INTRODUCTION
Opinion makers and decisionmakers of the former Soviet Union overwhelmingly supported the disintegration of the Soviet Union in December of 1991. Very few sceptics trying to evaluate inevitable costs and potential side effects of the Soviet collapse were marginalized and caricaturized as old-thinkers and defenders of the totalitarian empire. Political leaders of the fifteen newly independent states, who disagreed with each other on virtually everything, were unanimous at least on one issue: they promised their respective constituencies that independence would bring along not only individual freedoms and economic prosperity, but also national renaissance and spiritual renewal.

     Russian President Boris Yeltsin was not an exception. In fact, one of his most spectacular political achievements in 1990-91 was a skillful separation of the notion "Russian" from the notion "Soviet." Yeltsin managed to convince Russians, if not all the other subjects of the Soviet Union, that Russia herself throughout the seventy years of the Soviet power had been economically exploited, politically oppressed, and deprived of her historic traditions and national statehood by the omnipotent transnational Communist elite.

     Yeltsin’s supporters and followers even argued that during the Soviet period Russia suffered more than other republics: all others were at least allowed to keep some symbols of sovereignty (for instance, republican Academies of Sciences or republican Communist Parties), while Russia was doomed to dissolve completely within the cosmopolitan Soviet Union serving as a glue to keep it together. Moreover, Yeltsin and his supporters claimed these were Russians and their leaders who broke the neck of the Soviet state in August 1991; therefore Russians have more reasons to be proud of themselves than some others who during the fateful days of the coup were merely sitting on their hands waiting for the outcome of the historic drama in Moscow.

     It terms of foreign policy perceptions the distinction between "Russians" and "Soviets" was crucial in interpreting Cold War results. Russian leaders—from Yeltsin to Khasbulatov to Kozyrev—repeated again and again that the empire, the super power, or "the system" had been defeated in the Cold War, but this could not equate with the defeat of the whole Russian nation. Actually, they pointed out, the opposite might be true: the dismantling of the empire gave way to enormous creativity of the nation which had been crippled for so long by the burden of the totalitarian system and its external demands. The Russian tragedy happened in 1917, not in 1991, stated Yeltsin and his followers. If the stamina of the nation is not broken, it has a historic opportunity to create a healthy and viable society—and to meet a geopolitical challenge of the post-Cold War period.

     The question about who suffered more under the Soviet rule hardly makes any sense now. Each nation of the former USSR can come out with its own arguments and historical evidence supporting its own case and claiming special rights or special treatment from the West. For many ethnic groups in the USSR, Russians have been the embodiment of the Soviet power, the bearers of the imperial ideology, oppressors and occupants directly responsible for all the evil that the communist regime brought with it. But it would not be fair to dismiss Yeltsin’s logic as one-sided or self-serving. The Soviet Union in many respects was a cosmopolitan empire; the results of the forced collectivization were in no way less horrible in central Russia than they were in Ukraine, and the Russian intellectual elite was clearly not bypassed or discriminated during political purges of 1930s.

     As far as economic relations between the Soviet republics are concerned, any unbiased analysis would demonstrate that during the Soviet period Russia had been turned into an "internal colony" of the Soviet Union. For decades Russian oil, natural gas, gold, and other raw materials that could have been successfully marketed abroad giving Russia hundreds of billions dollars were provided to other Soviet republics at heavily subsidized prices in exchange for low quality consumer goods and services. One can argue, of course, that it was the "Russian" center which imposed this type of economic relations on all the republics of the USSR, but the argument does not change the basic fact: in terms of economics. Russians got very little if anything at all out of their cornerstone position within the USSR; from the very beginning the Soviet Union has been a constant drain on their resources.

     Finally, the apparent enthusiasm with which most Russians (the intellectual elite included) participated in the demolition of the Soviet state indicates that they did not consider this state as a Russian one or even as something that meets Russian needs and interests. One has only to look at the current situation in Yugoslavia in order to realize that a multiethnic, Communist state will not disintegrate without violence if the core nation intends to keep it.

     However, even in 1991 the euphoria of revolution and Yeltsin’s incredible popularity could not hide one simple fact: Russians have never been just another people of the Soviet Union. Throughout much of its history Russia has been the center of an empire. This is why the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its replacement by the Commonwealth of Independent States in December of 1991 presented Russians with problems very different from those facing other nationalities of the former USSR. Though it is clear that Russians are not willing to be the "imperial people" and to pay a price for the maintenance of the empire, the end of the USSR did bring along for Russians a unique national identity crisis that has no analogy within the post-Soviet space.

     After the August coup, many Russian scholars and politicians (not necessarily from the right) repeatedly warned that the dissolution of the Soviet Union would result in a disastrous loss of Russian identity. The current Russian national identity crisis is a complex problem. The author of this paper intentionally limited himself to just one dimension of it—conflicting perceptions of a future Russian role in the so called "near abroad" based on different interpretations of the Soviet and Imperial Russia’s legacy left for the newly born Russian Federation. To what degree the new Russia should (and can) act as the legitimate inheritor to the Soviet Union, claiming all the territory of the former super power as the sphere of its vital interests? Is the new political thinking" relevant to the Russian strategy toward the "near abroad"? Or the new Russian state should try to imitate the 19th-century "Monroe Doctrine" of the United States? Finally, are smaller republics of the former USSR worth fighting for, or they should be treated with benign neglect by the Russian policy-makers?

     Of course, no Russian leadership can arbitrarily choose an answer to all these questions. No matter what political group or party controls politics in Moscow there are a number of domestic constrains and international factors considerably limiting its freedom of choice in the "near abroad." For example, contemporary economic and social problems in Russia essentially prohibit any interventionist, resource-consuming foreign policy even within the borders of the former Soviet Union—at least in the midterm prospective. The vast nuclear complex that Russia inherited from the Soviet Union along with the lions share of the Soviet debts and assets abroad ties the Russian diplomats, arms controllers and financial experts to their Soviet predecessors. It also defines Russian approaches to other former Soviet republics’ claims and ambitions in these spheres. The geostrategic position of the Russian Federation today resembles that of Russia in the end of the 17th century. This raises a traditional foreign policy question about the free access to the Baltic and the Black seas (it certainly does not mean that the new Russia will have to use the traditional ways of solving this question—through bloody wars and annexations).

     However, within these limits and constrains the Russian foreign policy toward its closest neighbors can follow very different avenues. It might contain quite different degrees of prudence and adventurism, transparency and closeness, liberalism and nationalism, etc. Besides, some of the radical opposition political leaders, if they come to power, might try to ignore existing constrains or overcome them. This is why their views, no matter how utopian and remote from reality they might look today, cannot be simply discarded or neglected.

ILLUSIONS OF A "EURASIAN CONFEDERATION"
The "Eurasian confederation" idea was a direct result of desperate attempts by mostly Moscow based liberals to preserve a renewed Soviet Union. Most of Russian liberals, who rose to political power and gained wide publicity by Gorbachev’s reforms during the second half of the 1980s, welcomed the Minsk and Alma-Ata agreements. They interpreted these agreements as a way to preserve or rather to rebuild the Soviet Union on a market-oriented economic and democratic political base. Though the exact forms of this new Union remained unclear, the dominant perception among Moscow liberals was that the prime obstacle to cooperation between the former Soviet republics in the fall of 1991 was an attempt of Mikhail Gorbachev to play a role of a broker mediating in inter-republican relations. Without Gorbachev and discredited Center it would be easier to maintain unity.

     At the top political level, the views of "confederalists" were shared by many, at least in 1991 and early 1992. One of the most articulate advocates of this concept was newly appointed Secretary of State Gennadii Burbulis, who, as many believe, was also the "mastermind" behind the Minsk and Alma-Ata agreements. In the foreign ministry his views were strongly supported by Minister Andrei Kozyrev and his deputy on Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) affairs Fedor Shelov-Kovediaev. A "confederalist" faction in the Soviet Supreme Soviet was represented by Viktor Sheinis, Sergei Yushenkov, Vladimir Kuznetsov, Gleb Yakunin, Galina Starovoitova, in the media the same positions were promoted by Evgenii Kiselev, Yegor Yakovlev, Otto Latsis, Yuri Karyakin, and many others.

     In the military sphere, the position of Russian "confederalists" in December 1991 was based on the assumption that the new Commonwealth preserved a relatively stable post-Soviet "common defense space." Further, this space would embrace most, if not all the territory of the former Soviet Union with a common military doctrine for all the members of the CIS. The idea was that defense postures of Russia and other republics should be founded on two parallel military doctrines: their own republican doctrines reflecting specific defense needs of each republic and a common interstate military doctrine of the Commonwealth worked out together. Russia was perceived by most civilian strategists as the nucleus of the entire CIS security system with its special responsibilities (the major share of the Commonwealth defense expenses) and rights (special role in decision-making at operational level). In many key elements this military-political alliance was similar to what Gorbachev proposed in his last version of the Union Treaty in October of 1991 with one important difference: Russia was to replace the Soviet center.

