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A Weary Titan: Russian Foreign Policy Thinking since 1992 Jittipat Poonkham Journal of Social Science, Vol. 42: No. 1 (January-June 2012). A Weary Titan Russian Foreign Policy Thinking since 1992 Jittipat Poonkham 1 Abstract At the end of the Cold War, Russia lost its status of superpower and became merely a weary titan, which inevitably affected foreign policy making. The paper argues that Russian foreign policy since 1992 originated from the ideational debate, which was part and parcel of a longer debate whether Russia would integrate into the West (Westernization) or would follow its own developmental path (Russianization). It begins with a contested identity problem about Russia’s position and role in the post-Cold War world, which constituted the background for major changes and continuity in foreign policy thinking. Then the paper divides ideational patterns of Russian foreign policy thinking into four distinct phases: (I) liberal idealism (1992-1993); (II) geopolitical realism (1993- 2000); (III) geopolitical-geoeconomic realism I (2000-2004); and (IV) geopolitical- geoeconomic realism II (2004-present), respectively. During the early periods of both Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin administrations (Phases I and III), Russian foreign policy was prone to cooperative with the West while during their later periods (Phases II and IV), it fundamentally shifted to more assertive relationship. Keywords: Russian foreign policy thinking, identity, ideas, change, continuity At the end of the Cold War, International Relations (IR) scholars particularly the realists emphatically failed to predict the scenario of the breakdown of the Soviet Union. The world was astoundingly stunned by the end of the bipolar international system, the democratization of the former Soviet states or the so-called ‘near abroad’ 2 , the reunification of Germany, and, significantly, the loss of one of dual superpowers. At time, Russia became a weary titanwithout a strategic balance, without an economic security, and without a political or energy leverage vis-à-vis the near abroad. Unquestionably, Russian foreign policy underwent significant changes. Then, what has Russian foreign policy after the Cold War been like? To what extent has Russian foreign policy transformed during Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin administrations? 1 Department of International Relations, Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University 2 The near abroad includes the South Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan), Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan), and the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania).

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Page 1: Jittipat Poonkham A Weary Titan: Russian Foreign Policy Thinking Since 1992

A Weary Titan: Russian Foreign Policy Thinking since 1992

Jittipat Poonkham

Journal of Social Science, Vol. 42: No. 1 (January-June 2012).

A Weary Titan

Russian Foreign Policy Thinking since 1992

Jittipat Poonkham 1

Abstract At the end of the Cold War, Russia lost its status of superpower and

became merely a weary titan, which inevitably affected foreign policy making.

The paper argues that Russian foreign policy since 1992 originated from the

ideational debate, which was part and parcel of a longer debate whether Russia

would integrate into the West (Westernization) or would follow its own

developmental path (Russianization). It begins with a contested identity problem

about Russia’s position and role in the post-Cold War world, which constituted

the background for major changes and continuity in foreign policy thinking. Then

the paper divides ideational patterns of Russian foreign policy thinking into four

distinct phases: (I) liberal idealism (1992-1993); (II) geopolitical realism (1993-

2000); (III) geopolitical-geoeconomic realism I (2000-2004); and (IV) geopolitical-

geoeconomic realism II (2004-present), respectively. During the early periods of

both Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin administrations (Phases I and III), Russian

foreign policy was prone to cooperative with the West while during their later

periods (Phases II and IV), it fundamentally shifted to more assertive relationship.

Keywords: Russian foreign policy thinking, identity, ideas, change, continuity

At the end of the Cold War, International Relations (IR) scholars

particularly the realists emphatically failed to predict the scenario of the

breakdown of the Soviet Union. The world was astoundingly stunned by the end

of the bipolar international system, the democratization of the former Soviet states

or the so-called ‘near abroad’2, the reunification of Germany, and, significantly,

the loss of one of dual superpowers. At time, Russia became a weary titan—

without a strategic balance, without an economic security, and without a political

or energy leverage vis-à-vis the near abroad. Unquestionably, Russian foreign

policy underwent significant changes. Then, what has Russian foreign policy after

the Cold War been like? To what extent has Russian foreign policy transformed

during Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin administrations?

