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RIVALRY BETWEEN THE USA AND RUSSIA FOR THE POST-SOVIET SPACE

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VIKTOR KREMENIUK,
Doctor of History, professor, deputy director of the Institute of the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow

The Caucasian conflict indicates intense rivalry between the USA and Russia for the post-Soviet space. Russia still hopes to put an end to the expansion of the U.S. influence. The USA believes that Russia’s victory in the Caucasus is temporary and that the Americans will be successful at achieving their goals in the region.

How has the Russian-Georgian conflict impacted on the Russian-American relations? The main outcome is that there are no common action rules. In the 1990s it was considered that Russia was developing in a ‘right’ democratic way. Currently the Americans think that Russia has changed its course, because it became more active on the world arena.

And now either Russia and the USA will accept new rules, which Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and a new American president are supposed to work out, or they will fail to do it. In that case, the former Soviet republics, particularly Ukraine and Georgia, will be a bone of contention between the USA and Russia. The USA will seek to strengthen its control over Ukraine and Georgia and to teach Russia a lesson as was the case in the Soviet period, during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, in order to show that this is a zone of only U.S. interests.  

If that is so, the military and political crisis could happen between the USA and Russia. It would be unwelcome but still may take place. The West must be first to make concessions so that the parties establish common rules. Till now Russia protested against NATO enlargement, a missile defense system in Europe, recognition of Kosovo's independence, etc. But the West paid no attention to those protests.

At present Moscow lost all patience. Russia as well as the USA, which is tied down in the Iraqi war, takes a different view of things. This may lay down the foundations of the compromise. Russia would like to change its status of the 1990s, it wants its security interests and its opinion to be taken into consideration. Russia needs a higher status on the world arena and the country's leadership will have to struggle for it.  

September 4, 2008 




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