Word: russia
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Even so, there's nothing quite like a visit by the U.S. 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...
IRAN A Threat or a Neighbor? While Washington has watched Iran's postelection chaos with growing alarm, Moscow has mostly looked the other way. Medvedev and Putin made no mention of the massive protests in Tehran or the allegations of vote-fixing when Ahmadinejad visited Yekaterinburg. That's because Russia's interests in Iran have always been strategic. "Iran is a special relationship for them," says Eugene Rumer, a senior fellow at the National Defense University's Institute for National Strategic Studies. "It is their entry point for Middle East politics. It's a country they don't want...
Unlike the U.S., Russia doesn't view Iran's nuclear program as a major threat. "The Russians say, 'We can live with a nuclear Iran,'" says Rumer. "They don't want it, but think it's going to happen anyway." Rather than try to halt Iran's nuclear program, Moscow has offered to enrich uranium for Tehran; the mullahs have politely turned that down. Russia is skeptical that sanctions will ever persuade Iran to change tack on its nuclear program - fearing, instead, that they will just embolden Iran's hard-liners. And when all is said and done, Russia...
GEOPOLITICS The Near Abroad Just as Russia won't help much on Iran, Obama will likely tell Medvedev and Putin that America's ties with Ukraine and Georgia are based on shared values - they're both democracies - and strategic interests, including the protection of vital oil and gas supply routes. To underscore that point, Biden plans to visit Kiev and Tbilisi shortly after the President's trip to Moscow. The Vice President's visit, says Blacker, will "demonstrate to the Russians that we have equities in the region." (See pictures of Joe Biden...
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...