1 Department of International Relations, Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University 2 The near abroad includes the South Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan), Ukraine, Belarus,

Moldova, Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan), and

the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania).

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Realists may argue that constrained due to its declined relative power

position, Russia rationally needed to ‘bandwagon’ with the West but Russia’s

improving relative power, coupled with the increased oil prices (for Putin),

provided changes in Russian policy towards balancing against the West (See

MacFarlane 1999; Lynch 2001; Donaldson and Nogee 1998). However, it is

insufficient to explain why under both Yeltsin and Putin eras they decided not

only to bandwagon but also to balance the West and the US. In fact, during the

early periods of both Yeltsin and Putin administrations, Russian foreign policy

was prone to cooperative with the West in general and the United States in

particular while during their later periods, it fundamentally shifted to more

assertive and confrontational ones. Given the same international and domestic

structures, why have foreign policy makers envisioned the international system

differently and differed in applying foreign policy tools?

Social Constructivists, on the other hand, propose that the incoherence of

early Post-Soviet Russian policy resulted from the lack of grand strategic visions

and collective ideas and the failure to construct coherent national identity in the

international system. Russian elites were deeply divided by the questions of

foreign policy ideas and identity (See Legvold 2007; Tsygankov 2006). Other

scholars suggest domestic politics (i.e. the president-parliament relationship) and

economic transformations as sources of a shift in foreign policy toward a more

assertiveness (See McFaul 1997/8; Malcolm and Pravda 1996b). Yes, structure

matters. Yes, ideas matter. Yes, domestic factors matter. Rather than

(over)emphasizing one variable over the others, the international-domestic nexus

provides a broader, well-rounded and critical understanding of the post-Soviet

Russian foreign policy. Despite its incoherence at the early stage, there are some

significant patterns of relationship.

The paper argues that the twist and turn of ideas in foreign policy emerged

within the longer debate whether Russia would integrate into the West or would

follow its own developmental path or both (the middle ground). That is to say, it

is a Russian great debate between Westernization, Russianization, and

Eurasianization at a particular time. Thus patterns of changes and continuity in

Russian foreign policy since 1992 can be understood through the lens of ‘foreign

policy thinking’ that is caused by the intertwined interrelationship between

international and domestic sources.

The main objective of the paper is thus to provide a broad perspective

covering the development of Russian foreign policy since 1992. It begins with

Russia’s identity crisis, which constituted the background for major changes and

continuity in foreign policy thinking, particularly Russia’s position and role in the

post-Cold War world. Then it provides ideational patterns of post-Soviet Russian

foreign policy thinking, which are divided into four distinct phases: (I) liberal

idealism (1992-1993); (II) geopolitical realism (1993-2000); (III) geopolitical-

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geoeconomic realism I (2000-4); and (IV) geopolitical-geoeconomic realism II

(2004-present), respectively.

Russia: Who are we?

By the time of the Soviet collapse, Russia has become a state in search of

itself. Although Russia had inherited the international role of the Soviet Union,

Russia’s economy was close to collapse and politics was highly unstable. Russia

remains a great power but was not a superpower in the Cold War sense of the

term. Although Russian elites said all about the cooperation with the West, they

almost always felt nostalgic for the good old days. They immediately faced with a

contested identity problem about Russia’s position and role in the post-Cold War

world under the emerging US hegemony. Yeltsin attempted to retain the notion of

‘great power-ness’ based on the assumption that Russia had been, was, and

would always be a ‘great power’ since a tsarist time (Legvold 2007, 77-144). There

