Finding a civilisational idea: "West," Eurasia," and "Euro-East" in Russia's foreign policy

Geopolitics

Volumn 12, Issue 3, 2007, Pages 375-399

  Tsygankov, Andrei P ^a  

^a SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CIVILIZATION; FOREIGN POLICY; POLITICAL IDEOLOGY;

EID: 34250305882     PISSN: 14650045     EISSN: 15573028     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/14650040701305617     Document Type: Article

References (195)

1. As cited in H. Kohn, The Mind of Modern Russia: Historical and Political Thought of Russia's Great Age (New York: Harper & Row 1955) p. 46.
2. V. Putin, 'Poslaniye Federal'nomu Sobraniyu Rossiyskoy Federatsii' (March 2005), available at .
3. See, for example, P. Shearman (ed.), Russian Foreign Policy since 1990 (Boulder: Westview Press 1995)
4. S. J. Blank and A. Z. Rubinstein (eds.), Imperial Decline: Russia's Changing Role in Asia. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press 1997)
5. M. Mandelbaum (ed.), The New Russian Foreign Policy (New York: Council on Foreign Relations 1998)
6. J. L. Black, Russia Faces NATO Expansion: Bearing Gifts or Bearing Arms? (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield 2000)
7. D. Trenin, The End of Eurasia: Russia on the Border Between Geopolitics and Globalization (Moscow: Carnegie Moscow Center 2001)
8. R. Fawn (ed.), Realignment in Russian Foreign Policy (London: Frank Cass 2003)
9. J. L. Black, Vladimir Putin and the New World Order: Looking East, Looking West? (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield 2004)
10. A. Arbatov and V. Dvorkin, Beyond Nuclear Deterrence: Transforming the U.S.-Russian Equation (Moscow Carnegie Center 2006).
11. In my earlier work, I classified Russia's strategies toward the former Soviet region and the outside world (A. P. Tsygankov, 'From Liberal Internationalism to Revolutionary Expansionism: The Foreign Policy Discourse of Contemporary Russia,' Mershon International Studies Review 41/2 (Nov. 1997),
12. A. P. Tsygankov, 'Mastering Space in Eurasia: Russian Geopolitical Thinking after the Soviet Break-Up,' Communist and Post-Communist Studies 35/1 (2003)
13. A. P. Tsygankov, Whose World Order? Russia's Perception of American Ideas after the Cold War (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press 2004),
14. A. P. Tsygankov, Russia's Foreign Policy: Change and Continuity in National Identity (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers 2006a)) without explicitly engaging social/civilisational perspectives that inspired those strategies. This article attempts to bring the civilisational dimension to the centre of analysis.
15. S. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Shuster 1997)
16. P. T. Jackson, 'Civilization on Trial,' Millennium 28/1 (1999)
17. J. O'Hagan, Culture and World Order? (London: Palgrave 2001).
18. The necessary limited and not fully representative list would include N. G. Onuf, The World of Our Making: Rules and Rule in Social Theory and International Relations (Columbia: Univesity of South Carolina Press 1989)
19. M. Finnemore, National Interests in International Society (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1996)
20. P. Katzenstein (ed.), The Culture of National Security (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1996)
21. A. Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1999)
22. Oren, Our Enemy and US: America's Rivalries and the Making of Political Science (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 2002)
23. T. Hopf, Social Construction of International Politics. Identities and Foreign Policies, Moscow, 1955 and 1999 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 2002).
24. The best known proponent of this approach is Samuel Huntington, Clash (note 5).
25. For a similar perspective, see also, D. Gress, From Plato to NATO: The Idea of the West and Its Opponents (New York: Free Press 1998)
