ABSTRACT
The detente in American-Russian relations since Stalin’s death to which the world at large owes its relative peace, has tended to obscure basic differences not only in the long-term interests of the two powers, but also in their whole manner of looking at foreign affairs. The conception which Americans and Russians have of their respective place in the world has one feature in common. The Russian State emerged on the fringe of an extensive but loosely constructed and chronically unstable Turco-Mongolian empire. A good illustration of the close inter-dependence between Russia’s internal colonial experience and its manner of dealing with foreign powers is the interesting use which its governments have frequently made of privilege as a device of foreign policy. In the Russian case, antipathy to balance-of-power politics derives from an inherent distaste for the whole concept of a stable state system.