was also a dilemma about its geopolitical identity affecting the coherence of

Russian foreign policy: Was Russia a part of or apart from Europe? Is Russia a

Eurasian power? Russia, as Yeltsin himself asserted, had yet to assume ‘a worthy

place in the world community’ (Lo 2002, 13). Russia’s fundamental identity,

including its degree of belonging to the Western community, remains ill-defined

and incoherent. The challenge for Russia’s post-Soviet elites has thus been ‘to

reconcile traditional national interests with the newly emerging social and

political entity’ (Mankoff 2009, 21). This reflected in the competing foreign policy

thinking debate. Despite their disagreements, Soviet elites and officials have not

directly questioned Russia’s fundamental identity arrangement as an autonomous

great power in the international system.

With its identity uncertainty, post-Soviet Russian foreign policy outcomes

were the result of changes in the Russian leadership’s foreign policy thinking or

discourse from 1992 until now and the perception of the international system in

particular the US hegemony. In the following section, the paper divides Russian

foreign policy thinking into four different phases.

(I) liberal idealism (1992-1993)

The early period of the post-Soviet Russian foreign policy was incoherent

and dissensus, largely because of the loss of its identity and the confusion in

foreign policy structures and processes in particular the conflict between the

government and the parliament. It was a power relationship within Moscow that

complicated the concept formation and decision making of foreign policy. There is

a foreign policy debate between what Margot Light (1996) terms ‘Liberal

Westernists’, ‘Pragmatic Nationalists’, and ‘Fundamentalist Nationalists’ over the

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extent to which Russia should become Westernized or follow its own path.3 In

fact, this is the continuation of the nineteenth-century Westernizer-Slavophile

debate (Neuman 1996).

Between 1992 and 1993 Russian foreign policy thinking was largely

informed by liberal idealism (or ‘Liberal Westernists’). According to Realist

scholars, Russian foreign policy thinking was significantly constrained by external

factors (i.e. its weak position in the international system), thereby pursuing

cooperation, or bandwagoning, with the West in general and the US in particular

(MacFarlane 1999). During these early years, Moscow conceived of the

international system as ‘benign’ that Russia and the West would share not only

interests but also values and it was likely to be a positive-sum cooperation

(Thorun 2009). That is, the Westernization of Russia. Given that Russia was

economically weak with low oil prices, it was necessary for the Yeltsin

administration to seek help from the international community.

Yeltsin and liberal reformers such as Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, a

‘privatization czar’ Anatoly Chubais, and Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev,

sought integration with the West and its institution by assuming that the West

would help Russia in its transition to democratization and a market economy via

liberalization and privatization (or neoliberalization of Russia). During the early

1990s, Russia wanted to join North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the

long term, did not object to NATO membership of Central and Eastern European

Countries (CEECs), and cooperated closely with the West to find a solution to the

conflict in Bosnia. Above all, Russian foreign policy aim was, as Kozyrev asserted,

a ‘constructive partnership’ between Russia and the US ‘to influence positively

the course of world affairs’ (Quoted in Lo 2002, 20).

While Russia had focused on the ‘far abroad’, its foreign relations with the

near abroad was largely unilateralist. 4 Preoccupied with modernization and

integration with the West, Russia decided to go it alone in the region. The

formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), officially included

the twelve newly states (without the Baltic States), fundamentally aimed at

‘completing the republics’ separation from Russia, rather than for promoting or

preserving their integration’ (Tsygankov 2006, 60). Russia had reduced to a

minimum responsibility for maintaining order in the CIS. However, when the

new security threats emerged in the form of military conflict in Moldova during

3 ‘Liberal Westernists’ supported a market economy, a democratization of society, and a pro-

Western and Atlanticist foreign policy while ‘Pragmatic Nationalists’ favored a democratic

political system and a more balanced and independent foreign policy vis-à-vis the West, thereby

diversifying the relations toward the East. ‘Fundamentalist Nationalists’ were extreme nationalists

with anti-Western foreign policy and Russian uniqueness. 4 Some uses the term ‘isolationism’ to explain the early Russian-CIS relations. (Tsygankov 2006, 77-

85)

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Spring 1992 (which later spilled over to Central Asia states of Tajikistan, Georgia

and Chechnya), Russia organized the ‘peacekeeping’ forces5, culminated in the

Tashkent treaty signing in 1992. However, with its weakness and limited

resources, Russia’s multilateral CIS was blocked by the diverging interests of its

members, thereby favoring bilateral ties with key pro-Russian states like Belarus,

Armenia and Kazakhstan (Jackson 2003; Allison 2001).

