1. Russia's viewing the development of the relations with its Eastern neighbors dramatically differs from that of the USA, for the latter is not as influenced by the  Oriental cultures and religions, as Russia. Consequently, the Americans have no profound motivation to cooperate with the Middle East countries. The current meeting of the American and Russian positions on some Mid-Eastern problems is based upon considerations of the moment and might change at any moment. Nevertheless, under current circumstances, to maintain constructive relations with the USA is still extremely important for Russia just because Washington continues to be the leading political actor in the Middle East.
2. Our country's Mid-Eastern strategy key point must be the Iraq problem. When the USA publicly stated the necessity to overthrow the BAAS regime, Moscow was all against solving the 'Saddam Hussein's dilemma' by force. Today, it is quite obvious, that Russia was absolutely right, rejecting White House's aggressive aspirations. The US have failed to push the Iraqis into the democratic way by means of violence. The Russian President claimed the American policy in Iraq to be 'a great political mistake'.
3. As today's realities show, the huge area (Islamic in main) spread from the African Atlantic coast to Pakistan, is under the gravest crisis. There are some 'stability inlets' there, but even they are all increasingly absorbed into the general crisis. The actual regional conditions call for Russia's immediate and active involvement in economic and social projects developed in those countries where the crisis might take the anti-Russian course.

1. The scale and many-sidedness of national projects allow to claim their idea goes far beyond the framework of separate, though very big state programs. They represent changes that are and will be influencing socio-economic, psychological, public and ultimately political spheres of the country's development. These results are in no way less important, than achievement of planned goals in all priorities. Rthis is needed to be realized.
2. Implementation of the priority projects resulted in accelerated transition to long-term planning and budgeting that is extremely important for a steady economic development. What is even more important that within budgeting the strategy of effective investments in human personality, in quality of life is going to be logically developed. Addressing the NPP has called for long-term branch and inter-branch strategies necessary for the national economy as a whole. There is another important aspect: implementing the priority national projects brings forth introduction of newest technologies.
3. The priority projects have set a good pace to the systems development of the social sphere industries. That pace ought not to be lost. The year of 2007 starts with 17 "pilot" regional projects in the public health. The leaders in education will also continue to get support. In all Russia's regions innovative schools will become the centers for teachers' vocational training. The problems of initial and high vocational education will be addressed in serious way.

1. Upon the termination of Russia's presidency in the G8, our partners' vague suspicions and obvious offences flourished in full. In the winter early spring, the users of the Inosmi and Inopressa web-sites (where not the most tough assessments are being put out) in the Runet might be amazed with the abundance of Western media accusations and frank indignations addressed to Russia, the Kremlin administration, and President Putin personally. It is not hard to guess, that the majority of the articles on Russia put out by the web-sites would be editorials. This is traditional tactics of not to endanger foreign media own correspondents in Moscow.
2. Nowadays, it is not by chance the media persons' attention is absorbed with the  developments in Ukraine, in Kirghizia, where the scenarios known in the Eastern Europe and Russia are being repeated by virtue of historical inertia. In this context, it is easier to comprehend the Hungarian political forces' fighting over the popular credit within their post-Communist society. The velvet revolutions, perhaps, have just eliminated the formal ideological ties of the countries that experienced them with their Communistic past. Now, the time coming to reassess the deep socio- economic break-ups of the eve of 1990s.
3. Russia's returning into the economic and political space it had been ousted from upon the collapse of the USSR, becomes actual and therefore discussable occurrence. Russia if restoring its influence in the Arab and Muslim world. It seems second to impossible to find solutions for the outdated and newly-arised problems in the Middle East without its balanced pragmatic policy.

