How much is the United States doing to shape the emerging new global order, as opposed to simply reacting to events? I worry that it is too much the latter. . .

A bookend to the mid-February presentation on Ukraine at the Nixon Center: Speaker of the Rada Lytvyn has confirmed that the government of prime minister Yuliya Tymoshenko no longer commands a majority as the “Orange coalition” has dissolved. My comments back in February suggested that a new coalition would form that would probably consist of Lytvyn’s bloc joining with Yanukovych’s Party of Regions and elements of the former president’s “Our Ukraine” bloc in an anti-crisis coalition government.

On his first foreign visit—to Brussels to meet with the EU BEFORE he goes to Moscow—president Yanukovych re-iterated his agenda of balancing Ukraine between Russia and the West. He is making the pitch for an association agreement between Ukraine and the EU that will provide for free trade and visa-free travel, and pitched his idea for a joint EU-Russia-Ukraine consortium to handle natural gas transit.

Meanwhile, how will Nicolas Sarkozy’s strategy of engagement with Russia--based on offering concrete incentives to Moscow--work in engendering Russian support for stronger sanctions on Iran? If Sarkozy can deliver where Obama did not, what does this say about the future of the reset? As Judah Grunstein has observed: What’s interesting is the way in which Sarkozy reversed the poles of the engagement-reset approach that the Obama administration pursued: While President Barack Obama was trying to engage with Iran and reset with Russia, Sarkozy was trying to engage with Russia and reset with Iran (the fuel swap deal).

In case you haven’t already read it, I suggest reviewing the remarks of China’s Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi at the Munich security conference (here is the transcript of the question and answer period that followed). Two interesting themes that I detected; one, a “concert” approach to solving global problems, rather than U.S. leadership; and two, what seems to be an embrace of the “World without the West” thesis.

Second, Serbia’s Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic’s remarks at Johns Hopkins. I was struck by the similarity in his assessment about the importance of including Turkey and Russia in the European architecture (rather than as peripheral powers to Europe), and some similarities in what I heard Paul Saunders of the Nixon Center address when he spoke at the Naval War College on Thursday.

And this week’s WPR column: No Magic Bullet on Iran.

It has been a week with a focus on Ukraine and Iran for me. One revolution completes its cycle in Ukraine with Kyiv still balanced between Russia and the West, and another prospective revolution carries with it no guarantees that regime modification will meet Washington’s security agenda.

For your comments:

Testing Our Iran Policy Assumptions . See also Judah Grunstein’s report today on The IAEA’s Iran Report.

Courting Kiev, and the meeting report of a luncheon discussion held at the Nixon Center this week on the aftermath of the Ukrainian elections and what it means for the Eurasian space, with comments from Paul Saunders, Dimitri K. Simes, former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft and Erlan Idrissov, the ambassador of Kazakhstan to the United States.

My essay in World Politics Review about the use of bribery as a tool of statecraft. If it worked for the Byzantines, why not for us?

Some of my immediate reaction to Sunday's elections. As you can read, I don't foresee major changes to the stalemate that currently exists in Ukraine. Thoughts and comments welcomed.

That seems to be the two ends of the spectrum of the U.S. approach to China (and Russia too). Sooner or later, you have to craft an approach that will tilt toward one side or the other—one cannot simultaneously contain a partner. (The subject of this short essay in today’s National Interest on the question of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.)

Will “regime change” (or at least modification) to U.S. preferences occur before Iran crosses the nuclear finish line? My thoughts and your comments on the matter.

Compliments the piece that appeared in NI earlier this week.

Brian Whitmore has an interesting take on the Obama administration and foreign policy one year on: the nudge strategy. As he puts it, an incremental approach designed to create “structural incentives that the White House hopes will “nudge” troublesome states like Iran, Russia, and China toward greater cooperation with -- or less resistance to -- the United States.”

Also, the Ukraine That Might Have Been.

Laura Rozen reports that General Jones and Admiral Mullen will be headed to Moscow to get the START talks rolling again. My comment:

. . . how will the changed political climate in Washington affect the treaty negotiations? The Obama administration cannot afford to send to the Senate an agreement that appears to be making too many concessions to the Kremlin—but the Russian side is in no mood to compromise and in no hurry to hand the president any sort of foreign policy success. My prediction is that the talks will got bogged down in procedural details.

Some thoughts on the “day after” the Ukrainian elections (round one will be held this Sunday, January 17th).

My worries about the drift in U.S. policies vis-à-vis Latin America; is anyone doing the long-term thinking and planning?

Russia survived the crises of 2008-09; how it is set to cope with the next set of challenges on the horizon? I address that in a post for Tatiana Serafin's Global Market and Ideas blog. The Kremlin is not out of the woods yet.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, came to the Naval War College today to give a talk. I see it as giving us a glimpse at what is on his plate.

More detailed comments are over at Global Security.

One point I didn’t make at that site: he is aware of the need to connect the dots between the inevitable decline in U.S. defense budgets with enlisting allies, partners and coalitions to handle international security.

That’s what I argue in the New Atlanticist today. Partnership with Russia is not on the agenda; it is not a matter of rephrasing things nicely—because our interests and theirs are out of alignment.