The Resurgence of Russia: Evaluating the Country's Evolution under Putin, NPR Series

"Russia is taking a newly assertive role on the world stage. Its economy is booming, thanks to abundant energy supplies, and its rhetoric echoes that of the Cold War. A five-part series explores President Vladimir Putin's Russia and compares it to the Soviet Union."

Emma, your last article and this one seemed eerily similar, except mine is from New Delhi. Then I realized they are both about the same event. (Duh) Russia and Saudi mean Business:

Putin used the visit on 11-12 February 2007 an opportunity for Moscow to further its relations with Riyadh in a broad range of areas including regional security issues, energy, trade, transportation, scientific cooperation and exchanges. King Abdullah’s visit to Russia in 2003 as Crown Prince marked an opening in high level contacts between the countries which did not have diplomatic ties from 1938 until 1990.

Saudi Arabia has rolled out the red carpet for the Russian leader. On Sunday, King Abdullah hailed Mr. Putin as “a statesman, a man of peace, and a man of justice.” Abdullah emphasized Saudi Arabia’s desire to promote consultation and coordination with Russia on major regional and international issues. “Friendship and mutual respect are the hallmarks of Saudi-Russian relations,” he added

Russia has offered to work together with Saudi Arabia in the fields of atomic energy, high technology and transportation as part of its effort to anchor its ties with Riyadh, as Russian President Vladimir Putin has listed “metals, nuclear power, high technologies, and transportation infrastructure” as possible areas of cooperation [...] Arab states’ long association with America has not been to their advantage in many respects. Feelings are that too much is being dictated to, even as the Palestinian issue remains unsolved, and new issues are coming upfront. Hence, a perception among Arab strategists that the time has come for these states to reconsider their strategies and seek to build new bridges of friendship is strengthening. Moscow-Riyadh contacts are just the beginning of that.

(Note that the link only takes you to the cached article. The middle-east-online.com server seems to be down right now).

Ahead of the Curve: The New Axis of Oil is really interesting. This is the short version. The long one is sub.only, but I can send it to you if you want. It's too long to reproduce here. Here is part of the short.

While Washington is preoccupied with curbing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, avoiding policy failure in Iraq and cheering the "forward march of freedom", the political consequences of recent structural shifts in global energy markets are posing the most profound challenge to American hegemony since the end of the Cold War. The most strategically significant manifestation, though, is Russia's willingness to use its newfound external leverage to counteract what Moscow considers an unacceptable level of U.S. infringement on its interests.

We describe these political consequences of recent structural shifts in global energy markets by the shorthand "petropolitics." While each of these developments is challenging to U.S. interests, the various threads of petropolitics are now coming together in an emerging "axis of oil" that is acting as a counterweight to American hegemony on a widening range of issues.

The larger reality is that U.S. foreign policy is ill suited to cope with the challenges to American leadership flowing from the new petropolitics. Current policy does not take energy security seriously as a foreign policy issue or prioritize energy security in relation to other foreign policy goals.

More tomorrow on the Russian front. Or as soon as I find them :-)

War does not determine who is right - only who is left. Bertrand Russell

Just a quick comment to say: thanks. Plus doing so gives me a link on my tracking list so I can easily come back and finish what I have not read completely & see any additions :-)

I got right away that it was not exactly unbiased.  The banner gives them away :-)

I tried to excerpt only the parts of the article that were or probably were factual.  I knew from other publications that Putin visited Saudi Arabia but none of the other articles were as specifc about the arms deals.

Besides, I just had to share that banner.

The resurgence of Russia is a popular topic right now.  Resurgent Russia is the cover/lead of The Washington Quarterly's Spring issue.  Featured articles are:

I hope the links hold until I have time to read through all these.