     In terms of economic cooperation, the future of the CIS was seen by "confederalists" as of another European Community. The basic assumption in this field was that the highly integrated Soviet economics, the seventy-year-old integration (which sometimes went much deeper into history) would become the essential glue keeping the republics together. Even those who recognized the perils of republican nationalism thought that sooner or later political and national factors breeding the centrifugal trends would be overtaken by the common quest for economic performance and welfare. They also thought the charismatic and ideological republican elites of the perestroika period would be replaced by new transnational-minded technocrats who would have no other choice but to engage themselves into close cooperation with each other and, above all, with the Russian Federation.

     The incentives to cooperate, from the "confederalists" viewpoint, would be strengthened by easily predictable failures of all republics (with possible exception for the Baltic states) to integrate themselves into other regional (i.e., Western European) economic structures. There also was a widely shared perception that all CIS states (and possibly the Baltic states as well) would have to operate within the Russian financial system—the "ruble zone." The economic integration or rather reintegration of the former Soviet Union would inevitably develop political reintegration since the politics of coming decades (seen by many Moscow liberals in terms of the Fukuyama’s "End of history") would be centered primarily around economic issues. So within ten or fifteen years down the road the Commonwealth would turn into another prosperous European Community that could even be joined by a number of Central European countries.

     This approach can be called neo-Marxist for it implies the primacy of economic factors for the elites formation process as well as for political rules of the game between the states. Here again the Russian liberal thought showed the birth-marks of the previous Soviet period, though Russian liberals earlier sharply criticized Gorbachev for perceived attempts to introduce economic reforms without changing political institutions.

     Finally, Russian "confederalists" expected all or almost all the newly independent states to share some very basic democratic values; they believed that other republic in the very nearest future would undergo the same transformations Russia went through in the fall of 1991: the Communist bureaucrats would be gotten rid of, liberal media would contain nationalism, governmental agencies would be purged, etc.

     The strong support of a renewed Union on the part of Russian liberals was somewhat paradoxical. On many occasions before the Soviet collapse they claimed that Russia would make a strong state in her own right, that it was by far the most viable among all Soviet republics, and that the inter-republican trade had been extremely disadvantageous for Russia. So why should they support the preservation of the Union in some form or other?

     The most common explanation of this paradox is that Russian liberals were and still are, at least to some degree, intoxicated by the Russian imperial mentality and therefore reluctant to recognize the ultimate collapse of the Empire, especially the separation of other Slavic republics from Russia. This argument, mostly often used by Ukrainian politicians and scholars, is not unreasonable: many Russian liberals clearly perceived the division of the Slavic core of the country in apocalyptic forms.

     Other explanations are of more practical nature. For instance, liberals in Moscow were concerned that without a renewed Union large numbers of Russians and Russian speakers would flow into the Russian Federation thus creating countless economic, social and political problems. Among other things, new immigrants could become a fertile soil for antiliberal, nationalist and even totalitarian political movements and parties. On the other hand, a rapid and uncontrolled disintegration of the Soviet Union could trigger the same process within Russia herself increasing pressures for self-determination on the part of the numerous autonomous republics in Russia.

    All these reasons notwithstanding, one could suggest yet another explanation. In a sense, even after the August coup most of Russian liberals remained Soviet-type liberals. They never tried to develop a liberal Russian national agenda, and they were never particularly interested in defining Russian national interests. Being Soviet intellectuals they were cosmopolitan, the mere notion of "nationalism" was alien to them, moreover, it had a clear derogatory connotation.

     During the whole Gorbachev era liberal intellectuals had never been very interested in defining the state interests of the Soviet Union; for them the whole idea of state was obsolete and irrelevant. Much more attention was paid to concepts of the "new-world order," U.N. reform projects, analysis of "transnational" trends in global politics, etc. In a sense, like their most consistent opponents from the Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy liberal intellectuals were pure "ideologists" basing their concepts on values and beliefs rather than facts and interests.

     After the Soviet collapse Russian liberals suddenly faced a prospect to live in a nation-state, and this prospect was not very appealing to them. They were not ready—intellectually or psychologically—to compete with consistent nationalists for political influence in Russia. The CIS with all its deficiencies was a promise of something more than a nation-state, of a transnational and cosmopolitan polity where liberals could play a significant role. It’s not accidental that after the August coup Moscow liberals persistently—though unsuccessfully—tried to promote all-Union political parties and movements that could transcend republican borders. They hoped to present a viable alternative to the old Soviet Communist party.

     From this point of view, the choice between the last Union treaty proposed by Gorbachev in fall of 1991 and the CIS was not a choice between a confederation and a commonwealth of nations but only the matter of participation to a new Union. With the Gorbachev’s Union treaty the Russian Federation might have ended in the confederate structure together with six Moslem republics and, hopefully, Belarus. This composition would have moved the center of gravity of the new Union to the East, from Europe to Asia. It would have also shifted the balance of powers in it in favor of old Communist elites that—even after the coup—continued to rule most of the Soviet Asian republics. The creation of the CIS with Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, and Armenia participating led to hopes that a more West-oriented and more liberal Union would emerge on the territory of the former USSR. As further developments showed these hopes were groundless; Moscow-based liberals (including many advisers to Yeltsin) evidently underestimated republican nationalism and overestimated the driving force of economic interdependence existing between the newly independent states.

     First, nothing like a new political and military Union emerged from the Commonwealth. (One could note that liberals quite often did not distinguish a defense alliance from a collective security system; a structure they advocated was a mix of NATO and the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, CSCE). A new NATO-type alliance system covering all the territory of the former Soviet Union or even the European part of it that was proposed by Yeltsin to his colleagues from other republics in Minsk and Alma-Ata in December 1991 and was persistently pushed forward by the Commonwealth and Russian military leaders did note work out. It was not practical not only because of the Ukranian or the Azerbaijani quest for uncompromised independence in military decisions; it was also impractical because of diverging security interests, tearing apart the "common defense space" of the former USSR.

     A defense alliance system first presupposes that the participants in it are united by significant common or at least overlapping security interests. Moreover, a stable security mechanism (that would include appropriate political and military institutions, legal framework, burden sharing and strategy planning procedures, etc.) can be created only if these interests have a long-term, steady nature. Otherwise participating states can afford only temporary coalitions aimed at achieving specific security goals and results (like anti-Hitler or anti-Iraq coalitions). Having accomplished their functions such coalitions tend to disintegrate.

     In the case of the former Soviet republics there were no long term common interests important enough to overcome mounting nationalism and keep new emerging states in one security structure. It should be also kept in mind that political and social instability in most of the republics made it difficult to define their respective long-term security interests and foreign policy orientations; these could fluctuate considerably.

     The need to deal with the Soviet military potential in such a way that precludes its uncontrolled decomposition, accidents, or military coups was, of course, a crucial uniting task recognized to a certain degree by all the republican leaders. However it was a short rather than a long-term issue, a problem of the past, not of the future. Besides, liberals overlooked that this problem was a double-edged sword: it could unite state leaders but also separate them provoking sharp conflicts about what was the "fair share" of each republic within the overall Soviet military heritage. As Russian-Ukrainian disputes over the Black Sea fleet demonstrated, the problem turned out to be extremely sensitive, explosive and difficult to solve.

     At the same time to preserve even a relatively integrated military structure of a nonexisting state was politically dangerous for the leaders of newly independent states: until they got full control over troops and weapons deployed on their respective territories a possibility of military backlash, a coup aimed at a forceful restoration of the Soviet Union could not be excluded. A weak political structure of the CIS could let the Commonwealth armed forces out of any meaningful political control, thus turning them into independent political actor. Even if a Commonwealth summit took a decision, the military establishment would have a lot of ways to question or sabotage it. (One could refer, for example, to the Soviet experience of September 1991 when the command of the Baltic military district openly declared that it would not obey Gorbachev’s orders and withdraw from Lithuania until adequate infrastructure is ready in new deployment regions.)

     Yet another fear in non-Russian republics was that a "united Commonwealth armed forces" would turn out to be nothing but a euphemism for the Russian army. That’s why the initial Russian commitment to the concept of integrated armed forces of the CIS was politically a self-defeating tactics—it immediately raised old suspicions of the Russian imperialism and domination.