26. P. J. Buchanan, The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization (New York: St. Martin's Press 2002)
27. T. Blankley, The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations? (New York: Regnery Publishing 2005).
28. An overwhelming majority of Russian scholars of civilisations also work within the essentialist tradition (see especially, N. Danilevski, Rossiya i Yevropa (Moskva: Kniga 1990 [orig. 1884])
29. 'Eurasianism,' Yevrasiystvo: Opyt sistematicheskogo izlozheniya (Prague 1926)
30. L. Gumilev, Etnogenez i biosfera zemli (Moskva: Gidrometeoizdat 1990)
31. G. Zyuganov, Geografiya pobedy (Moskva: Unknown publisher 1998)
32. I. A. Orlova, Yevraziyskaya tsivilizatsiya (Moskva: Norma 1998)
33. B. S. Yerasov, Tsyvilizatsiyi: Universaliyi I samobytnost' (Moskva: Nauka 2002)).
34. A. J. Toynbee, Civilization on Trial (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1948) p. 55.
35. M. Weber, Theory and Society (Berkeley: University of California Press 1978).
36. Recent works studying foreign policy from culture and identity perspectives include, but are not limited to V. Hudson, ed., Culture and Foreign Policy (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 1996)
37. Katzenstein (note 6)
38. Hopf (note 6)
39. H. R. Nau, At Home Abroad: Identity and Power in American Foreign Policy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 2002)
40. Oren (note 6)
41. S. Fischer, Russlands Westpolitik in der Krise 1992-2000: Eine kostruktivistische Untersuchung (Frankfurt, NY: Campus Verlag 2003)
42. D. W. Larson and A. Shevchenko, 'Shortcut to Greatness: The New Thinking and the Revolution in Soviet Foreign Policy,' International Organization 57 (Winter 2003)
43. Tsygankov, Russia's Foreign Policy (note 4).
44. Scholars typically refer to civilisations as "encompassing a certain number of nation" or "broadest cultural identification" (Huntington, Clash (note 5) pp. 41, 43). However, some large states have been defined as civilisations "pretending to be states." For instance, such was Lucien Pye's reference to China, his object of study.
45. For similar definitions of civilisation that emphasise ideas and claims that hold them together by reproduction and defence over time, see R. W. Cox, 'Civilizations: Encounters and Transformations,' Studies in Political Economy 47/3 (1995) p. 11
46. Jackson (note 5), p. 143
47. O'Hagan (note 5).
48. Scholars of civilisations frequently point to these "spatial" and "temporal" dimensions of civilisation-building: Braudel on "successive generation" (Huntington, Clash (note 5) p. 41)
49. and "spatial" and "temporal" (F. Rajaee, Globalization on Trial. The Human Condition and the Information Civilization (Kumarian Press 2000) p. 49)
50. Mossafari and Weber (ibid., p. 52).
51. Some scholars identify repetitive historical practices as "double backing of social process" (H. Alker, Rediscoveries and Reformulations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1997) p. 390)
52. and others as "repertoires of social categories" (D. Laitin, Identity in Formation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1998) p. 17).
53. B. Stalling, Global Change, Regional Response (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1995)
54. E. Mansfield and H. Millner (eds.), The Political Economy of Regionalism (New York: Columbia University Press 1997)
55. E. Helleiner and A. Pickel (eds.), Economic Nationalism in a Globalizing World (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 2005).
56. See sources in note 3.
57. S. Huntington, 'The Clash of Civilizations?,' Foreign Affairs 72/4 (1993) p. 26.
58. For details of such critique of essentialist arguments, see, for example, H. Alker, 'If Not Huntington's Civilizations, Then Whose?,' Review Fernan Braudel Center 18/4 (1995)
59. Cox (note 11)
60. A. Sen, 'Universal Truths,' Harvard International Review 20/3 (Summer 1998)
61. Rajaee (note 12)
62. E. W. Said, 'The Clash of Ignorance, Nation (22 Oct. 2001)
63. Tsygankov, Whose World Order? (note 4)
64. M. Bassin, Civilizations and Their Discontents: Political Geography and Geopolitics in the Huntington's Thesis MS (2005).
65. For other prominent studies of civilisations, see Toynbee (note 8)
66. R. B. J. Walker (ed.), Culture, Ideology, and World Order (Boulder, CO: Westview Press 1984)
67. I. Wallerstein, Geopolitics and Geoculture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1991)
68. S. K. Sanderson (ed.), Civilizations and World Systems (Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press 1995)
69. R. Collins, Macrohistory: Essays in the Sociology of the Long Run (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press 1999)
70. O'Hagan (note 5).
71. For instance, Cox (note 11), p. 25 includes "marginalized social forces whence contestation and innovation may come" in his definition of civilisation.
