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The U.N. special envoy to Kyrgyzstan is working alongside the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to bring a peaceful resolution to the crisis there. The United States should resist the temptation to engage in a backroom deal to decide Kyrgyzstan’s fate.
The most significant aspect of the new START treaty is its preservation of a legally binding framework for the U.S.-Russian strategic relationship.
The new START agreement that President Obama and President Medvedev will sign in Prague on April 8 provides concrete and tangible progress in bilateral relations and addresses the biggest existential threat the United States faces—Russia’s nuclear arsenal.
Russia weathered the global recession better than initially feared, but the crisis has emphasized the country’s long-standing need to modernize its public sector, strengthen its financial sector, and improve its investment climate.
Though Russia's GDP contracted by less than expected in 2009, exports appear to nearing their maximum level and the banking system is facing a debt crisis, raising important questions about the future of Russia's fiscal policy and economic growth.
In spite of terrorist acts like the Moscow metro bombings, the Russian people continue to show strong support for their leaders, who are credited with having prevented a total economic collapse.
U.S. Secretary of State Clinton leaves for Moscow for a Quartet meeting on efforts to revive Israeli–Palestinian peace talks. She will also meet with President Medvedev to address the bilateral agenda, not least the successor agreement to START and Iran's nuclear program.
The conditions in Russia and the state of U.S.-Russia relations today are more hopeful for positive cooperation than at any time in the recent past, particularly in the fields of technology and innovation.
While autocratic governments that incorporate elements of democracy may be stable in the short term, such systems cannot be sustained in the long term. In Russia’s case, the system is unlikely to survive Putin himself.
A treaty to replace the expired START agreement is an essential step not only toward global nuclear disarmament, but also toward managing the risks associated with Russia's nuclear arsenal, which still poses the single greatest existential threat to the United States.