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Medvedev can set a new tone for Russia in order to sustain its newfound position on the world stage. By cultivating cooperation rather than confrontation, Russia will maximize its self-interests.
Washington's strategic confusion on the logic of NATO expansion to Georgia and Ukraine split the alliance, undermined democratic reforms abroad, and helped bring out the worst in Moscow's relations with the West. Washington should convince skeptics of its sincerity on the importance of democratic reforms by setting stringent political standards for potential members.
Robert Kagan and Robert Cooper discuss whether the world is reverting to a struggle between great powers or if it is embracing the democratising spirit of 1989.
Many believe that when Chinese and Russian leaders stopped believing in communism they became pragmatists. But Chinese and Russian rulers do have a set of beliefs that guide their domestic and foreign policies. They believe in the virtues of strong central government and disdain the weaknesses of the democratic system. Chinese and Russian leaders are not just autocrats. They believe in autocracy.
During the Stalin years there was the notion of intensifying class struggle. Now we are observing an intensifying clan struggle as part of the Kremlin's policy of managed democracy, which, it would seem, has become quite overmanaged. This policy is particularly evident with governors, who have essentially become federal bureaucrats after President Vladimir Putin began appointing them.
Last summer, as Americans focused on the surge in Iraq, most ignored a military exercise with a potentially more far-reaching impact. In a remote location in the Ural Mountains, Russia, China, and several Central Asian nations gathered for a massive war game, ironically dubbed "Peace Mission 2007."
A global competition is underway between democratic governments and autocratic governments. The great powers are increasingly choosing sides and identifying themselves with one camp or the other. This competition will become a dominant feature of the twenty-first-century world, with broad implications for the international system.
This is a first for Russia: We have a president-elect even while his predecessor continues to discharge his duties. Also new: President Vladimir Putin, unlike predecessor Boris Yeltsin, has no plans to fade into political obscurity.
On my way out of Moscow on the day when George Bush and Vladimir Putin met for the last time in Sochi, Russian blogs were alight with complaints about how Putin had lost big at the NATO summit meeting in Bucharest the day before. As I flew across the ocean a few hours later, I sat next to a well-placed Washington operative on his way back from Bucharest. "Bush lost big at the summit," he said."
The aftermath of recent financial crises, such as the U.S. housing slump and near-collapse of Bear Sterns, underscores the concentration of power among a select, insular group of global elites, unchecked by any international mechanism. An often unregulated “superclass” of 6,000 individuals governs not only business and finance, but politics, the arts, the non-profit world, and other sectors.
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