OP-ED: The Real Issue Isn't a Shield in Central Europe (Moscow Times, RUSSIA)

By Fyodor Lukyanov

In the two weeks since he was elected president, Barack Obama has received conflicting signals from Moscow. Aside from a threat to deploy Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, the Kremlin has made some conciliatory statements. Whether we see a new chapter in U.S.-Russian relations will become clear only after Obama and his foreign policy team are firmly in place after January. Nonetheless, we can still identify the key points that will determine the nature of the relationship.

The two main irritants in relations are NATO expansion and plans to install elements of a U.S. missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. Following the war in the Caucasus, NATO may have less enthusiasm for offering Membership Action Plans for Ukraine and Georgia, but the missile-defense issue will become either the main obstacle to bilateral relations or the key opportunity for improving them.

Since the missile-defense program was first proposed, it has caused a great deal of frustration for both sides. At a U.S.-Russia summit in Sochi in April, then-President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush signed a declaration on a strategic framework for relations between the two countries. After the summit, the Kremlin concluded that the next U.S. president would make the final decision about whether the United States would go forward with its missile-defense system in Central Europe. In other words, Moscow thought Bush would not force the issue before he left office.

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