There were breakthroughs this week in two sets of negotiations in different parts of the world. Both carry strategic implications.

The first breakthrugh involved a long-awaited reconciliation between the United States and Pakistan. Following intense talks between U.S. and Pakistani officials over the past few days, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a statement Tuesday in which the United States acknowledged "mistakes that resulted in the loss of Pakistani military lives" and said the United States is sorry for those losses. Along with the apology, Clinton announced that Pakistan has agreed to re-open supply routes through Pakistan into Afghanistan and will not be charging a transit fee. On Wednesday, thousands of trucks began to line up in Karachi to resume their transit of supplies from Pakistan into Afghanistan.

Clinton's statement puts to rest a seven-month standoff between Washington and Islamabad over a November 2011 U.S. strike on Pakistani border posts that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and prompted Pakistan to cut off U.S.-NATO supply lines to Afghanistan. The loss of the Pakistani supply route pushed Washington to increase its reliance on a longer and costlier northern route through Russia, Central Asia and the Caucasus. However, it wasn't just budget and logistical concerns that drove these uneasy allies to a deal.

The United States, Pakistan and the Taliban are involved in fitful negotiations over a post-U.S. Afghanistan. Washington wants to bring closure to the war and redirect U.S. military attention elsewhere, but it needs an understanding with Pakistan and the Taliban to keep jihadist activity in the region in check. Pakistan does not want to contend by itself with an unmanageable array of militants after Washington's withdrawal. Islamabad is also looking to use the power vacuum in Afghanistan to restore its influence to the northwest. The Taliban is meanwhile trying to get assurances from the United States on the timing of the withdrawal and is seeking guarantees that the Taliban will play a prominent role in a post-U.S. Afghan government.

It took more than seven months to reach this stage and there remain contentious points to sort out, but Washington and Islamabad are apparently prepared to accept any political backlash that comes from the deal for the sake of moving this broader negotiation forward. The question we now need to examine is whether the third prong of this negotiation — the Taliban — is ready to advance the talks, or if it sees an opportunity to exploit the last stretch of the U.S. presidential campaign to strengthen its negotiating position by flexing its militant arm.

The second major breakthrough that caught our eye this week was a Russian-German deal on natural gas. Germany is Russia's biggest energy client — Berlin imports around 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia annually. When Russia hiked up natural gas prices for European buyers in the late-2000s, Germany's E.ON took Russia's Gazprom Export to court and the two sides have been struggling ever since to reach a new pricing agreement. E.ON dropped the lawsuit Tuesday and signed a 15-year contract with Gazprom Export that provides deep discounts to Germany in exchange for a reinforced energy partnership.

The media may not be interested in the deepening economic synergy between Russia and Germany, but the issue carries profound consequences for the future of Eurasia. The growing presence of liquefied natural gas in the global market has pushed the price of natural gas down and is thus undermining Russia's energy leverage on the continent overall. However, long-term contracts with a country as critical as Germany are key to Russia's long-term national security strategy.

Russia has limited time to consolidate its influence in the former Soviet periphery. Key to Moscow's strategy is maintaining a relationship with the core of Europe to prevent a united Western front from interfering with Russian plans in its near abroad. Economically, Berlin and Moscow have good reason for drawing closer together: Russia needs technology from Germany to remain economically competitive, while Germany needs Russian natural gas to meet its energy needs. As Germany's unease over the future of the European Union increases, Berlin will look for alternative partners in places like Russia.

For a country like Poland, which sits precariously on the Northern European Plain between these two powers, this is a troubling trend — one that warrants the attention of a geopolitical heavyweight like the United States. But until the United States frees itself from places like Afghanistan, there will remain ample opportunity for Russian-German relations to expand and tilt the Eurasian balance.