Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T00:43:11.213Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

24 - Moscow’s foreign policy, 1945–2000: identities, institutions and interests

from Part II - Russia and the Soviet Union: Themes and Trends

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
Ted Hopf
Edited by
Ronald Grigor Suny
Ronald Grigor Suny
Affiliation:
University of Chicago and University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Get access

Summary

‘A great power has no permanent friends, just permanent interests’, an oft-heard aphorism about international politics, assumes these interests are obvious. In Britain’s case it was to prevent the domination of continental Europe. For Great Powers in general, it has been to maintain a balance against emerging hegemonic threats, such as Napoleonic France, Hitler’s Germany or the post-war Soviet Union.

Advising states to balance against power, the aphorism also warns against treating other states as natural allies, as an enemy today might be a friend tomorrow, as Britain found with the Soviet Union in June 1941. But aphorisms are rarely more than half-truths. States’ interests are no more permanent than their allies or enemies. Threats and interests are not obvious or objective. There is nothing about French and British nuclear weapons that make them objectively less threatening to the United States than Chinese warheads.

How, then, does a state become a threat? Realism tells us that power threatens. No Great Power feels threatened by Togo. But power is only necessary, not sufficient, to threaten. Britain, the Soviet Union, the United States and France did not balance against Hitler’s Germany before the Second World War. Britain and France did not balance against the United States after the Second World War. Britain, France, China and Russia have not balanced against the United States since the end of the Cold War.

