While Russia is not a superpower, it remains one of the few countries that both defines its interests in global rather than regional terms and retains limited but real global power-projection capabilities. Meanwhile, U.S. national security continues to be guided by the premise that the United States cannot allow another state to become the preponderant power in either Europe or Asia, the two continents Russia famously spans. This primer attempts to assess Russia’s impact on a vital U.S. interest: maintaining a...