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VOOZH | about |
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VOOZH | about |
PhD, political sociology, MA, media sociology, Columbia University
BA, Moscow State Pedagogical Institute
Scholars
Senior Fellow Emeritus
Russian domestic politics, Russian foreign policy, US-Russian relations, Post-Soviet evolution: social, cultural, and economic aspects
Leon Aron, who was born in Moscow and came to the United States as a refugee in 1978, is a senior fellow emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). He studies Russian domestic and foreign policy, US-Russia relations, and the economic, social, and cultural aspects of Russia’s post-Soviet evolution.
From 2014 to 2020, Dr. Aron was a governor of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees the operations of several international broadcasting outlets, including Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. From 1990 to 2004, he was a panelist on Looking from America (Gliadya iz Ameriki), a weekly Voice of America Russian-language radio and television show. Dr. Aron has taught at Georgetown University and received the US Institute of Peace’s Peace Fellowship. In 2011-12 he was Co-chairman of the Russia Advisory Group of Governor Mitt Romney’s presidential election campaign.
Dr. Aron is also a prolific writer and editor. His latest book, Riding the Tiger: Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the Uses of War (AEI Press, 2023), chronicles, through the use of hundreds of Russian sources, how Vladimir Putin has used militarized patriotism to transform Russian society and maintain his grip on power. The book has been praised by Russia experts and described as “one of the most important stories of our time” and “a fantastic read.”
Dr. Aron’s other books include Roads to the Temple: Memory, Truth, Ideas, and Ideals in the Making of the Russian Revolution, 1987–1991 (Yale University Press, 2012), in which he details and analyzes the intellectual and moral revolution that precipitated the end of the Soviet Union; Russia’s Revolution: Essays 1989–2006 (AEI Press, 2007); and the first in-depth biography of Boris Yeltsin, Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life (St. Martin’s Press, 2000).
His edited volumes include To Have and to Hold: Putin’s Quest for Control in the Former Soviet Empire (AEI, 2018); and Putin’s Russia: How It Rose, How It Is Maintained, and How It Might End (AEI, 2015), which includes essays by nine leading Russian scholars.
A regular contributor to newspapers, magazines, and popular news websites, Dr. Aron has published essays and articles on Russian foreign policy, politics, and literature in the Atlantic, CNN, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the New York Review of Books, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, among other outlets. From 1999 to 2014, he wrote AEI’s Russian Outlook, a quarterly essay on the economic, political, social, and cultural aspects of Russia’s post-Soviet transition.
In addition to his writings, Dr. Aron is a frequent guest on television and radio. His interviews include PBS NewsHour, CNN, C-SPAN, CBS News’ 60 Minutes, and National Public Radio’s All Things Considered.
Dr. Aron has a PhD in political sociology and an MA in media sociology from Columbia University. He also has a BA from Moscow State Pedagogical University.
PhD, political sociology, MA, media sociology, Columbia University
BA, Moscow State Pedagogical Institute
Book
Leon Aron, an acclaimed Russian studies scholar and a Moscow native who was sanctioned by President Vladimir Putin’s regime, chronicles the transformation of Russian politics and society under Putin.
BY Leon Aron ON 24 Oct 23
Special Feature
Putin’s Russia presents the US with a policy dilemma of enormous political, diplomatic, and military consequences. Faced with generating patriotic mobilization for his reelection in 2018, the threat the Putin regime poses will only increase.
BY Leon Aron ON 26 Sep 17
Article
It is necessary to deal with criminals. It is immoral – and, if history teaches, dangerous – to absolve them of crimes and reward them. Yet this is how Trump’s peace plan treats Putin’s Russia. In the...
BY Leon Aron ON 23 Dec 25
Op-Ed
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin’s summit in Alaska on Friday bodes ill for Ukraine. It looks as if Mr. Trump might reward Russia’s aggression by trying to force Ukraine to cede up to 20% of its...
BY Leon Aron ON 14 Aug 25
Press
Senior Fellow Leon Aron discusses US military aid to Ukraine on DW’s ‘The Day.’
BY Leon Aron ON 3 Jul 25
Op-Ed
Recent events in Iran have revealed that anti-Americanism can bind an alliance together only so much.
BY Leon Aron ON 30 Jun 25
Op-Ed
As negotiations between Russia and Ukraine bog down, Vladimir Putin hopes that President Donald Trump will walk away from the conflict.
BY Leon Aron ON 16 Jun 25
Multimedia
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
“Trump woke up Europe, whether he intended or not,” Aron told RFE/RL.
BY Leon Aron ON 23 May 25
Article
It is necessary to deal with criminals. It is immoral – and, if history teaches, dangerous – to absolve them of crimes and reward them. Yet this is how Trump’s peace plan treats Putin’s Russia. In the...
BY Leon Aron ON 23 Dec 25
Op-Ed
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin’s summit in Alaska on Friday bodes ill for Ukraine. It looks as if Mr. Trump might reward Russia’s aggression by trying to force Ukraine to cede up to 20% of its...
BY Leon Aron ON 14 Aug 25
Op-Ed
Recent events in Iran have revealed that anti-Americanism can bind an alliance together only so much.
BY Leon Aron ON 30 Jun 25
Op-Ed
As negotiations between Russia and Ukraine bog down, Vladimir Putin hopes that President Donald Trump will walk away from the conflict.
BY Leon Aron ON 16 Jun 25
Op-Ed
Vladimir Putin hosted 27 “world leaders” in Moscow for the May 9 parade commemorating the 80th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany, setting off buzz that Russia is breaking out of its diplomatic isolation.
