Twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation has struggled to construct a new foreign policy paradigm in a world that is no longer bipolar. Instead of the Cold War era arms stockpiles, Moscow has signed multiple Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties (START), and instead of physically taking over neighboring territories, increasing diplomacy and economic incentives have become Moscow’s primary tool to garner and maintain influence in its near abroad. Soft power initiatives, that can all roughly fit into a foreign aid model, from the Russian Federation to the near abroad come in different forms: oil subsidies, aid in kind, and direct financial investment. The Russian Federation has used all three of these strategies in Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union in an attempt to keep the country in its sphere of influence. The use of foreign aid, be it oil subsides, aid in kind, or direct financial aid, all work towards the same goal of promoting Russian policies and interests in the near abroad. Ukraine, with its unique political, cultural and geographical importance, demonstrates the new struggle between Russia and the West. The struggle’s main actors are the Russian Federation against the eastern half of NATO and the EU, and the conclusion is unclear. Foreign aid and soft power are now playing a critical role in the outcome.

This dissertation aims to investigate the sources of United States (US) foreign policy toward Azerbaijan by examining the relative impact of domestic, geostrategic and structural factors in explaining US foreign policy toward the country. Azerbaijan is one of the newly independent states that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Despite its small size, the country’s strategic location, vast oil and natural gas reserves, and its conflict with Armenia over the Nagorno- Karabakh region elevated its importance and made Azerbaijan the center of interest for great powers. As the sole superpower after the end of the Cold War, the US has largely followed a unilateral foreign policy agenda. US foreign policy toward the South Caucasus in general, and Azerbaijan in particular, has been marked by inconsistencies, and by a lack of coordination and an unwillingness to take the initiative in crucial issue areas. Most importantly, experts have observed several important shifts in US policy toward Azerbaijan. These shifts can be conceptualized as critical junctures as they represent fundamental changes in the orientation of US policy. The dissertation is focused on these critical junctures as they relate to four main issue areas: the political economy of oil, the security partnership, economic reforms, and human rights. Why did the US disengage from Caspian energy issues after the successful completion of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline? Why did the US lose its commitment to Azerbaijani security, including the peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict? Why did the US grow unhappy about the investment climate in Azerbaijan in the 2000s? Why did the Obama administration decide to shift to a “human rights policy” toward Baku, despite two decades of neglect of such issues by the Clinton and Bush Administrations? This dissertation follows a chronological format and analyzes the sources of US foreign policy towards Azerbaijan in three time periods: 1991-2001, 2002-2007, and 2008-2015.

In 1958 the United States and United Kingdom signed the Mutual Defense Agreement which allowed the two countries to share information and technology concerning nuclear weapons. This paper examines the history of this agreement and the Polaris and Trident Sales agreements which followed. The main focus of the paper is the motivating interests of both countries to maintain these agreements today.

In examining the military atmosphere of the Soviet Army the author will attempt to get the feeling of the life of the junior officers and enlisted men. The topics covered will include training, army regulations, military law, Party influence and control within the army, career potential, pay, retirement, daily routine, promotions, induction, terms of service, medical facilities, Post Exchanges, and professional schooling available to officers and men, only to list a few. No work will be done on tactics, techniques, or weapons of the Soviet Army.

The 1648 Peace of Westphalia created an understanding of state sovereignty free from external interference that remained largely unaltered until the last century. The horrors of the Holocaust and the significant humanitarian crises of the 20th century have presented the international community with a new type of threat to international peace and security and have sparked an ongoing conversation about the limitations of traditional sovereignty. Russia has positioned itself as a firm supporter of a strict adherence to the Westphalian concept of sovereignty, but my thesis argues that Russians do not value this interpretation as much as they claim to, and that in fact Moscow recognizes that this definition is a thing of the past. I examine Russian actions surrounding the 2011 UN-sanctioned intervention in Libya and the ongoing conflict in Syria, particularly focusing on the major differences between Russian decision-making in the two cases. I analyze transcripts of Security Council meetings in order to demonstrate that there is far more to Russian actions in Syria than Moscow’s public position suggests, and I subsequently offer a number of alternative explanations for Russian decision-making surrounding Syria. These alternative explanations demonstrate that even the Russians, who have portrayed themselves as the great defenders of traditional state sovereignty, recognize the modern limitations to strict Westphalian sovereignty and understand that this traditional definition is a thing of the past. This conclusion is significant because in demonstrating that traditional sovereignty’s greatest champion acknowledges the modern shift in the concept, I prove that the departure from strict Westphalian sovereignty is not merely a theory, but a reality.

