Go Ahead, Use Our Roads To Speed Into That Quagmire

So what did the President and Dmitry Medvedev decide upon at their Moscow Summit today? The big news is that the two sides have agreed on arms reduction amounting to as much as a 1/3 cut in nuclear stockpiles. More on that here. This is an excellent first step to the ultimate goal of ridding the world of the scourge of nuclear weapons.

A side deal permits Russia to allow transit of US military supplies through its country and into Afghanistan:

On July 6, 2009, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Undersecretary of State William Burns concluded an agreement that will enable the United States to transport its military personnel and equipment across Russia to support American and Coalition forces in Afghanistan.

This agreement complements a NATO-Russia arrangement, under which the United States began shipping non-lethal equipment to Afghanistan through Russian territory earlier this year.

This agreement will enable the United States to further diversify the crucial transportation routes and decrease the amount of time needed to move troops and critical equipment to resupply international forces in Afghanistan and to bring needed supplies to the government and people of Afghanistan. This will permit 4,500 flights per year. The new transit routes will save the United States government up to $133 million annually in fuel, maintenance and other transportation costs, and this agreement is free of any air navigation charges. By providing access to these transit routes, the Russian Federation is ena b ling a substantial increase in the efficiency of our common effort to defeat the forces of violent extremism in Afghanistan and to ensure Afghanistan’s and the broader region’s security.

Given Russia's past history in Afghanistan, do you think they signed this agreement with a curl of the lip, saying, "Yes, good luck with your war in Afghanistan, by all means, let us help you!" In the 1980s, the United States helped the mujahedeen fighting the Soviets. These days Russia can just speed the flow of US transit into that snake pit of the country and achieve virtually the same goal. As a side benefit, the move gives the appearance of resetting US-Russian relations at the same time.

START Talks Start

Amid a flurry of diplomacy and negotiation at the G20 Summit in London, this is perhaps the best news:

President Obama and Russian President Dimitry Medvedev launched negotiations on a new nuclear arms treaty today, even as they agreed to pursue new and broader cooperation across a wide range of policy areas.

In a statement after a closed-door meeting, the two leaders pledged to begin immediately on a new treaty on offensive nuclear weapons to replace the 2002 Moscow Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions, which expires at the end of this year. They committed to reduce their nuclear arsenals to levels lower that those mandated by the START treaty, which calls for both nations to have between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads by December 31, 2012.

"The Presidents decided to begin bilateral intergovernmental negotiations to work out a new, comprehensive, legally binding agreement on reducing and limiting strategic offensive arms," the statement says. Obama told reporters that he will travel to Moscow in July, the date by which the two leaders said their negotiators should report progress on the new arms reduction treaty.

We absolutely don't need to have the capacity to destroy the world multiple times over, and these START talks among the two top nuclear powers lead us to the vision of a nuclear-free world. Obama campaigned on this, and now he's following through. Good.

The Power Of Not Being Reviled

So Russia starts bombing targets inside Georgia, the United States huffs and puffs to no avail. Then French President Sarkozy hops on Easyjet and stops off in Moscow, and within a matter of hours, just after he lands, Russia calls a cease-fire.

MOSCOW — President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia announced Tuesday that he had ordered a halt to his country’s military operation in Georgia, although he did not say that troops were pulling out and he insisted that Russian forces were still authorized to fire on enemies in South Ossetia.

The president said Russia had achieved its military goals during five days of intense fighting, which has seen Russian troops advance into Georgian territory and which brought strong denunciations from President Bush and other Western leaders.

Now, there are scattered reports of continued fighting here and there. And Sarkozy was just beginning cease-fire talks and didn't exactly provoke this. But basically, what you have is a country that maintains good relations and holds a little thing called influence, and another country that coddles their neocon friends and looks ridiculous.

(On another note, Sarkosy is a dead ringer for Jean-Paul Belmondo in Breathless)

UPDATE: According to Jonathan Landay at McClatchy, (h/t K-Drum) we begged Saakashvili not to attack Georgia (which I don't totally believe) and we "had an understanding" with the Russians that they would limit themselves to fighting in South Ossetia and not beyond those borders. That's just kind of stupid, to expect the Russians not to want to dominate their sphere of influence.

UPDATE II: Here's the smartest take on reconciling the Landay article about US entreaties to Georgia, from Robert Farley:

The other possibility is that the Americans said different things than the Georgians heard. This happens ALL THE TIME in international politics; motivated bias on the part of Saakashvili may have led him to believe that the Americans were making encouraging noises, because he wanted to believe that the Americans were encouraging him. Indeed, this would go a long way to explaining how the Georgians were certain of US support, despite the fact that there was no compelling reason for the Americans to give support.

That sounds right to me.

Puppet Picked For Putin

They're "voting" in Russia tomorrow (some of the polling in the easternmost portions of the country has already begun) to anoint a successor to Vladimir Putin, and all relevant polls show that it's likely to be his former campaign manager Dmitry Medvedev. That's probably due at least in part to some helpful nudging by the party in power.

The Kremlin is planning to falsify the results of tomorrow's presidential election by compelling millions of public-sector workers to vote and by fraudulently boosting the official turnout, the Guardian has been told by independent sources.

Governors, regional officials and even headteachers have been instructed to deliver a landslide majority for Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's first deputy prime minister, whom President Vladimir Putin has endorsed as his successor.

Officials have been told they need to secure a 68-70% turnout in this weekend's poll, with about 72% voting for Medvedev. Independent analysts believe the real turnout will be much lower, with 25-50% of the electorate taking part.

The Kremlin is planning to bridge the gap through widespread fraud, diplomats and other independent sources have told the Guardian. Local election officials are preparing to stuff ballot boxes once polls have closed, they believe, with regional officials giving inflated tallies to Russia's central election commission.

It's clear that Russia has backslid massively on democracy over the last eight years, so the fact that this is a Potemkin village of a vote does not surprise. Medvedev was likely to win anyway (Putin isn't an unpopular leader, at least not in public), but a landslide would confer some sort of legitimacy, so it's being mandated.

Seeing both Clinton and Obama struggle with a question about Medvedev in the last debate, it's obvious that both of them could have answered it by saying "It doesn't matter who this guy is, Putin will remain in power, he's isolated himself from the democratic process, and George Bush looking into his soul and seeing a friend didn't exactly help."