Director, Carnegie Moscow Center.
The CIS may not exist as an entity on the globe, but during the coming decade, we will see a continued buildup of the various separate regions in the former Soviet space. For the foreseeable future, the CIS should remain Russian Federation’s significant foreign policy priority. Relations between Russia and the independent states that emerged on the breakup of the Soviet Union will change.
In Russia, Eurasia is usually assumed to mean the post-Soviet space. The integration project Moscow has been actively promoting over the past four years is even called the Eurasian Union. However, the interpretation of Eurasia as the territory of the former Russian Empire and the Soviet Union is now outdated.
Business is running and gas is flowing, but Russia’s behavior is unacceptable in Europe. Something fundamental has changed on the Russian side, too. Putin believes Europe—and the West more broadly—is in decline, and wants to reposition Russia vis-à-vis the main centers of power in the twenty-first century.
A year is a very long time in politics. Over the past year Russia’s relations with the West have deteriorated, not helped by events in Syria and the Magnitsky Act. A new beginning and a desire to cooperate are essential: not the ‘reset’ button, but completely new software
The upcoming withdrawal of U.S. and NATO combat troops from Afghanistan and the handing over of security responsibilities to the Kabul government pose serious challenges to the CSTO. How can the security of Central Asia be guaranteed under the new conditions? What tools are available for this? Can the CSTO resolve domestic conflicts in the member countries (similar to the one in Kyrgyzstan in 2010)?
Four years of Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency were a missed opportunity in terms of modernizing the country. The President genuinely believed he could lead Russia forward on a number of axes, including political reform, judicial reform, police reform, but he mostly outlined the need for reforming those areas.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced plans to swap roles in 2012. Margeret Warner discusses what this move might mean for relations between the United States and Russia with Angela Stent of Georgetown University and Dmitri Trenin of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
