DIVERGENT RUSSIAN FOREIGN-POLICY CONCEPTS

The new system of states which emerged in Central and Eastern Europe f ollowing the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and, subsequently, of the Soviet Union still requires external and internal consolidation. A cru cial factor in this context is the role to be assumed by the biggest a nd key successor state of the former USSR, the Russian Federation. It is not only confronted with tremendous internal problems. It also has to redefine its relationship to the outside world - a task which is im peded inter alia by the fact that the past points of reference, Lenini st ideology and imperial existence, have sunk into oblivion. In the fo llowing article, Olga Alexandrova, an expert on Russian and Ukrainian foreign policy at the Federal Institute for East European and Internat ional Studies in Cologne, examines the various approaches which have d eveloped in Russia to the redefinition of foreign policy.