Getting Along with Russia
“Getting along with Russia” has been a campaign soundbite and a promise by the President Trump. He has expressed his admiration for President Putin, and even made a phone call to congratulate Putin on his victory in March 2018 “election” in Russia, despite being advised against it. Yet, the tensions between Russia and the West are at all time high since the end of the Cold War. What does it take to “get along with Russia”? Is it possible? What does Putin want? Is it Trump the president for the job of “getting along” with Putin?
Lena Surzhko Harned, Ph.D., is an associate teaching professor of Political Science. She is also the associate director and a faculty affiliate of the Public Policy Fund at Penn State Behrend. Her primary research interests are in the field of comparative politics.
She is an author of several papers dealing with issues of nationalism and ethnic conflict, identity politics, electoral politics, comparative democratization, and political behavior in the post-communist states of Eastern Europe.
Her co-authored book, Post-Soviet Legacies and Conflicting Values in Europe: Generation WhY, was published in 2017 and examines the intergenerational conflict and consequences in post-Soviet Ukraine and Russia.
