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Russia's Foreign Policy after Sep ...
Lithuanian Annual Strategic Review
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Russia's Foreign Policy after September II
Volume 1, Issue 1 (2003), pp. 165–179
Česlovas Laurinavičius
Pub. online: 18 July 2003 Type: Article Open Access
The article deals with the issue on Russian foreign policy in length of one year - from September 2001 till October 2002. It's evident, that the attacks of terrorists on the Twin Towers in New York signalled the turn in Russian foreign policy under the leadership of President Vladimir Putin from confrontation with USA and Euro Atlantic organizations to the cooperation with the said opponents. The turn was influenced by the objective bankrupt to confront with the West. Otherwise, the domestic high popularity rating of President Putin and his image of the State's consolidator, what has been originated on the brutal represses of Chechnya's separatism and the authoritarian concentration of power, served for the taken, non popular in Russia, course of ally with the West and particularly with USA.
It's shown within the article, how fluctuated the emphasises of Putin's policy in the analysed period, i.e. from the cooperation of USA and Russia in crushing the Afghanistan's Talibs, from the entering into the pact START - 3 and establishing NATO - Russian Council to the reactivated flirtation with Peking and Phenian, and the blackmail with the rockets "Satana". It is also established, how Putin's diplomacy relates the brewed Iraq crisis and the case of Chechnya militants in Georgia Pankisi pass and how for the pro western political course was obtained the transit through Lithuania to/ from Kaliningrad. In sum, Putin just modifies the previous Russian (Eugenie Primakov) so called multipolar World strategy. The emphasises of Putin's political line point up not the forthright blocking of USA power, but the game of diplomatic in the concert of Great Powers, where Putin himself appears as a good player. The democracy itself doesn't take the priority in Russia and Putin's policy, meanwhile, doesn't lead to structural integration with the West, but far to the specific contiguous of Russian and the West structures. On the one part Euro Atlantic military structures enter into the post Soviet Union space - into Baltic countries, also Transcaucasia and Central Asia, on the other part the Russian energetics' capital penetrates to Central East Europe and Balkans, Russia preserves and even expands its influence upon Central Asia and the Far East.