Decisons to be made in foreign policy by Medvedev and Putin

Open Democracy has an interesting feature on Russia's foreign policy.

It describes Putin and Medvedev's policy as a vision

Russia will not only protect and promote its national interests effectively. It will compete as an equal player with America, Europe and China. It will be the cornerstone of regional integration in Eurasia, a global ‘mediator' between East and West, North and South, and the Christian and Muslim worlds. It will be the intellectual leader of the twenty-first century, generating advanced scientific and technical ideas and an ‘integrated', ‘universal' world view that will trump the insularity and unilateralism of Western value systems and modernise non-Western ones.

Whereas in reality

Moscow's policies on the international front are as reactive as ever, despite the vastly greater opportunities, despite the fact that it is openly critical of the West, particularly the United States.

and

Russia is concerned with Russia itself, not with some arcane empire or abstract universal concerns. Russia is concerned with business: what's good for Gazprom is good for the country. Russia will not let anyone interfere in its internal affairs - sovereign democracy.

And in summary

Russia's third president will need to decide for himself what to do with the country's foreign policy. Will it remain a tool of Russian self-affirmation? Or will it become a resource for modernisation?