ABSTRACT
During the period of the Cold War the developed states of West and East were depicted as the First World and the Second World, and the less developed countries became known as the Third World. Accordingly, the main objective of Russia's policy in the non-West has been to ensure the security of the territories of the former Soviet lands, insulating them from the harmful effects of regional conflicts such as the struggle for control of Afghanistan and from threatening movements such as Islamic extremism. Russia's policies toward them have varied, in part as a result of the shifting political winds in Moscow, with Westernizers and nationalists competing over the direction of foreign policy. The richest opportunities in Latin America in the Putin era were found not in Cuba but in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, and again the bond rested in part on a common resentment of American power.