Keywords

cold warsingle foreign policy institutionMoscow's Communist alliesnew soviet manStalinismSoviet identitySoviet interests
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Russia , pp. 662 - 705
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abebe, Ermias, ‘The Horn, the Cold War, and Documents from the Former East-Bloc: An Ethiopian View’, Cold War International History Project Bulletin 8–9 (1996/7).Google Scholar
Adibekov, Grant M., Kominform i poslevoennaia Evropa, 1947–1956 (Moscow: Rossiia molodaia, 1994).
Allison, Roy, and Jonson, Lena (eds.), Central Asian Security: The New International Context (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2001).
Anderson, Richard D. Jr., Public Politics in an Authoritarian State: Making Foreign Policy During the Brezhnev Years (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993).
Andrew, Christopher and Mitrokhin, Vasili, The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB (New York: Basic Books, 1999).
Arbatov, Georgi, The System: An Insider’s Life in Soviet Politics (New York: Times Books, 1992).
Beda, Anatolii M., Sovetskaia politicheskaia kul’tura cherez prismu MVD: Ot ‘Moskovskogo patriotizma’ k idee ‘bol’shogo otechestva’, 1946–1958 (Moscow: Mosgorarkhiv, 2002).
Bennett, Andrew, Condemned to Repetition? The Rise, Fall, and Reprise of Soviet-Russian Military Interventionism, 1973–1996 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999).
Carr, E. H., and Davies, R. W., Foundations of a Planned Economy1926–1929, 3 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1969–78).
Carr, E. H., Socialism in One Country 1924–1926, 3 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1958–64).
Checkel, Jeffrey T., Ideas and International Political Change: Soviet/Russian Behavior and the End of the Cold War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997).
Chen, Jian, Mao’s China and the Cold War (Chapel: Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001).
Chernaiev, A. S., Moia zhizn’ i moe vremia (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1995).
Chernyaev, Anatoly, My Six Years with Gorbachev, trans. and ed. English, Robert and Tucker, Elizabeth, Foreword by Matlock, Jack F. Jr . (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000).
Chubar’ian, A. O. (ed.), Stalin i kholodnaia voina (Moscow: In-t vseobshchei istorii RAN, 1997).
Chuev, Felix, Molotov Remembers: Inside Kremlin Politics (Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1993).
Colton, Timothy, and Hough, Jerry, Growing Pains: Russian Democracy and the Election of 1993 (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 1998).
Danilov, Aleksandr A., and Pyzhikov, Aleksandr V., Rozhdenie sverkhderzhavy: SSSR v pervye poslevoennye gody (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2001).
Dwan, Renata, and Pavliuk, Oleksandr (eds.), Building Security in the New States of Eurasia: Subregional Cooperation in the Former Soviet Space (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2000).
Ekedahl, Carolyn McGiffert, and Goodman, Melvin A., The Wars of Eduard Shevardnadze, 2nd edn (Washington: Brassey’s, 2001).
Evangelista, Matthew, Unarmed Forces. The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1999).
Fursenko, Aleksandr, and Naftali, Timothy, ‘One Hell of a Gamble’: Khrushchev, Castro and Kennedy, 1958–1964 (New York: Norton, 1997).
Gaiduk, Ilya V., Confronting Vietnam: Soviet Policy toward the Indochina Conflict, 1954–1963 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003).
Gaiduk, Ilya V. Egorova, N. I., and Chubar’ian, A. O. (eds.), Stalinskoe desiatiletie kholodnoi voiny: fakty I gipotezy (Moscow: Nauka, 1999).
Garthoff, Raymond L., ‘Some Observations on Using Soviet Archives’, A Journey through the Cold War: A Memoir of Containment and Coexistence (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2001).
Goldgeier, James M., Not Whether but When: The U.S. Decision to Enlarge NATO (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 1999).
Goncharov, Sergei N., Lewis, John W., and Litai, Xue, Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1993).
Grinevskii, Oleg, Tainy sovetskoi diplomatii (Moscow: Vagrius, 2000).
Hopf, Ted, Peripheral Visions: Deterrence Theory and American Foreign Policy in the Third World, 1965–1990 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994).
Hopf, Ted, Social Construction of International Politics: Identities and Foreign Policies, Moscow, 1955 and 1999 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002).
Iazhborovskaia, I. S., ‘Vovlechenie Pol’shi v Stalinskuiu blokovuiu politiku: problemy i metody davleniia na pol’skoe rukovodstvo, 1940-e gody’, in A. O., Chubar’ian, (ed.) Stalin i kholodnaia voina (Moscow: In-t vseobshchei istorii RAN, 1997).Google Scholar
Kolsto, Pal, Political Construction Sites: Nation-Building in Russia and the Post-Soviet States (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2000).
Kornienko, Georgii M., Kholodnaia Voina: svidetelstvo ee uchastnika (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1994).
Kramer, Mark, ‘New Evidence on Soviet Decision-Making and the 1956 Polish and Hungarian Crises’, Cold War International History Project Bulletin 8–9 (1996/7)Google Scholar
Kulik, Boris T., Sovetsko-Kitaiskii raskol: prichiny i posledstviia (Moscow: Institut Dal’nego Vostoka RAN, 2000).
Kvitsinskii, Iulii A., Vremia i sluchai: zametki profesionala (Moscow, 1999).
Light, Margot, ‘“Malin” Notes on the Crises in Hungary and Poland, 1956’, Cold War International History Project Bulletin 8–9 (1996/7)Google Scholar
