Russia’s Place in the New World Order

Please join us for a talk with Dr. William Hill, Professor Emeritus of National Security Strategy, National War College, Washington D.C., about his book No Place for Russia: European Security Institutions Since 1989 (Columbia University Press, August 2018).

The optimistic vision of a “Europe whole and free” after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 has given way to disillusionment, bitterness, and renewed hostility between Russia and the West. In No Place for Russia, William H. Hill traces the development of the post–Cold War European security order to explain today’s tensions, showing how attempts to integrate Russia into a unified Euro-Atlantic security order were gradually overshadowed by the domination of NATO and the EU—at Russia’s expense.

Hill argues that the redivision of Europe has been largely unintended and not the result of any single decision or action. Instead, the current situation is the cumulative result of many decisions—reasonably made at the time—that gradually produced the current security architecture and led to mutual mistrust. Hill analyzes the United States’ decision to remain in Europe after the Cold War, the emergence of Germany as a major power on the continent, and the transformation of Russia into a nation-state, placing major weight on NATO’s evolution from an alliance dedicated primarily to static collective territorial defense into a security organization with global ambitions and capabilities. Closing with Russia’s annexation of Crimea and war in eastern Ukraine, No Place for Russia argues that the post–Cold War security order in Europe has been irrevocably shattered, to be replaced by a new and as-yet-undefined order.

Dr. William Hill joined the faculty of the National War College in 2007 and retired from there in 2017.  He currently works with the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington and provides consultation and education for the U.S. Department of State and various agencies of the U.S. Intelligence Community. A retired Foreign Service Officer, Dr. Hill is an expert on Russia and the former Soviet Union, east-west relations, and European multilateral diplomacy. He served two terms—January 2003-July 2006 and June 1999-November 2001—as Ambassador and Head of the OSCE Mission to Moldova, where he was charged with negotiation of a political settlement to the Transdniestrian conflict and facilitation of the withdrawal of Russian forces, arms, and ammunition from Moldova. He has been a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC in 2001-2002 and 2014-2015, and an Associate of Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy in 2006-2007.  He is the author of Russia, the Near Abroad and the West: Lessons from the Moldova-Transdniestria Conflict, and No Place for Russia: European Security Institutions Since 1989.

During his Foreign Service career he served in Moscow, Leningrad, Belgrade, the U.S. CSCE delegation in Vienna, and Dhaka.  In Washington, DC, he held a number of posts involving east-west relations, political-military affairs, and intelligence analysis, including CSCE Coordinator and Chief of Analysis for Eastern Europe in the State Department, European Division Chief in the Voice of America (at the time the Berlin Wall fell), and Senior Advisor for Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the Pentagon.