(II) geopolitical realism (1993-2000)

However, the failure of neoliberal economic reforms, coupled with an

uncertainty and reluctance of the Western integration, frustrated the Yeltsin

administration. The intense confrontation and showdown between the president

and the parliament in 1993 marked the watershed in post-Soviet Russian relations

of power, thereby the 1993 constitution redistributing foreign policy power in

favor of the president. 6

By then, a new foreign policy thinking consensus was in the ‘making’,

influenced by geopolitical realists, rather than liberal idealists. Light (2004, 44-45)

claims that a consensus among the elite emerged in 1993, embodied by a middle

ground ‘pragmatic nationalism’, in which a reassertion of Russian’s sense of ‘great

power-ness’ was combined with a pragmatic attitude towards cooperation with

the West. In fact, the period was characterized by an aggressively ‘great power

rhetoric’ but with limited actions (Jackson 2003, 15).

Yeltsin appointed the former Gazprom director Viktor Chernomyrdin, as a

new Prime Minister in December 1992. Chernomyrdin began to gradually modify

its foreign policy. (Malcolm and Pravda 1996a, 22) With regard to the nature of

international system, it was more competitive environment that states strive for

spheres of influence and Russia aimed to establish herself as an equal partner vis-

à-vis the West and as a Eurasian great power. Russia’s foreign policy towards the

West and towards the CIS became increasingly assertive and ambiguous.

Doctrinally, geopolitical realist thinking succeeded in the 1993 Foreign

Policy Concept reflected the significant shift towards greater readiness to justify

the use of force in the former Soviet sphere, and towards claiming its own

‘Monroe Doctrine’, thereby assuming special rights as guarantor of stability and

the right to defend Russians living in the ‘near abroad’. Russia attempted to

prevent other great powers from filling a power vacuum in the region. The

Concept also identified the economic threats challenging Russia: Opening

5 Dov Lynch (1999, 4) calls Russia’s peacekeeping operation a ‘strategy of armed suasion’, using

‘coercive intervention, clear hierarchical power relations in the CIS region by means short of war’. 6 The constitution made the president responsible for determining the basic guidelines of policy,

representing Russia abroad, appointing diplomats and Security Council members, and conducting

international negotiations. International treaties had to be ratified by the parliament.

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Russia’s economy into the world economy might undermine her economic self-

sufficiency and its technological and industrial capacity (Light 2004, 46).

The replacement of the first Russian Foreign Minister Kozyrev with

Yevgenii Primakov in January 1996 represented a critical transition. As Mankoff

(2009, 5) put it nicely, it was ‘the shift to a new approach emphasizing Russia’s

role as a sovereign Great Power in an anarchic, self-help international system

where power, rather than international norms or institutions, remained the ultama

ratio in international relations’. Unlike Light, many Russian scholars argue that

the consensus only emerged since Primakov took over Kozyrev as Foreign

Minister that Russian foreign policy ‘began, for the most part, to rise above

conflicts between the executive and legislative branches’ (Lo 2002, 4).