     In short, the Commonwealth in 1992 did not look like the NATO Alliance in 1949—there was neither a common enemy nor a clear understanding of common values. And this construction did not show a lot of vitality—at least as far as security issues were concerned. The Alma-Ata agreements envisaged preservation of the "common military-strategic space," but from the very beginning Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova dropped out of this space, while Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan insisted on building their national armies before any military integration with other CIS states. In May 1992 Russia itself had to announce that it started its own national army beyond the structures of the CIS Supreme Command. The idea of integrated armed forces was put aside, at least for the time being.

     True, a number of important documents were signed in the security sphere in 1992-93; among them the agreement on peace keeping (joined by Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan), an the agreement on collective security (signed by Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan). But neither was implemented in practice.

     The second hope of Russian liberals—the existing division of labor within the former USSR—did not work either, at least in the immediate future. It is well known that the interdependence among the republics of the former USSR was to a large effect artificial, imposed on them by the administrative-command system. In the absence of real market mechanisms immense price distortions favored ones and punished others. For example, domestic prices for fuel and raw materials were artificially kept much lower than those abroad. Conversely, prices for finished products were higher. Fuel was especially cheap, even compared with other raw materials. Ukraine and Kazakhstan, for instance, bartered one ton of their wheat for three tons of Russian oil, although elsewhere in the world one ton of crude oil would be more than enough to acquire one ton of grain.

     With no market mechanisms to evaluate the "fair share" of each republic in the overall Soviet GNP, all of them —from the Baltic states to Central Asia—had reasons to believe that they were exploited and colonized by others, giving more to the Center than receiving from them. Consequently, they expected to be better off if they "do it alone." And these republics, that were in relative terms more affluent then others, showed most resistance to the idea of a close economic integration. For example, the nationalist moods in Ukraine were to a very large extent cemented by the evident gap between its own consumer goods market and that of Russia. With all the shortcomings and problems economic situation in Ukraine in 1991 and early 1992 appeared much more stable with lower prices and wider choice of food products. Protectionist sentiments were one of the reasons why most of ethnic Russians living in Ukraine supported its independence during referendum of December 1, 1991 (in heavily Russian Donetsk 80 per cent of voters supported independence, and in a largely Russian Black Sea port of Odessa, the figure was 86 per cent).

     Economic ambitions of new political elites in the "near abroad" (and, we should add, their very poor knowledge of economic realities) prevented any kind of Eurasian Economic Community from emerging on the territory of the former USSR. The only major achievement in terms of synchronizing economic transition in all the republics was more or less simultaneous price liberalization in January of 1992. But in reality it was not the result of independent decisions taken by the non-Russian republics but a reflection of their inability to isolate their consumer markets from Russia. On two other main elements of economic reforms (privatization and demonopolization) no agreements were reached. Moreover, within just a couple of days after the Alma-Ata accords were signed the Russian government itself banned the export from the republic of sixty consumer goods and food products in retaliation against alleged restrictions on the exports of consumer goods to the Russian Federation imposed by other CIS states.

     Despite all the attempts to reverse the trend toward protectionism and economic isolationism the inter-republican trade declined sharply in 1992-93 like it happened with the COMECON trade in 1991 after the latter had been converted to world market prices and the hard currency base. The decline turned out to be even more dramatic because some of the former Soviet republics introduced (or at least tried to introduce) numerous non-trade restrictions on their economic relation with each other based on political considerations. The deepening of economic crisis exacerbated political conflicts rather than led to a new union. In short, already in 1992 it became clear that economic factors can hardly overrule trends toward political and strategic disintegration.

     All attempts to preserve a "common economic space" on the territory of the former USSR undertaken in 1992-93 revealed one more problem: how to maintain a viable economic union (and political union) in which one single participant would be more powerful than all others taken together? If the votes were divided according to economic and financial potential of the participants, Russia would get an absolute majority and, consequently, would be in a position to impose her will on the whole of the CIS. If the principle was "one state, one vote," smaller republics that account for only a little fraction of the Commonwealth’s population and resources would form a firm voting majority acting in some cases against the interests of larger ones.

     Finally, the expectations that the old Communist ideology would be easily replaced by common democratic values proved to be naive or, at least, premature. All attempts to maintain trans-national liberal political movements (like the Movement for Democratic Reforms) ultimately failed. Liberals were not ready to confront the fact that their former allies from other Soviet republics, with whom they coordinated the common fight against communism and the Soviet Center for at least three years, suddenly turned their backs on Russia. Especially frustrating was the nationalistic transformation of the Latvian and Estonian political elites and their open political and economic discrimination of the Russian minorities (the consistency of democratic orientations in Baltic independence movements was highly questionable from the very beginning, but Moscow liberals preferred not to notice that). To defend the rights of Russians and Russian-speakers abroad was something entirely new to liberals. They were used to reducing the human rights’ problem to the totalitarian nature of communism and the Soviet state; once both were gone, human rights had to flourish.

     An important attempt to preserve a "common political space" of the former Soviet Union was made in February 1992, when the conference of heads of supreme soviets of the CIS discussed a proposal to start an Interparliamentary Assembly to coordinate economic and political reforms on the territory of the former USSR. Despite vocal opposition from the part of those who considered such an Assembly an attempt to restore the old Soviet Supreme Soviet, the idea took root, and in March 1993 the Interparliamentary Assembly was officially launched by Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

     Theoretically the Interparliamentary Assembly could have served as an important mechanism to synchronize the transition of newly independent states to political democracy and market economy. With its five commissions—for legal matters, economy and finance, social policy and human rights, environmental problems, and security matters—the Assembly covered a wide range of problems common to all CIS states. Ruslan Khasbulatov, head of the Russian parliament made it clear that the long term goal of the Assembly was to promote integration on the territory of the former USSR in the direction of a future confederation.

     However, the widening rift between the executive and the legislative powers in Moscow turned the Interparliamentary Assembly into a hostage to domestic Russian politics. Instead of promoting cooperation within the CIS, the Assembly got involved in futile competition with the similar coordinating body of the top CIS executives—the Council of the Heads of State. Khasbulatov was constantly accusing Yeltsin of mishandling the CIS problems and failing to respond to growing public support of integration; Yeltsin, in his turn, completely ignored most of the decisions made by the Interparliamentary Assembly.

     Therefore, the initial great expectations of the Russian liberals turned out to be illusory. The Commonwealth partnership demonstrated a lot of shortcomings from the moment of its creation in December 1991. The documents, signed by republican presidents, in many cases appeared to be simply declarations of intent, not binding agreements. The subsequent Russian-Ukrainian dispute over the future of the Black Sea Fleet and definitions of "strategic forces" brought to surface all the fragility of the Commonwealth. The CIS Charter, which, in the view of many "confederalists" should have cemented the new alliance, was signed only in January 1993, with only seven states agreeing to full membership (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan). Moreover, after a year of deliberations the Charter was turned into a very loose document, subject to further reservations and amendments to be introduced at the stage of ratification by the legislatures of the respective member-states.

     Summing up, one can assert that the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Communist ideology, new problems and new "rules of game" within the CIS could not but lead to a rapid decline of the liberal Western-oriented political thought. Deprived of their prime enemy, liberal "ideologists" very quickly lost both public appeal and sense of direction; after all, their major mission was destructive rather than constructive. Liberal "ideologists" who emerged during Gorbachev’s years were to help destroy the Cold War international system, and the old Soviet alliances, the rigid ideological myths and dogma. They were mostly outsiders to the traditional Soviet foreign policy establishment and therefore not intoxicated with Gromyko’s "professionalism."

     After the collapse of the Soviet Union with some remnants of the Cold War era still not swept out, the mission of destruction was basically accomplished. It was clear that the world would never be the same; too many things had changed irreversibly. The new foreign policy agenda of the Russian Federation had to have creative rather than destructive methods, to include managing the delicate balance of powers on the territory of the former Soviet Union, the role, if any, Russia was to play in Central Asia, getting into the Western international financial system without damaging traditional ties with the "near abroad" countries, and determining what sectors of the Russian economy were to be protected from the CIS competition and where Russia can afford free trade?

     To cope with these problems one needed not so much political courage as political wisdom and the knowledge of the nuts and bolts of the modern international system, and, above all, the new international system emerging in Eurasia. The concept of a "Eurasian confederation" turned out to be naive and impractical, strikingly similar to the old Gorbachev’s idea of a "common European home." The political class of Russia sensed, if not understood that in relations with the "near abroad," the "new thinking" was of very little use. Everything had to be different: the style, the decisionmaking, the people. General political slogans were to be replaced by elaborate multistage programs, radical initiatives had to give way to cautious step-by-step approach. Idealistic and messianic rhetoric should have been substituted by a pragmatic, maybe even cynical approach.

