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Robert H. Donaldson & Joseph L. Nogee, The Foreign Policy of Russia. Changing Systems, Enduring Interests. Armonk NY and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1998, ix + 322 pp., 19.50.
DONALDSON AND NOGEE PRESENT a solid overview of Russian foreign policy and its domestic context since the late 15th century with an emphasis on the period since the break-up of the Soviet Union. They point out a foreign policy continuity during the past two centuries in spite of different ideas, values and paradigms dominating the Russian political scene. They explain this continuity first by the structure of the international system, which remained multipolar up to World War II, and, second, by geopolitical realities which mainly were the same for tsarist as well as Soviet leaders. Domestic politics only played a minor role. Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union both had autocratic political systems in spite of their differences, and their leaders responded to external challenges in a centralised way along much the same lines. Up to World War II Stalin followed a balance-of-power policy similar to that pursued by the tsars in an effort to align with other states or make them play against each other in order to preserve the international balance and promote Russian interests. When the Soviet Union during World War II started to expand beyond its borders, Stalin paid interest to the same territories as had the tsars before him....