Carnegie Moscow Center
By reactivating its policy on Pyongyang, Moscow is sending messages to Seoul, Tokyo, Washington, and Beijing, which should be properly understood.
Russia needs to use every opportunity to inform the Indian government and public about Moscow’s priorities in regional and global politics and about its views on all issues which are relevant to Indians.
The crisis in Ukraine has betrayed fault lines in the Visegrad Group. Unless Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic change course, the “golden age” of Central Europe may come to an end.
The shooting down of an Armenian helicopter on the ceasefire line of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone is the worst incident of its kind in over 20 years.
Ukraine is not a cause, but a symbol of the serious and deepening crisis between the United States with its allies and Russia. As this crisis may become a permanent state, it is time for permanent crisis management.
The situation in Russia’s Muslim community is generally stable. However, the economic crisis creates fertile soil for the growth of Islamic radicalism, for which the country should be prepared.
Russia, while a truly independent player, is not an equal of the world’s high and mighty. However, Putin has a chance to elevate Russia. He should use his immense political capital to embark on the hard path of modern nation-building.
Over a few months the Islamic State has asserted itself as the strongest—militarily and politically—extremist organization in the Middle East. Russia must develop a policy to deal with the Islamic State.
The war in Ukraine has given Russia a pretext for the military and patriotic consolidation and militarist survival paradigm.
Rather than “replacing” Europe with China in its foreign policy universe, Russia would be wise to develop its relations with Beijing closer to the level of the very thick ties which link it to its Western neighbors.
Moscow’s military-technical cooperation with both New Delhi and Beijing means that Russia cannot stand apart from Indian-Chinese disagreements.
The rapid rise of the Islamic State means core assumptions driving policy on Syria must be rethought.
The main players in the Ukrainian crisis must take urgent steps to avoid the danger of a big war.
Although the relationship between India and the United States should be viewed indifferently by Russia, Moscow needs to pay attention in order to learn from and not repeat mistakes made by New Delhi and Washington.
By turning Russia into a war state, President Putin has unleashed a process he cannot stop and made himself hostage to suicidal statecraft.
Ukraine needs more than the current level of Western assistance. But the Ukrainian government also needs to pull its weight, promising (and delivering) transparency.
The failed unipolar world is being replaced with a polycentric world order based on several major centers of power. Russia can become a full-fledged global center of power only if it moves to a high-tech economy and implements democratic reforms.
Islam-state relations embody a range of political and ideological issues that are inseparable from factors of ethnic tradition, culture, and migration.
Even a threat like Islamic terrorism won’t force Russia and the Unites States to make security collaboration a higher priority than geopolitical rivalry over Ukraine.
The apparently long-term rupture of Russia’s relations with the West offers an opportunity to China to enhance its already close relationship with the Kremlin and thus turn the global geopolitical balance in its favor.