http://www.carnegie.ruNewsennews.xmlhttp://www.carnegie.ruhttp://www.carnegie.ruThe international meeting in Moscow of Middle East peace mediators will most likely be devoted not so much to trying to settle the actual conflict as to looking for ways to influence each of the parties involved, believes Carnegie Moscow Center expert Alexey Malashenko. “Today’s meeting of the Middle East quartet (UN, EU, United States and Russia) is a normal part of the Middle East routine and no one is expecting it to produce any breakthroughs. But there is some suspense nevertheless.”http://www.carnegie.ru/en/news/84278.htm19.03.2010Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the United States, Europe, and Russia have still yet to devise a stable, long-term security arrangement. On March 17, 2010, in testimony before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, Dmitri Trenin argued that given the reset in U.S.–Russian relations, the time is ripe for these three major powers to devise a security architecture for a new century – one capable of maintaining peace and stability on the European continent throughout the years to come.http://www.carnegie.ru/en/news/84240.htm17.03.2010Individual freedoms and, with some reservations, economic freedoms achieved during the perestroika years still exist in Russia today, but the democracy that Gorbachev and his allies spoke of just as much as of freedom, has been replaced by a paternalist state, writes Carnegie Moscow Center expert Maria Lipman. “The all powerful Communist Party ran the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union commanded half the world. But 25 years ago, taking the helm of this grandiose edifice, Mikhail Gorbachev already knew that this might was in many respects an illusion. The communist Soviet Union was inexorably losing ground in the competition with the capitalist world, and within the country itself people had long before lost faith in the dogmas of Marxism-Leninism. Neither did they believe the government itself. Various estimates put the number of people listening to western radio stations at between 8 million to 30 million. The truth came from abroad in their eyes, while at home they were surrounded by lies, hypocrisy and the enduring trappings of Brezhnev-era stagnation.”http://www.carnegie.ru/en/news/84236.htm16.03.2010The elections on March 14 were honest or at least relatively honest, though not exactly fair, comments Carnegie Moscow Center expert Nikolay Petrov. “As far as the unfairness goes, the authorities made mass use of their administrative resources to put candidates not to their liking out of the running, and in this sense the elections differed little from those held last autumn. As a result, for the most part, only candidates from the parties represented in the Duma actually made it onto the lists. Where these elections differed from those of October 2009 was in the way the votes were counted. There were no serious reproaches made in this respect.”http://www.carnegie.ru/en/news/84231.htm15.03.2010Two imperatives define Barack Obama’s nuclear agenda. On the one hand he called for a world free of nuclear weapons (nuclear zero). On the other hand, Obama believes that the U.S. needs credible nuclear deterrence. The balance between the two is uneasy, according to Deepti Choubey, deputy director of the Nuclear Policy program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Speaking at the Carnegie Moscow Center on March 4, 2010, Choubey described the key issues on the U.S. president’s nuclear agenda, which include the START I follow-on treaty, the Nuclear Posture Review, the NPT Review Conference and the CTBT.http://www.carnegie.ru/en/news/84206.htm04.03.2010Boris Nemtsov, former deputy prime minister of Russia, member of the Solidarity democratic movement, and a prominent Kremlin opposition leader, spoke at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in June 2009 about the state of democracy in Russia, following the spring 2009 mayoral elections. He returned nine months later to provide an updated assessment of the latest domestic political developments in Russia. In June, Nemtsov had expressed guarded optimism about Medvedev’s prospects for democratizing Russia’s domestic politics. With little political progress made in the intervening months, Nemtsov now urged international observers to ignore Medvedev’s rhetoric in favor of his actions. In his opinion, the most significant achievements of the Medvedev presidency thus far are the constitutional change which allows Prime Minister Putin to run for an extended presidential term in 2012; and the recognition of sovereign Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Nemtsov noted an increase in anti-Putin protests across the country, with the largest taking place in Kaliningrad in January.http://www.carnegie.ru/en/news/84216.htm02.03.2010The launch of the large-scale Moshtarak military operation in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province on February 13, 2010, may look like further proof of America’s inconsistent policy in that country. Carnegie Moscow Center expert Peter Topychkanov, however, argues that Washington’s approach could at last be gaining some kind of logic. “Throughout 2009, people were waiting to see what the Obama administration’s Afghanistan policy would be. Last year, the White House seemed more to be jumping from one vision to another, from AfPak to the Pakistan Surge. In that context, the news that representatives of the Karzai government, the U.S., NATO, and the UN had met with Taliban representatives in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and the Maldives did not inspire much confidence. Newly revived military operations at the same time suggested that the U.S. and NATO were pursuing a contradictory policy, talking to the Taliban on the one hand and trying to destroy them on the other.”http://www.carnegie.ru/en/news/84102.htm19.02.2010The bomb blast in the Indian city of Pune and the media response show that there is still a lot of opposition in India to normalizing relations with Pakistan. But in the view of Carnegie Moscow Center expert Peter Topychkanov, the external situation leaves these opponents little chance of success. “Just when talks were set to resume between New Delhi and Islamabad, a bomb blast in the western Indian town of Pune killed 9 people and injured 57. The time and place of the explosion were not chosen by chance. What is significant is not even so much that the chosen target was a cafe popular among foreigners, but that Pune is a city where political organizations based on religious and nationalist platforms are strong. Following the blast, these organizations called for an end to preparations for resuming Indian-Pakistani talks.”http://www.carnegie.ru/en/news/84079.htm16.02.2010Magomedsalam Magomedov, the new president of Dagestan in Russia’s North Caucasus, is a compromise figure selected to help calm the region, according to Carnegie Moscow Center expert Alexey Malashenko. “Magomedov follows the footsteps of his father, Magomedali Magomedov, first and foremost because he is likely to be reasonably well accepted by most people in Dagestan. And while future attempts to sack a few officials and mayors here and there will likely arouse local ire, they will probably not cause ripples on a republic-wide scale.”http://www.carnegie.ru/en/news/84035.htm12.02.2010