Shaken to the core by the September 11 attacks, the United States naturally took the leading role in the global fight against terrorism. By demonstrating that even unprecedented military might does not guarantee strategic invulnerability, the September 11 tragedy had far-reaching implications for serious changes in U.S. domestic and foreign policy. The U.S. national security policy has been reviewed: anti-terrorism and homeland defense have assumed primary importance on the list of U.S. national security tasks, and the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, which had become a foreign policy priority long before September 11, began to receive even greater attention. The new focus on fighting terrorism worldwide has also further certified U.S. global domination and reinforced unilateralist trends in U.S. foreign policy, best reflected in a declaration made by U.S. secretary of defense Rumsfeld, according to whom, “the mission determines the coalition,” and not the other way round.
Not surprisingly, prospects for and problems of bilateral cooperation with the United States on anti-terrorism have received special attention in Moscow. Russia has voiced concerns about terrorism as a major new type of security threat for years, as terrorists have increasingly targeted its citizens, most recently and on unprecedented scale in Moscow on October 23, 2002, when several hundred people were taken hostage by Chechen radicals at a musical show. […]
