Carnegie Moscow Center
Russian foreign policy’s modern-day motives are completely dissimilar to those of the recent Soviet and the more distant czarist past. Where-as the empire was predominantly about Eurasian geopolitics and the Soviet Union promoted a global ideological and political project backed up by military power, Russia’s business is Russia itself. Seen from a different angle, Russia’s business is business.
The meetings between the presidents of Russia and the United States have long since ceased to hold any fateful significance, and that is good. What is bad is that they have become unproductive. The encounter between Putin and Bush in Hanoi has the potential to be an exception if a decision regarding Russia's accession to the WTO can be made there.
Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin were all smiles when they met Wednesday at a Moscow refueling stop during Bush's trip to Asia. But the truth is that the U.S.-Russian relationship has reached its lowest point since the end of the Cold War.
Russia has again embraced czarism for a number of reasons. One, a long tradition of undivided and almost sacred power. Two, democracy has earned a bad name in the popular Russian mind. Three, most people want stability and peace. Four, most are not yet ready to assume responsibility for governance. Five, the successful people in Russia don’t care about politics: they are busy making money.
Analyzing the crisis in Russian-Georgian relations, Trenin looks at each country's objectives, strategies, and how they are working. U.S. and Russian interests clash where it comes to geopolitics and geo-economics, and this lingering crisis is a cause for major concern and calls for fundamental policy re-evaluation and policy revision.
Russia has a tsarist political system, in which all major decisions are taken by one institution, the presidency. In fact, this is the only functioning political institution in the country. Separation of powers, enshrined in the 1993 Constitution, does not exist in reality. On the contrary, unity of power and authority has become the new state-building doctrine.
U.S. and European officials are voicing their concern over Russia's domestic political situation and its relations with the former Soviet republics. Washington must understand that positive change in Russia can only come from within and that economic realities, rather than democratic ideals, will be the vehicle for that change.
A successful Russian modernization is the most reliable basis for the foreign attractiveness of the country. Volumes of energy resources as such will not make Russia a great power, energy is not the same as leadership, nor is harshness the same as effectiveness. This is precisely how a post-imperial project differs from a neo-imperial one.