Light, Margot, ‘Post-Soviet Russian Foreign Policy: The First Decade’, in Brown, Archie (ed.), Contemporary Russian Politics: A Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).Google Scholar
Lynch, Allen, ‘The Realism of Russia’s Foreign Policy’, Europe–Asia Studies 53, 1 (Jan. 2001).Google Scholar
Matz, Johan, Constructing a Post-Soviet International Political Reality: Russian Foreign Policy towards the Newly Independent States, 1990–95 (Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 2001).
Mendelson, Sarah E., Changing Course: Ideas, Politics, and the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999).
Menon, Rajan, Fedorov, Yuri E., and Nodia, Ghia (eds.), Russia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia: The 21st Century Security Environment (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1999).
Mlechin, Leonid, MID: Ministerstvo Inostrannykh Del, romantiki i tsiniki (Moscow: Tsentrpoligraf, 2001).
Murashko, G. P. and Noskova, A. F., ‘Sovetskii faktor v poslevoennoi vostochnoi evrope (1945–1948)’, in Nezhinskii, L. N., (ed.) Sovetskaia vneshnaia politika v gody ‘Kholodnoi Voiny’ (1945–1985) (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1995).Google Scholar
Naimark, Norman M., The Russians in Germany (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995).
Nezhinskii, L. N. (ed.), Sovetskaia vneshniaia politika v gody ‘Kholodnoi Voiny’ (1945 –1985) (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1995).
Olcott, Martha Brill, Aslund, Anders, and Garnett, Sherman W., Getting It Wrong: Regional Cooperation and the Commonwealth of Independent States (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1999).
‘Plenum TsK KPSS. Iiun’ 1957 goda. Stenograficheskii otchet’, Istoricheskii Arkhiv 3 (1993).
‘Posledniaia “Antipartiinaia” Gruppa’, Istoricheskii Arkhiv I (1994)2 (1994).
‘Posledniaia “Antipartiinaia” Gruppa. Stenograficheskii otchet iiun’skogo (1957 g.) plenuma TsK KPSS’, Istoricheskii Arkhiv 3 (1993)4 (1993).
Primakov, Evgenii, Gody v bol’shoi politike (Moscow: Sovershenno sekretno, 1999).
Prizel, Ilya, National Identity and Foreign Policy: Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia, and Ukraine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
Prozumenshchikov, M. Y., ‘The Sino-Indian Conflict, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Sino-Soviet Split, October 1962: New Evidence from the Russian Archives’, Cold War International History Project Bulletin 8–9 (1996/7).Google Scholar
Richter, James, Khrushchev’s Double Bind: International Pressures and Domestic Coalition Politics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994).
Rozman, Gilbert (ed.), Japan and Russia: The Tortuous Path to Normalization, 1949–1999 (New York: St Martin’s Press, 2000).
Shakhnazarov, Georgii, S vozhdiami i bez nikh (Moscow: Vagrius, 2001).
Shakhnazarov, Georgii, Tsena svobody: Reformatsiia Gorbacheva glazami ego pomoshchnika (Moscow: Rossika/Zevs, 1993).
Shearman, Peter (ed.), Russian Foreign Policy since 1990 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1995).
Shu Guang, Zhang, Economic Cold War: America’s Embargo against China and the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1949–1963 (Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2001).
Sternthal, Susanne, Gorbachev’s Reforms: De-Stalinization through Demilitarization (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1997).
Taubman, William, ‘Khrushchev vs. Mao: A Preliminary Sketch of the Role of Personality in the Sino-Soviet Split’, Cold War International History Project Bulletin 8–9 (1996/7).Google Scholar
Taubman, William, Khrushchev: The Man and his Era (New York, Norton, 2003).
Taubman, William, Khrushchev, Sergei N., and Gleason, Abbott (eds.), Nikita Khrushchev (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000).
‘The Soviet Union and Afghanistan, 1978–1989: Documents from the Russian and East German Archives’, Cold War International History Project Bulletin 8–9 (1996/7).
Tucker, Robert (ed.), The Lenin Anthology (New York: Norton, 1975).
Volokitina, Tatiana V., Murashko, Galina P., Noskova, Albina F., and Pokivailova, Tat’iana A., Moskva i vostochnaia Evropa. Stanovlenie politicheskikh rezhimov sovetskogo tipa (1949–1953). Ocherki istorii (Moscow: Rosspen, 2002).
Vorotnikov, V. I., A bylo eto tak … Iz dnevnika chlena Politburo KPSS (Moscow: Sovet veteranov knigoizdaniia, 1995).
Wallander, Celeste A. (ed.), The Sources of Russian Foreign Policy after the Cold War (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1996).
Wendt, Alexander, Social Theory of International Politics (London: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
Westad, Odd Arne, ‘Concerning the Situation in “A”: New Russian Evidence on the Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan’, Cold War International History Project Bulletin 8–9 (1996/7).Google Scholar
Wishnick, Elizabeth, Mending Fences: The Evolution of Moscow’s China Policy from Brezhnev to Yeltsin (London: University of Washington Press, 2001).
Zubkova, Elena, Obshchestvo i reformy: 1945–1964 (Moscow: Rossiia molodaia, 1993).
Zubkova, Elena, Russia after the War: Hopes, Illusions, and Disappointments, 1945–1957 (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1998).
Zubkova, E. Iu., ‘Stalin i obshchestvennoe mnenie v SSSR, 1945–1953’, in Gaiduk, I. V., Egorova, N. I. and A. O., Chubar’ian (eds.), Stalinskoe desiatiletie kholodnoi voiny: Fakty i gipotezy (Moscow: Nauka, 1999).Google Scholar
Zubok, Vladislav, and Pleshakov, Constantine, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996).

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×