5 - The “enigmatic” enemy: Russia (1990–2007)

Summary

Russia's identity crisis has made it difficult to formulate and pursue a clear and consistent policy toward the outside world.

Andrei Tsygankov, “From International Institutionalism to Revolutionary Expansionism”

So much of Russian thinking about foreign affairs seems to converge around the idea that there is a conspiracy to prevent Russia resuming its great power status and to halt the “natural” restoration of the Russian imperial complex in some form.

Guardian, March 22, 1997

Boris N. Yeltsin, speaking on Independence Day, told Russians their country remains a great international power, one that is respected instead of feared.

News Service reports, June 13, 1997

Who lost Russia … our new rival? Neither ally nor partner …

Washington Times, February 18, 1998

There is enough uncertainty … about the wisdom of President Vladimir Putin's new pro-western foreign policy. Is he trying to join the west, or is he trying to use it?

Financial Times, April 15, 2002

For the first time, the Russian president directly questioned the legitimacy of the approaches, principles, evaluation criteria and even the very ideology of the West in relations with the rest of the world.

BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union, December 12, 2004

It's time we start thinking of Vladimir Putin's Russia as an enemy of the United States.

The Wall Street Journal, November 28, 2006

Introduction

Is Russia, the former Soviet Union, an ally of the United States and Europe, an enemy of the West, or neither? The jury is still out, and Russian leaders have been giving out confusing signals since the official end of the Cold War.