U.S. President-elect Obama ignored Russian President: what the future holds for nuclear weapons and nonproliferation?

Barack Obama, newly elected U.S. President, promised to bring Change to the United States. He also stated that he was going to get back the leadership status to his country and deal with exisitng threats posed by rouge nations and terrorism.

It is clear that in four years, the great Changes promised by Obama will be hard to accomplish or even apporach in such a short time. Let's be realistic: president is only a leader, the implementaiton process, decision-making and change actually happen at a lower, beaurocratic level, where more than one persopn involved.

What Obama can actually accomplish is to shift U.S. nuclear posture, improve relations with Russia and promote disarmament. Not nonproliferation, but first of all Obama needs to lead U.S. towards DISARMAMENT!

As of today, the prospects are not very optimistic. Barack Obama is already ignoring the largest nuclear arsenal possessor - Russia - and that is not the right way to go about things. What happened? On 8 November 2008, Russian President Medvedev sent a greeting telegramm to Obama to congratulate him with his victory. Mr. Obama in response ignored Russia's call. In his list of "thank you" notes, Obama included the following countries: Australia, UK, Germany, Israel, Canada, Mexico, France, South Korea and Japan. Medvedev and Russia did not deserve a little "thank you" response.

It is essential, that the new U.S. President remains objective and insightful about international affairs, and particularly dealing with Russia. We live in a globalization era and need to work together and not create "rejected" groups, "terrorist" nations and evel leaders.

Through wise policies, compassion, friendship and partnership can we esure international security and promote disarmament.