Word: nato
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...action to combat the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea and to quit bullying democratic neighbors like Ukraine and Georgia. Russia would like the U.S. to recognize that it has its own sphere of influence in the "near abroad" - the territory of the old Soviet Union - and halt NATO's expansion to the east. More generally, Moscow would like some respect. "The Russians want to belong. They want to feel big," says Finland's Foreign Minister, Alexander Stubb, who has met with both Medvedev and Putin since Obama's Inauguration. "There's a sense of greatness in Russian history...
...President to bolster Russia's status in the world. Moscow got an unexpected reminder of Washington's clout in its backyard when Kyrgyzstan announced on June 23 that it would renew an American lease on its air base in Manas, a critical transshipment point for U.S. and NATO military operations in Afghanistan. That decision was a victory for the Obama Administration: just four months ago, the Kyrgyz government had said that the U.S. military had to go. More broadly, Moscow's ability to project its power has been reduced by the fall in the price of oil since last summer...
Officially, Moscow says it doesn't mind the U.S. having friends among the former Soviet satellites. But Russia draws the line at either Ukraine and Georgia joining NATO. NATO's eastward expansion since the end of the Cold War - it now numbers three former Soviet Republics among its members, and most of the East European states that were once bound to Moscow in the Warsaw Pact - has been a dreadful blow to Russian pride. Dimitri Simes, president of the Nixon Center, believes a quiet agreement is possible: "Privately, Obama can tell the Russians that there are no plans...
...commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, U.S. General Stanley McChrystal has inherited a 7½-year war that appears to be getting worse. Yet U.S. Congressmen have given him only a year to turn it around. In a wide-ranging interview with TIME magazine on the back porch of his office at ISAF headquarters in downtown Kabul, McChrystal discussed his new approach to the Afghan fight, why the military alone can't be a solution and what he's currently reading on his new Kindle...
...Sphere of influence" is a term of diplomatic art, which is often invoked by the Russian government and Western nations in discussing plans for a NATO expansion and the European Commission's Eastern Partnership effort. In his speech, Obama distinguished between Europe's efforts to grow its diplomatic relations with former Soviet bloc countries and Russia's efforts to keep significant influence over its neighboring nations. "America will never impose a security arrangement on another country. For any country to become a member of an organization like NATO, for example, a majority of its people must choose to [join]," Obama...