Carnegie Moscow Center
Multilateralism should not be conceived as necessarily cooperative: one set of multilateral institutions can be used to challenge another set.
Russia is back and here to stay. Others had better accept it and learn to deal with it — without undue expectations, but also without inordinate fear.
We should never forget the benefits that Germany’s reunification brought to the world.
The political framework for cooperation was agreed at the Russia-Africa summit, and with heads of state in attendance and a declaration signed, it was undoubtedly a success for Russia’s Foreign Ministry. As for an institutional economic framework for what is being billed as “Russia’s return to Africa,” it’s still early days.
As long as Serbia lacks a solution to the Kosovo dispute that it can sell both to its international partners and to people at home, and as long as Serbia is denied a clear path to EU integration, it will continue to keep the Russia card up its sleeve.
Only the continuation of nuclear arms control can create the political and military conditions for eventual limitations of innovative weapons systems and technologies, as well as for a carefully thought through and phased shift to a multilateral format of nuclear disarmament.
America’s withdrawal creates an opportunity and a challenge for Moscow.
There’s one thing the Kremlin wants even more than sowing chaos in the United States: Keeping Trump in the White House.
Both Belarusian officials and U.S. presidential adviser John Bolton were quick to put out the message that the visit was more about form than content. Bolton said openly that no issues had been resolved at the meeting, but that he had not expected otherwise. Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei said that no one was enticing Minsk over to any side, and that the two sides had simply agreed to keep communicating.
It’s impossible for Russia to return to the G7, but it’s also impossible for the group to solve many problems important to it without Russia. France’s relationship of trust with the Russian leadership, and the opportunity to represent Russia behind the scenes at the group’s gatherings, are an important diplomatic asset that France would hate to lose.