Carnegie Moscow Center
Even as China becomes a maritime power to reckon with, Beijing has no desire to give up on its continental aspirations.
The Syria crisis presents a great opportunity. If an international effort successfully disarms Syria's chemical arsenal, and that success is recognized, the positive repercussions would be felt far beyond the Middle East.
U.S. reactions to President Vladimir Putin’s op-ed article in the New York Times, from outrage to ridicule, show just how badly much of the Western policy elite are misinterpreting Russia.
The SCO helps to create a spirit and network of cooperation in many fields, primarily in economics and security. Thanks to its structure, it can find responses to emerging security challenges.
Yevgeny Roizman seems to be a politically savvy realist. If he continues applying this mindset to his mayor position, he may shape up to be a formidable leader of the Russian opposition.
As current events demonstrate, the security challenges of the Middle East cannot be permanently solved solely through the use of American military power. On Iran and other regional challenges, the only lasting solutions will be diplomatic ones.
Russia’s chemical weapons plan will require a serious re-launch of the political process in Syria.
The main goal of Vladimir Putin’s op-ed in the New York Times is to force the United States back into the U.N. Security Council-centered international system.
The West and the United States should revisit their policy toward Russia and attempt to find an approach that goes beyond cynical deal-making and false friendship.
The proposal to hand over Syrian chemical weapons to international monitors is a very positive development. It may prevent the American airstrike against Syria and allows Russia and the United States to finally find some common ground.
The SCO summit will take place in the atmosphere of heightened international tensions brought on by the Syrian conflict, but the possible criticism of the United States will be quite meaningless.
Syria is the stark example that demonstrates how the Western community, including the states that declare themselves to be the defenders of the normative values, attempt to find the way to forget about their self-proclaimed mission.
It is enough to concentrate on the realistic options for action or non-action and their possible implications for Syria without getting caught up in big things such as mission and values.
As the debate over congressional authorization for action in Syria showed, the American public has lost its taste for unilateral military intervention that cannot be justified by a direct threat to American lives.
Moscow and Washington face the tough task of coming up with an enforcement mechanism to secure Syria’s chemical weapons that outlines possible consequences if Assad reneges or cheats on the deal.
The message that the president and the American people are sending at the moment is that the United States prefers even unlikely and temporary solutions over more war, more chaos, and possibly more Americans being put at risk.
The appointment of a new mediator for the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict lasting for 25 years now, is a good moment to ask whether Washington could be undertaking more to resolve the dispute.
Russian and Chinese bilateral energy relations have grown significantly in the last decade. Geography is the most telling feature of this relationship.
For the moment, an idea that might ultimately seem to be in the interest of Obama, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and, arguably, the Syrian opposition has gained surprising traction.
Washington should endorse the Russian proposal and invest President Vladimir Putin’s prestige in winning Syria’s assent and full, timely implementation. Such an outcome would be better than military action and better than no action.