Primakov had set Russian foreign policy on the course of seeking

independent great power status. On the one hand, while pursuing a ‘multivector’

diplomacy toward non-European states (China and India in particular), Moscow

continued to cooperate with the West, by agreeing to join NATO’s partnership for

Peace program, signing the NATO-Russia Founding Act, and supporting the final

conflict resolutions during the conflicts in both Bosnia and Kosovo. On the other

hand, Moscow at times carefully balanced against the West. By the mid 1990s

Russia increasingly perceived NATO enlargement as a zero-sum game directed

against Russia and its emerging external threat. 7 The expansion of NATO, rather

than the ethnic conflict in the Balkans, proved to be unacceptable for Russia.

Importantly, Primakov believed that Russia should aspire to create a

multipolar order, thereby balancing against unipolarity in the international

system and promoting the primacy of the UN, particularly the UNSC, as the

central arbitrator in international conflicts (Legvold 2009, 30). However, Russia’s

notion of ‘multilateralism’ was highly selective. It did not allow interfering with

the principle of state sovereignty and rejected humanitarian intervention (e.g.

during the Kosovo crisis). Russia firmly resisted attempts to ‘internationalize’ the

settlement of disputes in the former Soviet Union while reserving the rights to

intervene militarily in the near abroad on behalf of Russian-speaking ethnic

minorities ironically justifying by the discourse of ‘humanitarian intervention’ (Lo

2002, 88, 91). In addition, Primakov had begun to make Russia’s capability to

manipulate energy resources in the former Soviet Union so as to ensure their

loyalty to Moscow (Mankoff 2009, 48). In Central Asia, for example, Russia used

its monopolistic power of energy pipelines in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

Thus to reestablish Russia’s status as a great power in a multipolar international

7 For example, during the Balkan conflicts, Russia asserted its veto power in the UNSC, lent

diplomatic support to forces that the West depicted as responsible for the escalation of the crises,

and sometimes used aggressive rhetoric, most notably the near-firefight between Russian and

NATO troops over control of the airport in Pristina in 1999. (See Thorun 2009, Chapter 5).

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system, Primakov aimed at balancing the US as well as exerting Russian informal

influence over the CIS.

According to the West, this cautious mixture of bandwagoning and

balancing created the impression of an incoherent and irrational Russian foreign

policy. Nevertheless, during this period the elite consensual acceptance of

Realpolitik was reached, which would be the basis of the contemporary Russian

foreign policy thinking. In other words, Russia’s foreign policy thinking was

‘more consensual domestically and more confrontational internationally’

(Mankoff 2009, 30). The second period can be called geopolitical realism or

‘Primakovism’.

(III) geopolitical-geoeconomic realism I (2000-2004)

Third, between 2000 and 2004 Russian foreign policy thinking was

influenced by Putin’s pragmatic geopolitical-geoeconomic realism. Putin had

derived the Primakovian legacy that characterized the international system as

competitive. The 2000 Foreign Policy Concept identified ‘a unipolar world

structure dominated by the United States’ as one of the major threats to Russian

interests. However, Putin saw the international relations not only in geopolitical

but also in geoeconomic lenses. Putin’s discourse of a ‘normal great power’ (See

Tsygankov 2005) emerged from an understanding that it is only on the basis of a

strong economy that Russia can hope to regain its position as a global power. He

asserted that ‘There can be no superpower where weakness and poverty reign’

(Lo 2003, 65). As a result, economic threats gained greater prominence in the

Russian foreign policy thinking about national interest, and economic

development was inevitable for Russia to preserve its great power status.

Unlike Primakov, Putin’s grand strategy was pragmatic cooperation with

the US, rather than balancing against it. With the rise of terrorism in the Northern

Caucasus in particular Chechnya, non-state terrorism emerged as an emerging

security threat toward Russia. Furthermore, Putin’s initial deference to Western

cooperation resulted from a recognition of Russia’s weakness position in the

world and of the need for domestic consolidation. Russian foreign policy under

the early years of Putin administration thus displayed a higher level of

cooperation with the West, an increased degree of coherence, and a substantial

effort to present Russia as a ‘reliable partner’ on the international stage.

