ABSTRACT
This chapter charts the collapse of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) and Russia’s resurgence in the past two decades. It reflects on the return of old thinking and autocratic government after short-lived periods of hope for economic and political reforms, initially perestroika and glasnost in the late 1980s. Wilton Park benefited from some memorable interventions by Soviet and Central European participants, including some prescient predictions of Communism’s collapse. Glasnost had the unintended side-effect of stoking nationalism throughout the FSU and the weakening of Soviet power in Central Europe. Preoccupied with its own domestic challenges following the FSU’s dissolution, the newly formed Russian Federation was initially unable to address instability in its ‘Near Abroad’. However, security concerns in some former republics (some of which used independence to strengthen links with the European Community) reinforced Russian concerns about the break-up of ‘their country’, particularly in Ukraine. In the wake of faltering economic and political reforms before and just after the turn of the millennium, President Putin increasingly played the nationalist card and used Russia’s energy wealth and military force projection to rekindle a sense of Russia’s pride and prestige, and in so doing preserve and strengthen his hold on power.
