Carnegie Corporation and Russia:
Grantmaking Amidst Transformation

For nearly 25 years, first the Soviet Union and then its successor states have been convulsed by transformation. During this historic period, Russia cast off its Communist past, embraced alien forms of democracy and civil society, and most recently slowed the pace of political liberalization. Similarly, initial administrative changes snowballed into radical market reforms that sent the Soviet economy into a tailspin. What ensued was the dramatic contraction of Russia’s economy that only over the last five years, and narrowly dependent on spikes in world energy prices, registered the beginnings of recovery. Yet endemic problems of arbitrary rule, deep-seated sociodemographic ills, and persistent non-market business and financial practices continue to expose the fragility of the present calm. If left unabated, these mutually reinforcing negative trends risk emasculating the national capacity to sustain Russia’s modernization over the coming decades.

At the same time, Russia’s strategic landscape has been in constant flux. The end of bipolar rivalry upended established international balances of power and institutions. Relations with the U.S. passed through phases of renewed Cold War, cooperative engagement, mutual frustration and superficial friendship to a current lowgrade thaw. Mikhail Gorbachev’s pursuit of “common human values” quickly morphed into Moscow’s abdication of superpower status and conspicuous turn to the West. Strategic visions then hardened, as the country was shorn of its empire and relegated to the margins of globalization. Change continued as President Vladimir Putin “pragmatically” acclimated to unavoidable concessions and shed unrealistic global pretensions while asserting Russia’s competitive interests in the “near abroad.”

Amidst these momentous shifts, one constant has been Carnegie Corporation of New York’s commitment to fostering mutual understanding and engagement between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union. Since 1983, under the stewardship of two presidents, the Corporation provided roughly $120 million to d major projects aimed at focusing policy, public, scientific and scholarly attention on the imperatives and opportunities for taming reckless policies and cementing closer bonds. As programmatic priorities evolved from addressing the most pressing challenges of averting nuclear war, to deepening and broadening cooperative security, to forging partnerships and building inroads for Russia’s integration with the West, the Corporation remained steadfast at promoting confidence building and closer interaction between the two leaderships and societies.

With the emergence of a “new Russia” and with leaderships in Washington and Moscow concentrating on new global threats, the time is ripe to reflect on Carnegie Corporation’s programmatic experience with the former Soviet Union. How did the Corporation’s strategy for advancing mutual understanding, linkages and cooperation evolve to keep pace with the volatile landscape? What were key practical, indirect and unintended achievements of its grants? Alternatively, what were some of the “hard lessons” associated with developing and implementing the Corporation’s Russia-related programs?

Written by: Adam Stulberg. Dr. Stulberg has written several reports for Carnegie Corporation of New York on subjects concerning Russia’s foreign and security policies, as well as authored the final report of the Russia Initiative. His forthcoming book on Russia’s energy statecraft will be published by SUNY Press.