Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 2, No. 11, November 2014.
The Kremlin star, 2008. Source: Andrew Kuznetsov via Flickr.
Rhoads Cannon
Founder
The impact of history leaves an indelible handprint upon the construction of ideational beliefs. With the fall of the Soviet Empire in East and Central Europe, there was a mixed sense of jubilation among disparate peoples of the post-Soviet space. Former US National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, rightly stipulates that the disintegration of the Soviet Union “created a black hole in the center of Eurasia,”[1] and today’s post-911 world continues to endure the multifarious impact of this transitional paradigm. Undoubtedly, the dismemberment of 27,000 nuclear arms, three freshwater fleets, and four million men in arms was and chiefly remains a psychosomatic and socio-economic challenge of the highest degree.[2] Although Kremlin observers debate the extent to which Russian decision-making is conceptualized solely by the Kremlin, it is blatantly clear that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and his inner-coterie have not come to grips with the loss of largess via the Soviet legacy.