     In short, the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the Communist ideology signaled that the holiday of revolution was coming to an end. And if the time has come for "business as usual," revolutionaries and romantics in politics must pass their responsibilities to cool-headed businessmen and pragmatics. That is why when Andrei Kozyrev tried to act as a "Russian Shevardnadze" in 1992, using a lot of the "new political thinking" slogans and ideas in relations with both the "near" and "far abroad." He was sharply criticized by exactly the same journalists and academics who had enthusiastically supported Eduard Shevardnadze in 1985-90.

     By mid-1992 ideas of a "Eurasian confederation" lost a lot of their initial appeal in Russia, giving way to other concepts of the Russian foreign policy in the "near abroad." Among these the most influential become the concept of a new Russian Empire and that of the Russian isolationism.

ASPIRATIONS FOR A NEW RUSSIAN EMPIRE
The proponents of the imperialist or neo-imperialist policy toward republics of the former USSR from the very beginning could have been divided into two groups: those who were still defending the Soviet Union along with the Soviet values, and those who considered the CIS creation to be a major defeat of Russian diplomacy. In other words, the first stuck to the traditional Soviet legacy, while the latter turned to more profound imperial Russian interests. Within the first group the most vocal was perhaps the Souz fraction from the former Soviet Supreme Soviet (led by "black colonels" Viktor Alksnis and Nikolai Petrushenko) that strongly denounced the Minsk and Alma-Ata agreements as "a coup d’etat" and "a pact between newly arisen appanage princes." Souz predicted "countless misfortunes" that would result from the collapse of the Soviet Union.

     The "pro-Soviet" critics of the CIS made much of the fact that the initial Minsk meeting was only trilateral (only Russia, Ukraine and Belarus were represented) and that it was described by many media as an attempt to create a separate "Slavic union" based on ethnicity or religion. Sergei Baburin, a leader of the conservative opposition in the Russian parliament declared during hearings on December 12, 1991, that the creation of the CIS would "set the Slavic world against the Turkic-Muslim world and lead to the complete disintegration of the country and a final break between peoples."

     Indeed, the creation of the CIS had not prevented disintegration trends within the Russian Federation, either. Tatarstan, for example, stated its intention to join the CIS as an independent participant, separate from Russia. Similar intentions were expressed by nationalist leaders in some other autonomous formations. The way in which the CIS was created undermined the idea of constitutional law and legal procedures that should govern the process of self-determination.

     Far-right nationalistic groups could not support the creation of the CIS, either. For them the collapse of the Soviet Union should have logically led to the restoration of the old Russian Empire rather than to a new Commonwealth. For example, the Party of Russian Nationalists—a small but vocal Moscow-based political group—argued in early 1992 that Russia should renounce and declare void all Soviet legislative acts on the creation of national republics, autonomous regions, districts, etc., on the territory of the Russian Empire. The new Russian state should adopt a new secession legislation that would, above all, reflect its security interests as well as the interests of the Russian speakers in the periphery. Not surprising, the main ideas of such legislation were very close to the notorious law on secession passed by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR back in 1990.

     The most consistent criticism of the CIS as a "direct continuation of the Soviet anti-Russian ethnic policies" can be found in the documents of the so called Russian National Council (Russkii Natsionalnyi Sobor) formed in early 1992. In its appeal to the six Congress of People’s Deputies of the Russian Federation, the Council stated that "the decision to create the CIS was the continuation of purposeful strategy to destroy the Great Power with a history of millennium. One stroke of pen erected formerly nonexistent state borders, perfidiously broke into pieces united and indivisible Russian people and cut off almost 30 million of Russians from their nation. These millions were turned into outcasts and second rate citizens. They are forced to change their faith, convictions, their language and life-style. Being well informed about discrimination of Russians in Baltic states and Moldova, Boris Yeltsin has accepted these policies by concluding with these states all political, economic, and trade agreements disadvantageous for Russia." And, of course, an active and probably the most flamboyant proponent of the restoration of Russian Empire was leader of the Liberal-Democratic Party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Even before the Soviet collapse, he advocated the old imperial past rather than the Communist present.

     Statements like "We want the Soviet Union back!" were popular in 1992 and were based on the assumption that the USSR had not "collapsed on itself" because of its intrinsic flaws and deficiencies— from the authoritarian political system and economic mismanagement to self-defeating foreign policy and lack of personal rights and freedoms—but had been sold out, betrayed and destroyed by Gorbachev and his political successors, first and foremost Boris Yeltsin. Moreover, the Soviet disintegration was often interpreted in terms of the "conspiracy theory": all that happened in the USSR after 1985 had allegedly been planned, directed, and financed by the West (by Washington, to be exact) as a long-term program of subversive activities. The goals of the "conspiracy" were more than obvious: to destroy the USSR as the main obstacle on the way to American world domination, to reduce the role of Russia and other Soviet republics to that of suppliers of cheap raw materials and labor for the West, and eventually to eliminate their sovereignty, culture, traditions and languages.

     That is why the Minsk and Alma-Ata agreements for many defenders of the Soviet Union were the "moment of truth" that ultimately exposed the conspirators and the conspiracy itself. Who but "foreign agents" would act as Yeltsin, Kravchuk, and Shushkevich did, making one destructive step after another against their country’s best interests and, finally, dividing the USSR into a score of quasi-states? The "Soviet patriots" hoped that the shock caused by the "treason" would mobilize the public, the army, and the power structures so that the Communist Party would regenerate itself for a swift historic comeback.

     But these hopes did not come true. After the Soviet collapse the Communist "ideologists" were marginalized; they lost their power base, many of their media and their mechanisms to influence the state policy. The power structures, the armed forces included, showed spectacular flexibility changing masters literally overnight. True, anti-Western and anti-American rhetoric had a clear appeal for some social groups in Russia, but the Communists never had a monopoly on these slogans and ideas; the remnants of the Communist Party had to compete with numerous Russian rightist xenophobic political movements. In short, the remnants of the Communist orthodoxy had to forge an uneasy alliance with nationalists (one can trace, for example, an interesting transformation of Gennady Zyuganov and his Communist Party of the Russian Federation from "socialist internationalism" to Russian nationalism). By mid-1992, "Soviet" and "Russian" imperialist groups essentially merged, both intellectually and politically. Proponents of the Soviet restoration became a junior partner to the Russian imperialists.

     The Russian nationalists themselves have never represented any united group. There are many ways to single out different groupings within this camp, e.g., between the "old right" (looking to old imperial Russia and the Orthodox Christianity for inspiration and political ideas), and the "new right" (secularized advocates of a technocratic dictatorship). In any case numerous differences and contradictions notwithstanding, the nationalists were able to create a very vast network of organizations, associations, the right media and even think tanks. In the Russian Supreme Soviet they formed a powerful block called "Russian Unity"; outside the parliament most of the numerous nationalist organizations grouped around the "National Salvation Front." The most notable and visible leaders of the movement were Sergei Baburin, Mikhail Astafiev, Viktor Alksnis, Nikolai Pavlov, Ilia Konstantinov, Viktor Ampilov, Viktor Aksiuchits, Gennady Zyuganov, Aleksandr Sterligov, Viktor Filatov, and Albert Makashov. The imperialists’ political outlooks were supported by a part of the Slavophile intellectuals and writers— Aleksandr Prokhanov, Stanislav Kuniaev, Vassiliy Belov, Vadim Kozhinov, and Ilia Glazunov, to mention a few.

     During 1992-93 the imperialist political groups tried, and not without success, to win the support of the Russian legislature. The position of the Russian Supreme Soviet on the CIS issues has never been consistent. On some points, the legislature clearly supported the "confederationist" approach. On other occasions, the Supreme Soviet took very rigid nationalist positions. For instance, on July 9, 1993, a joint session of the Russian Supreme Soviet passed a resolution calling for the reassertion of Russian sovereignty over the Crimean port of Sevastopol and overturning the Yeltsin-Kravchuk agreement to divide the Black Sea Fleet.

     The "imperialist" sentiments were not alien to the Russian military. The military establishment in Moscow expressed concerns that if Russia left the "near abroad" politically and militarily, the vacuum of power would be filled with other countries to the detriment of long-turn Russian interests. Oddly enough, this logic was echoed in a statement of Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev. Speaking at a meeting with ambassadors from the CIS and the Baltic states in early January 1994, Kozyrev emphasized the need to preserve the Russian military presence on the territory of the former USSR; he argued that proposals to withdraw militarily are "extremist" because, if Russia leaves the "near abroad," the security vacuum there "will be inevitably filled by other powers not always friendly, and in many cases hostile to Russian interests."

