America and the Post-Soviet Republics

Dimitri K. Simes

From Foreign Affairs, Summer 1992

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Dimitri K. Simes is a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

For the second time since World War II the United States must make historic choices about dealing with the Soviet/Russian challenge. This time the issue arises from the collapse of the former enemy, and the new geopolitical situation is a mix of enormous opportunity and tremendous danger. As before Russia may well be central to the future of world politics and, as before, in this realm there is no substitute for American leadership.

Only fatalists would dare to predict the shape this vast area of Eurasia will take by the beginning of the 21st century. While a devastating earthquake is in progress?with the possibility of multiple aftershocks compounding the damage?forecasting becomes highly unreliable. Three aspects, however, are already fairly clear. First, there is a wide range of possible outcomes: the restoration of the Russian empire under an authoritarian, xenophobic, anti?Western regime; the splintering of the region into different groupings with widely divergent foreign policies and cultures; instability and possibly even civil war; or the emergence of truly independent democratic nations united by some form of a common market and collective security framework.

Second, when the region?s size, its strategic location, the wealth of its natural and human resources and, finally, the presence of thousands of nuclear weapons are taken into account, events there will inevitably have a profound effect on the outside world. The United States, as the only remaining global superpower, has great stakes in the outcome. It is useless to think of a benign new world order if America has to preoccupy itself with a post?Soviet civil war or a resurgent Russian empire. Conversely the integration of the bulk of the former Soviet land mass into Western civilization would greatly change the global correlation of forces?to use an old Marxist?Leninist cliché?in a way favorable to U.S. interests and values.

Finally, Western and particularly American action or inaction will be a crucial factor during the transition to new political, economic and security arrangements in this area reaching from the Baltic to the Pacific. During ordinary times the politics of nations?particularly such great nations as Russia?can be only marginally affected from the outside. During periods of great transformation, however, with all their concomitant volatility and turmoil, input from abroad can make an enormous difference.

The contrast between Germany?s evolution following its defeat in the two world wars demonstrates how considerable the impact of foreign influence can be. That argument is even more valid for the former Soviet Union, where the collapse of empire has almost overnight turned what used to be domestic politics and economics into international relations. The manner in which the newly independent states interact, whether they are at each other?s throats or find new formulas for working together, will determine the success of their experiments with democracy, market?oriented reforms and, indeed, their own existence. This international dimension of post?Soviet change gives the West a much wider opening for a constructive role than if it were only a matter of strictly domestic political processes in preestablished nations.

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