72. F. Fukuyama, 'End of History?,' The National Interest 16 (Summer 1989)
73. F. Fukuyama, 'Ambiguity of National Interest,' in S. Sestanovich (ed.), Rethinking Russia's National Interests (Washington, DC: CSIS 1994).
74. Huntington, Clash (note 5).
75. For examples of such analyses of discourse, see H. Alker, T. Biersteker, and T. Inoguchi, 'From Imperial Power Balancing to People's Wars,' in J. Der-Derian and M. J. Shapiro (ed.), International/Intertextual Relations (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books 1989)
76. M. Wight, International Theory: The Three Traditions, G. Wight and B. Porter (eds.) (Leicester: Leicester University Press 1992).
77. The literature on ideas and intellectual influences in shaping cultural identities is large. See, for instance, K. Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge (New York: A Harvest-HBJ Book 1936)
78. J. Habermas, Theory and Practice (Boston: Beacon Press 1973)
79. A. Wolfe, Whose Keepers? Social Science and Moral Obligation (New York: Columbia University Press 1989)
80. E. W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York: Alfred A. Knopf 1993)
81. I. B. Neumann, Russia and the Idea of Europe. A Study in Identity and International Relations (London and New York: Routledge 1996)
82. R. G. Suny and M. D. Kennedy, eds., Intellectuals and the Articulation of the Nation (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press 2001)
83. R. English, Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals, and the End of the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press 2000)
84. Oren (note 6)
85. Tsygankov, Whose World Order? (note 4).
86. Russia's debate on belongingness to Europe is centuries old (Neumann, Russia (note 22)). Today's schools of viewing Russia's relations with Europe continue the old debate.
87. Conservatives, such as Natalya Narochnitskaya argue that Russia is European by virtue of its Christian identity (N. Narochnitskaya, Rossiya I russkiye v mirovoi istoriyi (Moskva: Mezhdunarodnyye otnosheniya 2004)). The supporters of great power identity point to the historical role played by Russia in preserving international order in Europe.
88. They claim that Russia must continue to play its essentially European role of a stabiliser in the volatile post-Soviet region and that no reform can be successful without such stabilisation (V. Òretyakov, 'Ideinyi krizis - glavnaya problema Rossiyi,' Novopol (30 Dec. 2004), available at
89. A. Migranyan, 'Suverennaya Rossiya I Zapad,' Izvestiya (27 June 2006)).
90. Finally, there are those advocating Russia's Europeanness on the grounds of developing common values and institutions, such as democracy, human rights, private property, and rule of law (T. Trenin, Integratsiya i identichnost: Rossiya kak 'novyi Zapad' (Moscow: Carnegie Moscow Center 2006)).
91. I. B. Neumann, Uses of the Other (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1998)
92. M. Malia, To the Bronze Mausoleum (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1999).
93. In response to the crisis of European identity, some Russian intellectuals began advocating a break with both the old - nationalist and new - liberal Europes as early as the 1840s-1850s. Alexander Herzen, for instance, grew disappointed with European conservative restorations and - long before the Bolsheviks - turned to socialism arguing for Russia's own, non-European way of "catching up" economically and socially. The Bolsheviks pushed this line of thinking to its extreme.
94. On the Soviet system as a distinctive civilisation, see S. Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain. Stalinism as Civilization (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1990)
95. A. Sinyavski, Osnovy sovetskoi tsivilizatsiyi (Moskva: Agraf 2001)
96. S. Kara-Murza, Sovetskaya tsivilizatsiya (Moskva: Algoritm 2002).
97. The wording of the question was as follows, "Do you support the preservation of the union as a renewed federation of sovereign republics in which the rights of a person of any nationality are fully guaranteed?" Teltsin-led Democratic Russia has actively campaigned against the referendum (D. Kotz and F. Weir, Revolution from Above (London: Routledge 1997) p. 147).
