CWA # 1015
NIAS Europe Studies Brief
Russia and Europe: Understanding Moscow’s strategies
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Ramya Balasubramanian
26 July 2023
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Photo Source: osw.waw.pl
About the author
Ms Ramya Balasubramanian is currently an Associate Professor of the Department of History at Kristu Jayanti College. She is the Associate Director of Internal Quality Assurance Cell, Co-ordinator of the Department of History.
NIAS/CSS/CRPR/U/IB/12/2023
NIAS Area StudiesBrief No. 58
NIAS Europe Studies 26 July 2023
Foreign policy decisions, like domestic policy ones, are made in the name of the public interest to accrue legitimacy in the eyes of the general population.* While describing foreign policy objectives, Hans Morgenthau proposed three objectives sought after by countries: imperialism, status quo, and prestige. In international politics, there is a constant conflict between ideal and material power interests. This implies that states can say or do anything, but their conduct can be understood most effectively by analysing their power interests expressed through ideas and worldviews. A nation’s worldview serves as a measure that reaffirms the role certain interests play. Russia has developed three schools of self- and other-centred thought over various historical epochs: Westernist, Statist, and Civilizationist. Idealists from these three schools of thought have worked for centuries to present Russia’s international choices in ways that are consistent with their previously established views of the country and the outside world.1
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