1 Ascenett Martinez-Lopez Assignment 3.

Present Russian Foreign Policy and its Challenges Russian foreign policy has change over the past hundred years due to its change in government from Tsarist Russian Empire to a Communist Soviet Union and finally to the new Russian Federation. The identity of Russian has varied for longer than its foreign policy. Russias identity and role in the world has change for the past two hundred years. (Kuchins, 2012, p. 148) After the fall of the Soviet Union, many new political parties rose and the Russian government start to try and become a more westernized nation in all aspects. Ever since the Russian Empire, the Russian government has tried to become more like the west and with the fall of the USSR it started to become a westernized nation. (Kuchins, 2012, p. 148) The different major political groups in Russian affect the foreign policy procedures taken if a specific party is in charge of the government. The three main political parties are Pro-Western liberals, Great power balancers, and Nationalist. They all have different agendas and beliefs regarding the wellbeing of Russia politically and culturally. (Kuchins, 2012, p. 149) Russian politics is a complicated matter as would be any states political ambitions in the international system. In the case of Russia, the states politics and how it is seen to the world is shown through political parties. In Russia, while liberals believe that they can equally participants of the western political power while great power balancers believe that they are not equal in the international system and that Western states should cede some of the power to Russia. (Kuchins, 2012, p. 150) Foreign policy has had conflicts when it comes to Russia. International tension with former Soviet Union regions has given many challenges to Russia. For example, the conflict between Russian and Georgia that started in 2008 puts Russia and Georgia both at fault because Russia for overreacting and provoking the war while Georgia was at fault because of launching different attacks. (Wieclawski, 2011, p. 13) The example of the Georgian conflict can let us

2 Ascenett Martinez-Lopez Assignment 3.1

know of how internal politics and affect the outcome of international relations and foreign policy. The conflict also brought in the question of how to deal with foreign policy in the international system as the United States and the European Union had to take a look at the conflict and did very little to help. (Wieclawski, 2011)

References Kuchins, A. C. (2012). Russian Foreign Policy: Continuity In Change. Washington Quarterly, 147-61. Wieclawski, J. (2011). Challenges for the Russian Foreign Policy -- The Lesson of the Georgian Conflict. Asian Social Science, 12-20.