MICHELE  TESTONI

La Russia e l'Occidente dieci anni dopo l'Urss: l'eterna ambiguitą

N. 201

Summary – The paper examines Russias’s Western foreign policy after the first decade since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It argues that Moscow - consistently with its historical records, and notwithstanding this present phase of strong cooperation with America and Europe — is fbllowing a course of " conflict-cooperation " with the West. This longrun feature is characterized by an "existential ambivalence" that is shaping the overall relationship between Russia and the Western countries.

The first part of the argument focuses on post-Soviet Russia's understanding of its new international role, as well as on American and European outlook of Russia. The second part copes with the evolution of Russia's relations with the Euro-Atlantic multilateral institutions, like the CSCE-OSCE, NATO, and the EU. The concluding and final session, then, provides a set of critical assumptions on both actors' choices throughout the 1990s.

However, all the three chapters will also try to investigate to what extent the Russian-Western relations are being redefined by both the events of September 11^th, 2001 and the current Iraqi crisis.

The outcome of the paper is that today's Russia sways between the necessity of " functional integration " and a sense of " dependence " to the West. The broad Russian-Western partnership, as it has now being emerged, maintains its traditional long-cycle features, with clear highs and lows. Both September 11^th and the Iraqi question are certainly producing a rapprochement between Russia and the West, but this partnership still maintains an innate " existential ambivalence " that is very likely to hold in the future.