A fresh start with Russia: what's the trade-off?

LONDON (Reuters) - Russia has reportedly reversed its decision to station missiles in the Western outpost of Kaliningrad -- the clearest signal so far of the start of a thaw in U.S.-Russia relations.

We don't know what commitment, if any, U.S. President Barack Obama may have given to his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev on the missile shield (the two spoke by telephone earlier this week).

Obama's skepticism about the effectiveness and utility of missile defense was clearly stated during the campaign. But since the Russians unilaterally made the Kaliningrad threat on the day of his election, the suspension of the deployment plan is a clear goodwill gesture.

It follows NATO's announcement, slipped out without fanfare earlier this week, that political relations with Moscow, frozen after the Georgia war, would resume within a few weeks.

The Obama administration has already made clear it will pursue bilateral and multilateral nuclear arms control treaties which former President George W. Bush eschewed.

At the very least, they will try to negotiate a new strategic arms reduction treaty to replace START 1, which expires at the end of this year. This is important because it treats Russia as a nuclear power on an equal footing with the United States, which the status-conscious Kremlin craves and the Bush administration always dismissed.

Obama realizes he needs Russian cooperation for the two biggest foreign policy items on his agenda this year: trying to defang Iran's nuclear ambitions and turn the tide in Afghanistan.

The Russians have made clear what some of the trade-offs could be: safe supply routes for U.S. and NATO forces to Afghanistan across Russia and its central Asian friends in exchange for a halt to NATO expansion along Russia's southern border.

There is no consensus in NATO to take in Ukraine and Georgia. Germany and France blocked giving them a roadmap to membership last year and the U.S. agreed reluctantly in December to put the issue on the back-burner for now.