Fiona Hill

New ties between Russia and Japan would mark not only a breakthrough in their relations but also a significant shift in Northeast Asia\'s political dynamic.

Russia and China thawed their frosty relationship in the 1990s and signed a friendship treaty in 2001, but China\'s rise has increased tensions in every regional relationship.

Putin has become the wild card in his own system.

Putin\'s treatment of Chechnya became a cautionary tale of what would happen to rebels and terrorists - and indeed to entire groups of people - if they threatened the Russian state.

Putin is trying to create the best possible atmosphere for Russia.

Few issues better illustrate the limits of the Obama administration\'s \'reset\' with Russia than the crisis in Syria.

Japan has good reasons for wanting to transform its relationship with Russia. Tokyo has openly expressed serious fears of a military confrontation with Beijing over China\'s claims to the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea.

Indeed, for Russia, inconsistency is an integral part of its foreign policy strategy, particularly under Putin.

There is certainly this widespread anti-Americanism within the Russian elite, a feeling that the U.S. lost any moral high ground it could possibly have because of Iraq, Abu Ghraib, and increasing concern of U.S. intentions locally.

Calling Trump \'Putin\'s puppet\' is a sign of the weakness of the American political system. It appears so weak and fragile that outsiders can actually meddle about in it.

Chechens need to be able to develop their own viable political society and regional economy whether they remain part of Russia or not.

The capital city of Grozny in Chechnya was reduced completely to rubble, and Putin thought this was worthwhile because it kept the state together.

The Russians thrive on misinformation and disinformation.

Chechnya was part of that whole wave of entities of the Soviet Union that had a very separate sense of identity, of political and social history, that set them apart from the rest of Russia.

The Russians didn\'t invent partisan divides. The Russians haven\'t invented racism in the United States. But the Russians understand a lot of those divisions and they understand how to exploit them.

President Putin and the Russian security services operate like a super PAC. They deploy millions of dollars to weaponize our own political opposition research and false narratives.

Outside of the Moscow elite and a very small urban elite, Russia is one great big blue-collar country.

Everybody used to talk about Chechnya as a place, in the Russian imperial and Soviet periods, that was essentially governed by extended family and regional networks that substituted for older clan structures. But those networks have been destroyed.

I can say with confidence that this country has offered for me opportunities I would never have had in England.

People in Washington, D.C., may not be paying that much attention to what\'s happening in Chechnya, but people in Riyadh and Amman and elsewhere are.

There is a good supply of Russia experts out there - people who have lived there with lots of good experience - but the demand has just not been there from government.

We\'ve got ourselves into a situation where government service is somehow seen to be a political act rather than an act of civic duty or of public service.

Stop pyschoanalyzing Putin, and recognize that there is a certain mind set. The West must draw a line under \'Putinography\' and just get on with it.

A desire to contain extremism is a major reason why Putin offered help to the United States in battling the Taliban in Afghanistan after 9/11. It is also why Russia maintains close relations with Shia Iran, which acts as a counterweight to Sunni powers.

Our basic problem is how do we stop the hot war on the ground in Ukraine, and not get into a more and more escalatory relationship with Putin.

Every military scenario that the Russians basically engage in their annual exercises, either on their western or eastern flank, always involved some kind of local revolt pulling in outside forces.

A U.S. president who is elected amid controversy and recrimination, reviled by a large segment of the electorate, and mired in domestic crises will be hard-pressed to forge a coherent foreign policy and challenge Russia.

The Russian leadership doesn\'t operate in the same way as ours does. Informal networks have a much more important role to play than formal networks.

And Trump isn\'t exactly the most diplomatic of people.

There\'s no prospect that the Russians are going to send Snowden back. Snowden is in the land of spy swaps now. Putin is not going to give this guy up for nothing.