With Obama’s visit to Russia in mind, Jim Arkedis and I published an Op-Ed last week at “Real Clear World”:http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2009/06/30/how_should_us_engage_russia_96852.html. I invite interested readers to explore it in full, but our suggestions revolve our three main themes. First, in the long term, the US will undoubtedly best be served by a democratic Russia, and thus we ought to continue to do what we can when we can to promote that possibility down the road, which for now primarily means providing support to Russia’s democrats when possible. Second, in the short to medium term, it is important to realize that the US and Russia do have shared interests – such as reducing threats from nuclear proliferation and confronting international terrorism, and especially Al Qaeda-type terrorism – and that both countries can benefit from cooperating to realize these shared interests. Finally, we should note that US actions can have repercussions within Russian domestic politics, and that there are particular forces within Russia that would like nothing better to blame all of Russia’s current problems on an antagonistic United States. While we should of course never base on our foreign policy decisions on the needs of another country, to the extent that we can avoid needlessly flaming the fans of Russian nationalism – and in particular anti-American nationalism – long term US national security interests will be better served.
“Click here to read _How Should U.S. Engage Russia?_ at _Real Clear World_”:http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2009/06/30/how_should_us_engage_russia_96852.html