Gabriel Gorodetsky unravels President Putin's efforts to re-establish Russia's position as a major power, attempting to reconcile Russia's traditional national interests with the newly emerging social and political entity taking shape at home.

Gabriel Gorodetsky unravels President Putin's efforts to re-establish Russia's position as a major power, attempting to reconcile Russia's traditional national interests with the newly emerging social and political entity taking shape at home.

Because the turbulent trajectory of Russia's foreign policy since the collapse of the Soviet Union echoes previous moments of social and political transformation, history offers a special vantage point from which to judge the current course of events. In this book, a mix of leading historians and political scientists examines the foreign policy of contemporary Russia over four centuries of history. The authors explain the impact of empire and its loss, the interweaving of domestic and foreign impulses, long-standing approaches to national security, and the effect of globalization over time. Contributors focus on the underlying patterns that have marked Russian foreign policy and that persist today. These patterns are driven by the country's political makeup, geographical circumstances, economic strivings, unsettled position in the larger international setting, and, above all, its tortured effort to resolve issues of national identity. The argument here is not that the Russia of Putin and his successors must remain trapped by these historical patterns but that history allows for an assessment of how much or how little has changed in Russia's approach to the outside world and creates a foundation for identifying what must change if Russia is to evolve. A truly unique collection, this volume utilizes history to shed crucial light on Russia's complex, occasionally inscrutable relationship with the world. In so doing, it raises the broader issue of the relationship of history to the study of contemporary foreign policy and how these two enterprises might be better joined.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union expectations were high that a 'new world order' was emerging in which Russia and the other former Soviet republics would join the Western community of nations. That has not occurred. This volume explains the reasons for this failure and assesses likely future developments in that relationship

Since its independence in 1991, Russia has struggled with the growing pains of defining its role in international politics. After Vladimir Putin ascended to power in 2000, the country undertook grandiose foreign policy projects in an attempt to delineate its place among the world’s superpowers. With this in mind, Robert Nalbandov examines the milestones of Russia’s international relations since the turn of the twenty-first century. He focuses on the specific goals, engagement practices, and tools used by Putin’s administration to promote Russia’s vital national and strategic interests in specific geographic locations. His findings illuminate Putin’s foreign policy objective of reinstituting Russian global strategic dominance. Nalbandov argues that identity-based politics have dominated Putin’s tenure and that Russia’s east/west split is reflected in Asian-European politics. Nalbandov’s analysis shows that unchecked domestic power, an almost exclusive application of hard power, and determined ambition for unabridged global influence and a defined place as a world superpower are the keys to Putin’s Russia.

Through a compilation of foreign policy documents and statements, harnessed together by a section of analytic works, this book seeks to highlight the shift in Russian foreign policy at the beginning of the twenty-first century. This compilation presents the work of formative scholars in this field who are concerned with the evolution of Russia Foreign policy thinking and behavior. This volume compiles critical documents and statements (treaties, addresses and articles) that deal with the formation of new conceptions of security in the New World order. The articles critically evaluate the implications of these new initiatives and lend insight to these documents and statements in practice. They address a wide range of topics from the crisis in Kosovo to domestic Russian policy, with an eye to the future of Russian policy.

The Putin and Bush presidencies, the 9/11 attack, and the war in Iraq have changed the dynamics of Russian-European-US relations and strained the Western alliance. Featuring contributions by leading experts in the field, this work is the first systematic effort to reassess the status of Russia's modernization efforts in this context. Part I examines political, economic, legal, and cultural developments in Russia for evidence of convergence with Western norms. In Part II, the contributors systematically analyze Russia's relations with the European Union, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the United States in light of new security concerns and changing economic and power relationships.