Senior Russian officials have made clear that the country’s energy policies will continue to evolve around the nexus of ambitious export plans. The government pledged to make the country’s gas exports more flexible. Russia’s total gas exports will include 10 percent of liquefied natural gas (LNG) by 2020 and 15 percent by 2030, Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, announced on September 17. The global demand for hydrocarbons will be increasing in the next decade according to Putin. READ MORE

Frosty diplomatic relations were thawing like Arctic ice as Norway reached a landmark deal with Russia this week over a 40-year-old Barents Sea boundary dispute, and Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon held cordial meetings Thursday with Russian officials in Moscow. READ MORE

The message promoted by foreign policy gurus in recent years is that the American moment is over and a new global balance is emerging; one where power is no longer concentrated in Washington but spread among several different countries. The U.S. will continue to retain a prominent position at the top of the global food chain we are told, but no longer will there be the sense of American worldwide hegemony. Instead the emerging nations of Brazil, Russia, India and China (the so-called “BRICs”) will assume their rightful place as great powers and in the process create a new multi-polar world. READ MORE

The warm relationship between Russia and China should be an indication that Russia is keeping its foreign policy options open. Long gone are the times when aged and frail denizens of the Kremlin would go on a foreign trip only on special occasions: to sign a strategic arms control treaty or to visit with fellow septuagenarians in the so-called fraternal socialist countries. READ MORE