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2. Managing the Challenge of Russian Energy Policies
- Author:
- Keith C. Smith
- Publication Date:
- 12-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Abstract:
- Following the breakup of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, the leaders of Russia, including then-President Boris Yeltsin, searched for new methods of continuing to exert influence over the former Soviet-controlled region. The Kremlin at first used an energy blockade to the Baltic States in 1990 in an attempt to prevent their breakaway from the Soviet Union. After that failed, it then focused on the growing opposition in the former republics of the Soviet Union and in East Central Europe to its foreign and economic policies, and in particular on demands that Russian military forces withdraw from the newly independent states. The Kremlin leadership quickly recognized that short of military action, its major foreign policy tool was the denial or threat of denial of access to Russia's vast oil and gas resources. The economies of East European and Central Asian countries, and especially their rail and pipeline infrastructures, had been hardwired by Soviet leaders to assure total dependency on Moscow for their raw materials, including oil, gas, coal, and nuclear fuel.
- Topic:
- Cold War, Economics, Emerging Markets, Energy Policy, and Oil
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Central Asia, and Soviet Union
3. The United States, India, and Global Governance: Can They Work Together?
- Author:
- Teresita C. Schaffer
- Publication Date:
- 07-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Washington Quarterly
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Abstract:
- Two snapshots convey the flavor of India's pursuit of a larger role in global governing councils. The first dates from India's most recent accession for a two-year term to the United Nations Security Council in January 1991, just as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was coming apart and the end of the Cold War was in sight. The first major issue to come before the council was the package of resolutions that would end the first Iraq war. Harried Indian diplomats, faced with draft resolutions being pressed on them with great insistence by their U.S. counterparts, spoke of their need to ''find the non-aligned consensus.'' Whatever decision India made was bound to alienate an international constituency it cared about. For Indian officials, this moment captured both the advantages and drawbacks of participating in the world's decisionmaking. The then—Indian ambassador to the United States, Abid Hussein, expressed considerable frustration in a private conversation with me at the time: ''Do you realize that we will have to do this for two years?''
- Topic:
- Cold War
- Political Geography:
- United States, India, and Soviet Union