological transformations from the archconservative empire to the radical-totalitarian Soviet Union to the resurgent nationalism of the country today. As Putin’s Russia asserts itself in ever bolder ways, knowing how the story of its war-torn past shapes the present is essential to understanding its self-image and worldview.

Russian annexation of Crimea and the subsequent air campaign over Syria took the world by surprise. The capabilities and efficiency of Moscow’s armed forces during both operations signalled to the world that Russia was back in business as a significant military actor on the international stage. In this cutting-edge study, Bettina Renz provides an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of Russia’s military revival under Putin’s leadership. Whilst the West must adjust to the reality of a modernised and increasingly powerful Russian military, she argues that the renaissance of Russian military might and its implications for the balance of global power can only be fully understood within a wider historical context. Assessing developments in Russian Great Power thinking, military capabilities, Russian strategic thought and views on the use of force throughout the post-Soviet era, the book shows that, rather than signifying a sudden Russian military resurgence, recent developments are consistent with longstanding trends in Russian military strategy and foreign policy.