Carnegie Moscow Center
The Russian empire is over, but the belief that Russia is finished as a serious global player might be premature. Today, Russia’s goals include modernizing, creating a nation-state, and finding the country’s new role in the world.
Putin remains the most powerful man in Russia, but the rallies, while failing to yield immediate political change, signal that serious societal shifts are underway.
Dmitry Medvedev’s four years of presidency were a missed opportunity in terms of modernizing the country. His most important achievements were in foreign policy, not in domestic policy.
The Institute for World Economy and International Relations has released a forecasting project which challenges the Russian leadership to recognize and adapt to measurable global trends, even when those run counter to the Kremlin line.
While developing its Asian strategy, Russia will certainly give a lot of attention to cooperation with China, but it will not ignore its interests and opportunities in other countries in the region.
Though political reforms in Russia are likely to be weakened even further and gubernatorial elections will be restricted by additional limits, the popular push for democracy continues to grow.
In spite of the fact that the pace of political reform in Russian is slowing, the political elites in many Russian regions have already started preparations for the reinstatement of direct elections of governors and mayors.
An inclusive security community in the Euro-Atlantic and stable peace in the region depends on a positive transformation of U.S.-Russian relations and historical reconciliation between Russia and a number of countries in Central and Eastern Europe.
As the U.S. primaries and elections continue, the candidates should consider laying some groundwork now for a Russia policy robust enough to bear the weight of concrete U.S. interests that depend on cooperation with Moscow.
UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan is most likely looking to persuade Syria’s Bashar al-Assad to leave power and prevent a collapse of the Syrian state and civil war.