1. Contrary to the Soviet times, when the state leader's every major public speech would become the agenda of the humdrum "support-and-favor" party and trade-union conferences for many months, in modern Russia, it took the media and public couple of days to switch their attention to something else. That was the case with the Russian President Vladimir Putin's press conference of the February 1st. On the one hand, this proves the great changes occurred in our political system. On the other hand, there is some grudge feeling: the President's answers give ample food to assess and reflect on various issues of the country's domestic and foreign policy.
2. The giant federal bureaucracy is not counterbalanced by strong legislative and judicial branches, the local self-government bodies, independent media and civic organizations. In Soviet Union, the bureaucracy that had been somehow controlled by the Party apparat - it has become self-governing force in modern Russia. It easily and imperceptibly substitutes the national objectives with its own group interests and submits to the top political power only when the latter's policy does not contradict these interests.
3. To deeply transform the Russian economy, it is, primarily, needed to thoroughly correct the legislation and change the current informal way of the political inter-relations that have penetrated all the government institutions. It is a matter of the clear and firm property rights which might be guaranteed  just by the clear division of power, independent and impartial court, arbitration and law and order. It is also a matter of the transparent and legalized relations between the government and business, of the antimonopoly law and curbing the natural monopolies.

1. In the early 1990s, patriotism was often a lot of those who were weak, frustrated, and burdened with complexes, both old and young. Now the situation is changing to the better. Now the positions of rigid conscious conservatism are being taken by the the most strong, most confident, and, the most important, self-sufficient, successful young men. The most interesting of these are the Civil Successors sponsored by Yury Mihailovich Luzhkov and ranked with the ablest students of the Moscow's most prestigious institutions of higher education.
2. The more successful and wealthier is any Russian region, the more independent seem to be the opinions expressed by its representatives in the Ours pro-Kremlin youth organization. The Krasnodar Kray is the most telling example in this respect. There, either our liberals, or our Union of Right Forces, or Yabloko had never had any serious influence among the younger generation. There, everyone is born to be a patriot and state-supporter. There, people are wealthier, than in the central Russia. Hence, their children are more tenacious That is why their children more quick and self-dependent.
3. The rumors of growing nationalism and xenophobia sentiments among the youth are greatly exaggerated. The skinheads are the issue of some special sort. Still, the views and beliefs of the new younger, new Russian are to be pictured from the healthy norm, not from the pathology. Say, in the two years I was touring to lecture, there was no single instance of some anti-Semitic statement in any audience. This is a fact. Anti-Western, anti-American sentiments are strong even among the students. However, these are not so much beliefs, but rather a reaction to their parents' aggrieved national dignity, who suffered both disintegration of the USSR and the turmoil of the early 1990s.

1. Neither the right to self-determination, nor separatism as a way of its practical implementation, are by any means novelties. The problem became especially actual exactly where they were quite recently convinced that the task of national self-determination had long been solved theoretically and successfully done with practically - in the geopolitical space that is called post-Soviet. The history often revenges those who tries to accelerate its pace by simply moving hands of time.
2. The civilized world has developed other forms of self-determination, for example, cultural autonomy, various types of federal and confederative state system, variants of national-territorial formations with optional economic independence, and, at last, interstate integration, when a participant voluntary delegates part of its national sovereignty to the center. In the clamor raised by supporters of separatist secession,  these forms of joint residing of different people and ethnic groups were somehow forgotten.
3. Violent tearing common territory apart makes yesterday's citizens of the same state eternal enemies. To be able to find out some mutually acceptable option proposing refusal of the 'my land' in the name of preserving sufficient degree of self-determination is to make healthier not just relations between certain countries, but the whole the international atmosphere as well. To the conflicting parties, it is difficult, however, to immediately overcome the existing alienation and animosities. That is what the international forces for, to be the authority to help to control fulfillment of the obligations taken by the parties involved.

1. The plan of democratization of the Greater Middle East has economic objectives to establish control over the oil rich region, that would enable the USA to constrain China in the energy field. The implementation of the plan of democratization could also pose a threat to the China's military security, breaking the integrity of the country. Oil is a power resource for automotive activities of the contemporary military forces, the strategic point among the factors of combat might, and so there ought not to be any shortage of this resource. Lacking it would unavoidably slow down the modernization of the China's armed forces, and thus negatively affect the future military actions against Taiwan.
2. The political objective of the plan of democratization of the Greater Middle East is to strengthen pro-American forces and regimes in the Middle East, that would result in negative geopolitical consequences for the PRC. If the plan was implemented,  the US would by all means extend its mode of democracy, with subsequent massive American strategic forces transference into the West-Atlantic region. That would complicate the solution of the Taiwan problem.
3. The plan of democratization of the Greater Middle East would aggravate the existing contradictions in the Middle East and in adjacent regions, it would provide for spreading and intensifying the terrorist activity to the Islamic countries, which would cause anxiety in the day-to-day living in the China's Northwest and Southwest regions. The plan's of democratization of the Greater Middle East negative impact upon the security of the Peoples Republic of China is very profound. China is to keep high-degree vigilance because of the fact, and undertake active counter-measures.

