DISADVANTAGE/RUSSIA

ANSWERS: RUSSIA WILL NOT ATTEMPT TO ACT MILITARILY AGAINST STATES OF THE FORMER SOVIET UNION

EVENTS PROVE THE RUSSIAN COMMITMENT TO DEMILITARIZE ITS POST-COLONIAL POLICY TOWARDS ITS NEIGHBORS

Leon Aron, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, The Weekly Standard, April 20, 1998: Pg. 23, HEADLINE: THE REMARKABLE RISE OF DEMOCRATIC RUSSIA , acs-VT99

The demilitarization of conflicts in the near abroad is a central tenet of the postcolonial creed, and for this, 1997 was by far the most productive year to date. With Yeltsin's near-miraculous resurgence after heart-bypass surgery, Moscow moved to settle all the hostilities in the region. Only in Nagorny Karabakh, over which Armenia and Azerbaijan had fought to a standstill, did Russia fail to make progress. On May 12, Russia signed an accord with Chechnya, granting it all but official recognition of independence. Within days, the leader of the self-proclaimed Transdniester Republic (a secessionist Russo-Ukrainian enclave on Moldova's border with Ukraine) signed a memorandum in the Kremlin that effectively affirmed Moldova's sovereignty over the area. In June, the regime in Tajikistan and the Islamic opposition ended five years of bloody civil war. The same month, the Abkhaz president spent two weeks in Moscow with top-level mediators discussing an "interim protocol" for settlement of the Abkhaz-Georgian conflict; and in August, he traveled to Tbilisi for his first face-to-face meeting with Shevardnadze since the war began. On September 4, in the presence of Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin, the presidents of North Ossetia and Ingushetia (autonomous republics inside Russia) signed an agreement settling a conflict over North Ossetia's Prigorodny district, where fighting had broken out in November 1992. During the next two days in Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, Chernomyrdin held meetings with the presidents of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, who all announced they would "soon" sign border agreements with Moscow.

RUSSIA MAY MEDDLE IN THE AFFAIRS OF ITS NEIGHBORS, BUT IT ACCEPTS REALITY AND WILL NOT TRY TO SUBJUGATE THEM

Leon Aron, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, The Weekly Standard, April 20, 1998: Pg. 23, HEADLINE: THE REMARKABLE RISE OF DEMOCRATIC RUSSIA , acs-VT99

Most important, Russia has chosen to accept the independence and sovereignty of the former Soviet republics -- which Russians designate, tellingly, as the "near abroad." This is the critical distinction between the imperial and postcolonial modes of behavior in the region, and the region's leaders understand it well. While they quickly learned to overwhelm some American columnists with complaints about Moscow's arm-twisting, they see clearly the difference between meddling and subjugation.

RUSSIA WILL TRY TO INFLUENCE OTHER FORMER SOVIET STATES, BUT IT WILL NOT ENGAGE IN EXPANSIVE COMMITMENTS TOWARDS THEM

Leon Aron, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, The Weekly Standard, April 20, 1998: Pg. 23, HEADLINE: THE REMARKABLE RISE OF DEMOCRATIC RUSSIA , acs-VT99

Postcolonial Russia can be expected to probe relentlessly for weakness and to exploit its neighbors' troubles in furthering its regional dominance. Nevertheless, Moscow will be constrained by a cost-benefit calculus and wary of open-ended, long-term, and expensive commitments in the former Soviet lands.

DESPITE THE DIRE PREDICTIONS OF MANY SOURCES, RUSSIA AND ITS PEOPLE ARE NOT WILLING TO GO TO WAR WITH OTHER PARTS OF THE FORMER SOVIET UNION

Angela Stent, professor of government at Georgetown University, Heritage Foundation Reports, April 6, 1998; Pg. 23, HEADLINE: RUSSIAN FOREIGN POLICY: THE NEW PRAGMATISM acs-VT99

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there have been dire warnings about impending conflicts between Russia and the former Soviet states because of Russia's inability to accept the loss of its internal empire. Commentators who focused on the rhetoric of certain Russian politicians, Duma members, and commentators -- as opposed to the deeds of the Russian government -- made dire predictions about a future Russian -- Ukrainian conflict or the uprising of the Russian Diaspora in the CIS. But today, the Russian population, and much of the leadership, have come closer to accepting the breakup of the Soviet Union than at any previous time. And despite the nostalgia for the past, the majority of Russians are unwilling to pay the military or economic costs that any forceful reintegration of the former Soviet Union would entail.

RUSSIA HAS CHOSEN TO ACCEPT THE EXISTING INTERNATIONAL ORDER, NOT TO CHANGE IT

Leon Aron, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, The Weekly Standard, April 20, 1998: Pg. 23, HEADLINE: THE REMARKABLE RISE OF DEMOCRATIC RUSSIA , acs-VT99

In the end, the fundamental choice that Russia had to make in foreign policy was whether to accept the existing international order or seek to alter it. Russia chose to accept it. Moscow may bemoan the unfairness of the score -- it does so often and loudly -- but it is not trying to change the rules of the game.

POWERFUL RUSSIAN POLITICAL AND BUSINESS ELITES OPPOSE ANY ATTEMPT TO REINTEGRATE FORMER SOVIET STATES

Gennady I. Chufrin and Harold H. Saunders; Russian Academy of Sciences and the Kettering Foundation, The Washington Quarterly, 1997 Autumn; Pg. 35, HEADLINE: The Politics of Conflict Prevention in Russia and the Near Abroad acs-VT99

The newly emerged powerful Russian political and business elites, on the other hand, are generally opposed to reintegration, at least for the foreseeable future. Given a high diversity of political situations in former Soviet republics as well as differing levels of economic development, many Russian elites believe reintegration would be too costly politically and economically either to Russian interests or to their own.

RUSSIA HAS GIVEN UP ITS LOST EMPIRE, AND SIMPLY WISHES TO COUNTER BALANCE UNITED STATES INFLUENCE BY WORKING WITH OTHER COUNTRIES WITHOUT CREATING A CONFRONTATION WITH THE USA

Tony Barber, Business Day (South Africa), April 21, 1998; Pg. 13, HEADLINE: MOSCOW STILL REGARDS THE US WITH PRICKLY RESENTMENT , acs-VT99

Almost seven years after the end of communist rule, the collapse of the empire is broadly accepted by Moscow's foreign policy establishment - if not by parliament's dominant communist and nationalist factions - as the practical reality that defines the scope of Russian foreign policy.

The main challenge is to find a way to counterbalance the global power of the US, without allowing relations with Washington to deteriorate into confrontation.

Russia considers that the US throws its weight around too much, and is keen to build relationships with influential countries, including China and France as UN Security Council members, that appear to share this view.