Europe’s reliance on Russian energy is a major consideration, says James Goldgeier.

Topic: How a Resurgent Russia Impacts Geopolitics

James Goldgeier:  Well, the Europeans are quite worried about Russia, but it's really led them more to try to accommodate Russia's interests and, in a large part, because Europe is so dependant on Russian energy that Europeans really feel a need to try to cooperate with the Russians. And so, for example, in April of this year we had a NATO Summit and the United States was trying to push some policies with respect to Ukraine and Georgia for bringing them into a more formal track for membership in NATO. And the French and German's led the opposition to that and part of that was their concern about not antagonizing the Russians. So, I think we're seeing-- the United States and the Europeans agree on what's going on in Russia and the trends within Russia. But, so far, there is not unity on how best to respond to Russia.

Recorded on: 07/08/2008