Window of opportunity: Reflections on an idea fashionable in the west

Abstract:

The essay warns about the extreme danger of the fashionable idea that the West has only a marginal role to play in Russia's integration into the world community. It doesn't take into account the ferocious war of ideas in post-Soviet Moscow which all but insures that nationalist ambition 'to return Russia to the status of a leading global power' would come out a winner. As a result of this, the window of opportunity that opened after the disintegration of the Soviet empire may well slam shut again. The only way to prevent it seems to be for the West to create its own strategy of Russia's integration in which the dominant up to now theme of economic assistance (hardware) is replaced by the theme of intellectual participation (or the software of integration). The purpose of this essay is to try to offer a logical set of criteria that could provide the basis for such an intelligent strategy.