Sergiy Fedunyak, Foreign and Security Policy of the Newly Independent States: Balancing between Two Power Centres

Abstract

The article is focusing on the interplay between foreign policy agenda of the post-Soviet states at the one hand and internal policy developments in these countries at the other hand. One of the main explanations why the post-Soviet elites in non-Russian republics are pursuing the so-called multi-vectorialism in the foreign policy is that it serves as a strategy to maximize the most from having good relations both with East and West, and thus trying to perpetuate the monopoly of the power. Uzbekistan is a country in case, as Ukraine (and Moldova) is (or was) indeed also. At the same time, the special relations between the elites of post-Soviet countries and Moscow are very important in shaping the foreign policy agenda of these countries as a result of the Soviet legacy, i.e. the ties of the former Communist nomenklatura with Moscow are still playing a very important role in the most of the former Soviet republics.