Title: Boris Yeltsin's Legacy
Headings: BORIS YELTSIN'S FOREIGN POLICY LEGACY
BORIS YELTSIN'S FOREIGN POLICY LEGACY
Robert H. Donaldson
Basic Concepts of Foreign Policy under Yeltsin
Foreign Policy-Making under Yeltsin: The Institutional Legacy
Russia and the "Near Abroad": The Yeltsin Legacy
Russia's Relations with the West: The Yeltsin Legacy
Russia and the "Non-West": The Yeltsin Legacy
Yeltsin's Foreign Policy Legacy & the Impact of Personality
Footnotes

Content: Termed by his successor Gorbachev "the era of stagnation," the Brezhnev period in Soviet history was characterized by the collective rule of relatively colorless politicians who represented strong interests and institutions; it was also a time of doctrinal rigidity and established routine. Policy outcomes during this period could usually be expected without regard to the particular personalities at the Party's helm. This pattern was not broken during the two brief gerontocratic administrations that followed Brezhnev's. Not until Gorbachev began to consolidate his power as General Secretary in the late 1980s did the Soviet political environment again admit of "restructuring"--indeed, perestroika, its Russian translation, was Gorbachev's preferred slogan. The foreign policy record of his administration fairly clearly demonstrated the impact of his personal leadership, as he guided the choice of key personnel, reduced the role of the party bureaucracy, discarded outdated Marxist-Leninist tenets, and conducted an innovative personal diplomacy.4
Gorbachev's experiment in perestroika was an immense failure, resulting in the collapse of the political institutions of the USSR and the breakup of the country itself. Stepping into this precarious environment, which decidedly "admitted of restructuring," Boris Yeltsin clearly occupied the strategic location from which he could exert far-reaching impact on the foreign policy of his newly established realm. In Greenstein's framework, it was the third variable that would prove decisive. On Yeltsin's political skills--the strengths and weaknesses of his personality--would ultimately depend the determination of his personal impact as a leader. He was destined by his situation for greatness;