The article 'Trying out trust' by Shekhar Mehra (August 2009) places more trust between the United States and Russia than there actually is. While it gives out all relevant details in the developing relationship between the two Cold War rivals, it places more hope than there is in relations improving any time soon.

The writer is on mark when he says that the bilateral exercise is part of President Obama's larger drive to 'fashion a new-look foreign policy, one that is largely different from that of his predecessor.' But in Washington and in U.S. Congress, among American policy-makers and think tanks there is no dearth of Russia-haters. This majority distrusts Russia and feels it should be encircled and contained; hence the drive to include Georgia and Ukraine into Nato's fold. These obviously are Russia's borders and too close for Russian comfort. Twenty years since the end of Cold War these 'old' Americans have been unable give up their old thinking.
Obama has brought in new thinking in his approach. But he is bound to run into stiff opposition from his co-Americans, hell-bent on treating Russians as adversaries.

Even today, barely two months after a successful U.S.-Russia summit, American military trainers are landing in Georgia to assist its military. Ostensibly this is to train Georgians to fight in Afghanistan, but Moscow is not buying it and is accusing Washington of rearming the Georgian 'war machine.' In return, Vladimir Putin is going to the separatist region of Abkhazia and promising a huge military aid, even as Georgia is protesting aloud. This tit-for-tat will go on unless there is a change of heart.  As of today the Cold War is alive and well.
Arthur Wheaton
Northampton

Unfinished war

This refers to 'Pakistan's war' by Rahimullah Yusufzai (July 2009). The reported death of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mahsud in a U.S. drone attack was a great chance for the Pakistani military to take the war to the heart of South Waziristan and inflict a crushing blow to the Taliban fighters there. With Mahsud's death, there is a leadership vacuum in Taliban and the fighters are in disarray. The reported killing of another Taliban leader by a rival group is a sure sign of division in the rank and file of the outfit. This was the chance for the military to move in and finish the fight, as indeed President Zardari had said his government would do.

But it seems the military is having second thoughts. It has stopped advancing. What are they planning? Another truce with the Taliban? Or are they waiting for American drones to do their job for them?

A truce won't work. It didn't work in the past. Besides, truce will mean that the Taliban stop fighting against Pakistan but carry their fight to the Western forces in Afghanistan. This will be highly detrimental for the U.S.-led Nato forces.

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