Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Putin: Soviet-Russian relations with the United States from 1990 through the fall of 2008 : a strategic analysis

TL;DR: Kanet et al. as discussed by the authors track and analyze each president's foreign policy goals within the dependent variables of social, economic and political influences of post-cold war realities, and conclude that each president formulated Russian foreign policy based on domestic considerations.

Abstract: of a dissertation at the University of Miami Dissertation supervised by Professor Roger Kanet (317) Cold War Soviet foreign policy was driven by a strategic competition A competition-detente cycle based on the superpower rivalry between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, including the Warsaw Pact dependencies, and the United States of America and its respective alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) existed for over forty-five years Following the dismantling of the Warsaw Pact and the implosion of the USSR, remnant Soviet and subsequent Russian foreign policy, changed dramatically Though some fragmentary Soviet style vertical controls of the foreign policy of the transitional Gorbachev years and the first years of Yeltsin’s first administration were recognizable, their respective foreign relations operated on the defensive realities of a splintered empire in every conceivable manner This dissertation will track and analyze each president’s foreign policy goals within the dependent variables of social, economic and political influences of post Cold War realities In an absolute sense, each president formulated Russian foreign policy based on domestic considerations This fact constitutes the independent variable in this analysis From the bellicosity of the Cold War through the opposition of Russia to America’s unilateralist approach to the second Iraqi war, Russia attempted to return as a major player in international relations as a whole and as an interlocutor with the United States in a strategic sense This engagement has produced the gambit of political polemics, from the strident Soviet “launch on warning” correlation of forces fighting doctrine to the interactive and more personal political good will venue between Bush and Putin It is this “push-pull” political history that prompts the primary research question: Is the present Russian strategic relationship with the post 911 United States the beginning of a new and unique post Cold War international relationship or is it simply a continuation of the familiar confrontation-detente cycle historically endemic to Russian-American relations? Has the American occupation of Iraq, a perennial Russian client state, derailed the post 911 accommodation between the two countries? Acknowledgements I owe a debt of gratitude to all those who patiently listened and advised and to my dissertation committee members who bore me infinite patience even when I was less than cooperative Those excellent academic scholars, Professor Roger Kanet, Professor Bruce Bagley, Professor Joaquin Roy, Professor Ralph Clem of Florida International University as well as Professor Darrell Slider of the University of South Florida, and Professor Elise Giuliano, helped guide me through this arduous but exciting research Without the initial instructive advice of Dr Holly Ackerman of the University of Miami research staff, this project wouldn’t have begun Mr Steve Ralph, the International Studies Graduate advisor at the University of Miami, helped me navigate the contentious pathway to my objectives I hope I have honored their guidance with this project Mistakes and omissions are, of course, my responsibility