     In fact, the gap between the "confederationist" and the imperialist approaches was never been too wide. Both concepts emphasized perils of the national isolation and both favored deeper integration between Russia and its immediate neighbors. The only question was about who would set the rules for the integration, who would control and guide the process and what were its ultimate goals. Since many of "confederationists" assumed that Russia by virtue of its size and power should have at least some special rights and responsibilities in a new Eurasian confederation, and "moderate" imperialists recognized that other CIS countries and the Baltic states were entitled to at least some participation in the decisionmaking of a new neo-imperial system, centrist politicians, journalists and scholars could relatively easy fluctuate from one concept to the other depending on changes in the general political atmosphere.

     Of course, the most radical versions of imperialist policies were emphatically rejected by the Russian executive power and "moderates" on the Supreme Soviet. However, in 1992 and especially in 1993, Kremlin leaders, seemingly disappointed by failing attempts to build a Eurasian confederation," showed inclination to utilize at least some of imperialist ideas without going into extremes. Different degrees of "moderate" imperialism were characteristic of Russian Vice President Alexander Rutskoi, chairman of the Supreme Soviet Ruslan Khasbulatov, chairman of the Russian Democratic Party Nikolai Travkin, head of the Russian Industrial Union Arkadiy Volsky, head of the parliamentary Constitutional Committee and the Social-Democratic Party Oleg Rumiantsev. Within the executive power, these positions were supported by the leaders of the military-industrial complex and sectorial ministries (energy, transportation, and others); Chief of the Security Council Yuri Skokov and Vice Premiers Oleg Obov and Mikhail Malei implicitly or explicitly supported the moderate imperialist vision of the Russian "near abroad" relations. Among intellectuals supporting this position were Sergei Karaganov, Andrei Zubov, Sergei Stankevich, Andranik Migranian, Aleksandr Tsipko.

     Another manifestation of the "moderate neo-imperialist" position can be found in "A strategy for Russia," developed in summer 1992 by the Moscow-based Council for Foreign and Defense Policy (a group of influential politicians, academics, generals, and businessmen). The report calls for Russia to pursue an "enlightened post-imperial integrationist course" in relations with former Soviet republics. It assumes that Russia can be the only major factor of stability in this region and calls for "an active (if possible, internationally sanctioned) participation in preventing and ending conflicts, if necessary even with the help of military force, and preventing any mass and gross violations of human rights and freedoms."

     Clear enough, such statements reflect not only perspective perceptions of the Russian national interests, but also institutional interests of the Russian military. Liberal intellectuals have continuously accused the military of wasting national resources and depriving the army of any positive function and have demanded drastic reductions of the Russian armed forces irrespective of possible social and political consequences. For consistent "confederationists," the Russian military presence in the "near abroad" in most cases was a negative, not a positive, factor, raising suspicions about Russian intentions and thus slowing down the process of natural integration. "Moderate imperialists" have assumed that a radical approach to the Russian military withdrawal from the "near abroad" might be dangerous and short sighted. They tried to rationalize at least some of the Russian armed forces stationed abroad and give them a new sense of mission.

     One can note that "moderate neo-imperialists" like Ambartsumov would like to get the best of the two worlds: to secure the right for the Russian Federation to interfere in former Soviet republics and, at the same time, to ensure international political and financial support of Russian actions in the "near abroad." This apparent contradiction does not look like one in the eyes of "moderate neo-imperialists." From their viewpoint, Russian attempts to bring "law and order" to the highly explosive regions of Eurasia meet not only national interests of the Russian Federation but also strategic interests of the whole global community. Russia appears as the stronghold of the West capable of absorbing destabilizing impulses coming from the Caucasus, Central Asia, and other regions of the former Soviet Union. Therefore, Russia is entitled not only to Western recognition of its special role but also to substantial Western support.

     This position was to a large degree accepted by the Russian government and by President Yeltsin, at least on the level of rhetoric. In February 1993, in a speech to the Civic Union, Yeltsin stated that "Russia continues to have a vital interest in the cessation of all armed conflicts in the territory of the former USSR. Moreover, the world community is increasingly coming to realize our country’s special responsibility in this difficult matter. I believe the time has come for authoritative international organizations, including the United Nations, to grant Russia special powers as guarantor of peace and stability in this region." Later the Foreign Ministry officially approached the United Nations and the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) about granting Russia special peace-keeping rights in the "near abroad." Since the initial reaction of the international community to these claims was, at best, ambiguous (most of the "near abroad" countries were very emphatic in their rejection of the Yeltsin’s idea), the Russian leadership tried to modify the initial formula placing more emphasis on the multilateral CIS peace-keeping operations.

     It is not clear whether Yeltsin is in a position to fine-tune his "moderate" approach to the "near abroad," considering growing pressure from radical imperialists. After the 1995 Russian parliament elections, this pressure became more focused; the newly elected State Duma might well turn into the stronghold of the neo-imperialist forces. The Liberal-Democratic party (of Zhirinovsky) got control over the newly formed Committee of Geopolitics. The Committee on Security was passed to Communists. The Committee on International Affairs, led by Vladimir Lukin from the "Yabloko" block, promises to be more moderate, though Lukin more than once criticized Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev for his alleged pro-Western and pro-American policies. The only chance for the executive power to withstand the pressure of the State Duma (if, of course, Yeltsin cares at all about the legislature at all) is to use inevitable differences and conflicts among Communists, imperialists, and moderate nationalists on foreign and defense policies issues.

     However, recent political successes of the proponents of the "Russian Empire" notwithstanding, the last two and a half years demonstrated that their perceptions of probable developments on the territory of the former USSR are no closer to reality than that of "confederationists." First of all, they expected that 25 million of Russians living outside of the Russian Federation would be brutally oppressed and discriminated by local nationalist leaders, thus turning into a powerful political and social base for the imperial comeback. But with the notable exception of the Baltic states, Russians and Russian-speakers got all political and economic rights enjoyed by locals.

     In Ukraine, from which most troubles might have come, no serious attempts were made to introduce the new legislation on languages in order to replace Russian by Ukrainian in the eastern regions and Crimea. In Belarus, Russian remained more widely spoken than Belorussian itself. In Central Asia, local authorities did their best to make Russian stay, because Russians represented a large and irreplaceable share of the qualified labor. This is not to say that Russians in the "near abroad" experienced no problems at all; in many former Soviet republics there were gradual replacement of Russians by locals on key positions, low-profile discrimination, random threats from extreme nationalist or fundamentalist groups, etc. But the deterioration of social, political, and economic status of the Russian population, when it took place, was relatively slow and gradual. So the Russian national explosion the imperialists counted on never happened in any of the "near abroad" countries.

     Second, the "imperialists" overestimated the potential scale of military conflicts and economic and social catastrophes on the territory of the former USSR. True, during last two and a half years a number of bloody wars broke out in the "near abroad." In cases of Moldova, Tajikistan, and the Caucasus, losses of human lives and the economic damage were very grave. But these civil conflicts and interstate wars, as tragic as they were for particular regions and ethnic groups, cannot be even remotely compared to collapse of any of the Great Empires. For instance, slow decline and ultimate collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1832-1914 was accompanied by four major European crises, two all-European wars, and a number of smaller scale military conflicts. The Austro-Hungarian collapse did not only provoke the First World War, but also left a profound vacuum of power in Central Europe that even now continues to influence the European stability. It would not be too much an overstatement to claim that the current military confrontation on the territory of former Yugoslavia, the collapse of Czechoslovakia, the conflict potential in Hungarian-Romanian relations, as well as general instability in the Balkans today are all manifestations of the inability of the historic inability of nations, cultures, and political elites of the region to transform the imperial systems of international relations (Ottoman-Austrian-Russian axis) into a system based on the interactions of national states.

     The withdrawal of West European colonial powers from Asia and Africa, though, had been planned long beforehand and proceeded in most cases in a rather orderly way. Still, numerous wars resulted in huge losses of human lives and material waste. In at least five cases (Cambodia, India-Pakistan-Bangladesh, Nigeria, Sudan, and Vietnam), regional conflicts cost more than one million lives each. In eight other cases (Angola, Burundi, Indonesia, Lebanon, Mozambik, Ruanda, Uganda, and Zaire), the toll was more than 100,000. The cost of decolonization turned out very high, and in some regions left by European powers political and military stability has never been restored.

