Russian Foreign Policy Finding New Bearings

... Quite erroneous was the hope for resetting U.S.-Russia relations, because the underlying motive—strategic arms reductions—was of secondary importance. Moscow did not insist on the solution of the key issue—an end to the expansion of Western alliances. The economic and political turn to the East has been slow. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, although it has expanded, is in half-slumber, and for almost a year one there have no results of the agreement to pair the Silk Road Economic Belt project and the Eurasian Economic Union. Russian policy remains targeted at the past and this is one of its worst problems. We are still correcting mistakes of the past. The Russian elite has not yet devised a national development ...