A nation must think before it acts.
Any assessment of current and future relations between Russia and the West must begin not with short-term conditions in Russia, but rather with a broad appraisal of Europe, the future of its union, and European relations with the United States. Moreover, any analysis of Russia’s relations with Europe and the United States must also take into account the relations of all three with China. This is not to suggest that Russia’s internal conditions are of no significance, for they clearly do matter. The difficulty is that, broadly speaking, the only consensus among Russia scholars across the political spectrum is that post-communist Russia is just beginning an uncertain transformation, the tremors of which will rattle the country for years to come. The guiding assumption, therefore, is that a mere decade will not halt or reverse four centuries of imperial history. Meanwhile, suffice it to say that Russia “is a mess.”