Упрощенная HTML-версия
Author : V. Batyuk
Head of the Center for Regional Aspects of the U.S. Military Policy, Institute for the U.S. and Canadian
Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Science (Political Sciences)
THE RUSSIAN-AMERICAN DIALOGUE on regional is-
sues differs greatly from the Soviet-American dialogue of the
Cold War era maintained to prevent regional conflicts and their
escalation among Moscow's and Washington's ideological allies
to avoid a direct armed clash between the Great Powers
fraught with a nuclear catastrophe.
Today, the American establishment has been looking at the
conflict with Russia over influence in the post-Soviet expanse
as a "zero-sum game" between Western "democracy" and
"Russian neo-imperialism." Janusz Bugaiski, Director of the
New European Democracies Project, Center for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington, believes: "By naively assuming that Western and Russ-
ian national interests are equivalent or compatible, Washington and Brussels play into the
hands of an imperial power that has revived its ambitions... Russia possesses global aspi-
rations that do not coincide with those of a democratic world order.
Recently, America has shed part of its "color revolutions" zeal and has begun doubting
that they were the best instrument of undermining Russia's influence in Eurasia.
Since 2002, the Pentagon has spent in Georgia $200 million on military training; it is said
that this is done to prepare the Georgian military for counterterrorist operation, not for a
war against Russia.
There is an opinion that inFUTURE Americans will rely on the program to deploy their
mobile forces in the region to keep the air corridor between the Balkans, Afghanistan and
Iraq open.
To calm down its East European NATO allies, the American military-political leadership
decided to supply its political promises with promises of military support. It looks as if
the talk about rebuffing Russia's "aggression" against the Baltic countries belongs to the
same category.
It seems that Finlandization of the post-Soviet expanse will be conducive to a settlement
of the Russian-American regional disagreements: NATO should check its eastward ex-
pansion in exchange for Moscow's promise to respect independence and sovereignty of
the near abroad. This can be successfully applied to other regional conflicts which cause
concerns in both capitals.
http://interaffairs.ru
America's Post-Cold War Policies in the Post-Soviet Expanse