President Putin’s remarks at the Munich Security Conference in February 2007 signal no paradigm shift, but rather a new self-consciousness on the part of Russia’s power elites, though no doubt shorn of any ideological underpinning. As a nuclear and energy power the Kremlin, on the one hand, demands equal partnership, and on the other, wants to vigorously pursue its national interests. Russia’s return as an actor in international politics was made easier by two attendant circumstances: first, the EU ’s identity crisis lost Brussels its power to act in post- Soviet space, the CIS. The European Neighbourhood Policy has yet to bear fruit due to the lack of an entry option, a fact which no amount of grandiose strategy documents can hide. Second, a US defeat is in the offing in the Iraq War which could trigger a traumatic shockwave in American politics similar to the Vietnam War. These two developments – in light of which Russia’s situation also has to be examined in connection with the rise of the BRIC states – point to a fundamental change in the power constellations of the international state system: the end of American hegemony and so of the unipolar system.

In this connection Washington’s attempt, without consulting NATO, to station an anti-missile system in Europe and probably also in the Caucasus seems to be a policy of »covering the retreat.« At the same time, it does have a preventive dimension: influence over the EU may be ensured via Poland and the Czech Republic, as well as Bulgaria and Romania (US bases on the Black Sea), and in the medium term the geopolitical significance of the EU (ESDP) reduced, while preventing a possible rapprochement with Moscow. In the Caucasus, in case the predicted defeat in Iraq comes to pass, strategic heights are being occupied in order to ensure energy supplies from the Caspian and the Middle East. Conjuring up a new Cold War, and so the specter of a new arms race, is a kind of smokescreen behind which the abovementioned restructuring of international politics is taking place.