RSI Connect: Implications of the Evolving Sino-Russian Partnership

Andrea Kendall-Taylor
Senior Fellow and Director of the Transatlantic Security Program
Center for a New American Security

Andrea Kendall-Taylor is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). She works on national security challenges facing the United States and Europe, focusing on Russia, authoritarianism and threats to democracy, and the state of the Transatlantic alliance. Prior to joining CNAS, Andrea served for eight years as a senior intelligence officer. From 2015 to 2018, she was Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Prior to joining the NIC, Andrea was a senior analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Andrea is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. She received her B.A. in politics from Princeton University and her Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Bobo Lo
Independent international relations analyst
Associate Research Fellow, Russia/NIS Centre, IFRI
Non-Resident Fellow, Lowry Institute
Senior Fellow, CEPA

Bobo Lo is an independent international relations analyst. He is also an Associate Research Fellow with the Russia/NIS Center at IFRI, a Non-Resident Fellow with the Lowy Institute, Sydney, Australia, and a Senior Fellow with the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) in Washington. Previously, he was Head of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House, and Deputy Head of Mission at the Australian Embassy in Moscow.

 Dr Lo’s most recent single-author book, A Wary Embrace: What the China-Russia Relationship Means for the World, was published by Penguin Random House Australia in 2017. Among his other major books are Russia and the New World Disorder (Brookings and Chatham House, 2015); Axis of Convenience: Moscow, Beijing and the New Geopolitics (Brookings and Chatham House, 2008); Vladimir Putin and the Evolution of Russian Foreign Policy (Blackwell and Chatham House, 2003); and Russian Foreign Policy in the Post-Soviet Era: Reality, Illusion and Mythmaking (Palgrave, 2002).

 Lo’s most recent shorter writings include: ‘Partnership without substance – Sino-Russian relations in Central and Eastern Europe’, CEPA report (with Edward Lucas), April 2021; ‘Masters of our fate: global order in the post-pandemic era’, Horizons, Winter 2021; ‘The adaptation game – Russia and climate change’, Russie.NEI.Visions, March 2021; ‘Russia and global order’, in The Russia Conference Papers 2021, Baltic Defence College; ‘The Sino-Russian partnership and global order’, China International Strategy Review, December 2020; ‘Global order in the shadow of the coronavirus: China, Russia and the West’, Lowy Institute Analysis, July 2020; and ‘The return: Russia and the security landscape of Northeast Asia’, Russie.NEI.Reports, IFRI, March 2020.

Angela Stent
Director, Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies,
Professor of Government and Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution 

Dr. Angela Stent is Director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies and Professor of Government and Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She is also a Senior Fellow (non-resident) at the Brookings Institution and co-chairs its Hewett Forum on Post-Soviet Affairs. From 2004-2006 she served as National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council.  From 1999 to 2001, she served in the Office of Policy Planning at the U.S. Department of State.

Stent’s publications include: From Embargo to Ostpolitik: The Political Economy of West German-Soviet Relations, 1955-1980  (Cambridge University Press, 1981); Russia and Germany Reborn: Unification, The Soviet Collapse and The New Europe (Princeton University Pres, 1999); The Limits of Partnership: US-Russian Relations in the Twenty-First Century (Princeton University Press, 2014), for which she won the American Academy of Diplomacy’s Douglas Dillon prize for the best book on the practice of American Diplomacy. Her latest book is Putin’s World: Russia Against the West and With the Rest (Twelve Books, 2019) for which she won the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy’s prize for the best book on U.S-Russian Relations.

She was a member of the senior advisory panel for NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe for Admiral James Stavridis and General Philip Breedlove. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.  She is a contributing editor to Survival and is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Cold War Studies, World Policy Journal, Internationale Politik and Mirovaia Ekonomika i  Mezhdunarodnie Otnosheniie. She has served on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council for Russia and Central Asia. She was a Trustee of the Eurasia Foundation. Dr. Stent received her B.A. from Cambridge University, her MSc. with distinction from the London School of Economics and Political Science and her M.A. and PhD. from Harvard University.

Brian G. Carlson
Head of the Global Security Team of the Think Tank
Center for Security Studies (CSS)

Brian G. Carlson is head of the Global Security Team of the Think Tank at the Center for Security Studies (CSS). He holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, D.C. His doctoral dissertation focused on China-​Russia relations in the post-​Soviet era.

Brian was previously a Trans-​Atlantic Post-​doc in International Relations and Security (TAPIR) fellow at CSS, SWP in Berlin, and RAND in Washington, D.C. He continues to conduct research on China-​Russia relations and on both countries’ foreign policies. He speaks both Chinese and Russian.