Putin's gamble

For the first time since the Second World War, Russia, the United States and Europe are working together to address what all of them view as vital security interests. Russia is important not only for the war against Taliban and al-Qaeda, but also for longer-term goals such as targeting terrorist money flows, identifying and eliminating al-Qaeda cells throughout the world, addressing the proliferation of weapons-of-mass destruction (WMD) materials and technologies and finding effective responses to bio-terrorist threats. Russian President Vladimir Putin took a major gamble after 11 September, setting aside outstanding disagreements and offering full Russian support to the US-led coalition against terror. It is now up to the NATO allies to respond with similar imagination to accommodate Russia's legitimate strategic concerns and bring Moscow into the global economy. If this chance is missed, the next ten years are likely to resemble the 1990s as a decade of lost opportunities in Russian-Western relations.