BY Leon Aron ON 19 May 25
Op-Ed
Despite the Trump administration's concessions and overtures to the Putin regime, the Kremlin seems set to continue its war against Ukraine.
BY Leon Aron ON 15 Apr 25
Speech
The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and its Russia Matters project recently hosted a conversation, featuring Leon Aron, to discuss Russia's future without Vladimir Putin.
BY Leon Aron ON 16 May 24
Book
Leon Aron, an acclaimed Russian studies scholar and a Moscow native who was sanctioned by President Vladimir Putin’s regime, chronicles the transformation of Russian politics and society under Putin.
BY Leon Aron ON 24 Oct 23
Speech
Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
Making Vladimir Putin moderate, not to mention retreat from, his current aggressive policies will require measures targeted as precisely as possible at increasing the domestic political costs of his regime’s behavior.
BY Leon Aron ON 12 Sep 18
Journal Publication
“The pursuit of national glory,” which M. Steven Fish counts among the features of Vladimir Putin’s “populism,” is emerging as central to the regime’s legitimation. Unlike previous instances of patriotic mobilization (around the Second Chechen War and the 2008 Georgia war), the current one appears to have evolved into a permanent structure sustaining Putin’s regime. As a result, of the two presidential roles that undergird what Kirill Rogov called Putin’s “supermajority”—which safeguards Putin’s popularity even in tough economic times— that of “savior and protector of the nation” has all but supplanted that of “wealth manager.” The most probable threat to Putinism’s survival in the short term lies in the possibility that efforts to bolster the credibility and salience of the “savior and protector” narrative may lead to a foreign policy setback.
BY Leon Aron ON 10 Oct 17
Special Feature
Putin’s Russia presents the US with a policy dilemma of enormous political, diplomatic, and military consequences. Faced with generating patriotic mobilization for his reelection in 2018, the threat the Putin regime poses will only increase.
BY Leon Aron ON 26 Sep 17
Speech
Vladimir Putin appears to have stepped on the Stalin-Brezhnev-Hussein-Gaddafi president-for-life escalator from which there is no other exit except by physical demise or a revolution. The regime he is heading is presenting the West with an unprecedented challenge: a highly personalistic authoritarianism, which is resurgent, activist, inspired by a mission, prone to risky behavior both for ideological reasons and those of domestic political legitimacy, and armed, by the latest count, with 1,735 strategic nuclear warheads on 5,261 delivery platforms.
BY Leon Aron ON 14 Jun 16
Event
Join us as Mr. Kara-Murza of the Free Russia Foundation talks with AEI’s Leon Aron about these efforts, the Russia he left behind, and the Russia he hopes to return to.
BY Leon Aron ON 9 Dec 24
Event
Join Ukrainian Amb. Oksana Markarova and AEI’s Leon Aron, Chris Miller, and Dalibor Rohac for a discussion of Russia’s economic and social challenges.
BY Leon Aron + Robert Doar + Chris Miller + et al. ON 22 Apr 24
Event
Join AEI’s Leon Aron, Frederick W. Kagan, and Danielle Pletka to reflect on the past, present, and future of the Russia-Ukraine war.
BY Leon Aron + Frederick W. Kagan + Danielle Pletka ON 23 Feb 24
Event
Join Dr. Aron and AEI’s Kori Schake to discuss Putin’s Russia and some troubling options Putin may consider to end the war he can neither win nor walk away from.
BY Leon Aron + Kori Schake ON 19 Sep 23
Event
Join us as the Institute for the Study of War’s analytical team assesses the current military situation and forecasts the battlefield trajectory. An AEI panel will consider the prospects for change in Russia and Russian policy and for Western support to Ukraine.
BY Frederick W. Kagan + Kimberly Kagan + Leon Aron + et al. ON 8 Feb 23
Event
Join AEI Senior Fellow Leon Aron and AEI Senior Fellow and Director of the Critical Threats Project Frederick W. Kagan as they discuss the latest developments in Ukraine and Putin’s likely next moves.
BY Leon Aron + Frederick W. Kagan ON 23 Feb 22
Multimedia
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
“Trump woke up Europe, whether he intended or not,” Aron told RFE/RL.
BY Leon Aron ON 23 May 25
Multimedia
Jonah Goldberg is joined by Dr. Leon Aron for some Remnant-style Kremlinology.
BY Leon Aron ON 23 May 25
Multimedia
onah Goldberg is joined by Dr. Leon Aron for some Remnant-style Kremlinology. Jonah and Dr. Aron discuss Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump’s relationship, the state of the war in Ukraine, and what will happen to Russia...
BY Jonah Goldberg + Leon Aron ON 21 May 25
Multimedia
Senior Fellow Leon Aron discusses the Russian invasion of Ukraine and security in Europe: Aron on the Reagan Institute’s Reaganism podcast.
BY Leon Aron ON 7 Oct 24
Multimedia
In Riding the Tiger, Dr. Leon Aron, an acclaimed Russian studies scholar and a Moscow native who was sanctioned by President Vladimir Putin’s regime, chronicles the transformation of Russian politics and society under Putin. Through...
BY Leon Aron ON 20 Mar 24
Podcast
When one makes a seemingly dramatic choice, they are faced with the option to either walk back the consequences that choice has engendered or be consumed by that choice. This is the predicament Russian President...
BY Giselle Donnelly + Dalibor Rohac + Leon Aron + et al. ON 24 Oct 23
