WASHINGTON—The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs are pleased to announce the findings of a high-level bipartisan task force on U.S. policy toward Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia. The task force was co-chaired by former U.S. deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage and U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT).
“The relationship with Russia will remain competitive, and often adversarial, for the foreseeable future,” said Carnegie Endowment President William J. Burns. “The question is not whether to engage Russia – but how, about what, and toward what end. This report offers realistic answers to these and other important and timely questions.”
The mission of the task force was to foster awareness of the many policy challenges facing the United States and its European allies from an increasingly complex and unsettled region a quarter-century after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The findings of the task force come at a critical juncture for U.S policy, in the wake of the Kremlin’s unprecedented interference in the U.S. presidential election, and at the start of the new administration’s efforts to build a more collaborative relationship with Moscow. Over the past year, the task force has met privately with top government officials and independent experts, and published a series of white papers on topics such as cyber threats, the conflict in Ukraine, and Russia’s role in the Middle East.
“We need to have realistic expectations about what is possible in our relations with Russia,” said Council on Global Affairs President Ivo H. Daalder. “There is no grand bargain to be had. Instead, we must work from a clear understanding of our interests and commitments and a clear set of principles to advance them.”
A short overview of the task force’s key findings is contained in a paper written by Carnegie Endowment scholars Eugene Rumer, Richard Sokolsky, and Andrew S. Weiss. Their paper offers a set of principles to guide a sustainable policy toward the entire region.
The paper will be released at a launch event at 3 p.m. on February 9 at the Carnegie Endowment featuring task force co-chairs Richard Armitage and Chris Murphy, president of the Carnegie Endowment William J. Burns, and president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs Ivo Daalder. The event, which will be moderated by Andrea Mitchell of NBC News, will be livestreamed on the Carnegie website.
More information on the task force can be found here on Carnegie’s website.
Task force members included:
Ambassador Richard Armitage, Task Force Co-chair; President, Armitage International; former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State
Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), Task Force Co-chair
Ambassador William J. Burns, President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State
Ambassador Ivo H. Daalder, President, Chicago Council on Global Affairs; former U.S. Ambassador to NATO
Madeleine Albright, Chair, Albright Stonebridge Group; former U.S. Secretary of State
Gen. (Ret.) James Cartwright, Harold Brown Chair in Defense Policy Studies, Center for Strategic and International Studies; former Vice Chairman, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff
Derek Chollet, Counselor and Senior Advisor for Security and Defense Policy, German Marshall Fund; former Assistant U.S. Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs
Heather Conley, Senior Vice President, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ)
Michèle Flournoy, CEO, Center for a New American Security; former U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
Richard Fontaine, President, Center for a New American Security
Susan Glasser, Chief International Affairs Columnist, POLITICO
Robert Kimmitt, Senior International Counsel, WilmerHale; former U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Treasury
Klaus Kleinfeld, Chairman and CEO, Arconic
John McLaughlin, Distinguished Practitioner-in-Residence, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies; former Deputy Director and Acting Director of the CIA
Franklin C. Miller, Principal, Scowcroft Group; former Special Assistant to the President and Senior NSC Director for Defense Policy and Arms Control
Meghan O’Sullivan, Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School; former U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan
Senator Rob Portman (R-OH); former U.S. Trade Representative and Director of the Office of Management and Budget
Adm. (Ret.) James Stavridis, Dean, the Fletcher School, Tufts University; former Supreme Allied Commander Europe
The task force is supported, in part, by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.