Post-Cold War Russian Foreign Policy Toward East Central Europe: Soviet Foreign Policy Research Revisited and Reapplied

Abstract

In examining Russian foreign policy toward ECE, I noticed that Russia seems to have incorporated its policy toward this region into its overall European policy. Moscow has renounced its historical claims of domination in this region and has sought to renew relations with the East European nation on a new footing of partnership and bilateral agreements. The substantive issues of NATO expansion, EU expansion, the Bosnian civil war, and Russian neo-imperialism, all necessarily involve West European, as well as, East European nations. Wilkinson's model provides an understanding of the relationship between power, political will, and residual factors, such as historical experience and domestic constraints, in the development of Russian foreign policy to address these substantive issues.