Carnegie Moscow Center
While it is generally understood that space technology has both civilian and military applications, the scientific and technical parameters of such technology have serious global policy implications.
Recent developments in Russia's foreign policy reflect the country's struggle to preserve its status as a “great power” through modernization.
After the New START reduced U.S. and Russian deployments of strategic nuclear arms, Russia has decided to rely even more on relatively fast-flying ground-launched missiles to deliver the strategic nuclear weapons that remain.
Russia’s current push for economic modernization coincides with growing political activism and concerns, both among domestic groups and in the West, about the absence of political liberalization.
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.
U.S.-Russian security relations extend beyond the crucial New START Treaty; both the United States and Russia recognize the need for engaging in broader security cooperation.
After the New START Treaty was signed on April 8, 2010, U.S. and Russian authorities turned their attention from nuclear disarmament to other matters. However, crises in the nonproliferation regime and U.S.-Russian relations could arise all too soon, if the two governments do not continue to address bilateral nuclear disarmament.
The mood surrounding Dmitry Medvedev’s trip to Silicon Valley and to Washington, D.C., is noticeably more positive than during previous visits, as a result of the reset in U.S.-Russian relations.
The financial crisis has exposed the weaknesses in a number of national and international financial institutions. It has also created the opportunity to develop an integrated regulatory framework for the global financial sector.
Despite its decrease in transparency and limited reductions, the new START Treaty is nonetheless a major achievement. Above all, it is an important political accomplishment, and a significant result of the reset in Russian-U.S. cooperation.