ABSTRACT
Boris Yeltsin's political travails reached an apex in 1993 as he struggled with the Russian parliament for control of the government, eventually surviving efforts at impeachment and an attempted uprising to emerge victorious after his constitutional proposal guaranteeing a strong presidency was approved in December of that year. But the relentlessly unilateralist direction of US foreign policy behavior during 2002 and the first part of 2003, culminating in the US-initiated attack on Iraq, led Russia and China to resurrect key components of their geopolitical analysis, epitomized in their emphasis on multilateralism and a multipolar world order. While the Vladimir Putin administration's interactions with the US on arms issues and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the first part of 2002 highlighted disparities in outlook between Russia and China, the two states had a largely convergent perspective on the George Bush administration's evolving strategy regarding the war on terrorism. The constructive partnership between Russia and China was destined to be short-lived.
