Gordon, a scholar at the Brookings Institute, has been appointed as assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, though he has yet to be confirmed by the Senate. EurasiaNet reports that this is a political appointment as Gordon is a close associate of Obama’s with little experience in the former Soviet Union. Apparently, this will give his deputy secretary more clout. Gordon is an expert on Europe and Turkey and particularly knowledgeable about France. After visiting Georgia in 2005, he expressed his strong support for its government and urged the US to support Georgia in joining NATO. He argued that Russia should understand that having democracies as neighbors would only benefit it.
That is a dangerous sentiment only because Russia could not disagree more. I hope that the deputy secretary, as yet unnamed, will explain how sensitive Russia is to sharing borders with Western-orientated democracies. On the other hand, perhaps his close relationship to Obama, after heading his campaign team on relations with Europe, will increase the US’s diplomatic connections with Central Asia.
