Obama and Russia

An interesting interview on Obama's trip to Russia. This seems to me to be a story that hasn't gotten much play, but has long term import. The Russia-U.S. relationship is a key relationship with many issues that don't make the daily front pages, but have the potential for huge impact: nuclear proliferation, NATO expansion, conflict in Georgia (like last year) and the Ukraine, U.S. missile defense. One of the things that I've been most happy about with Obama is his long-time interest in banning nuclear weapons. He worked on legislation as a senator and made it a central point of one of his major speeches in his first trip to Europe. It really matters to him. To me, it seems like an issue no one thinks about much, but is always lurking in the background. One day it rears it's ugly head and we'll all realize that these two countries have thousands of weapons capable of wiping humanity off the face of the earth.

Stephen Cohen on Obama and his advisors:

the original sin was committed by the Clinton administration when it decided to treat Russia as a defeated power and broke promises made to Russia by Reagan and H.W. Bush, like NATO expansion and the bombing of Serbia. Those policies were made by members of the Clinton administration.

Obama has surrounded himself with these people, beginning with Mrs. Clinton herself. Biden was a Clintonite, Richard Holbrook, McFaul, Jim Jones was the head of NATO during Clinton administration, Robert Gates. Can these people look at what’s happened in the ’90s and say, “We pursued the wrong approach to Russia. We’re going to advise the president to change course”? Not likely. So that leaves us with President Obama. Can he transcend his own advisers?

This ties in with what I think is the overall questions about Obama in general. What are his core issues? What is he willing to fight for? How much is he willing to push an issue that isn't on the national radar and that his advisors are skeptical about?