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US Targets Russian Support On Iran With Shield Reverse, Say Experts

By Nick Amies

Scrapping the US missile shield project has more to do with Iran than just its perceived lack of current threat, say experts. Removing the barrier to dialogue with Russia could give the US a powerful ally against Tehran. READ MORE

War Between Russia And Ukraine – A Possibility

By George Bovt

What exactly is going on in Russian – Ukrainian politics? Nobody can give a precise answer nor can they explain what really provoked the strongly-worded statement of Russian president Dmitry Medvedev on August 11th, in which he denounced the Ukrainian president for his anti-Russian policy and announced that the new Russian envoy to Ukraine would remain in Moscow for the time being. READ MORE

Russia and Ukraine in Intensifying Standoff

By Clifford J. Levy

A year after its war with Georgia, Russia is engaging in an increasingly hostile standoff with another pro-Western neighbor, Ukraine. READ MORE

Croatia, Slovenia Bury Border Dispute

Slovenia and Croatia have reached an agreement on their long-running border dispute, a move that will allow Croatia to continue its European Union accession talks. READ MORE

Mateusz Piskorski: Poland and Russia Are Against Chauvinism: the Chance For Strategic Partnership?

The visit of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to Poland is the most significant event in the foreign policy of Poland in 2009. The Government of Donald Tusk has a serious task to normalize Polish-Russian relations, which has lately occurred to be almost frozen. READ MORE

The promise of emerging democracies

By Nursultan Nazarbayev

The world is remaking itself. Amid pressing economic challenges and multinational security concerns, new alliances are forming. Global commerce along with governments are bringing down borders, opening relationships and creating opportunity. Kazakhstan, like most emerging democracies, is cautiously optimistic, with a pragmatism steeped in the hard lessons of history. Policies have consequences; alliances can liberate as well as captivate. With the stroke of a pen, superpower leaders like Presidents Obama and Dmitry Medvedev of Russia can reverse a decade of tepid relations to put forces and agendas into motion that affect all of us. READ MORE

Azerbaijan May Also Open Borders With Armenia

Azerbaijan is ready to open its border with Armenia and establish formal relations if Yerevan returns five occupied regions adjacent to disputed Nagorno-Karabakh, an Azerbaijani official has said. READ MORE

Kazakhstan Approaches OSCE Chairmanship As A "National Strategic Project"

By Vladimir Socor

Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev has instructed the government to form a State Commission on Preparations for Kazakhstan's Chairmanship of the OSCE. Personally chairing an enlarged inter-departmental meeting on this subject, Nazarbayev described Kazakhstan's chairmanship of the OSCE in 2010 as a "national strategic project." The State Commission should coordinate all aspects of the country's effort, from policy analysis and diplomatic activity to personnel training and public outreach. READ MORE

Astana and the EU Intend to Intensify Bilateral Cooperation on the Eve of Kazakhstan Presidency in OSCE

The Ambassador of Kazakhstan, the Head of the Mission of the Republic to the EU and NATO Erik Utembayev met the Secretary General of the European Union Javier Solana in Brussels. READ MORE

NATO and World Security

By Zbigniew Brzezinski

In the course of its 60 years, NATO has institutionalized three monumental transformations in world affairs: first, the end of the centuries-long “civil war” within the West for trans-oceanic and European supremacy; second, the United States’s post–World War II commitment to the defense of Europe against Soviet domination; and third, the peaceful termination of the Cold War, which created the preconditions for a larger democratic European Union. READ MORE