Equal partnership with Russia sought.

To follow up a little on the piece below, it seems the US under Obama is keen to direct NATO policy towards re-engagement with Russia. Work in this regard had already begun with an informal meeting of the NATO-Russia Council. As its foreign ministers met today, with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in attendance for the first time, the alliance pledged to recommence the work of the Council on a formal basis.

Predictably there were differences of opinion, and Clinton described a ‘vigorous discussion’ on Russia. But what is particularly significant is that the Americans are no longer aligned with the more belligerent anti-Russian voices. Indeed the US joined Germany, traditionally less frosty in its relationship with Moscow, and tabled a motion calling for Russia to become, “equal partners in areas of common interest”.

Predictably David Miliband struck a less conciliatory note. But if the temperature of Russia-NATO relations begins to cool he will be forced to temper his anti-Russian instincts. Vice president Joe Biden spoke last month of ‘pressing the reset button’ on relations with Russia. It is a badly needed change of attitude and one which can help foster true partnership between Russia, the US and the rest of NATO.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Football fever in Russia

Russia Blog is getting excited about Euro 2008. Indeed it is drawing parallels between Guus Hiddink and Peter the Great in terms of successful Russo-Dutch exchanges of expertise. Meanwhile, in Moscow, fans have been taking to the streets in order to celebrate the national team’s achievements.
Read more

Stormont might not collapse but paramilitaries continue to disfigure Northern Ireland

Image
The devolved institutions in Northern Ireland are supposedly ‘teetering on the brink’ of collapse yet again.  After repeated failures to agree a balanced budget or implement welfare reform created months of uncertainty, the Executive’s future is now in doubt because the PSNI believes members of the IRA were involved in murdering a republican hit man.  Despite its apparent seriousness, this particular predicament is unlikely to bring the shaky edifice at Stormont crashing down. The IRA was supposed to have disbanded its military ‘structures’ and decommissioned its entire arsenal of weapons back in 2005.  It was on the basis of this understanding that power-sharing resumed in 2007 and the DUP entered government with Sinn Féin.  From the outset it was a fairly flimsy pretext.   Less than a year after John de Chastelain, the retired Canadian general, oversaw decommissioning, the Independent Monitoring Commission reported that the IRA retained a substantial haul of arms.
Read more

Walker loada rubbish

Former BBC employee Brian Walker has overrun Slugger O’Toole lately with countless poorly structured, poorly written posts. It is possible quickly to recognize and avoid these by subjecting each Slugger piece to a cursory inspection and identifying those which feature characteristic lack of paragraphing and a tenuous grasp on the technicalities of linking source articles. Although I generally evade Walker’s posts by this method, occasionally (and unfortunately) I have persevered and found that their content is as unrewarding as the style in which they are written. Today, for instance, I inflicted upon myself Brian’s thoughts on a mooted Fianna Fail / SDLP merger . In actual fact, he is right to welcome news that the Southern Irish party has dropped this proposal from its agenda; however, the logic by which he arrives at this conclusion is parochial nonsense. To summarise, Walker believes that pursuing realignment with larger parties, whether they are from the rest of the UK or fro
Read more