Can Medvedev Be Gorbachev?

The security of the United States continues to be tied to decisions in Moscow, as evidenced by President Obama's touting of the pending strategic arms-control agreement with Russia in his State of the Union address. And those decisions, in turn, will hinge on Russian domestic politics. The central question is whether President Dmitry Medvedev's increasingly radical rhetoric will begin to translate into policies that would spell a decisive break with those of his predecessor and current prime minister, Vladimir Putin.

Could 2010 become Medvedev's equivalent of Mikhail Gorbachev's 1987 -- the year when, also after only two years in the Kremlin and against very strong opposition by hard-liners, Gorbachev began lifting totalitarian controls over politics by declaring glasnost and democratization?