Does Russia Matter?

After September’s Camp David summit between Vladimir Putin and George Bush, TV journalist Ray Suarez, on The PBS Newshour, asked his guests a question being posed with increasing regularity: “Does Russia matter?”

The guest’s all too obvious reply was, essentially, “Yes, of course Russia matters, but just not like it used to and only on a certain range of issues [e.g. nuclear proliferation, combatting terror].”

I hate obvious answers. They’re so ... obvious.