The 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks against the US represented the

hallmark of the pragmatic geoeconomic realist Russian foreign policy, rather than

a complete departure from previous approaches (See Pravda 2003). The dangers

of Islamic terrorism were compatible with Russian interests and security in

Chechnya and Central Asia. Moscow substantively became a strategic partnership

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with the US in the war in Afghanistan, and benevolently acquiesced to a

temporary deployment of American forces to Central Asia.

However, after America’s thrust into Iraq in 2003, Russian foreign policy

elites began to be skeptical of American motivations, and together with other

great powers condemned US unilateralism. Importantly, American military

presence, coupled with its democracy promotion as well as the NATO

enlargement, in the former Soviet region rendered Russian skepticism possible.

The Russian-US relations were turning from a short-term alliance towards a

historic rivalry.

In its relations with the near abroad, Putin favored bilateral relations,

rather than Primakovite multilateral regionalism, and aimed at strengthening

Russia’s economic presence in the region. He asserted control over their strategic

property and transportation in particular ports, electricity, and energy pipelines

facilities (Tsygankov 2006, 150). Even though Putin did not prioritize the CIS, he

used them to achieve his ultimate goals, in particular the counter-terrorism

scheme. In Central Asia, Putin initiated the formation of the Collective Security

Treaty Organization (CSTO) to fight war on terror. Moscow also reestablished

new military bases in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

At the end of the first-term Putin administration, Russian foreign policy

thinking was overwhelmingly shaped by the linkage between geopolitics and

geoeconomics, which Bobo Lo (2003, 67) terms the ‘geopoliticization of foreign

economic policy’.

(IV) geopolitical-geoeconomic realism II (2004-present)

Last but not least, geopolitical-geoeconomic realism is prevailed and

remains during the second-term Putin and Medvedev administrations. Russian

elites, however, have perceived the international system as more intensely

competitive. American expansionism and its regime change strategy into the

region made Russian foreign policy more assertive. It is realism with more

assertiveness, which I terms ‘geopolitical-economic realism II’.

Russia’s position in the international system was relatively strong vis-à-vis

during the end of the Cold War. High commodity prices particularly energy

prices increased Moscow’s independent foreign policy and economic leverage

over the West. They have freed Russia from economic dependence on the IMF

while turning the West’s dependence on Russian oil and gas. Putin had

reestablished the state’s role in the economy, thereby retaining control over its

strategic resources, namely its oil, gas and pipelines, from foreign companies and

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local challengers like Yukos and exerting influence in the near abroad.8

Consequently, Russia has emerged as what Putin terms an ‘energy superpower’

(Goldman 2008).

During this period, Russian foreign policy thinking was encompassed not

only by geopolitics and geoeconomics but also by its own value systems. The

Putin administration launched the concept of ‘sovereign democracy’, which

maintained Russian unique identity and calculated its national interest above all

other matters. Like China, Russia has favorably accepted the realist perception of

international system in which great powers are the primary stabilizers of global

order while their relations dictated by calculations of national interest, but never

normatively Westernized or internationally institutionalized. As Mankoff (2009,

40) suggests, it was a change in tactics rather than strategy. That is, its initial

deference with the West resulted from its recognition of Russian weakened

position, instead of any convergence between Russian and Western policy goals.

In other words, Russia has pursued foreign policy with its own characteristic.

The Putin-Medvedev duopolistic regime was characterized by a growing

number of disagreements between Russia and the West, a more assertive Russian

foreign policy in its sphere of influence, and diverging views on matters of

European and international security. Putin took a harder stance on a further

enlargement of NATO, especially including Ukraine and Georgia, and its criticism

about the planned deployment of a missile defense system in Europe precisely

because of a stronger position of Russia relative to the West (Mankoff 2007, 127).

