ON DECEMBER 20, Russia's main legislative body, the State Duma, reaffirmed its faith in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The Commonwealth is the oldest multilateral institution linking all the former Soviet republics except the Baltic states. In their statement, Duma members declared:…

THE RECENT SUMMIT of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization--a group consisting of China, Russia, and four Central Asian countries--has evoked alarm about a potent anti-American bloc emerging in the heart of Eurasia. The presence in Shanghai of fiery Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the…