A strategic continuation, a tactical change. Russia’s European security policy
A strategic continuation, a tactical change. Russia’s European security policy

Author(s): Marek Menkiszak
Contributor(s): Ilona Duchnowicz (Translator)
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, History, Governance, Political history, Recent History (1900 till today), Special Historiographies:, Government/Political systems, International relations/trade, Security and defense, Transformation Period (1990 - 2010), Post-Communist Transformation, Geopolitics
Published by: OSW Ośrodek Studiów Wschodnich im. Marka Karpia
Keywords: Russian Federation; political history; geopolitics; Eastern Europe; political crises; Soviet Union; security policy; foreign policy;
Summary/Abstract: 1989 marked the beginning of a short but intense period of thorough geopolitical changes in the eastern part of Europe. The simultaneous weakening and liberalisation of the communist regime in the USSR led by Mikhail Gorbachev, the gradual limitation of Moscow’s economic and political support but also its shrinking control over the countries in the Soviet bloc and domestic political crises inside these countries led to a rapid downfall of the communist governments in Central-Eastern Europe. The military, economic and political structures of the Soviet bloc were dissolved within a timeframe of just two years, and the Soviet Union itself ceased to exist in December 1991, to be replaced with fifteen new independent states. The Russian Federation became the main successor to the USSR as it, albeit seriously weakened, inherited a large section of the Soviet empire’s resources and had to redefine its interests in the new post-Cold War European and global order that was being formed.

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