Different points of view --

It is useful to read what the foreign press publishes about the United States. Today's post focuses on Russian and Asian sources. The first news items are from Russia.

President Barack Obama will visit Russia in early July (6-8) several days prior to the G8 summit in Italy, according to Russian source RIA Novosti. At issue are such items as the U.S. proposal to deploy a missile defense shield. PM Vladimir Putin has announced that Russia will link missile defense with the issues of strategic offensive armaments. The two countries have already started to work on a new treaty to replace the expiring START pact, with the next meeting set for May 19-21 in Moscow. Meanwhile Russia remains committed to bettering its recently strained relations with NATO. ""We do not think NATO has been lost to us as a partner," Ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said a week ago. Today Russia's President Medvedev "stated that the structure of the European security based on NATO's expansion idi not suit Russia," reports Pravda.

As far as U.S. Russian relations go, things have changed a great deal since the election of Barack Obama. Back in July of 2007, according to an old RIA Novosti story,"former Societ leader Mikhail Gorbachev said that a multi-polar world was the key to global security and cititcized the Bush administration's efforts to dominate world politics." The U.S. goal now is to "reset" relations with Russia.

To conclude, an Asia Times article by Dmitry Shlapentokh, a professor of history at Indiana University is titled, "China, Russia face up to Taliban threat." Last month Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced that "Russia and China would strengthen their military cooperation . . . and engage in military maneuvers." The author feels that the U.S. "economic decline is increasingly being translated into military weakness." The Russia-China alliance, though still mistrustful of each other, could thus be a bulwark against the insurgency of the Taliban, should things go very badly for the NATO alliance in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

It will be interesting to see how close these stories come to what actually happens in the months and years to come. The globe has certainly grown smaller since the bottom fell out of the world economy. I sincerely hope that Professor Shlapentokh is wrong when he says that we will lose the war in "Af-Pak." I hope that a heavy dose of diplomacy and development will help turn the corner in the South Asian theater. And I also hope that President Obama's efforts to diminish the threat of an accidental nuclear war, via a new START treaty, go well. Our new President is taking his role as commander in chief very seriously, and I believe he is a very quick study.

[Post date May 16, 2009]

See also Behind the Links, for further info on this subject.

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