Fyodor Lukyanov: Kremlin's Imperial Ambitions Ended in 2010
[Fyodor Lukyanov is editor of Russia in Global Affairs.]
Next year will mark the 20th anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and there will certainly be plenty of analyses about what that meant and where the country stands two decades later. But one of the most important results became apparent in 2010: Russia made a psychological break with its past and its former status as an empire.
Former Presidents Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin — and until recently President Dmitry Medvedev — tried to restore Russia’s former status as a major world player and regional power center among the former Soviet republics. Russia’s foreign policy attempted to convince the West that the country’s weakness throughout the 1990s was a historical accident and that the ascendancy of the West in relation to Russia was a mere coincidence. Until recently, the Soviet collapse served as the main prism through which the country’s identity was defined, and the foreign policy of the first three presidents focused on the West.
But the Russia-Georgia war in August 2008 was the turning point in this process. It demonstrated Russia’s ability to stop what had appeared to be NATO’s creeping, eastward expansion and clearly defined Moscow’s sphere of influence in the North Caucasus.
After the conflict, the Kremlin had two basic choices: Either it could build on the military and political success and try to project its power in new areas, or it could be content with the fact that it had given Georgia’s largest supporter, the United States, a slap on the wrist and continue the process of walking away from its imperial ambitions. In 2010, it became clear that Russia had chosen the second option...
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Next year will mark the 20th anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and there will certainly be plenty of analyses about what that meant and where the country stands two decades later. But one of the most important results became apparent in 2010: Russia made a psychological break with its past and its former status as an empire.
Former Presidents Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin — and until recently President Dmitry Medvedev — tried to restore Russia’s former status as a major world player and regional power center among the former Soviet republics. Russia’s foreign policy attempted to convince the West that the country’s weakness throughout the 1990s was a historical accident and that the ascendancy of the West in relation to Russia was a mere coincidence. Until recently, the Soviet collapse served as the main prism through which the country’s identity was defined, and the foreign policy of the first three presidents focused on the West.
But the Russia-Georgia war in August 2008 was the turning point in this process. It demonstrated Russia’s ability to stop what had appeared to be NATO’s creeping, eastward expansion and clearly defined Moscow’s sphere of influence in the North Caucasus.
After the conflict, the Kremlin had two basic choices: Either it could build on the military and political success and try to project its power in new areas, or it could be content with the fact that it had given Georgia’s largest supporter, the United States, a slap on the wrist and continue the process of walking away from its imperial ambitions. In 2010, it became clear that Russia had chosen the second option...