ABSTRACT
The transformation of the Soviet Union and of its moribund communist regime got underway two decades ago. Mikhail Gorbachev’s attempt to give state socialism a human face was in full fl ower three or four years after that, ran aground, and was consigned to the ash heap a decade and a half ago. Boris Yeltsin, the orthodox provincial communist who became in turn a heterodox reform communist, an anticommunist, and then a post-communist, ruled Russia as its elected president for the better part of a decade. The post-communist era in the history of the Russian Federation and the other successor states to the Soviet Union is drawing to a close, or in any case has entered a qualitatively new phase. Crucial choices about political regime and the organization of public and private life have been worried over, made, and, in most cases, confi rmed. New international alignments are either in place or coming into sight. The ripening sense that this is so makes the issue of the relationship of the new Russia to NATO especially timely. It behooves us in the Euro-Atlantic alliance and the established democracies to review and update our policy options. When it comes to post-postcommunist Russia, those options are not at all obvious in the discovery or simple in the execution.
