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Home / People / Rajan Menon
Rajan Menon
@rajan_menon_
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Grand strategy, Afghanistan, Alliances, Burden sharing, China, Diplomacy, Humanitarian intervention, Israel-Hamas, Middle East, NATO, Nuclear weapons, Russia, Taiwan, Ukraine, and Ukraine-Russia

Rajan Menon

Non-Resident Senior Fellow

Defense Priorities

Rajan Menon is a non-resident senior fellow at Defense Priorities and the Anne and Bernard Spitzer Chair Emeritus in International Relations at the Powell School, City College of New York/City University of New York.

Menon is also a senior research scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University and a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Menon has been a fellow at the Carnegie Council on Ethics in International Affairs and the New America Foundation, academic fellow at the Carnegie Corporation, research scholar at the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (the Wilson Center), and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. His books include Soviet Power and the Third World (Yale University Press, 1986), The End of Alliances (Oxford University Press, 2007), Conflict in Ukraine: The Unwinding of the Post-Cold War Order, coauthored with Eugene Rumer (MIT Press, 2015), and The Conceit of Humanitarian Intervention (Oxford University Press, 2016). His next book, Russia After Putin, co-authored with Eugene B. Rumer, is under contract to Oxford University Press.

In addition to publications in numerous academic journals, Menon has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Guardian, Chicago Tribune, Boston Review, Foreign Policy, and The National Interest. He has appeared as a commentator on ABC, CNN, MSNBC, the BBC, NPR, France 24 Television, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and Radio Australia. While an international affairs fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations from 1989–1990, Menon served as special assistant for national security (focusing on arms control) on the staff of the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Asia-Pacific Subcommittee.

Ukraine-Russia, Russia, Ukraine

Is the risk of nuclear escalation rising between Russia and the west?

By Rajan Menon

June 10, 2024

Warnings about nuclear escalation in Ukraine are now being issued with increasing frequency and urgency, due to dramatic changes in […]

Ukraine-Russia, Russia, Ukraine

Now Is Not the Time to Negotiate With Putin

By Rajan Menon

June 3, 2024

Ukraine-Russia, Europe and Eurasia, Russia, Ukraine

Putin shakes up Russian military and security commands

Featuring Rajan Menon

May 12, 2024

More from Rajan Menon

Ukraine-Russia, Russia, Ukraine

Is the risk of nuclear escalation rising between Russia and the west?

By Rajan Menon

June 10, 2024

Ukraine-Russia, Russia, Ukraine

Now Is Not the Time to Negotiate With Putin

By Rajan Menon

June 3, 2024

Ukraine-Russia, Europe and Eurasia, Russia, Ukraine

Putin shakes up Russian military and security commands

Featuring Rajan Menon

May 12, 2024

Israel-Hamas, Grand strategy, Israel, Middle East

There is no solution to the Gaza War Israel is stoking a cycle of violence

By Rajan Menon

May 1, 2024

Russia, Europe and Eurasia, NATO, Ukraine

A crack in Putin’s armor

By Rajan Menon

March 26, 2024

Ukraine-Russia, Europe and Eurasia, Grand strategy, Russia, Ukraine

Assessing the Russian army’s (surprisingly poor) performance in Ukraine

By Rajan Menon

February 23, 2024

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