A far-reaching State-of-the-Nation Address
President Dmitry Medvedev delivered his first State-of-the-Nation Address to the Russian political and business elite today in the Kremlin, coinciding it with the resounding victory of Barack Obama in the U.S. presidential election.
In his speech, the Russian president covered the traditional domestic policy issues as well as the ‘burning’ global affairs with direct impacts on Russia and its economy, placing key emphasis on the raging global economic crisis, the Georgia conflict in August, and finally, the urgent need to reform and diversify the existing international decision-making centers on all issues of vital global importance.
Though the Russian president had offered warm congratulatory messages to the new U.S. president-elect, some of the future key policy issues raised in his maiden speech, such as the decision not to disband the Strategic Weapons Division in the Kaluga Region,as earlier planned and install the dreadful Iskander anti-missile system in the Kaliningrad Region — as ‘a retaliatory reaction' to the U.S. plans to install its nuclear defense shields in Eastern Europe at close proximity to the Russian borders — are sure to put both the Pentagon and the White House on alert. "The Iskander missile system will be deployed in the Kaliningrad Region to neutralize, when necessary, the U.S. missile shield," Medvedev said.
However, given the general tone of the Russian president’s speech, the Kremlin strategists have properly factored both the outgoing and incoming U.S. presidents’ reactions and those of their allies in Europe in the new geopolitical equation and come to the conclusion that Russia needs to withhold the unilateral disarmament of some of the most offensive strategic weapons in military arsenal.
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