Moreover, a permanent presence of American military bases in Central

Asia, coupled with the ‘colored revolutions’ in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan

since 2004, had largely frustrated Russia. By 2006, Putin decided to shut off gas

supplies to Ukraine by claiming to force the government to pay market price for

deliveries of Russian energy. In August 2008 Russia invaded Georgia, and

announced its recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia under the pressures of

the West. Geostrategically, it appeared Russia was using energy resource as a

political weapon to pressure a pro-Western Ukrainian President Viktor

Yushchenko and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who proclaimed

reducing the country’s dependence on Russia and seeking membership in

Western institutions, particularly NATO (Mankoff 2009, 24).

Shortly after Russia recognized the independence of two enclaves of

Georgia, Medvedev declared that like other great powers in the world, Russia

would regard the area around its border as ‘a region where it has privileged

8 Moscow had nationalized massive extraction operations on Sakhalin Island and in the Far North

(Shtokman) that had been ceded to Western firms like Royal Dutch Shell and British Petroleum in

the 1990s (Lo 2003, 61).

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interests’. The so-called ‘Medvedev Doctrine’ (or the so-called Russia’s ‘Monroe

Doctrine’) was a continuation of post-Soviet Russian foreign policy thinking. At

least, rhetorically Medvedev’s foreign policy goals, promulgated in May 2008,

were to create favorable external conditions for the modernization of Russia,

transform its economy through innovation, enhance living standards, consolidate

society, strengthen the foundations of the constitutional system, rule of law and

democratic institutions, realize human rights and freedom, and ensure national

competitiveness in a globalizing world (Mankoff 2009, 31, 13). Very importantly,

the new foreign policy concept identified the institutional arrangement that the

cabinet, which is headed by the prime minister, carries responsibility for

implementing Russia’s foreign policy. This allows a president-cum-premier Putin

to maintain a free hand in foreign affairs. And in 2012 Putin would return as

president while Medvedev back to the prime minister. 9 The post-Soviet Russian

foreign policy is overwhelmingly personalized, rather than institutionalized.

Conclusion

After 1992 Russian foreign policy thinking is not completely a parvenu.

Rather, it is an ideational continuation of a longer Westernizer-Slavophile debate

whether Russia would adopt the Western civilization or pursue its own

characteristics. Particularly, the post-Cold War Russia is largely driven by a

transposition between liberal-Atlanticist Westernization, Eurasianization, and

Russianization, which depended upon the changing international and domestic

contexts of foreign policy making. Up until now, this great debate remains and

will be vivacious.

Despite an ongoing debate, some general trends underlying the shifting

nature of Russian foreign policy thinking can be preliminarily presented. First,

despite its ‘sectionalization’ of foreign policy making (Lo 2002, 5), elements of

autonomous great power thinking (geopolitical mindset) has predominantly

shaped and constituted elite foreign policy preferences. The Russian consensus

emphasizes the existence of a multipolar world order in which Russia is one of the

principal poles. Second, the sovereignty thinking, which focuses on the

calculation of national interests, has prevailed over multilateralism and

international norms. It is the existence of an anarchical society in which power

and interests matter more than norms and institutions. Third, the geoeconomic

thinking in the foreign economic policy making has increasingly emerged under

late Primakovism and under Putinism-Mevedevism due to the corresponding

primacy of energy sector and state’s growing role in the economy, or the rise of

corporatism. In sum, as Celeste Wallander (2004, 63) puts it nicely, ‘Russian

foreign policy in the early twenty-first century is one of a Great Power aspirant,

9 In 2008, Russian parliament adopted a constitution amendment that extended its presidential

term to six years.

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with strong geopolitical influences shaping a core pragmatic strategic goal of

economic development, prosperity, and international integration’. Like the US,

Russian foreign policy can be characterized as ‘multilateralism when we can,

unilateralism when we must’.

Reference

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Donaldson, Robert H., and Joseph L. Nogee. 1998. The Foreign Policy of Russia.

New York: M.E. Sharpe.

Goldman, Marshall. 2008. Petrostate: Putin, Power, and the New Russia. Oxford:

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