Carnegie Moscow Center
Though it is far more convenient to simply consider the last pogrom in Biryulyovo, Moscow, a sad occurrence and continue acting ad hoc, as usual, the authorities must take a strategic look at these events and act energetically, consistently, and, above all, intelligently.
Giorgi Margvelashvili, won the presidential election in Georgia with 62 percent of the vote. Second place and 22 percent went to former speaker of parliament, David Bakradze, of the United National Movement. That was quite a disastrous performance from a party which only one year ago was running the country.
Saakashvili used charm as the centerpiece of his grand strategy for winning over the West. The question is not why this strategy failed but why it lasted as long as it did.
Tadeusz Mazowiecki, who was the first Polish non-communist prime minister, died on October 28. He will be remembered as a Man Who Helped to Open a New Era—and not only for Poland.
Introducing visas and closing borders with Central Asian countries should not be the first steps in solving the problem of ethnic hatred in Russia. Instead, there should come a transformation of the entire Russian state, a regime change, and a resolution of the problem of the North Caucasus.
Biryulyovo was not the first anti-immigrant outburst in Russia, or even the biggest one, and it is unlikely to be the last. The core issue is systemic corruption in the police, migration service, and municipalities, which the new measures taken by the government in response to Biryulyovo are unlikely to reduce, much less to end.
The Chinese-Russian energy alliance is a product of growing bilateral relations, but it also reflects developments in the global energy market and in non-energy geopolitics.
The impact of Pakistan on the situation in Afghanistan is seriously overestimated. Current problems and future risks will not allow Pakistan even to think about the decisive influence in Afghanistan.
After the U.S. troops withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban will most likely regain the power under the auspices of Pakistan and possibly of another neighbor—China.
The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014 equates with an unquestionable strengthening of the Taliban movement or even with its actual coming to power. The external actors will have to adjust to the new situation and the future Afghan coalition leadership which will include the Taliban.
The current confidence-building and arms limitation measures are less effective for resolving the problems caused by the conventional prompt global strike systems being developed by the United States.
The coming presidential election in Georgia on October 27 will be straightforward and uninteresting. The post of president is being trimmed down and will lose most of its executive functions. And yet, the candidates are as if conspiring to give the poll a lot more drama than might have been expected a few weeks ago.
The negotiations on a grand coalition in the Bundestag between the Christian Democrats and the Social Democratic Party are underway, and it is not even clear who will be responsible for the foreign policy. Meanwhile, the current German policy on Russia, which has not changed regardless of who the chancellor may have been, can be summed up as follows, “Berlin must not irritate the Kremlin.”
In the run-up to 2014, when the U.S./NATO combat forces due to leave Afghanistan, fears multiply that a major extremist threat is rising again for the neighborhood and beyond. Russia is right to focus on the southern flank as far as its most pressing security needs are concerned.
Last weekend, two districts of Moscow became a battlefield between the police and the people described as nationalists by mass media or as hooligans by the authorities. Moscow has been a place of pogroms many times, but this time the authorities were more efficient than in previous cases.
Several years after the Polish presidential plane crash and the initial Russian-Polish rapprochement, the process of reconciliation has visibly stagnated. Moscow should again step forward and give this process a new lease on life.
Ilham Aliyev has won reelection for a third term. As he begins his eleventh year as president of Azerbaijan, the huge shadow of his father and predecessor inevitably begins to recede and this is the moment for him to set a new political agenda for the country—if he wants too.
The values put forward by Putin are not traditional values, but rather their imitations. These false offerings can only discredit the new values of freedom, solidarity, and mutual help that are taking root among some segments of the Russian population.
As a Euro-Pacific nation, Russia is in a good position to connect directly with all important economic, technological, political, military, and cultural players in the world—and keep the right balance among them in its foreign policy.
It has been two decades since post-Soviet states gained independence, but democracy fails to emerge and shake autocratic regimes, although they have the educated and intellectual elites it takes to develop it.