Russia and the World New State-of-Play on the International Stage [Hardcover]

The collapse of communism and the disintegration of the USSR, created a new geopolitical reality, a new international environment, and a new set of international relations. This book is about Russia's foreign relations. It examines the factors that determine Russia's foreign policy, such as the economy and domestic politics. It devotes special attention to the so-called 'Russian idea' - a foreign policy determinant largely overlooked by western politicians and analysts. It attempts such an analysis by applying Russian rather than Western criteria because we are dealing here with a country with a unique culture and history.List of Tables Foreword by Leslie Holmes The Setting of the Stage: An Introduction From the Russian to the Soviet Empire, 1917-1991 Period of Uncertainty, 1985-1991 The Fall of an Empire A New Military Policy Russia and the World Russia and NATO The Russian Idea - Towards a Civic Soviety Towards a Cold War or a Cold Peace? References

... this excellent book provides valuable background to the ongoing tragedy in the Russian North Caucasus. Slavic Review

LEO COOPER is Senior Research Associate at the Contemporary Europe Research Centre and at the Russian and Euro-Asian Studies Centre, University of Melbourne. He was born in Warsaw, Poland and escaped to the Soviet Union after the German occupation of Warsaw in 1939. He emigrated to Australia in 1950. He graduated as D. Phil. at Monash University in 1987 and travelled extensively throughout Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. He visited the USSR again in 1989. He is the author of The Political Economy of Soviet Military Power, Soviet Reforms and Beyond, Power and Politics in the Soviet Union and Stakhanovites and The Story of a Worker in the Soviet Union 1939-1946.