This is a legacy website featuring a collection of work by the Carnegie Endowment’s global network of scholars on topics including Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia, and the post-Soviet states. This site is a product of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace based in Washington, D.C. For more recent work by Carnegie scholars in this field, please visit Carnegie Politika.
Barack Obama’s re-election may signal predictability in U.S.-Russian relations, but this relationship needs to be upgraded from largely tactical to strategic.
Whoever wins the U.S. presidency, Washington’s Russia policy needs a reassessment and a rethink. The choice for the new administration lies between keeping Russia on the periphery of the U.S. foreign policy and treating Russia as an asset in America’s global strategy.
For Russians, Obama seems to be a better choice for the next U.S. president, but in general, the Kremlin and the Russian public are watching the U.S. election rather calmly. It is a sign that the countries are no longer enemies but are not great friends.
The United States needs to begin paying more attention to Russia as part of its Asia-Pacific strategy if it wants a more stable balance to emerge in this critical region.
Since 2011, the driving forces in the Middle East have been the Arab people, the Gulf monarchies, Iran, and Turkey, not the United States. As global power realities shift, so must U.S. foreign policy.
Moscow would probably prefer Obama to win in the U.S. presidential elections, but a Romney win would not be seen as a disaster. Romney's Cold War-style rhetoric fits into Putin’s worldview and helps him to mobilize his supporters.
The 2012 APEC summit took place in Russia's far eastern city of Vladivostok. Following this summit, the Carnegie Moscow Center and the Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography of the Peoples of the Far East organized a conference in Vladivostok dedicated to the Asia-Pacific security in the 21st century.
Moscow is neither pro-Assad nor anti-West, but its position on the issues of the primacy of the UN Security Council and the importance of sovereignty will not change.
Historically the U.S. Democrats have been perceived as weak in foreign policy and national security, but President Barack Obama has a strong record in these spheres.
Russia, Pakistan, and other countries in Central and South Asia have historical connections with each other which can, and should, influence their current relationships.