Over the past 18 months, Russia's relations with Asia have begun to improve. Dozens of protocols and agreements on new projects have been signed with China. Some are already up and running. Nevertheless, Russia has yet to devise a long-term and comprehensive Asian strategy. The main force holding Russia back is, to put it bluntly, ignorance.

Two years ago last month in Prague, U.S. President Barack Obama put forward his visionary idea of a world free of nuclear weapons. A year ago, a new strategic arms treaty between Russia and the United States was signed in the same city. Now, the worldwide wave of support for a full ban on nuclear weapons, or "nuclear zero," is being transformed into a debate about nuclear deterrence.

After the New START, the debate over nuclear weapons is only beginning. The risks of a world without nuclear weapons — or only a small number of them — are tremendous.

Rapid changes in the global economy and international politics are raising once again an eternal issue in Russia: the country’s relations with Europe and with the Euro-Atlantic region as a whole.

This November will mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. But the end of confrontation in Europe may be proving only temporary. One year after the war in Georgia, old divisions seem to be re-emerging in a different form. Although the Cold War in Europe was declared over, the truth is, it never really finished.

Without a clear understanding of Russia's interests, Putin was fortunate to avoid distaster in Iraq.