ABSTRACT
One of the major surprises of international politics and economics of 2006, when Russia hosted the G8 for the first time, was that this exclusive club of the “G7 plus Russia” did not fall apart, did not cause any scandal and produced good outputs and results that at least lived up to the G8 summit norm. Russia, long the formal adversary in the Cold War, which the G7 was to a certain extent created to counter in 1975, used its presidency quite successfully to promote both economic growth and security for the world. It did so despite several unfavourable developments in diplomatic relations, which led German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French president Jacques Chirac to suggest the emergence of a new Cold War.
