The United States wants to "depoliticize" the proposed Nabucco pipeline project, and might welcome Russia’s participation in the pipeline, Washington’s Eurasian energy envoy, Richard Morningstar, recently announced. The Kremlin, however, is likely to interpret this outwardly magnanimous gesture as a sign of Nabucco’s weakness, some experts say.

Speaking at a late January forum sponsored by the Washington, DC,-based Center for American Progress, Morningstar indicated that the United States would not necessarily object if Europeans ultimately chose to build the Russian-backed Nord Stream or South Stream pipelines. Morningstar’s appearance at the forum was billed as the first comprehensive exposition of the Obama administration’s Caspian energy strategy. While continuing to back the same basic principles as the Bush and Clinton administrations, it was clear from the talk that the Obama administration has much more modest goals regarding Caspian energy than its predecessors.

U.S. and Russian arms-control negotiators have reached an "agreement in principle" on the first nuclear-arms-reduction treaty in nearly two decades, administration and arms-control officials said Tuesday.

The deal, which was widely expected, would bring down deployed nuclear warheads and sharply limit the number of missiles and bombers that can deliver them.

Rose Gottemoeller, the Obama administration's lead negotiator, flew to Geneva Monday to help draft the final text and begin what could still be an arduous process of translating the agreement into treaty language, an administration official said.

The United States wants to "depoliticize" the proposed Nabucco pipeline project, and might welcome Russia’s participation in the pipeline, Washington’s Eurasian energy envoy, Richard Morningstar, recently announced. The Kremlin, however, is likely to interpret this outwardly magnanimous gesture as a sign of Nabucco’s weakness, some experts say.

Speaking at a late January forum sponsored by the Washington, DC,-based Center for American Progress, Morningstar indicated that the United States would not necessarily object if Europeans ultimately chose to build the Russian-backed Nord Stream or South Stream pipelines. Morningstar’s appearance at the forum was billed as the first comprehensive exposition of the Obama administration’s Caspian energy strategy. While continuing to back the same basic principles as the Bush and Clinton administrations, it was clear from the talk that the Obama administration has much more modest goals regarding Caspian energy than its predecessors.

U.S. and Russian arms-control negotiators have reached an "agreement in principle" on the first nuclear-arms-reduction treaty in nearly two decades, administration and arms-control officials said Tuesday.

The deal, which was widely expected, would bring down deployed nuclear warheads and sharply limit the number of missiles and bombers that can deliver them.

Rose Gottemoeller, the Obama administration's lead negotiator, flew to Geneva Monday to help draft the final text and begin what could still be an arduous process of translating the agreement into treaty language, an administration official said.

On the 1st of October the UN Security Council is gathering to once again discuss the proposed sanctions on Iran. Most of the previous meetings regarding the issue of Iran’s nuclear program have been a complete failure, since Russia and China preferred to stick to diplomacy. This session of the UNSC, however, may have a less expected outcome.

The situation around the American anti-missile system in Europe is strikingly reminiscent of that with Reagan’s “Zero Option”, when in 1981 the plan for deploying missiles itself became a subject for bargaining between the two superpowers. At that time the USSR was offered to remove the SS-20 missiles from its European part in exchange for nothing – the USA scrapping plans to install Pershing II missiles.