     One might think of different explanations of why the Soviet disintegration has been so smooth and relatively peaceful. A Communist would argue that the Soviet Union has never been a "classical" empire and therefore the rules of the imperial collapse cannot be applied. A liberal would state that the Gorbachev’s period in the Soviet history did bring along at least some elements of the civil society to most of the constituent republics, and it was this civil society that prevented large-scale violence. A Russian nationalist would probably attribute the lasting peace to the "historic patience" of the Russian people, the nonimperial psyche of Russians, and their false sense of guilt, which is being exploited and misused by other nations of the former USSR. A historian would emphasize that the Soviet collapse differs from that of the Ottoman Empire or the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in the sense that no major external power has been interested in exploiting problems and opportunities resulting from the Soviet disintegration; the whole international community, with minor exceptions, has demonstrated a clear intention to contain the Soviet collapse within the borders of the former super power and to prevent any geographical escalation of political and military instability.

     But no matter what explanation is more accurate, it is obvious that apocalyptic scenarios of the Soviet disintegration, predicted by many Russian and foreign politicians and scholars in 1991-92, have not come true. Not only there have been no large-scale wars, disastrous nuclear accidents, or outbursts of political terrorism, but despite the steady deterioration of the economic situation, there has been no famine on the territory of the USSR, no lethal epidemics of national or regional sizes, and no catastrophic failures of the urban infrastructure. A pessimist would maintain that all these are just around the corner, and the peoples of the former USSR are fortunate only because the old social and economic systems, though decapitated, are still operating. Even if it is the case, the relative tranquility and the wide spread feeling of normalcy or, at least, of inevitability of current changes are not the best environment for generating imperialist moods.

     Finally, the imperialists overestimated the psychological impact of the Soviet disintegration on the Russian people within the Russian Federation itself. The conviction that Russians "would never tolerate" the Ukrainian independence, that the whole society would mobilize to "rescue" the Russian minority in Moldova, and that radical nationalist slogans could easily inflame the public opinion turned out to be essentially groundless. True, the Russian public did not demonstrate total immunity to nationalism, granting limited support to Zhirinovsky and his party at December 1993 elections to the parliament. But in more practical terms, the Soviet disintegration was accepted by Russians more or less indifferently: no crusades were launched, no border clashes were provoked, no powerful rightist organizations were formed on the base of Russian repatriates from other republics.

     Here again, different explanations may be suggested. Some argue that in the post-Communist Russian context, as during the whole Russian history, public opinion and political behavior are characterized by strong adherence to the status-quo rooted in economic parochialism, lack of social mobility, intellectual conservatism, etc. The proverbial Russian "tolerance" demonstrated through centuries of slavery, decades of totalitarianism, and years of perestroika is rooted in these conditions. People accept innovations, revolutions, and disasters coming to them mostly "from atop" fairly enigmatically, because of lack of firm personal stake and belief in change. They would sabotage any political program—good or bad—by just being aloof and uncooperative.

     A more flattering explanation is that the Russian society is already mature enough to successfully resist primitive nationalist forms of political mobilization. There are many new group identities in Russia (professional, political, cultural, religious, regional) that can successfully compete with the national identity. Besides, economic reforms channeled energies of Russians, in particular younger ones, into more constructive undertakings than futile outbursts of nationalism. In any case, the public in Russia fell short of the imperialists’ expectations. After two years of its independent existence Russia was still looking mostly inward, not outward, more ready to accept an isolationist than imperialist policy toward the "near abroad."

TEMPTATIONS OF ISOLATIONISM
The Russian isolationism is not an entirely new phenomenon. It existed during most of the Soviet period as a reaction to the alleged economic, political and cultural discrimination of Russia within the Soviet state. The slogan "Russia first" was actively and very successfully used by Boris Yeltsin in his power struggle against Gorbachev in late 1980s. After the Soviet disintegration, isolationist ideas were exacerbated by constant failures of Russia’s attempts to achieve any meaningful level of economic, political, and military integration within the CIS structures and also by the widespread perception that Russia is not treated fairly by its neighbors who are trying to sap its resources and at the same time to ignore its legitimate interests and concerns.

     Economics is the core of the isolationist approach to the former republics of the Soviet Union. The fact is that Russia has always been and still continues to subsidize smaller and weaker economies of its neighbors. Subsidies, if tolerable during the Soviet period, were considered inadmissible waste of scarce resources after the Soviet collapse. Indeed, despite all political and strategic disagreements with its CIS partners in 1992, in trade with them Russia ran a combined surplus of some 1.5 trillion rubles, 10 percent of its gross domestic product.

     Even if other republics sold their goods to Russia for prices well below that of the world market, the structure of the Russian trade with most of the CIS trade (with Russian exports dominated by energy and raw materials, and Russian imports composed mostly of food and consumer goods) led to relative trade disadvantages for Russia. The Russian Ministry of Economics claimed, for example, that in 1992 the average cost of the goods it imported from Kazakhstan was about 60 to 70 percent of world prices, while Russia’s own exports to Kazakhstan averaged 30 to 40 percent of world prices.

     Another constant irritant for Russian politicians and especially economists was the so-called "common ruble zone," which, until fall 1993, covered most of the former Soviet territory. Though the preservation of the ruble zone was often interpreted by the Kremlin leaders as a success of their integrationist policies toward the "near abroad," in real terms the zone turned into a permanent drain on Russian financial resources an a serious inflationary factor for the ruble. The national banks of newly independent republics were issuing massive ruble credits to their respective enterprises without any coordination with the Russian Central Bank. No rules of the game were agreed upon, and CIS counties were competing with each other in who would run a larger budget deficit.

     Russian attempts to handle the problem through routine mechanisms were not successful. For example, in 1992 Russia tried to offset negative trade trends by cutting down its supplies of oil, gas, and other raw materials to the CIS countries. But Russia’s trade partners were even faster in reducing their exports. In 1992 they supplied Russia with only 18 to 58 percent of the products they had promised, while Russia supplied them with 60 to 75 percent. Likewise, an attempt to convert all trade imbalances into technical credits led only to a rapid accumulation of debts to Russia by the CIS countries with no real prospect of paying them back.

     Clearly enough, this problem in Russian-CIS relations could not remain unnoticed. The main slogan of isolationists—"Down with spongers!"—has always been very popular among the general public. Before the velvet revolutions in Central Europe in 1989, it was widely used by those who considered the Empire to be a liability, not an asset for the Soviet Union They claimed that Central European countries had economically turned the USSR into their colony, sucking out cheap natural resources and flooding the Soviet domestic market with expensive, low-quality consumer goods. But during the Soviet period, isolationists, for evident reasons, could not have any serious impact on foreign policy decisionmaking. Besides, their arguments were very shaky, albeit appealing: no reliable statistics was published on the USSR-Central European relations and the question of who exploited whom remained disputable.

     After 1991, isolationists became much more vocal. Politically they presented a very mixed coalition—from consistent liberals to ultranationalists. However, they all cheered the Soviet disintegration exactly because they felt that Russia had been exploited and abused economically, if not politically, by other republics. Furthermore, isolationists found it outrageous that the "near abroad" countries were allowed to enjoy all political benefits of their independence without bearing its economic burdens.

     It should be noted that "liberal" isolationists and "nationalist" isolationists had different views on possible (and desirable) consequences of a more rigid Russian economic policy toward the "near abroad." For liberals, more "natural" world-market prices should push the CIS countries’ economic relations in the direction of a more radical economic reform, structural changes in industry, and, after some time, will lead to a healthy, market-oriented, integrated system.

     For nationalists, the "near abroad" countries were highly artificial creations unable to sustain themselves either politically, economically, or militarily, and the only explanation why they did not collapse overnight lay in open or covert Russian subsidies and Russian support. To withdraw economic subsidies and political and military support would mean to let these quasi-states go bankrupt and later be absorbed by Russia. In other words, the isolationist approach is closely linked with the two described above: for liberal isolationists, this policy is an uneasy but necessary step in the direction of a true, mutually beneficial integration; for nationalist isolationists, it is also an interim solution, but on the way to the restoration of the empire.

     The only major practical difference between liberal isolationists and nationalist isolationists was that the first argued for humanitarian assistance to the "near abroad" countries to cope with natural disasters (famines, epidemics, earthquakes, and storms), while the latter (e.g., the Liberal-Democratic Party) opposed even these limited actions to help societies rather than states in the "near abroad."

     No matter how isolationist approaches are justified, they reflect a real conflict of interests between Russia and the "near abroad" countries that became graphic after Yegor Gaidar and his team of radical reformers came to power in Moscow. For Russia, the immediate goal, as Gaidar and later Fyodorov saw it, was to continue with radical economic reform with emphasis on macroeconomic stabilization. To preserve its financial system and avoid hyperinflation, Russia simply could not afford any deep integration with the CIS states in the near future. Any real economic re-integration of the CIS was feasible only when Russia resolved its domestic economic problems and turned into a locomotive for weaker economies of its neighbors. For most of the CIS countries, economic cooperation with Russia (which essentially meant preferential trade conditions, cheap Russian credits, and unlimited access to Russian raw material, energy, and markets) was especially important in the immediate future, when these countries were trying to establish their statehoods. In a more distant future, all of them hoped to reduce their economic dependence on Russia and, if possible, to plug into other regional integration structures.

