Carnegie Moscow Center
A year and a half into the “reset,” the partnership with Russia remains a challenging but indispensable one for the United States. Engaging Russia is crucial to U.S. success on issues ranging from nuclear arms control to climate change.
The signing of the New START in April 2010 was a major step forward in building a legally binding, verifiable strategic arms reduction framework, but more action is necessary to overcome persistent mutual mistrust and bureaucratic obstacles hampering further force reductions.
Two years since fighting broke out between Georgia and Russia, the situation in the separatist territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia remains deadlocked and the current western policy of strong rhetorical support for the Georgian position substitutes easy words for hard diplomatic work.
The Russian government’s drive to modernize its economy is increasingly reflected in its foreign policy priorities, including its relations with the United States, Europe, and China and its position on Iran's nuclear program.
The New START is relatively modest in scope and should not be used as a stand-in for an ideological contest over arms control and nonproliferation.
The Obama administration recognizes that the weaponization of outer space is a threat to U.S. security and has expressed willingness to hold talks about the future of arms control in space.
Missile-defense cooperation would be a potential game changer in U.S.-Russian and NATO-Russian relations and a crucial step toward a sounder European security order.
The modest, verifiable reductions set out in New START do not raise hard questions about the adequacy of the U.S. deterrent. Instead, ratifying the treaty is integral to the Obama administration's overall security agenda and very much in the U.S. national interest.
July marks the one-year anniversary of the U.S.–Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission, launched by Presidents Obama and Medvedev in their July 2009 summit meeting with the goal of advancing bilateral cooperation on a wide range of issues, including business development and economic relations.
The bloodshed on the ceasefire line should focus minds and be a reminder that a new conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh would be catastrophic for everyone, not just Armenians and Azeris.