ABSTRACT
Russia provided a unique opportunity to promote both democracy and US national interests. This chapter contains two parts, which analyses the Clinton administration's stated intentions of promoting democracy in Russia. It examines the decision making process to discover and analyses how and why the administration backed Boris Yeltsin and his small group of 'reformers' rather than adopting alternative strategies. Yeltsin would also practically support US policy in Bosnia and limit sales of nuclear or military equipment to Iran. The chapter utilizes the presidential framework and also examines that how those key decisions taken by the administration during the first term were arrived at. In the early months of the Democratic administration the most pressing considerations were domestic. Clinton was aware that the domestic economy and assistance to Russia were inextricably linked in congressional thinking. The cause of democracy was further harmed by Clinton's endorsement of Yeltsin's position on the Chechen War.