1. By 2005, there loomed the distinct specter of forthcoming disintegration over Iraq. The Sunni-Shia contradictions have become exceedingly aggravated. The Shias, being the overwhelming populace majority, began to actively aspire to power, they won the parliamentary elections, in late 2005, have the control over the Prime-Ministership and the Ministry of Interior. The Sunnis, that were historically the leading political force in Iraq, had no wish to put up with the growing influence of the adversary sect.
2. At this political background, the Iraqi Kurds have made active efforts to expand the rights of their autonomy. Besides wider representation in the Parliament, the Iraqi Kurds achieved another serious success - Jalal Talabani was elected the President of Iraq.
3. In Iraq, because of weakness of the government, the official renovated Baghdad did not oppose the rise of the Kurdish 'separatism'. The country's officials went no further than to 'sharply condemn' the KDP and the PUK activities to dissect Iraq (the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, for example, called 'illegal' Barzani's decision to create the Kurdish autonomy's own state symbols).

1. The US and their allies' invasion into Afghanistan resulted in liquidation of the Taliban regime that was hostile to Iran and kept the situation in the country under control. That, in turn, led to a sharp increase of Tehran's influence over its northern neighbor. The fact is, a number of clan groupings that came back to hold there positions under the conditions of the occupation, had had close ties with the Iranian special services, ever since the Soviet presence in Afghanistan. Besides, Tehran has always had strong positions among the religiously kindred khazareans, who live close to the Iranian border.
2. Stability in the Gulf region has been traditionally supported within Iran - Iraq - Saudi Arabia triangle. Thus, in the context of opposing Tehran's strengthening positions, the Baghdad - Riyadh axis again began to be reinforced, since the late 1990s. The occupation of Iraq broke the balance, when the strongest country in the "triangle" was counter-balanced by the other two: Baghdad, having been a source of threats and potential rival, turned to become Tehran's ally.
3. Certain changes might occur in other parts of the front, for example, in Azerbaijan. While currently Azerbaijan develops according to the western model, which is acceptable both to the country's regime and its 'orange opposition', there are a number of factors potent to blow the situation up. First, there is no actual oil revenue distribution, with the social situation in the country permanently going down. Second, in fact, there are no opportunities for non-clans to grow. Third, there begin to develop the new anti-system Sunni opposition: in today's Azerbaijan, the religious practice is a political act at the same time.

1. The basics in the Hezbollah strategy to fight against Israel's modern, hi-tech army were to create a supply network to delivery arms, and - it cannot be excluded - to build some enterprises to manufacture elementary anti-tank weaponry in the territory of Lebanon. The strategy and tactics were based upon not just lessons of Mid-East wars, but upon operations in the war against the enemy that had been superior as far as technologies concerned. The tactics were based on operations by small units and special teams in close contact with the enemy (down to hand-to-hand fighting) in the areas similar to fortified ones, and on tactics of conducting combat operations in underground facilities, and on beforehand preparation of the district for guerrilla activities.
2. The Israeli-Lebanese summer 2006 war proved to become the second war in the 21st century, which fact had been demonstrated by not just the Israeli air forces' abundant use of rockets and bombs of high-accuracy aiming to hit the objectives in Lebanon, but also by the use of weapons based on new physical principles, with relatively low casualties among the civilians, at that. For the second time in the 21st century, Israel, despite its partial unreadiness for the war, waged the full-scale information war during the combat phase.
3. Destructing the Lebanese state's infrastructure not just had no effect on arms delivery to the Hezbollah and in no way weakened it, but, on the contrary, Israel had lost the information war even more. The Hezbollah militants have no fear of losses, for the death of one would multiple their ranks several times over: "Having chopped off one head, two would grow in its stead." Israel's decision to leave the International Organization of Journalists (felt hurt with the unpleasant media criticism) in no way changed the situation in the information war.