http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/authors/733/moritz-a-pieper Inquiries Journal provides undergraduate and graduate students around the world a platform for the wide dissemination of academic work over a range of core disciplines. en-us Sat, 09 May 2026 01:13:10 -0400 Sat, 09 May 2026 01:13:10 -0400 http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/702/from-proto-state-to-para-state-accountability-russian-political-regimes-under-yeltsin-putin-and-medvedev By Moritz A. Pieper - When on September 24th,  2011 Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin announced his bid to run for president in the presidential elections in March 2012, a supposition in Russia's political regime was confirmed that many observers suspected would come true ever since the assumption of office of president Dmitri Medvedev in May 2008. With a constitutionally correct departure from the presidency, Putin still remained the influential political heavy weight in Russian politics, making Medvedev appear to be merely a pale place holder for Putin's return to the presidential driver's seat in 2012,... Wed, 26 Sep 2012 10:12 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/702/from-proto-state-to-para-state-accountability-russian-political-regimes-under-yeltsin-putin-and-medvedev http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/672/containment-and-the-cold-war-reexaming-the-doctrine-of-containment-as-a-grand-strategy-driving-us-cold-war-interventions By Moritz A. Pieper - By retracing shifts in the meaning, usage, and perception of the doctrine of ‘Soviet containment’, this article provides a balanced account of the extent to which US Cold War interventions were in fact driven by such a Grand Strategy. It argues that the US strategically sought to uphold spheres of influence and a global network of regional proxies out of essentially pragmatic politico-economic considerations in a wider context of containment of Soviet influence as a  Grand Strategy of foreign policy discourse. While the openly confrontational containment policy of the early Cold... Fri, 03 Aug 2012 05:58 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/672/containment-and-the-cold-war-reexaming-the-doctrine-of-containment-as-a-grand-strategy-driving-us-cold-war-interventions http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/631/russia-and-iran-strategic-partners-or-competing-regional-hegemons-a-critical-analysis-of-russian-iranian-relations-in-the-post-soviet-space By Moritz A. Pieper - Russia and Iran have a long history of being geographic neighbours, rivals, competitors and partners - a history which has coined mutual expectations, stereotypes and interactions. Still present in the Iranian collective memory, Tsarist Russia expanded territorially into wide parts of what had hitherto been part of “Greater Iran” in Central Asia and the Caucasus. That way, Tehran lost Tbilisi and Baku to Russia in the 1813 Treaty of Gulistan and the khanates of Yerevan and Nakhichevan in the 1828 Treaty of Turkmanchai (Katouzian 2009: 144) - a historic disgrace which not only took... Sat, 07 Apr 2012 10:52 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/631/russia-and-iran-strategic-partners-or-competing-regional-hegemons-a-critical-analysis-of-russian-iranian-relations-in-the-post-soviet-space