98. On several occasions, Gorbachev used the term Eurasia in his speeches and writings. For example, in October 1988 in his welcoming message to foreign guests attending the Asia-Pacific Region conference in Vladivostok, he stressed that "the Soviet Union was a Eurasian state...to serve as a hopeful bridge bringing together two great continents" (as cited in M. Hauner, What Is Asia to Us? Russia's Asian Heartland Yesterday and Today (Boston: Unwin Hyman 1990) p. 249).
99. And in his book Perestroika, 1987 edition, he upgraded his "common European home" formula by adding the Asian dimension
100. "The Soviet Union is an Asian, as well as European country" (M. Gorbachev, Perestroika (New York: Harper & Row 1987)).
101. Gorbachev's principal foreign policy advisor Georgi Shakhanazarov wrote later about his regret that the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States was not named "the Commonwealth of Euro-Asian States," which "would have emphasized the unique feature of our country that for centuries has been a bridge between the two great continents and civilizations" (G. Shakhnazarov, S vozhdyami i bez nikh (Moskva: Vagrius 2001) p. 486). Gorbachev's liberal foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze too referred to the Soviet Union as a "great Eurasian space" and a "world of worlds" (mir mirov).
102. Citing the Russian philosopher Georgi Fedotov, Shevardnadze said Russia had to live politically in a complex world of both European and Asian nations (cited in R. Otunbayeva, 'V preddveriyi novogo miroporyadka,' Mezhdunarodnaya zhizn' 3 (1991) pp. 183-191: 186-187). Gorbachev's difference with conservative opposition was about methods of unifying the Soviet space, rather than about the principal need to have such unity.
103. Among the Westernisers, Andrei Sakharov defended the notion of Eurasia and even has written his own project of "Constitution of the Union of the Soviet republics of Europe and Asia" (A. D. Sakharov, Trevoga i nadezhda (Moskva: Progress 1990) pp. 266-276).
104. Some data strongly indicate that the Russian public is well aware of the society's cultural distinctiveness from the West. In December 2001, according to the respected polling agency VTSIOM, 71% of Russians agreed with the statement that "Russia belongs to the special 'Eurasian' or Orthodox civilisation, and therefore cannot follow the Western path of development." Only 13% counted Russia as a part of Western civilisation (VTSIOM, 'Rossiya: Zapadniy put' dlia "ievroaziatskoi" tsivilizatsiyi..?,' Vserossiyskiy Tsentr Izucheniya Obschestvennogo Mneniya (VTSIOM), No. 32 (13 Nov. 2001), available at , accessed 27 Dec. 2001).
105. For important statements by Russian Westernisers, see A. Kozyrev, Preobrazheniye (Moskva: Mezhdunarodnyye otnosheniya 1995)
106. Ye. Gaidar, Gosudarstvo i evolutsiya (Moskva: Yevrasiya 1997)
107. Trenin, The End of Eurasia (note 3)
108. Trenin, Integratsiya (note 23).
109. The literature of Eurasianism is growing. For some key statements, see A. S. Panarin, Revansh istoriyi (Moskva: Logos 1998)
110. Zyuganov (note 7)
111. A. Dugin (ed.), Osnovy Yevraziystva (Moskva: Arktogeya 2002).
112. R. H. Donaldson and J. L. Nogee, The Foreign Policy of Russia (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe 1998) p. 341.
113. V. Putin, 'Poslaniye Federal'nomu Sobraniyu Rossiyskoy Federatsii' (16 May 2003), available at .
114. For analyses of Russia's liberal currents, see especially G. Fisher, Russian Liberalism: From Gentry to Intelligensia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1958)
115. A. Walicki, Legal Philosophies of Russian Liberalism (South Bend, IN: University Notre Dame Press 1992)
116. M. Wiedle, Russia's Liberal Project (University Park: Pennsylvania State University 2000).
117. V. Lukin, 'Russia and Its Interests,' in S. Sestanovich (ed.), Rethinking Russia's National Interests (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies 1994).
118. S. Stankevich, 'Russia in Search of National Identity,' in S. Sestanovich (ed.), Rethinking Russia's National Interests (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies 1994).
