Obama set for weeklong trip

Monday to Wednesday: Russia

Obama will make his first trip as president to Moscow for talks with Russian President Dimitry Medvedev, whom he met for the first time during the April G20 financial summit in London.

Obama has said the goal of his visit is to “reset” U.S.-Russian relations, which grew strained during the Bush administration. The main topic of discussion is expected to be renewing the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, set to expire Dec. 5.

Obama has stated his support for sharp reductions in both nations’ nuclear arsenals. But the Russians are said to be predicating any progress in the talks on abandonment of Bush-era plans to deploy elements of a U.S. anti-ballistic missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland.

The U.S. insists the missile shield is meant to protect Europe against a nuclear attack from Iran or North Korea, and has invited Russia to cooperate in its construction.

But Russia declined, saying it believes the real goal of the system is deter its defenses, and has invited the U.S. to instead place its system in Azerbaijan on the Iranian border, where Russia has a radar installation —- an offer the U.S. refused.

Earlier this year, there was controversy over reports that the Obama administration had offered to drop the missile shield in exchange for Russian help in reining in Iran’s nuclear program. But Obama denied making any such proposal, and last week the White House signaled the missile system will not be a bargaining chip.

Obama will also meet with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and deliver the commencement address at the New Economic School in Moscow.

Wednesday to Friday: Italy

Climate change is likely to be a leading issue as Obama joins other leaders of the G8 nations —- Russia, England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada —- in L’Aquila, Italy, for their annual summit. Agence France Presse said last week that the summit is likely to result in a call for industrialized nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent of 1990 levels by 2050, while Reuters reported some G8 members would also seek to limit global temperature rise to a change of 2 degrees Celsius —- equivalent to a change of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

The discussion comes as industrialized nations prepare for a December summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, on a climate pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 global warming treaty the U.S. signed but never ratified. Also, the U.S. Senate is set to consider a controversial bill, narrowly approved June 24 by the House, that would establish a cap-and-trade system for regulating U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

While in Italy, Obama will also meet with Pope Benedict XVI.

Also on the agenda

Other issues the G8 may consider:

Iran. The G8 foreign ministers, meeting in June, issued a statement criticizing Iran’s crackdown on protests against alleged fraud in that country’s recent presidential election. The G8 leaders are expected to do likewise, which is significant because Russia —- usually Iran’s defender —- would join in the condemnation. The leaders are also expected to discuss measures against North Korea, which like Iran has defied international pressure to restrain its nuclear program.

Protectionism. Resistance is growing to the Buy America provisions in the February U.S. stimulus bill that require the use of domestic materials in infrastructure projects, and to similar moves in China.

Piracy. The leaders could consider establishing a framework for holding trials of pirates preying on ships in international waters off Africa.

Aid to developing world. The G8 nations pledged at their 2005 meeting in Scotland to double aid to developing nations, especially in Africa, by 2010. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the host of the summit, will push them to honor that commitment.

Friday and Saturday: Ghana

The first African-American president will make the first trip of his administration to sub-Saharan Africa —- he visited Egypt in North Africa last month —- to show his support for one of the continent’s most stable democracies.

Ensuring an orderly transition of power has been a chronic problem for post-colonial African nations, but Ghana has had peaceful leadership changes even after close elections, including last year’s. Obama will address the Ghanaian parliament on development and democracy, then will tour Cape Coast Castle, an infamous relic of the slave trade, before returning to Washington.

Diplomatic journey

President Barack Obama will spend the week overseas, visiting Russia, Italy and Ghana.

President Barack Obama will spend a marathon week overseas, meeting with the Russians about arms control, then traveling to Italy for a summit of the Group of Eight nations and finally visiting the African nation of Ghana.In order to negotiate a renewed Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, should President Barack Obama back off his predecessor’s insistence on an anti-missile defense system in Eastern Europe?

Yes: The anti-missile defense system is an offensive —- as opposed to defensive —- system that the neoconservatives in the Bush administration had hoped would … give them a way out of the “mutually assured destruction” scenario that has confounded military strategists since the (Soviet Union) first tested its own nuclear weapon. … (Russia is) absolutely right to assume, even if the assumption turns out to be incorrect, that the AMD system compromises its national security. Any observers who ridicule this notion are only deceiving themselves and their wide-eyed audiences.

Robert Bridge, a Pittsburgh, native and former editor of the Moscow News, writes daily commentaries for the Russia Today Web site.

No: To cancel this program as a concession to the Russians would send a clear signal of American weakness, encouraging further aggression against Russia’s neighbors. Russia must not come to believe it can succeed in altering U.S. policy through threats, or it will continue to use these and other destabilizing gestures. … However skeptical some in the Obama administration may be of the functionality and cost-effectiveness of the missile-interceptor system, the fact is that this is the only defense the U.S. and its allies currently have against a potential Iranian ballistic missile launch, as well as a powerful symbolic bargaining chip in discussions with Russia.

Ariel Cohen is a senior research fellow in Russian and Eurasian Studies and international energy security at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.G8 meeting site

The G8 meeting was originally to be held in Sardinia, but Berlusconi moved it to L’Aquila, center of a deadly April earthquake, to boost the economy of that region.

Past G8 meeting sites

G8 nations rotate hosting.

2012 TBA, U.S.

2011 TBA, France

2010 Huntsville, Ontario, Canada

2009 L’Aquila, Italy

2008 Toyako, Japan

2007 Heiligendamm, Germany

2006 St. Petersburg, Russia

2005 Gleneagles, Scotland

2004 Sea Island, Ga.