     There is also a widespread perception in Moscow that, because of its domestic market size, Russia could afford economic isolationism to the degree no one else in the CIS could. Indeed, before the Soviet collapse, the relative level of the Russian involvement into the inter-republican trade was lower than that of other republics: this trade accounted for approximately 12.5 percent of the Russian GNP, while in other Soviet republics this indicator was 30 to 50 percent. Russia, all current economic problems notwithstanding, accounts for more of the former Soviet gross national product than all the "near abroad" taken together. Its nearest competitor, Ukraine, is an economic mess, but while not totally self-sufficient, Russia is much better placed than other former Soviet republics to "do it alone."

     In any case, in 1993 isolationist moods began to exercise serious influence on Russian economic policy toward the "near abroad." First, the Russian government announced that any energy exports not covered in bilateral agreements would be sold to the "near abroad" at world prices. As for the bilateral agreements, Russia raised prices on oil up to 55 to 65 percent of the world price, and on gas, to 40 to 45 percent of the world price. Second, Russians suggested that the "near abroad" countries should repay their debts in the form of collateralizing them through industrial property and, in Ukraine’s case, through military hardware and long-term lease of naval bases and other facilities. Finally, the Russian government put forward a number of preconditions for the countries that would wish to remain within the "ruble zone"; if accepted, these preconditions would lead to almost complete subordination of the republics’ national banks to the Russian Central Bank and the Finance Ministry.

      Of course, these changes could be interpreted as manifestations of imperialist rather than isolationist trends in Russian policies toward the "near abroad." The "oil whip" could be used to bring political discipline into the ranks of the former Soviet republics, get serious concessions from them at the moment of their maximum economic weakness, and nail down the dominant positions of Russia in Eurasia. One cannot exclude such intentions from the part of the Kremlin leadership. But it is worth noting that the decision of Moscow to turn to world prices in the oil trade was accompanied by the statement that from now on Russia would not link economic relations with the CIS countries to political or military aspects of relations.

     CIS member-states, confronted with a new policy coming from Moscow, tried to retaliate. Ukraine started to charge Russia world-market prices for transit of Russian oil and gas through its territory and also radically increased prices on sugar it shipped to Russia. The same pattern was used by Kazakhstan (it raised prices on its wheat exported to Russia to levels well above world-market prices), and Uzbekistan did the same with cotton. A matter of special concern to Russians was an attempt of Ukraine and Georgia to form a transit and economic union, with a clear intention to create a buffer zone between Russia and foreign countries in the south and in the west. All these attempts were ineffective: Russia started to build another gas pipeline to Western Europe through Belarus and Poland, and sugar, grain and cotton are in abundance on the world market. As a result of the trade wars, some of the "near abroad" countries lost their traditional positions on Russian markets, giving place to other suppliers from the "far abroad."

     Initially, isolationism was limited to economic relations between Russia and the "near abroad" countries. However, some signs of an "isolationist" moods and politics can be traced in other than economic spheres. One of the earliest symptoms of political and military isolationism gaining ground in Russia was almost the unanimous disapproval from both the Democratic Russia movement and the Russian Supreme Soviet of Yeltsin’s decision to introduce military force to handle the Chechnya bid for independence in November 1991. Facing powerful opposition, Yeltsin had to back off fast.

     The President had also to face a mounting opposition to the Russian military presence in Nagorno-Karabakh with inevitable losses and high material costs. Despite an evident intention to keep Russian influence in this part of the former Soviet Union, in spring 1992 Yeltsin had to order Russian (at that point CIS) troops from Nagorno-Karabakh and simultaneously ask for deployment of NATO troops as a peace-keeping force there. Furthermore, Russia did not try to prevent mediation efforts of Turkey and Iran in the Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict but actively encouraged these efforts.

     The negative public reaction did not prevent Russian military involvement in Tajikistan in 1992, but this involvement, without doubt, heated isolationist moods in the country. Numerous critics underscored that the decision to protect the Tajik-Afghan border had been taken in the absence of any military or political doctrine, and neither Russian national interest nor the ways to defend these interests had been properly analyzed. Russia, sucked into a military conflict with long-drawn and unreliable communication lines, was absent powerful local allies; a large part of the Tajik population was hostile; and very limited economic, military and diplomatic resources were available. Russian involvement was very difficult to justify on economic grounds: Tajikistan lacks marketable resources and can hardly present any economic value for Russia even in the long term; on the other hand, the republic readily accepted the ruble zone and promised large-scale credits. The need to protect the Russian minority in Tajikistan does not sound very convincing; given the current migration rates, one can predict that by 1998 there will be no Russians in the country at all.

    The case of Tajikistan was especially indicative, because practically all other CIS members showed absolutely no inclination to help Russia in its peace-keeping efforts. Not only Ukraine and Moldova, but even the closest ally, Belarus, resolutely refused to get involved in Central Asia (Belarus even slowed down its military cooperation with Russia in fall of 1992 in order to avoid any commitments in Tajikistan). Parliaments of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan voted against their countries’ participation in peace-keeping operations. Finally, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan troops did join Russian peace-keeping forces in Tajikistan, but only in 1993, when the intensity of the conflict lessened.

     Other republics also demonstrated clear unwillingness to participate in any of the Russia-led economic assistance programs to poorer members of the CIS. Neither Ukraine nor Belarus was able to allocate any substantial resources to help with the consequences of the Armenian earthquake of 1988, or with problems of the Aral sea. Although excusable given the general economic situation in Ukraine and Belarus, such economic egotism nevertheless caused a lot of irritation in Moscow.

A typical isolationist position on the conflicts in the "near abroad" can be summarized thusly:

• No Russian government, no matter how powerful or popular it might be, will be able to maintain a stable public support for a large-scale military involvement in the "near abroad." The public still remembers Afghanistan and will resolutely oppose any actions that can potentially lead to another Afghan war.

• The Russian army is not ready to engage in peace-keeping and peace-building operations in the "near abroad." To perform such functions, the armed forces have to be retrained and re-equipped; the process will inevitably take time and money.

• The Russian diplomacy is not mature enough to mediate in "near abroad" conflicts; it tends to take sides and to miscalculate situations. Moreover, given the past experience, even if Russians could act as "honest brokers" in these conflicts, they will be looked at with suspicion and mistrust at least by some parties to the conflicts.

• Instead of providing for a greater security, such an involvement would create more insecurity for Russia: its enemies in the "near abroad" will try to retaliate for Russian actions on Russian territory itself—by promoting secessionist trends in autonomous republics, acts of terrorism in Moscow and St. Petersburg, etc.

• Finally (this is the point made by liberal isolationists), a considerable military involvement abroad cannot but undermine democratic values and institutions in the country, thus making a new dictatorship more probable.

     Isolationist moods loomed high during the elections to the Russian parliament in December 1993. Most political parties (liberal and nationalist alike, from the Russia’s Choice of Gaydar to the Liberal-Democratic Party of Zhirinovsky) introduced at least some of isolationist slogans to the election platforms. After the December elections two events demonstrated that isolationism was on the rise in Russia: political debates around the Russian-Belarusian agreement to launch a close economic union with the unification of the financial systems of two countries, and the Russian-Georgian Security Treaty signed in January 1994. The former agreement was signed by the heads of the governments and central banks of the two countries; it meant that Russia would accept Belarus into its "ruble zone." It might have seemed that the Russian government achieved a major foreign policy victory in the "near abroad" and even as a first step on the way to a new Russian empire. The cultural and ethnic closeness to Russia, the relatively low level of Belorussian nationalism and anti-Russian sentiment, a very high degree of russification reflected in the use of the Russian language, incorporation of the Belorussian cultural elite into the Russian one, and a lack of clear and distinct national identity naturally allowed for a higher degree of political, economic, and even military cooperation between the two states. One should also note that the level of economic integration between Belarus and Russia has been higher than between any other two republics of the former USSR (Belarus is a land-locked country highly dependable on Russian ports and communication lines).

     However, the decision caused a storm of criticism in Moscow. Yegor Gaidar even used it as one of the key reasons for his resignation. The reason for the criticism was simple: the financial unification promised to be quite an expensive enterprise for Russia. Belorussian rubles were to be exchanged for Russian rubles at 1:1 ratio, whereas the market exchange ratio was between 5:1 and 6:1. Consequently, the unification would mean a higher inflation in Russia (some experts claimed that the decision would increase the monthly inflation rates in Russia by 5 percent). Besides, the National Bank of Belarus preserved the right for an independent emission "within limits agreed upon with the Central Bank of Russia"—a very vague formula not clarified by any mechanism of its practical implementation.

