Dmitri Vitalyevich Trenin () is a member of . He was the director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, a Russian

think tank A think tank, or public policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governme ...

. A former colonel of Russian military intelligence, Trenin served for 21 years in the

Soviet Army The Soviet Ground Forces () was the land warfare service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces from 1946 to 1992. It was preceded by the Red Army. After the Soviet Union ceased to exist in December 1991, the Ground Forces remained under th ...

and

Russian Ground Forces The Russian Ground Forces (), also known as the Russian Army in English, are the Army, land forces of the Russian Armed Forces. The primary responsibilities of the Russian Ground Forces are the protection of the state borders, combat on land, ...

, before joining Carnegie in 1994.

Military career

Trenin served in the Soviet and Russian armed forces from 1972 to 1993. His service included postings both inside and outside of the Soviet Union, to include a stint as the first non-

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

senior research fellow at the

NATO Defense College NATO Defense College (NDC) is the international military college for NATO, North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries. It is located in Rome, Italy. History The idea of a NATO Defense College originated with General Dwight D. Eisenhower, t ...

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Carnegie Moscow Center (1994-2022)

Trenin joined the Carnegie Moscow Center (which itself was set up with funding from the Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction) in 1994 soon after its formation in the aftermath of the

collapse of the Soviet Union The Soviet Union was formally dissolved as a sovereign state and subject of international law on 26 December 1991 by Declaration No. 142-N of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Declaration No. 142-Н of ...

. On December 22, 2008, Trenin became the first Russian director of the Carnegie Moscow Center. Trenin also chaired Carnegie Moscow's research council and the Foreign and Security Policy Program. Since its foundation, Carnegie Moscow Center has often been ranked as the leading think tank in Russia in reports by the University of Pennsylvania's Think Tanks and Civil Society Program, the "Global Go To Think Tank Report". The Carnegie Moscow Center, nevertheless, has been closed in February 2022 due to the Russian government's decision, and at the same time the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace ended its affiliation with Dmitri Trenin after he endorsed the

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

. Trenin is a member of the

International Institute for Strategic Studies The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) is an international research institute or think tank focusing on defence and security issues. Since 1997, its headquarters have been at Arundel House in London. It has offices on four co ...

(

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United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

), the Russian International Affairs Council (Moscow), and the Russian International Studies Association (Moscow). He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Moscow School of Political Studies. He is a Senior Network Member at the European Leadership Network (ELN). Trenin was expelled from the Royal Swedish Academy of War Sciences in October 2022 "due to his active support of the unjustified and illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine in both speech and writing".

Views and criticism

During the early-2000's, Trenin became known for his pro-Western stances. In his books, in particular, he claimed Russia should join the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

and

. In 2001, he claimed that "a confrontation with NATO is something Russia cannot afford and should never attempt", and in the same year an American book reviewer described him as "a Russian who is ahead of his time and the vast majority of his countrymen". His views about the West progressively changed in the 2010s. According to the American neoconservative writer James Kirchick, following the reelection of Vladimir Putin in 2012 the Carnegie Moscow Center, which Trenin led, started to gradually adopt pro-Putin positions: this caused the resignation of chair of the think tank's Society and Regions Program, ; the editor-in-chief of the center's magazine, Maria Lipman; and Russian political scientist

Lilia Shevtsova Lilia Fyodorovna Shevtsova (; born 7 October 1949 in Lviv, Ukrainian SSR) is a Kremlinology expert. Biography Shevtsova received B.A. and M.A. in history and journalism from Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 1971. She also r ...

. All of them were critics of Putin. Trenin, on his end, didn't leave Russia after the

in 2022, unlike many of his former colleagues, and he even criticised those who did so. The War in Ukraine, according to Trenin, is being used by the US and its allies as a tool "to exclude Russia from world politics as an independent factor, and to completely destroy the Russian economy... to finally resolve the "Russia question" and create favorable prospects for victory in the confrontation with China". As put by the British journalist

Anatol Lieven Anatol Lieven (born 28 June 1960) is a British author, journalist, and policy analyst. He is currently a visiting professor at King's College London and senior fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Background Peter ...

, his continuous call for reforms and anti-corruption measures in Russia are no longer part of a strategy to integrate Russia into the West, but rather to "strengthen Russia and Russian society in order to resist the West and succeed in limited Russian strategic goals in Ukraine". The radical change in Trenin's narrative around the

and

Russia–United States relations The United States and the Russian Federation have had diplomatic relations since the establishment of the latter country in 1991, a continuation of the relationship the United States has had with various Russian governments since 1803. While bo ...

has been subject of debate. Russian political writer Andrey Piontkovsky referred to Trenin as an "elite Kremlin propagandist targeting the Western expert audience" suggesting that the Carnegie Foundation was complicit in Kremlin propaganda for 30 years -- the duration of Trenin's directorship of the Carnegie Moscow Center. Anatol Lieven, who used to work with Trenin, claims on the other hand that "he only represents, in a more abrupt and radical form, a shift in the Russian centrist intelligentsia that has been building up gradually for many years."

Works

Authored and co-authored

* ''New Balance of Power: Russia in Search of Foreign Policy Equilibrium'' (2021) * ''Russia'' (Polity: 2019) * ''What Is Russia Up to in the Middle East?'' (Polity: 2017) * ''Should We Fear Russia?'' (Polity: 2016) * '' Russia and the World in the 21st Century'' (2015) * ''Post-Imperium: A Eurasian Story'' (Washington, DC: 2011) *
20 Years Without the Berlin Wall: A Breakthrough to Freedom
' (Moscow: 2011) * ''Solo Voyage'' (Moscow: 2009, in Russian) *
Getting Russia Right
' (Washington, DC: 2007) * ''Central Asia: The Views from Washington, Moscow and Beijing'' (New York: 2007, co-authored) * ''Integration and Identity: Russia as a New West'' (Moscow: 2006) * ''Gestrandete Weltmacht'' (Hamburg, Germany: 2005, in German) *
Russia's Restless Frontier: The Chechnya Factor in Post-Soviet Russia
' (Washington, DC: 2003, co-authored) * ''The End of Eurasia: Russia on the Border Between Geopolitics and Globalization'' (Washington, DC: 2002, 2001) * ''A Strategy for Stable Peace: Toward a Euro-Atlantic Security Community'' (Washington, DC: 2002, co-authored) *
Russia's China Problem
' (Washington, DC: 1998) * ''Baltic Chance: The Baltic States, Russia and the West in the Emerging Greater Europe'' (Washington, DC: 1997)

Edited

* ''The Challenges of Transition'' (2011) *
The Russian Military: Power and Policy
' (2004) * ''Ambivalent Neighbors: The NATO and EU Enlargement and the Price of Membership'' (2003) * ''Russia and the Main Security Institutions in Europe: Entering the 21st Century'' (2000) * ''Kosovo: International Aspects of the Crisis'' (1999) * ''Commonwealth and Security in Eurasia'' (1998) * ''Russia in the World Arms Trade: The Strategic, Political, and Economic Dimensions'' (1997)

References

External links

* *
Dmitri Trenin
in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

''
Dmitri Trenin on Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
{{DEFAULTSORT:Trenin, Dmitri Russian international relations scholars Russian political scientists Institute directors 1955 births Living people Russian studies scholars Carnegie Endowment for International Peace