![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
"Diplomacy" by Kissinger
Apr. 29th, 2008 10:27 pmDiplomacy
Some quotes about Russia (p 140ff)
The absolute nature of the tsar's power enabled Russia's rulers to conduct foreign policy both arbitrary and idiosyncratically.
Constantly at war and expanding in every direction, it nevertheless considered itself permanently threatened... To sustain their rule ... all of Russia's rulers invoked the myth of some vast, foreign threat, which, in time, turned into another of the self-fulfilling prophesies that doomed the stability of Europe.
No matter how much territory it controlled, Russia inexorably pushed its borders outward... This started out as an essentially defensive motivation ... By 1864, however, security has become synonymous with continuous expansion.
Unlike the states of Western Europe, which Russia simultaneously admired, despised, and envied, Russia perceived itself not as a nation but as a cause, beyond geopolitics, impelled by faith, and held together by arms.
The paradox of Russian history lies in the continuing ambivalence between messianic drive and a pervasive sense of insecurity. In its ultimate aberration, this ambivalence generated a fear that, unless the empire expanded, it would implode.
Some quotes about Russia (p 140ff)
The absolute nature of the tsar's power enabled Russia's rulers to conduct foreign policy both arbitrary and idiosyncratically.
Constantly at war and expanding in every direction, it nevertheless considered itself permanently threatened... To sustain their rule ... all of Russia's rulers invoked the myth of some vast, foreign threat, which, in time, turned into another of the self-fulfilling prophesies that doomed the stability of Europe.
No matter how much territory it controlled, Russia inexorably pushed its borders outward... This started out as an essentially defensive motivation ... By 1864, however, security has become synonymous with continuous expansion.
Unlike the states of Western Europe, which Russia simultaneously admired, despised, and envied, Russia perceived itself not as a nation but as a cause, beyond geopolitics, impelled by faith, and held together by arms.
The paradox of Russian history lies in the continuing ambivalence between messianic drive and a pervasive sense of insecurity. In its ultimate aberration, this ambivalence generated a fear that, unless the empire expanded, it would implode.