119. See, for example, A. S. Panarin, 'Rossiya v Yevraziyi,' Voprosy filosofiyi 12 (1994)
120. A. S. Panarin, 'Yevraziyski proyekt v mirosistemnom kontekste,' Vostok 2 (1995). After 1996, Panarin's views became closer to radical Eurasianists and Traditionalists.
121. See especially, A. S. Panarin, Iskusheniye globalizmom (Moskva: Algoritm 2000)
122. A. S. Panarin, Pravoslavnaya tsivilizatsiya v sovremennom mire (Moskva: Algoritm 2001).
123. G. Pavlovski, 'Rossiya vsye yeschye ischet svoyi rol' v mire,' Nezavisimaya gazeta (May 31 2004)
124. G. Pavlovski, 'Strany Evrovostoka - subyekty "Bol'shoi Igry," a ne yeye obyekty,' Kazakhstanskaya pravda (27 July 2004).
125. A. Chubais, 'Missiya Rossiyi v XX veke,' Nezavisimaya gazeta (1 Oct. 2003).
126. Kozyrev, Preobrazheniye (note 30) p. 16.
127. A. Kozyrev, 'Rossiya v novom mire,' Mezhdunarodnaya zhizn' 3-4 (1992).
128. See, especially, 'Eurasianism' (note 7).
129. The term "Heartland" was introduced by the nineteenth-century geographer Halford Mackinder. On Russian contemporary readings of Mackinder, see M. Bassin and K. E. Aksenov, 'Mackinder and the Heartland Theory in Post-Soviet Geopolitical Discourse,' Geopolitics 11/1 (Spring 2006).
130. Primakov's Eurasianist beliefs firmed up during his long career as a Middle East specialist and policy maker. During the Soviet time, the future minister worked in several Middle Eastern countries as a correspondent of the leading communist newspaper Pravda. He also served as director of the Institute of Oriental Studies and, later, of the prestigious Institute of World Economy and International Relations.
131. Yevgeni Primakov's presentation at the conference "Preobrazhennaya Rossiya" held at the Moscow Institute of International Relations in 1992 (Ye. Primakov, 'Presentation at the Conference 'Preobrazhennaya Rossiya,' Moscow Institute of International Relations,' Mezhdunarodnaya zhizn' 3-4 (1992) p. 104).
132. National Security Concepts and Foreign Policy Concepts are available in T. Shakleyina (ed.), Vneshnyaya politika i bezopasnost' sovremennoi Rossiyi, Vol. 4 (Moskva: ROSSPEN 2002) pp. 51-90, 110-111.
133. For analysis, see A. Kassianova, 'Russia: Still Open to the West?,' Europe-Asia Studies 6/53 (2001).
134. "We are a part of the Western European culture. No matter where our people live, in the Far East or in the south, we are Europeans." (V. Putin, First Person: An Astonishingly Frank Self-Portrait by Russia's President (New York: Public Affairs 2000) p. 169.)
135. Putin, 'Poslaniye' (note 2).
136. Ibid.
137. Ibid.
138. Ibid.
139. "Russia, traditionally linked with the former Soviet republics, and now newly independent states, by history, the Russian language and great culture, cannot stay away from the common striving for freedom." In this same speech, Putin also called for granting Russian citizenship to legal aliens from the FSU. The newly appointed head of the Kremlin's special department for Interregional and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries Modest Kolerov elaborated on the last point in his interview (M. Kolerov, 'Vse byvshie grazhdane SSSR - nashi sootechestvenniki,' Politicheskio klass 10 (2005)).
140. In his address to the Federation Council in May 2006, Putin put an even greater emphasis on values of sovereignty and strong national defence (V. Putin, 'Poslaniye Federal'nomu Sobraniyu Rossiyskoy Federatsii,' (10 May 2006), available at ).
