Chapter VIII. Develop Agendas for Cooperative Action with the Other Main Centers of Global
Power
Section C. The Way Ahead - 5. Russia
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The United States seeks to work closely with Russia on strategic issues of common
interest and to manage issues on which we have differing interests. By reason of
geography and power, Russia has great influence not only in Europe and its own
immediate neighborhood, but also in many other regions of vital interest to us: the
broader Middle East, South and Central Asia, and East Asia. We must encourage Russia
to respect the values of freedom and democracy at home and not to impede the cause of
freedom and democracy in these regions. Strengthening our relationship will depend on
the policies, foreign and domestic, that Russia adopts. Recent trends regrettably point
toward a diminishing commitment to democratic freedoms and institutions. We will
work to try to persuade the Russian Government to move forward, not backward, along
freedom's path.
Stability and prosperity in Russia's neighborhood will help deepen our relations with
Russia; but that stability will remain elusive as long as this region is not governed by
effective democracies. We will seek to persuade Russia's government that democratic
progress in Russia and its region benefits the peoples who live there and improves
relationships with us, with other Western governments, and among themselves.
Conversely, efforts to prevent democratic development at home and abroad will hamper
the development of Russia's relations with the United States, Europe, and its neighbors.
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