Tonight we attended a lecture on Russia and United States relations since the fall of the Soviet Union, given by Georgetown professor, Angela Stent. The lecture summed up many of the policies that have been put into place by the United States and Russia in regards to one another and how these policies may have either solidified or damaged a potential friendship between the two nations.

Professor Stent started off her talk with a question that many people have asked me when told that I planned on becoming a Russian major. Why is Russia still important if we no longer need to worry about the Soviet Union and communism? Stent responded to this by bringing the point forward that Russia still has the potential to drastically affect our lives without us even realizing it as they not only have a permanent seat on the UN security council, but they also have one of the largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

As her lecture went on Stent continued to talk about various policies that Russia has put forward, but most importantly in my mind, she talked about the Russian views on these policies and how their point of view is completely different from an American’s. Of everything in her lecture I think that this idea of a differing opinion was one of the most important things that was brought up. For the most part, people (especially Americans), don’t really consider how another side feels about a particular issue and are quick to judge or condemn an action because of this lack of knowledge. I think that by putting the Russian point of view in higher importance that the American perspective, Stent was able to explain why relations between our countries have been strained and why they may talk a long time to get better. Without doing this, I very much believe that she would have been unable to get her point across as effectively.