Russian Foreign Policy as Exercise in Nation Building

When Vladimir Putin came back to the Kremlin in May 2012, Russia’s foreign policy took a new turn. Putin had assessed the results of the foreign policy course undertaken by his protégé Dmitry Medvedev and had drawn conclusions. In a nutshell, Medvedev, Russia’s president from 2008 to 2012, had been sent by Putin, formally prime minister but still Russia’s top leader, on a sort of scouting mission to the West to determine what was possible to achieve with the United States and Europe. Putin held Medvedev on a very long leash, allowing him to negotiate not only strategic arms reductions but also joint ballistic missile defence (BMD) with NATO; to abstain in UN Security Council resolutions on the use of force by the West in countries, such as Libya, where Russia’s vital interests were not involved; to conclude modernization alliances with the leading economies; to finalize the WTO accession process; and to open negotiations for OECD accession. These 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.