Carnegie Moscow Center
Russia’s unpredictability means there is a lack of clarity on the direction the country will take after 2018. Is NATO membership really crucial for Finland and Sweden in the long term if Russia follows the best-case scenario, or even if it enters a state of inertia?
If the nonproliferation regime is violated and terrorist organizations get access to nuclear technologies, it will be much easier for them to reach Russia through its neighboring borders than the United States across the Atlantic.
Beginning in 2008, Putin ushered in military reforms and a massive increase in defense spending to upgrade Russia’s creaky military. Thanks to that project, Russia has recently evinced a newfound willingness to use force to get what it wants.
Europe’s rupture with Russia has entered its third year. Trust is non-existent. As one looks into the future, one sees uncertainties. What is the way forward? Is there a way forward?
The current standoff between Moscow and Washington, should it persist longer, could have disastrous implications for nuclear nonproliferation.
President Putin’s announcement that he is pulling back from Syria should not have come as a big surprise. He believes he has met most of his goals there—many of which have nothing to do with Syria itself. Russia has found a way back to the table where the world’s board of directors sits and resolves regional conflicts together.
On February 24, Carnegie Moscow Center’s Nonproliferation Program hosted a roundtable focused on the past, present and future of U.S.-Russia nuclear cooperation.
Speaking in Munich, Medvedev diagnosed an ongoing slide into a new Cold War and, accordingly, an increase of dangers—both from a potential direct clash between Russia and the United States/NATO and from their inability to cooperate to fight extremism.
The Western political establishment is hostile to Russia. This makes it all the more important to demonstrate that the Western religious establishment is more sympathetic. Regardless of Putin’s aims, the meeting between Pope and Patriarch has become a landmark event in the history of Christianity.
The current confrontation between the West and Russia will continue. Within that confrontation, however, a degree of cooperation is possible.