Russia Has Grand Designs For the International Order
... two more attempts to “dock” with the West. After 9/11, it pledged support to the United States and sought an alliance with NATO, based on counter-terrorism, even as it proclaimed its “European vocation” and a desire to integrate with the European Union. Toward the end of the decade, it proposed a “common defense perimeter” with the U.S. and its allies, built ... ... dispelled unfulfilled ambitions. Western integration on terms acceptable to Russia, until now a central pillar of Russia’s post-Soviet foreign policy, came crushing down. Ironically, the alternative to that course, re-integration of former Soviet borderlands ...