141. G. Pavlovski, 'Rossiya' (note 38)
142. G. Pavlovski, 'Strany' (note 38)
143. G. Pavlovski, 'O politike Rossiyi na postsovetskom prostranstve,' America-Russia.net (28 April 2005), available at
144. G. Pavlovski, 'Zapad - eto antiyevropeyskoye ponyatiye,' Izvestiya (14 July 2006).
145. Pavlovski, 'Rossiya' (note 38).
146. Tretyakov, V. 'Suverennaya demokratiya. O politicheskoi filosofiyi Vladimira Putina,' Rossiyskaya gazeta, (28 April 2005)
147. V. Surkov, 'Suverenitet - eto politicheski sinonim konkurentnosposobnosti,' Moscow News (3 March 2006)
148. A. Tsipko, 'Obratno puti net,' Literaturnaya Gazeta 19 (May 2006).
149. V. Sobel, 'A Resurgent Russia, or Triumphalist West?,' Johnson's Russia List 249 (6 Nov. 2006).
150. Pavlovski, 'Zapad' (note 54).
151. V. Putin, 'Rossiya na rubezhe tysyacheleti,' Nezavisimaya gazeta (30 Dec. 1999).
152. On Russian soft power in Eurasia, see F. Hill, 'Energy Empire: Oil, Gas, and Russia's Revival,' (Washington, DC: Brookings 2004)
153. A. P. Tsygankov, 'If Not by Tanks, then by Banks? The Role of Soft Power in Putin's Foreign Policy,' Europe-Asia Studies 58/7 (Nov. 2006).
154. I. Torbakov, 'Kremlin Uses Energy to Teach Ex-Soviet Neighbors a Lesson in Geopolitical Loyalty,' Eurasia Daily Monitor (2 Dec. 2005), available at .
155. V. Putin, 'Transcript of Meeting with the Leaders of the News Agencies of G8 Member Countries,' Novo-Ogaryovo (2 June 2006), available at .
156. G. P. Herd, 'Colorful Revolutions in the CIS: 'Manufactured' versus 'Managed' Democracy?,' Problems of Post-Communism 52/2 (March-April 2005).
157. Huntington, Clash (note 5) p. 43.
158. E. Ringman, 'The Recognition Game: Soviet Russia Against the West,' Cooperation and Conflict 37/2 (2002).
159. A. Brown, The Gorbachev Factor (New York: Oxford University Press 1996)
160. Neumann, Russia (note 22)
161. J. Checkel, Ideas, New Thinking, and the End of the Cold War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press 1997)
162. English (note 22)
163. Larson and Shevchenko (note 9).
164. A. A. Pikayev, 'The Russian Domestic Debate on Policy Towards the 'Near Abroad',' in L. Jonson and C. Archer (eds.), Peacekeeping and the Role of Russia in Eurasia (Boulder, CO: Westview Press 1996).
165. Z. Brzezinski, The Grand Failure (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons 1989).
166. The leading establishment journal Foreign Affairs soon issued the verdict that "the Soviet system collapsed because of what it was, or more exactly, because of what it was not.
167. The West 'won' because of what the democracies were - because they were free, prosperous and successful, because they did justice, or convincingly tried to do so" (W. Pfaff, 'Redefining World Power, Foreign Affairs 70/1 (1991) p. 48). This vision was finally legitimised on the highest policy level when President George H. W. Bush announced the Cold War "victory" of the US in his 1992 State of the Union message.
168. Some of course never gave up on the idea of socialism, including Gorbachev, as well as some of his former supporters, such as Nikolai Ryzhkov and Yegor Ligachev.
169. See J. Sperling, S. Kay, and S. V. Papacosma (eds.), Limiting Institutions? The Challenge of Eurasian Security Governance (Manchester: Manchester University Press 2003) for greater detail.
170. For some overviews of Russia's new civilisational imagination, see V. Kolossov and R. Turovsky, 'Russian Geopolitics at the Fin-de-siecle,' Geopolitics: Special Issue 6/1 (2002)
171. Tsygankov, 'Mastering Space' (note 4).
172. See, for example, P. Rutland, 'Mission Impossible? The IMF and the Failure of the Market Transition in Russia,' Review of International Studies (1999)
173. N. Gould-Davies and N. Woods, 'Russia and the IMF,' International Affairs 75/1 1999)
174. Black, Russia (note 3).
175. In addition, some influential foreign policy experts in the West spoke of "the premature partnership" with Russia (see, for example, Z. Brzezinski, 'The Premature Partnership,' Foreign Affairs 73/1 (1994)).
