Managing defeat well is one of the greatest skills a diplomat can have. Historians have a special admiration for statesmen who have extracted their countries from failed wars. These diplomatic heroes include Talleyrand, who brilliantly defended French interests after the fall of Napoleon, and Henry Kissinger, who devised America’s exit from Vietnam. As Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, reflects on the challenges ahead in 2013, he may wonder if he will be able to manage the consequences of a lost war. For Lavrov, that lost war is the Syrian conflict. Although it has now claimed more than 40,000 lives, the […]

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s deferral in late-October of a planned visit to India, now scheduled to take place in late-December, encapsulates a bilateral relationship buffeted by shifting global geo-economics but still lucrative for both parties. The postponement reflects the fact that euphemisms such as “strategic partnership” do not automatically translate into preferential treatment in commercial matters in a world increasingly driven by interests over ideology and history. A number of unresolved issues had built up on both sides that precluded the possibility of a successful summit meeting. Topping the list is New Delhi’s decision to bring any additional Russian-built reactors […]

Speaking last Thursday in Dublin to a group of human rights activists on the sidelines of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) conference, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton effectively sounded the death-knell for the reset in U.S.-Russia relations. Commenting on Russian proposals for creating a Eurasian Union comprising Russia and other former Soviet republics, Clinton bluntly described the plan as a “move to re-Sovietize the region” and said that the United States is “trying to figure out effective ways to slow down or prevent it.” Given that the proposal to develop the Eurasian Union was at the […]