RUSYA, ORTA ASYA VE KAFKASYA

Demography represents material resource of foreign policy, being a significant parameter of the social, economic, and political status of a country.

They determine soft power in the international system through political, ideological, scientific, and cultural means.

From late 2003 through mid-2005, a series of peaceful street protests toppled corrupt and undemocratic regimes in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan and ushered in the election of new presidents in all three nations. These movements—collectively known as the Color Revolutions—were greeted in the West as democratic breakthroughs that might thoroughly reshape the political terrain of the former Soviet Union.

The USSR and Russian Federation; fundamental social, economic, and political changes of the 1917 revolution and collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991; vast territory encompassing various ethnic and religious groups and natural resources and bordering with 18 countries in different regions.

Plenty of academic works are dedicated to the understanding of Russian national identity, most of which draw attention to Russian-European or Russian-Western relations (Hopf, 2002; Neumann, 2003; Tsygankov, 2016). According to the constructivist theory, the other (a cultural, geographical, or political entity) plays an essential role in defining the self. In this sense, Europe or West, with its cultural, political, ideological similarities and differences, has played an essential role in the formation of Russian national identity and RFP. Understanding of the self/other sense between Russia and Europe requires determination of both dialectical and dialogical affiliations taken place for centuries in the Russian identity formation.

Russian foreign policy itself in the post-soviet period has been conceptualized around neorealist understandings such as national interests, military and economic power, sovereignty, and security. The national interest as a basic concept of the neorealist theory is instrumental in most foreign policy conceptual documents to legitimize its action abroad

It is important to remember that since Gorbachev, whose “new political thinking doctrine” is one of the products of liberalist Russian ideas, liberal ideas and policies have found a place in Russian politics.

Westernizers, also called Atlanticists, are liberals who advocate Russian engagement to the western free-market economy and better relations with the US and the EU. They see western institutions as the primary instruments for the common development of humanity. Furthermore, the earlier westernizers assumed the US as the key actor of international relations and the NATO expansion in Eastern European countries as a positive development for Russia. Westernist foreign policy views did exist within the Soviet system, too. For instance, Gorbachev favored a departure from Stalinist policies, endorsing democratic socialism and the understanding of a “common European home”

Eurasianists claim the importance of the geographical context for the acquisition of great power status. The Eurasian region, comprising former Soviet countries, has priority for the RFP. Maintaining economic and political security in this region is critically vital for Russian security. For its part, this view does not underestimate or stand against the West. The balance between the West and East in RFP is significant.

The third school of RFP is civilizationist thinking, claiming the uniqueness of Russian culture and its values, defending its superiority over western culture.

Russia seeks to develop cooperation with its strongest eastern neighbors and to facilitate the peaceful solution of problems within The RussiaIndia-China (RIC) for the promotion of nonwestern actors in shaping the new multipolar world. Creating a strategic alliance with China and India to counterbalance the Western alliance and revive Russia as Primakov initially supported a Eurasian great power. However, his plan of an Asian trilateral alliance failed to materialize due to both the Chinese-Indian competition and the hesitance to seem to have an anti-western foreign policy course. The trilateral meetings of the ministry of foreign affairs could only begin in 2005.

The Russian-Chinese treaty (1997) on the decrease of the number of border troops, signed with Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, forms the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). In 2001 following the 9/11 attacks, China and Russia acted together to address terrorism and security vacuum in Central Asia, which could pose a security risk for them with regard to their Muslim populations. Uzbekistan joined the SCO in 2001, and the SCO Charter was signed in 2002.

The Color Revolutions; From late 2003 through mid-2005, a series of peaceful street protests toppled corrupt and undemocratic regimes in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan and ushered in the election of new presidents in all three nations. These movements—collectively known as the Color Revolutions—were greeted in the West as democratic breakthroughs that might thoroughly reshape the political terrain of the former Soviet Union.