The Oak Ridger recently featured Michael Fitzgerald, professor of political science and senior teaching fellow at the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy.
Fitzgerald was the guest speaker at the League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge’s Lunch with the League event on Tuesday, April 18. He spoke about US-Russia relations, which is his area of study.
“Relations between the United States and the Russian Federation steadily have declined over the past two decades,” said Fitzgerald. “Tensions between the world’s most prominent nuclear powers have risen to levels unseen since the worst days of the Cold War. A survey of the causes and contours of the deteriorating current impasse in US-Russian relations leads to the conclusion that we are well into a second Cold War fraught with all the uncertainty and danger that defined the first. Effectively dealing with Putin’s geopolitical strategy to, once again, make Russia internationally relevant requires realistic thinking about Russian history, culture, and politics.”
Fitzgerald is currently studying world public opinion about US leadership in global affairs — focusing on the implications of rising anti-Americanism, especially in Russia.