When the Russian Foreign Ministry released its updated Foreign Policy Concept in February, codifying Russia’s global strategies, Washington yawned. Yet this document reveals much about the emerging “Putin Doctrine.” It further separates Russia from Western Europe and is especially critical of the United States. It also leaves no doubt: President Barack Obama’s “reset”…

Cyprus has agreed on a bailout with its international creditors—but the effects will have geopolitical and economic implications for Russia-EU relations. Under the deal announced Monday, Cyprus will pay its share of the bailout by taxing bank deposits exceeding €100,000—a large proportion of which come from Russia. The Popular Bank of Cyprus will close, sending its…

This would be great, as dependence on Middle Eastern and Venezuelan oil is creating geopolitical liabilities and commitments which may be more difficult to manage, particularly when Congress is unwisely cutting military budgets. The U.S. may become a net Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) exporter before it becomes a crude exporter. However, while red-white-and-blue crude exports…

Prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants Turkey to join the European Union. But recently he announced he wants to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Three things he should know about SCO: It’s not based in Shanghai (the HQ is in Beijing); it provides little real cooperation (it barely manages to soothe differences between Moscow, Beijing and other…

On January 2, the U.S. Senate unanimously condemned the "Dima Yakovlev Law," a measure hastily adopted around Christmas time, that victimizes Russian orphans—and Russian democracy. This piece of legislation bars the adoption of Russian children by U.S. citizens. It is namedafter Dima Yakovlev, an adopted child from Russia, who in 2008 was abandoned by his father in a…

If last week’s corruption scandal involving the former Russian defense minister was not embarrassing enough for Moscow, the plot now thickens. A police investigation is targeting one of the Russian high-tech modernization projects, a type of GPS called GLONASS (Global Navigation Satellite System). The threads may lead to higher-ups, and turn into another episode in…

Vladimir Putin’s vision of Russia as an “energy superpower” just got closer to reality. State-controlled, London-floated Rosneft has clinched a deal to buy out BP’s stake in Russian oil operations. Since 2003, BP has been in a joint venture with several Russian oligarchs whose companies are known as Alfa-Access-Renova. From the beginning, there was bad blood between…

As the Russian punk-rock band members “Pussy Riot” appeal their two-year sentence for a political protest in the Russian Orthodox Cathedral, a pale of repression is settling over their country. This crackdown is wrapped in legislative garb, but the iron grip of authoritarianism is unmistakable. The United States must specifically recognize that its “reset” policy of…

Hours before Mikheil Saakashvili admitted defeat, a senior Azerbaijani official told me that the Georgian president had nothing to worry about. He wasn’t the only one miscalling the result: from Tbilisi to Washington, few expected the stunning victory by the opposition Georgian Dream movement, led by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, who claimed victory in the country’s…

Eight hundred years after Genghis Khan, Mongolia is back in the news. Nicknamed “Mine-golia,” it is enjoying the largest energy and raw-materials boom on the planet. Today, Mongolia boasts the world’s third-largest copper mine, as well as one of the largest coal mines. In the first quarter of 2012, Mongolia’s economy grew at an average annual rate of 16.7 percent,…