In the decade since the end of the Cold War, Russia and Western countries have gone from high expectations to bitter disillusionment, from declarations of strategic partnership to hostile polemics over Kosovo and Chechnya. Yet, despite the many predictions pointing to the contrary, there is no reason to believe that some new confrontation is setting in, and the Cold War is making a comeback -even in a farcical garb.

Important long-term interests continue to bind Russia to the West, which in turn has no reason to treat the heir of the Soviet Union as a potential future adversary. There is no longer a fundamental conflict of values between Russia and the West, only the very real and glaring difference between the historical time zones in which to exist. While their relationship has become essentially asymetrical, Russia and Western countries continue to need each other, albeit in totally new ways.

The Russians face the mammoth intellectual, political and psychological task of developing a new international identity, drawing a line under half a millenium of imperial existence and eventually integrating within a greater Europe; as to the West, it faces the need to solve Europe's 'Russia problem', also along the lines of integration and expansion -now to the ultimate frontier.