Foreign Policy Views of Russia's Leaders

3. There are numerous foreign policy orientations among Russia's leaders. These views of foreign policy are related to various conceptions of Russia's national identity. Dawisha and Parrott identify five schools of thought on foreign policy among the Russian leadership. Richter identifies three basic foreign-policy orientations among Russian leaders. Though these authors agree, in general, that national identity is the principle around which approaches to foreign policy are constructed, Dawisha and Parrott are more interested in the specifics of relationship of Russia to the former Soviet republics, and to questions of ethnic identity, and feel more subdivisions are necessary to demonstrate how these particular interests affect foreign policy development. The choice of dividing the policy spectrum into more or fewer basic orientations depends largely on the context of the discussion.

Dawisha and Parrott explain that, despite the residual institutions of the Soviet Union, Russia has been slow in developing a process for making foreign policy decisions (198). Though it has the superstructure and personnel of the necessary institutions, the Russian leadership is far from developing consensus over the aims of the nation's foreign policy. Dawisha and Parrott identify five basic foreign policy orientations. These approaches are all, more or less, associated with existing institutions. But within each institution there is a significant range of opinion so that, in the aut

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Category: Foreign - F