As Russia and the United States prepare for their respective presidential elections, tensions between the countries are growing. The central point of contention is U.S. ballistic missile defense (BMD) plans. Russia has several levers, including its ability to cut off supply lines to the NATO-led war effort in Afghanistan, to use in the standoff over BMD, but the United States could retaliate by supporting the current protests in Russia. Moscow is willing to escalate tensions with Washington but will not push the crisis to the point where relations could formally break.
Syria is often called Russia's last remaining ally in the Middle East, and Moscow's continuing refusal to support the United States, the European Union, and the Arab League in condemning the Assad regime certainly appears to support that claim. The reasons cited for Russia's allegiance to Damascus are many: Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are said to have a sort of autocratic solidarity, with Putin afraid that the Arab Spring encourages challenges to his own rule; at the same time, Russia is thought to have major economic interests in Syria, including arms contracts, a Russian-leased naval base, and plans for nuclear energy cooperation. There are elements of truth in all these assertions -- but they offer only glimpses of the broader picture. Moscow's position on Syria is shaped even more by the recent experience of Libya, strong doubts concerning the Syrian opposition, and suspicions about the motives of the United States. 
Listening to Vladimir Putin trying to salvage his career as his base of support seems to be crumbling around him, the Russian prime minister sounds more and more like all of those Arab dictators just before their own people turned on them in angry revolt. 'Stability is something that can only be achieved through hard work, by being open to change and ready for long-overdue, well-planned and well-calculated reforms,' Putin declared in an online campaign essay this month. So said Syrian President Bashar Assad almost exactly a year ago, just before his own country dissolved into protest, chaos and slaughter.
Russia witnessed mass anti-government rallies on two occasions in December last year. Frustrated by the victory of the pro-Vladimir Putin party in what was believed to be rigged parliamentary elections, Moscow residents did not hesitate to express their discontent by going to the streets and demand the elections to be re-run. Considering the Russian leadership has ruthlessly extinguished opposition voices in the last decade, recent events highlight that changes might have reached Russia's centralized political system.
The questions one could pose are: will these events spur the
advent of other political forces that might challenge the existing status quo and undermine Putin's presidential ambition? In particular, would the rise of alternative political figures lead to revised balanced foreign policy of Russia thereby slowing down its Eurasian project? And how might such powers as China and the United States react?
Russia won't back the U.S. and its Arab allies in a United Nations resolution to oust Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad as it seeks to defend its most important lever in the Middle East, said researchers from Moscow to London.
On Jan. 23, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin published an essay on the "national question" in Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is stepping up rhetoric against the U.S. as his campaign for the March 4 presidential election intensifies after the biggest protests against his rule.
In Russian and U.S. political circles, tongues are wagging over the harsh comments of Mikhail Leontyev expressed on Russia's Channel One, in which the government owns a controlling stake, regarding the meeting of U.S. deputy secretary of state William Burns and newly appointed ambassador Michael McFaul with members of the radical opposition.
Michael McFaul wrote in a blog entry on Russia's popular LiveJournal web site that his first day as U.S. ambassador to Moscow 'started with a bang.' In fact, the real bang came on the second day, when the new ambassador was harshly denounced on Russia's principal state-television channel after meeting with opposition politicians and civil-society activists. Though U.S.-Russian relations will surely survive the incident, it puts the fundamental challenges and dilemmas of the reset, and previous efforts to improve the relationship, into sharp focus. 
Recent tough talk from Russian officialdom on key foreign policy issues suggests that the Kremlin is growing increasingly wary of 'Arab Spring'-style revolts spreading to Moscow, especially amidst a growing protest trend at home during the lead-up to the March presidential elections. And as the West digs in its heels against countries such as Syria and Iran, Russia has found itself in a tight spot vis-à-vis these regimes - and, experts suggested, perhaps on the wrong side of the battle. |
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12:01 PM, February 7 Russia raps West, sends mission to Syria
11:42 AM, February 7 Russia Launches Election Monitoring Website
11:31 AM, February 7 Putin promises Russia's civil society a greater role in decision-making
01:37 PM, February 6 UN Resolution on Syria 'Too Hasty' - Russia
10:37 AM, February 3 UN diplomats fail to agree on Syria, leaving talks in limbo
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