Henry Kissinger wrote an interesting piece in today’s Washington Post on the future of U.S.-Russian relations under the leadership of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.  Kissinger is optimistic about the future of the relationship between to the two states, even though relations have cooled in recent years between President Bush and former President Vladimir Putin.  In fact, Kissinger argues that Medvedev’s Kremlin may be quite different than that of his predecessor’s:

Conventional wisdom treated Medvedev’s inauguration as president of the Russian Federation as a continuation of President Vladimir Putin’s two terms of Kremlin dominance and assertive foreign policy.  But after recently visiting Moscow, where I met with leading political personalities as well as those in business and intellectual circles, I am convinced that this judgment is premature.

Obviously, it is too soon to tell how Medvedev will govern.  But he is, after all, Putin’s hand-picked successor and a loyal acolyte.  Putin remains a very popular leader in Russia.  As Kissinger explains, “He [Putin] is seen by most Russians as the leader who overcame the humiliation and chaos of the 1990s, when the Russian state, economy, ideology and empire collapsed.”  What are Medvedev’s incentives to dramatically change course?  Does he have any?  

Kissinger gives the Bush administration and the presidential candidates a piece of advice:

What are the implications for American foreign policy?  During the next several months, Russia will be working out the practical means of the distinction between design and implementation of national security policy.  The Bush administration and the presidential candidates would be wise to give Moscow space to do so and restrain public comment.

Issues like missile defense, nuclear modernizaiton and proliferation will continue to strain relations between Washington and Moscow.  The interests of the U.S. and Russia are not all mutually exclusive but there are many areas that diverge.  Later today, after Kissinger’s article was published the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement that might shed some more light on this issue:  “If a U.S. strategic anti-missile shield starts to be deployed near our borders, we will be forced to react not in a diplomatic fashion but with military-technical means.”  I’m not an expert at decoding Russian rhetoric, but that seems similar to something Putin’s Foreign Ministry would have released.