Russia’s Foreign Policy in Central Asia: From Yeltsin to Medvedev

Abstract

Foreign policy-makers and scholars alike pay constant attention to Russia’s foreign policy. To date several authors have attempted to identify phases in Russia’s foreign policy. Hence Richard Sakwa (2008, 2009), reviewing the period from 1991 to 2008, identifies six main phases in Russian foreign policy since 1990: ‘the emergence phase, before the abortive coup of August 1991’; ‘the established phase: August to December 1991’; ‘the romantic’ phase, January 1992-February 1993; ‘the reassertion phase, March 1993-December 1995’; ‘competitive pragmatism, January 1996–99’; ‘from new realism to New Cold War, 2000–08?’ These phases are unequal in time and coincide with either a change of the Russian President or Minister of Foreign Affairs. Dmitri Trenin defines the period from 1992 to 2003 as ‘integration into Western society’; the period from 2004 to 2008 as the ‘self-affirmation period’ or alternatively as the ‘solitary voyage’; and the period from 2009 to the present as that of the ‘country’s modernisation’ (Trenin, 2010). Vladimir Paramonov reviews Russian foreign policy in Central Asia over the period from 1992 to 2008 and divides it into three stages: 1992–95, 1996–99 and 2000–08 (Paramonov et al., 2009). This periodisation is also unequal in length, trying to capture for each period the changes in Russia’s foreign policy towards Central Asia.KeywordsForeign PolicySecurity CouncilForeign MinisterCentral Asian CountryShanghai Cooperation OrganisationThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.