Russia's disagreement with the West on the recent crisis in Kosovo and its opposition to NATO's decision to use military force against Serbia were particularly bitter. In trying to explain Russia's opposition to military strikes against Yugoslavia, Western observers have argued that Russia is trying to preserve its great-power status in international conflicts through "residual imperialism." Many also attribute Russia's policy to its obsession with a "mystic pan-Slavic mission" and longstanding historical commitments to stand by the Serbs. Russian policy in Kosovo (or Iraq) is also portrayed as an attempt to appease the domestic national-patriotic opposition. Finally, Moscow's position on the Kosovo crisis has been interpreted as arising from its concern with territorial integrity and its own bloody conflict in the breakaway region of Chechnya. Most of these motives are of an emotional, psychological and cultural nature. While they might make it easier to dismiss the factors driving Russia's foreign policy as largely irrational and explain away everything as Moscow's retrospective thinking, they do not shed light on the real nature of Russian foreign policy. […]
Memo #:
57
Series:
1
PDF:
PDF URL:
http://www.gwu.edu/~ieresgwu/assets/docs/ponars/pm_0057.pdf
