The USSR invaded Hungary in ---- and Czechoslovakia in ---- to prevent their liberalisation (which might well have taken them out of the Soviet bloc) and supported Poland s dec- laration of martial law in ---- to prevent an anti-Communist counter-revolution there. Suspicion of Russia predates the Cold War in Poland and the Baltic states, which were invaded by the USSR in ---- and ----, respectively, and in Georgia, which was incorporated into the Russian Empire in the --th century. ...Mutual perceptions of hypocrisy: Russia and the West both view each other as highly hypocritical. For example, US and other Western officials and opinion makers have often criticised Russia s weaker democratic credentials under Putin, while over- looking far greater abuses against democracy in Western-friendly countries such as Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, not to mention long-established American allies such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Meanwhile, Russia bemoans US power politics worldwide, even while using its own natural gas resources as a political tool in Eastern Europe, and invading Georgia briefly in ----, not to mention taking over Crimea from Ukraine in ----. ...As the alliance has become bigger, its sense of shared threats has diminished, and the organisation has found it harder to reach agreement on key security issues. NATO has arguably become more of a political organisation than a military alliance.
...Source: Bloomberg, BMI cooler period in its relations with the West for at least several years. In the near term, the key determinant of Russia-West relations will be whether Moscow mounts a major invasion of Eastern Ukraine � something we believe is unlikely, due to the diplomatic, military, and economic costs involved. ...Overall, the relationship between Russia and the West is still seen by both sides as a zero-sum game (the the West publicly plays down the notion). The widespread perception in Russia that the last Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev (---------), and the first Russian president, Boris Yeltsin (---------), made too many geopolitical concessions to the West without receiving much in return eventually led to a much tougher foreign policy stance when Putin rose to power in ----. This was arguably inevitable, because in ---- Russia reached a post-Soviet nadir, defaulting on its debt. ...Although Western leaders justified their wars against Serbia and Libya on humanitarian grounds and support for coloured revolutions as a means of promoting democratisation, Russia saw geopolitical machinations as the main drivers behind these initiatives. Distrust of Russia in CEE states: Central and Eastern European (CEE) states continue to harbour a strong distrust of Russia, which dominated their political systems during the Cold War. -- Business Monitor International Ltd www Russia Q- ---- a World of Worries
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