176. In one of its documents, the influential non-governmental organisation Council on Foreign and Defense Policy (SVOP) expressed the attitude typical of great power circles, when it described the military-industrial complex as "a key, possibly, the key factor of Russia's struggle for a dignified place in the twenty first century." ('Strategiya Rossiyi v XXI veke,' Nezavisimaya gazeta (18 June 1998).)
177. Yu. Fyodorov, 'Krizis rossiyskoi vneshnei politiki,' Pro et Contra 6/1 (2001)
178. D. Trenin, 'Nyenadyozhnaya strategiya,' Pro et Contra 6/1 (2001).
179. The new foreign policy consensus was summarised in the document of the influential Council on Foreign and Defense Policy entitled 'Strategy for Russia: An Agenda for the President - 2000' (Moscow: Sovyet po vneshnei i oboronnoi politike 2000).
180. Primakov made it explicit that his main focus was on building a "multipolar world" and recovering from the geopolitical defeat of the Soviet disintegration. He was hoping that, after rebuilding the economy, Russia would "return" to the world politics, and he saw his foreign policy as reminiscent of State Chancellor Aleksandr Gorchakov's "concentration" course after Russia's defeat in the Crimean War (Ye. Primakov, "Rossiya v mirovoi politike," Mezhdunarodnaya zhizn' (1998)
181. For a more extended analysis, see F. Splidsboel-Hansen, 'Past and Future Meet: Aleksandr Gorchakov and Russian Foreign Policy,' Europe-Asia Studies 54/3 (2002).
182. The preoccupation with geopolitics emboldened hard-line Eurasianists who challenged Primakov to go farther in resisting Western influences (see, for example, L. Ivashev, 'Rossiya mozhet snova stat' sverkhderzhavoi,' Nezavisimaya gazeta (7 March 1995)
183. A. Dugin, 'Yevraziyski proyekt,' Zavtra (Aug. 1996)
184. Zyuganov (note 7)).
185. A more liberal version of Eurasianism existed (M. Gefter, Iz tekh i etikh let (Moskva: Progress 1991)
186. Panarin, 'Rossiya' (note 37)
187. Panarin, 'Yevraziyski' (note 37)), but remained marginalised. In addition, Primakov's thinking pushed further away some of the former Soviet states that otherwise might have been more inclined to cooperation with Russia.
188. Such, for example, are perceptions by some Ukrainian scholars (V. Malenkovich, 'Presentation at 'Obscheye prostranstvo ne oznachayet unifikatsiyi',' Glavred.info (17 Sep. 2004), available at
189. O. Yakhno, 'O tom pochemu Rossiya podderzhivayet kandidata, kotoryi yeye ne ustraivayet,' Glavred.info (28 June 2004), available at ). Threatened by the prospect of Moscow's geopolitical patronage, Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova have been working to strengthen their own regional organisation and to join Europe directly.
190. It seems that the Kremlin's technologists have already learned this lesson. In his remarks after the Orange revolution in Ukraine, Pavlovski, 'O politike' (note 54) pointed to the need for the Kremlin to communicate with political movements across the spectrum of the neighbouring countries. It is important, however, that the need to maintain contacts with opposition is not interpreted exclusively through geopolitical lenses.
191. Putin, 'Poslaniye' (note 2) understood this when he moved away from Primakov's Eurasianism by adopting a more inclusive civilisational approach. Today much more is necessary to make the new civilisational vision viable. Some of Putin's supporters are alarmed by Russia's unimaginative policies in the former Soviet region and advocate change (K. Kosachev, 'Neftegazovaya diplomatiya kak ugroza marginalizatsiyi,' Nezavisimaya gazeta (Dec. 28 2004)
192. Tretyakov, 'Ideinyi krizis' (note 23)).
193. Others, however, are defensive (Nikonov as cited in Torbakov (note 61)) and may further develop a "siege mentality" if confronted with regime changes in Belarus, Central Asia, and elsewhere.
194. O. Kashin, 'Vladimir Putin naznachil barkhatnogo kontrrevolutsionera,' Kommersant (22 March 2005).
195. Pavlovski, 'Rossiya' (note 38).