Word: sovietizing
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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...
...year, and the expiration of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which restricts the number of nuclear weapons both countries can deploy. This is an area where the two countries have a long record of negotiations: the two phases of START - the first ratified in 1991, just before the Soviet Union collapsed, and the second signed in 1993 - led to an 80% reduction in the worldwide number of strategic nukes. A follow-on treaty would probably trim the arsenals further. Experts think a deal is possible. "We're in a strange 'back to the future' stage of relations with Russia...
...patron. But some analysts think that the U.S. President's prestige may rub off on his Russian counterpart. There is a chance that Medvedev, 43, might stand for something new. He is the first of Russia's modern leaders never to have served as an official in the Soviet Union and has been showing some signs of independence from his former boss. "He's trying to carve out a space for himself, a different space from Putin," says Blacker...
Most importantly, perhaps, Russia is incensed about E.U. efforts to draw the countries that lie between the E.U. and Russia closer into its orbit. Russia has traditionally regarded Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and other former Soviet states along its border as its "privileged sphere of influence," in the words of President Dmitry Medvedev. The E.U.'s new "Eastern Partnership" initiative, launched in May, offers these countries economic integration and stronger political ties. Although the E.U. has shied away from talking about the prospect of membership, however distant, it hopes to help its eastern neighbors to become richer, more stable and more...
Lieberman's hard line is the product of his past. His family moved to Israel in 1978 from the Soviet republic of Moldavia, now Moldova. His father fought in the Red Army in World War II but, like many other Soviet Jews, later spent years of forced exile in Siberia. "In my home, we spoke only about Israel," Lieberman says. "It was a dream that one day we would come here." Upon arriving, Lieberman enrolled at Hebrew University, moonlighting as a bouncer at a student nightclub and becoming active in the right-wing Likud Party. In the late...