National Interests

With the emergence of a new Russia, and the other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), from the collapse of the U.S.S.R., the identification of Russia's national interests has become a complicated question. National interests are subject to change. With the end of the Cold War and the transformation of the world's economic picture since World War II, the basic, stable core of national interests has been significantly modified. After decades of operating as one half of a superpower standoff, and as the proponent of an ideology that set foreign policy in a 'mission' mode, the new Russia lacks the old determinants of its national interest. In addition, the new set of factors that determine national interest run almost completely counter to Russia's old interests. Among Russian leaders who discuss the national interest, there is a tendency to retain parts of the old view of Russia. Thus, for example, Boris Yeltsin's former adviser, Sergei Stankevich, still conceives of Russia as a great power that need not consider the sovereignty of the nations of the CIS sacrosanct, if it believes these states are persecuting the 25 million ethnic Russians who live outside Russia. Clearly, such a conception of Russia's national identity and its interests has an impact on foreign policy. A leader who held Stankevich's views, for example, would be unlikely to place much emphasis on establishing economic and political relations with the CIS nations based on their indep

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es, for Russians to believe that, since the decline of the nation's superpower status in a bipolar international system, they need to continue to shore up the country's position as a great power in the balance-of-power mode that prevailed in previous centuries. But, as arguments by Stankevich and Nikolai Travkin, founder of the Democratic Party of Russia, show, this need for great power status is behind varying conceptions of Russian national interests. Stankevich, as mentioned, considers the protection of the interests of 25 million ethnic Russians in the CIS nations to be a major national interest. Though he believes that economic development is Russia's primary interest, the scale of the problem of displaced Russians makes it a possible excuse for Russian expansionists. Russia must, he argues, adopt an anti-imperialist foreign policy that will protect these Russians but also assure the nation's internal stability, on which economic renewal depends (27-28). But, Stankevich sees Russia's role in the CIS nations as that of the primary mediator and the only nation capable of ensuring peace and prosperity in these regions. He rejects claims that this is a continuation of Soviet or Tsarist imperialism. Yet, Stankevich does no

Category: Foreign - N