     These shortcomings of the agreement were immediately picked up by isolationists. They did not oppose close economic ties between Russia and Belarus in general, but they emphatically rejected the need to pay a high price for the integration. They also accused the Chernomyrdin government of "double standards"— it had been persistently pushing Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan out of the "ruble zone," claiming that the CIS countries were not ready for a common currency and, suddenly, Belarus got a very special treatment from Moscow.

     The isolationist opposition, though not powerful enough to overrule the Russia-Belarus deal, amply demonstrated that there were some important limitations on how far Moscow could go trying to absorb the "near abroad" countries. If the Russian government tries to use the same model dealing with Ukraine, isolationists will undoubtedly kill such an agreement: Ukraine is much larger then Belarus, its economic situation is worse, and therefore the price that Russia will have to pay for the "reunification" is prohibitively high.

     The second indication of rising isolationism was the somewhat mixed reaction in Moscow to the security treaty signed by Yeltsin and Shevardnadze in January 1994. If the Russia-Belarus agreement could serve as a model for economic absorption of smaller republics by the Russian center, the Russian-Georgian treaty might be used as a case study for the military and political restoration of the Russian Empire. Indeed, after two years of desperate attempts to preserve their independence and territorial integrity, after a high wave of self-confidence and nationalism, Georgians had to accept a virtually client relationship with Russia with a spectacularly high degree of political and military cooperation, including the permanent stationing of Russian troops on the Georgian soil. Many analysts claim that during 1992-93 Russia was persistently pushing Georgia in this direction, skillfully using a wide range of arms-twisting means—from the economic blockade and financial isolation of Tbilisi to the covert support of secessionist forces in Abkhazia and the South Ossetia.

     Even if this logic was correct and Yeltsin did manage to push Shevardnadze into the corner, the Russian president obviously failed to sell the deal to the public within his own. Not that most Russians were anti-Georgian or particularly sympathetic to the cause of Abkhazian and Ossetian secessionist groups. Isolationists simply fail to see why Russia should take responsibility for keeping peace and stability to the south of the Caucasian mountain chain, why Moscow has to risk lives of Russian soldiers, and why it must carry a substantial financial burden just to keep "old buddy Shevy" in power. Isolationists also maintain that the pro-Tbilisi position that Russia took in the civic conflict in Georgia would inevitably create serious problems for Yeltsin with most of the Russia’s north Caucasian autonomous republics, which enjoy very close cultural, political, and even military ties with the rebellious Georgian regions.

     So far the Russian president has been able to ignore criticism coming from isolationist groups. However, it’s easy to predict that when and if Russian troops start to suffer losses in Georgia or economic costs of the Russian involvement in the Caucasus climb higher, isolationists will not miss their chance to pass the bill to Mr. Yeltsin and Mr. Kozyrev.

     No doubt, the current Russian isolationism has its natural limitations. A coalition between Gaydar and Zhirinovsky cannot but prove very loose and unstable. Furthermore, Russia is not a position to turn its back to the "near abroad." The problems of the Russian and Russian-speaking minorities, of stable Russian borders, of the "near abroad" markets for Russian producers, of reliable communication lines between Russia and the "far abroad" have no answers within the isolationist paradigm. Russia is doomed to an active policy toward the former Soviet republics.

     But isolationism in its different forms is likely to be a permanent factor in the Russian political life. It will be more isolationism at home than the resistance of the "near abroad" countries or the opposition from the West that will tame some of the most aggressive manifestations of the Russian neo-imperialism. Instead of blunt attempts to "restore the empire" during next couple of years, we’ll probably see a "selective involvement" approach of the Russian leadership to the "near abroad" countries.

TOWARD A "SELECTIVE ENGAGEMENT" STRATEGY
A "selective engagement" strategy of the Russian Federation on the territory of the former Soviet Union has not yet been shaped and elaborated on by politicians and scholars. It is being forged now, and to a large extent it borrows ideas and concepts from all three approaches analyzed above—the "Eurasian confederation," the "Russian empire," and the isolationist approach.

     The basic assumption behind the "selective engagement" strategy, however, is distinctly different from these three cases described above. "Selective" means applying different rules and different patterns to various situations, abstaining from any universal approaches, blueprints, or guidelines. Advocates of "selective engagement" start from the premise that the Russian resources are scare; it is simply impossible to muster sufficient power and domestic political support to restore the Russian Empire or to build a reliable collective security system on the territory of the former USSR. On the other hand, Russia cannot afford an isolationist policy, either. Being applied to the Russian "near abroad," the "selective engagement" strategy first and foremost suggests that instead of one set of political, economic, military and other rules on the territory of the former USSR, one will see very different regional and subregional accommodations with different levels of Russian participation.

     The Russian Federation will, of course, remain the only state participating to any extent in all these settings; other actors will be mostly regionally oriented in their foreign, defense and economic policies. (The only exception might be Ukraine; its leaders have already demonstrated activity in the Central Asia and, especially, in the Caucasus. Former Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk was even asked by the former Georgian leader Zviad Gamsakhurdia to mediate in the Georgian civil war. But the practical abilities of Ukraine to make a difference in the strategic, political or economic balances outside of Europe now seem to be rather limited.)

     The "selective involvement" approach further maintains that for Russian foreign, economic and defense policies it is very important to avoid mutually exclusive obligations in different regions as well as disproportional attention to any of them at the expense of others. At the same time, Russia should develop a clear set of regional and subregional priorities to save scare resources and avoid an imperial overextension. Participating in different multilateral and bilateral alliances and unions Russia could coordinate development and security interests of all the former subjects of the USSR to assure both its own interests and Eurasian stability in general.

     It is claimed that with due skills Russia might erect in five to ten years down the road a stable Slavic political and economic community, a Russian-Central Asian defensive military alliance, a Russian-Caucasian Protectorate Union, etc. Specific arrangements and conditions of membership as well as Russian responsibilities in each of these blocs may vary quite considerably depending on security problems in each region, levels of Russian economic involvement there, political relations with the regional centers of power, and other factors. These overlapping security structures on the territory of the former USSR, in view of proponents of the "selective involvement," should be supplemented by participation of Russia and other republics in wider international security-related bodies— such as different NATO institutions (above all the North Atlantic Cooperation Council and the Partnership for Peace), CSCE mechanisms, and new blocks or regional collective security organizations that can emerge in the South-West Asia or the Asian-Pacific region.

     In terms of priorities it seems that nobody questions the crucial importance for Russia to stabilize political, military, and economic relations within the Russian-Ukranian-Belorussian triangle—the "heartland" of the Commonwealth containing most of the Soviet military potential, industrial base, and labor. Other actors in this region cannot be ignored by Russia, either, but in comparison with the two Slavic states they are somewhat marginalized, forming two additional triangles—the northwest (Russia, the Baltic states, and Belarus) and the southwest (Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova). Despite many diversities among the European republics of the former Soviet Union (the Baltic states, Byelarus, Ukraine, and Moldova, if it survives as independent state), one can predict that the dominant trend in the region most likely will continue to be toward military and political "decoupling" from other republics, independent military decisions, and attempts to integrate into West European economic and Atlantic security structures. For them, such "decoupling" will be not only a symbol of newly acquired independence but also a manifestation of their Europe-oriented strategies.

     Of course, one cannot exclude serious security concerns that might appear in the relations of these states with their neighbors in the Central Europe. For example, Romania, in case it absorbs Moldova and declares territorial claims to North Bukovina, will be a matter of concern for state leaders in Kiev; it is also likely to expect difficulties in Polish-Lithuanian relations because of problems related to the Polish minority in Lithuania. But these threats will hardly be considered significant enough to join a close military union with Russia, a union that undoubtedly will meet powerful domestic opposition within respective republics. Besides, since the European republics find themselves in a relatively favorable geostrategic situation, they will hardly consider it appropriate to spend money on the defense of lengthy southern and eastern Russian borders, to take any responsibility for security of Central Asian countries, or to invest in a blue-water navy. Ukraine, for example, has already announced that it will convert almost all of the military ship building yards located on its territory (these currently account for 40 per cent of Russian navy procurement).

     However, the focus of Russian efforts in this part of the former Soviet Union should be economic rather than political or military. "Selective engagement" assumes that Russia should pay a certain economic price to prevent a Ukrainian disintegration and to synchronize economic reforms in three Slavic republics.

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