Russia’s recent annexation of Crimea and its destabilization of eastern Ukraine dominated the conversation at the NATO summit in Newport, early in September. Apart from the decisions to create a high-readiness force and an action plan for Eastern Europe, however, the conference did not pay much attention to the long-term prospects for NATO’s relationship with Russia. But those prospects should have had the highest priority at the summit, for this relationship is probably one of the most important between powers today, with the potential to stoke old Cold War rivalries again – among adversaries still armed with hundreds of tactical nuclear weapons and thousands of strategic nuclear warheads, not to mention large conventional forces.