The government has offered NATO assistance in keeping the peace in Afghanistan. With 11,000 troops in neighboring Tajikistan, the Russians are offering intelligence on drug gangs and warlords in northern Afghanistan, as well as additional search and rescue capability from Russian air force units in Tajikistan. 

The Russian navy, invigorated by a larger budget, will hold at sea training in the Baltic later this month, with dozens of ships from the Baltic and Northern fleets. These will be the largest Russian naval exercises in the Baltic in twenty years.