Specifically, calculations that various Russian regimes have made need to be interpreted broadly since threats and benefits can take various forms. Russia has a rich history of territorial disputes and the results of this qualitative research show that Fravel’s approach can explain most of Russia’s cases, but the explanatory power could be increased by changing certain premises of his theory. In this study, Russian territorial disputes are looked at using the theory of omnibalancing and the theory of preventive warfare, theories which have already been applied by Taylor Fravel in his successful analysis of the Chinese territorial disputes. Strategy is carefully calculated, especially for essential state elements, such as territory. States can choose to cooperate, delay or escalate their territorial disputes, but there is a lack of understanding of strategy behind each choice. Thirdly, and by no means finally, the contemporary international political, economic, and security environment is drastically different from that of the Soviet era-so much so, in fact, that even if the Soviet Union still existed, a contemporary Soviet foreign policy would scarcely resemble its predecessor in any way.
Secondly, Moscow must deal with its former imperial possessions and Soviet siblings as independent states with their own foreign policy interests and strategies (which are often at odds with those of the Kremlin).
For one, the main problems that faced Soviet leaders-especially the ideological rivalry with the West and China-are no longer the ones that concern the Russian foreign policy establishment.
While it is undeniable that the legacy bequeathed by the USSR continues to have a powerful influence on contemporary Russia, Russian foreign policy today is not a continuation of Soviet policy. On April 12, 2012, in his last address to the State Duma as Russia’s prime minister, Vladimir Putin declared, “The post–Soviet period is over.” It is in a similar vein that we wrote this book as a study of Russian foreign policy, not Russia’s post-Soviet foreign policy.
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