RUSSIA:
Between a Rock and a Hard Place*

By Timothy Garton Ash

We may smile over the Moscow "spy rock" scandal, but no one is laughing in the Kremlin. Timothy Garton Ash explains why Putin has all but declared war on nongovernmental organizations.

*This article is available only in the print edition of the Hoover Digest. Click here to request a free issue.

Timothy Garton Ash, an internationally acclaimed contemporary historian whose work has focused on Europe since 1945, is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. Garton Ash is in residence at Hoover on a part-year basis; at the same time he continues to hold his appointments as professor of European studies, director of the European Studies Centre, and the Gerd Bucerius Senior Research Fellow in Contemporary History, all at St. Antony's College, Oxford University.

Among the topics his work covers are the emancipation and eventual liberation of Central Europe from communism, the eastern policy of Germany and its reunification, how countries deal with a difficult past, the role of intellectuals in politics, and the relationship between the European Union and the larger Europe. His recent research has focused on relations between Europe and America, as both are faced with the global challenges of the early twenty-first century. This is the subject of his latest book, Free World: America, Europe and the Surprising Future of the West (2004). (See also www.freeworldweb.net.)