The objective of this thesis is to explain how Dmitrii Shostakovich used Yevgeny Yevtushenko's poetry to create the Thirteenth Symphony. This collaboration between two arts, poetry and music, reflects more than just separate ideas. The five movements of the symphony bring to public conscience the political opinions of Shostakovich regarding life in the Soviet Union.

The urban landscape of Yerevan has experienced tremendous changes since the collapse of the Soviet Union and Armenia’s independence in 1991. Domestic and foreign investments have poured into Yerevan’s building sector, converting many downtown neighborhoods into sleek modern districts that now cater to foreign investors, tourists, and the newly rich Armenian nationals. Large portions of the city’s green parks and other public spaces have been commercialized for private and exclusive use, creating zones that are accessible only to the affluent. In this dissertation I explore the rapidly transforming landscape of Yerevan and its connections to the development of contemporary Armenian national identity. This research was guided by principles of ethnographic inquiry, and I employed diverse methods, including document and archival research, structured and semi-structured interviews and content analysis of news media. I also used geographic information systems (GIS) and satellite images to represent and visualize the stark transformations of spaces in Yerevan. Informed by and contributing to three literatures—on the relationship between landscape and identity formation, on the construction of national identity, and on Soviet and post-Soviet cities—this dissertation investigates how messages about contemporary Armenian national identity are being expressed via the transforming landscape of Armenia’s national capital. In it I describe the ways in which abrupt transformations have resulted in the physical and symbolic eviction of residents, introducing fierce public debates about belonging and exclusion within the changing urban context. I demonstrate that the new additions to Yerevan’s landscape and the symbolic messages that they carry are hotly contested by many long-time residents, who struggle for inclusion of their opinions and interests in the process of re-imagining their national capital. This dissertation illustrates many of the trends that are apparent in post-Soviet and post-Socialist space, while at the same time exposing some unique characteristics of the Armenian case.

Government Organized Non-Governmental Organizations (GONGOs), once common during the Soviet-era, are now increasingly resurfacing under the Putin administration. Once completely abolished from Russia, these deceitful organizations are accompanying various new laws signed by President Putin in the Russian Federation. While Russia does not claim to be a liberal democracy with a free civil society and Putin has described his state as a “managed democracy,” the puzzle still remains why the Putin administration is secretly using organizations to fulfill government ploys. This thesis will analyze the types of GONGOs along with new laws and policies signed into effect under the Putin and Medvedev Administration. I conclude this thesis by partially confirming my hypothesis that president Putin is rationally choosing to create these organizations in an effort to consolidate his power and promote Russian culture.

The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze in detail the many aspects of the Soviet-Egyptian friendship as it developed from 1953 to 1970. The relationship between the two is extremely important because it provides insight into the roles of both Egypt and the Soviet Union in both the history of the Middle East and in world politics. The period from 1953 to 1970 is key in understanding the relationship between the two states because it is the period of the genesis of the relationship and a period in which both nations went through marked changes in both internal policy and their external relations.

The purpose of this thesis is to understand the circumstances that result in the inability of third-party interventions to solve civil wars. Previous research has examined the impact of third-party interventions on the outcomes of civil wars, the interests of third-party actors in civil wars, as well as the perceptions of civil war participants on third-party actors. The theory in this paper asserts that third-party interventions are unsuccessful when the government and leader of at least one country place the interest of special interest groups ahead of the national interest of their country. This research uses the war in eastern Ukraine as a case study. This thesis uses nationalist and veteran groups as the special interest group, and high officials in the presidential administration of Volodymyr Zelenskiy as the government leaders. The rhetoric of the Zelenskiy administration in regards to the prospects of instituting peace in eastern Ukraine is examined from the time span of May 2019 to March 2021. The evidence of this research demonstrates that the rhetoric administration of Zelenskiy changed from conciliatory and positive, to that of a combination of positive and negative rhetoric towards peace. These government officials attempted to appeal to their voting base, as well as the special interest groups studied. This contradicting rhetoric creates an environment of confusion in regards to ending wars and conflicts.