2982020002

Securitologia

Nr 1/2014

Prof. Teresa Rakowska-Harmstone Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

Russia’s Monroe Doctrine: PEACEKEEPING, PEACEMAKING OR IMPERIAL OUTREACH?*

Preface - March 2014

A Part of the Peace, a 1994 volume in the Public Policy Series of the Norman Patterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada recounts various instances of international interventions and peacekeeping. This essay is one contribution.

The most interesting, perhaps, is the story of how the Russian Federation regrouped on the ruins of the Soviet Union, and re-defined itself on familiar grounds of tsarist and Soviet historical legacies. These include a claim to special and exclusive interests in the former Soviet territory now labeled blicfmee %ąrube%h’e (near abroad), as well as the right to “protect” there the Russians who lost their privileged status and became a “national minority”. Specifically the protection singled out the right of the Federation to intervene on diaspora’s behalf. With the formation of a new national Russian armed forces the military doctrine expressly provides for such an intervention.

In a vigorous debate over the policy in the early 90s, political elites voiced support across the whole political spectrum. President Boris Yeltsin and foreign minister, Andrei Kozyrev, the so-called “liberals”, promoted the policy. It aided the resolution of conflicts in the various hot spots, mostly in the “soft underbelly” of the area. To adapt to changing circumstances the policy was labeled as “peacekeeping” and claimed America’s 19^th Century Monroe Doctrine as a model. In contrast to the stnctly neutral stance of the Western type peacekeeping, the Russian version openly favored Russian national interests. Under Vladimir Putin evenmally the camouflage was dropped and the process became morę brutal.

* Previously printed in A part of the peace. Canada amottg nations 1994, Maureen Appel Molot and Harald von Riekhoff (eds.), Cadeton Public Policy Series No. 14, Cadeton University Press Inc., Ottawa 1994, pp. 231-265.

ISSN: 1898-4509