Carnegie Moscow Center
The APEC agenda focuses on trade and investment liberalization, business facilitation, and economic and technical cooperation—all things that are top priorities for Russia, if it seeks to develop its Asia-Pacific territory and increase its presence in the region.
While Russian military reform, aimed at creating a modern military institution, has proven relatively successful, the Putin leadership’s strategic thinking remains outdated.
Russians need to see themselves as a Euro-Pacific country, and act accordingly by developing Russia's own Asia-Pacific territory and increasing its activity in the whole region.
If Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is elected, there is reason to worry that bilateral relations between the United States and Russia may become frayed. However, Russia will not be Romney’s foreign policy priority.
If a solution to the Syria problem is not found soon, not only will Syria descend into wholesale carnage, but the prospects for future conflict management in the world will become much bleaker.
A political transition, rather than regime change, may be the only chance for international cooperation on Syria.
If United States and Russia fail to collaborate on urgent global issues, it could enhance the two countries’ mutual alienation, allow regional crises to run unabated, and even lead to a reconfiguration of the world’s strategic landscape.
In case of unobstructed civil war in Syria, the division between Russian and U.S. policies toward Syria will most probably deepen, and the choices of these two countries will have serious international implications, including stronger Russia-China cooperation to counter U.S. foreign policies.
A flexible relationship, rather than an alliance, may better suit Russia and China despite their many shared interests.
Each of the three previous four-year presidential terms in Russia—two of Vladimir Putin and one Dmitry Medvedev’s—has been marked by a different policy toward the West, and the new Putin’s six-year period opening in 2012 is likely to follow that pattern.